Exponent II's Blog, page 143

From the Backlist: Thoughts on Disciplinary Council for Natasha Helfer

Risa: As a fellow mental health professional I’m exceedingly alarmed that a Stake President would take it upon himself to discipline a mental health therapist practicing within ethical guidelines using research-based evidence and modalities to deliver best practices to their clients. Ecclesiastical authorities need to stay out of the bedrooms of its members and allow them to “govern themselves” as the Prophet Joseph Smith once said. In my work as a therapist in Utah I see a large clientele who identify as LDS and LGBTQ+ and let me tell you, they are suffering. Every day for me is a fight to keep some of them alive. If this Stake President really believes he represents the views of Jesus Christ he would do everything in his power to love and protect the clients Natasha serves. One of the 6 core values identified by the National Association of Social Workers is to practice with competence. It is not up to a Stake President, with absolutely no background in mental health, to decide if an LDS-identified therapist is practicing with competence. Ecclesiastical authorities should not be playing thought police and interfering in the careers of its members just because they disagree with them. This disciplinary council should be a stark warning to every LDS therapist that they could be persecuted next if their Bishop or Stake President doesn’t like what they tell clients in confidential sessions and settings. 

April Young Bennett: This case raises important questions. Do you want your healthcare providers to base their professional opinions on the literature of their field, or on the dictates of the health care provider’s former ecclesiastical leader from a couple years back? Should the church listen to health care professionals and use their input to inform policies that relate to their area of expertise, or should they excommunicate them for expressing their opinions?

If we continue to kick people out of the church for expressing their opinions, we will be left with a church composed only of people who agree with each other and people who pretend to agree: a fake Zion where everyone appears to be in harmony, but the problems that keep so many others out of the church persist. Church leaders will need to develop the humility necessary to hear people respectfully disagree with them without using their power to punish people into silence, or they will lose access to one of their best tools: suggestions about how to improve its policies and teachings from people with different perspectives than their own. 

ElleK: Church leaders have given several talks in General Conference over the past few years that stress the importance of every member, the value in diversity of thought and politics and viewpoints, and that one need not have a traditional or strong testimony to be welcome and included. Actions like calling in Sister Helfer for church discipline as a result of her good faith professional actions and personal opinions make it clear that these talks are nothing but lip service and the church is still deeply invested in culling those it perceives as threats due to their lack of conformity. This is particularly devastating to me personally as people like Natasha are those who keep me connected to the church. If there is no room for her, then how can there be room for someone like me who shares a similar worldview?

Caroline: I find myself aghast by this church court for a mental health professional who is dispensing professional advice in line with the best practices of her field. The church needs members who are mental health experts who can provide important perspectives that church leaders cannot. This excommunication will have a chilling effect on thousands of LDS professional therapists, and it may also cause members who badly need expert advice to distrust professionals and not seek help. 

Church leaders need to do better than this. This short-sighted, small-visioned court will do far more harm than good. It makes our faith tradition look narrow, weak, and parochial. But making space for members to hold various perspectives on social issues and personal behaviors, especially ones in line with professional best practices, makes our tradition stronger and more robust. And if our leaders insist on homogeneity of viewpoints and approaches, at the cost of people’s membership if they disagree, this tradition will weaken. We will bleed even more young people than we already are.

AdelaHope: I have so much respect for the critiques that have been made about the dangers of withdrawing membership from a mental health professional for following the best practices of her profession, and I share those concerns. As a person who has remained in the Church despite my own grave concerns, I feel I must voice another warning.

I am very worried about the message this sends to people who have reason to wonder if they or their children are safe in the church. I want the Church officers over this to understand what it means to people who, coming out of a pandemic and a year away, may not have decided yet if they will be resuming church activity. To have her former Stake President, a man with business ties to her soon-to-be-ex-husband, call this membership council two years after she has moved from his stake, feels, at best, improper. To have the Church allow it to proceed will diminish faith and trust in the church and it’s systems. Sometimes it feels like the Church is designed to only protect itself; the membership needs to see the Church step in and fix local mistakes of this magnitude. I predict that if Salt Lake does NOT step in, there will be sizable repercussions from this instance of broken trust; membership councils must be done carefully, with circumspection and propriety. 

A membership council for her was always going to be a messy, controversial proposition; it should never have been done like this. The best the Church can do now is show the membership that there is a fail-safe for when local leaders make big, stupid mistakes.

Libby: I’m just morally opposed to excommunicating someone for doing her job.

Tirza: As someone who’s personally benefited from seeing a Mormon therapist, it’s distressing to see Natasha Helfer disciplined for following professional best practices. I’m concerned about the message this will send to other mental health practitioners and those seeking their help. The LDS community needs practitioners who understand both sound therapeutic principles and the unique complexities of Mormonism. And these therapists need the freedom to care for their patients without interference or repercussion from their faith leaders.

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul uses the imagery of a body – explaining that we are all the body of Christ and each individual a member or part of that body. Verse 26 says, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” Every part of the body is important. While the head may hold the command center, the information it receives from the nervous system is vital. If something is going wrong, it’s important for the brain to know. We shouldn’t be excommunicating those in the community who are sending signals of pain. We need to listen to them instead of violently cutting them off.

Mental Health Professionals in Support of Natasha Helfer

The following letter was written in collaboration with over 20 people and coordinated by Lisa Butterworth, LCPC. It has now been signed by hundreds of mental health professionals.

Mental Health Professionals who support Natasha Helfer

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

President Stephen Daley, 

As mental health professionals, we are concerned by Natasha Helfer being called into a membership council. We have an ethical obligation to draw upon both empirical research and governing standards of care as the guiding force in our practice, independent of shifts in church attitudes on these issues. We are concerned that withdrawing Natasha’s membership will create a culture of stigma and shame for potential clients seeking therapy, and to other therapists providing culturally-competent, clinically-sound, and evidence-based care.

Ethics and Agency

When working within a Latter-day Saint cultural context, these governing standards of care compel us to assist clients in assessing their personal values (which may or may not align with church teachings) and to support client self-determination/agency as a core principle of mental health and professional ethics. 

Many of our clients ultimately choose to remain aligned with different Latter-day Saint teachings and/or levels of ongoing activity within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For these clients, such practices are congruent with their mental wellbeing. For other clients, however, distancing from religiously based ideas, influence or activity (by their own choice) can contribute to improved mental health. As mental health professionals, our ethical obligation is not to determine a client’s spiritual or religious practice. Rather, our role is to put the client’s agency and self-determination at the center of any kind of therapy, offer research based information, operate within professional standards of care, and to continue to serve each client’s mental health needs, regardless of religious activity, belief, or non-belief. 

Public Advocacy

As mental health professionals, it is also part of our professional ethics to participate in public advocacy. This advocacy serves the public good by promoting sound findings from mental health research and improving mental-health-related policies within communities and at all levels of society.

It is with these ethics and professional standards in mind that we wish to help clarify and contextualize the following objections that have been raised in response to Natasha’s use of her public voice as a mental health professional. 

Mental Health Professionals as “Stone Catchers”

You asked Natasha why her tone seemed negative at times. 

In advocating for clients, it is essential for mental health professionals to speak honestly about patterns and issues that negatively impact the mental health of clients. From a clinical and empirical standpoint, there are areas in which church practices, culture, and doctrine can be damaging to the mental health of different individuals. Speaking out about these areas is not intended as an attack on a church. This type of honest dialogue is a call to do better, so that our clients and others who often feel their mental health and well being is at odds with their faith can find healing.

There may be times when a mental health professional advocates passionately for the best mental health outcomes for clients. That passionate speech can, for some listeners, be interpreted as having a “negative tone” simply because it is a request for change, which can be uncomfortable to hear.

As Elder Renlund said in General Conference earlier this April, we can all be “stone catchers.” This is a useful analogy in therapy to help couples understand and respond to words from their partner that are difficult to hear or may feel harsh. If we listen to the emotion under the apparent “negative tone,” we can discover pain and concern for very marginalized and vulnerable people—the least of these (Matt 25:40)—who we as mental health care providers and followers of Christ, members of His church, feel called to serve and aid.

Mental Health Professionals as Safety Advocates for the LGBTQIA+ Community

You asked Natasha to explain why she stated that the church was toxic for LGBTQIA+ members and their families: 

As Mormon mental healthcare providers, we recognize that religion can offer both protection and happiness—a sense of individual mission, connection to divine parentage, purpose in difficulty, divine help and inspiration, spiritual relationships with family and leaders, the ability to endure, and community support. 

Unfortunately, our best research suggests that LGBTQIA+ individuals who grow up in our Church have a different experience than many other members. Before we share that research, we wish to note that we work with many LGBTQIA+ individuals who are committed to living the gospel of Jesus Christ, in accordance with the current positions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, no matter the personal cost. Many of these individuals seek therapy because that cost can be tremendous, and they need good support. Some research-based reasons these members need support include:

LGBTQIA+ young adults who mature in religious contexts are at higher odds for suicidal thoughts and more chronic (lasting for more than three months) suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts as compared to other LGBTQIA+ young adults.1“Among people who regarded religion as very important, sexual minority status was more strongly associated with suicide ideation and attempt than the associations observed among people who regarded religion as unimportant.” 2LGBTQIA+ Mormon and ex-Mormon adults experience substantial spiritual trauma and PTSD symptoms related to their religious experiences.3LGBTQIA+ members of the Church appear to experience PTSD symptoms at seven times the rate of the non-LGBTQIA+ world.4

It is important to understand that in order to prevent suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and chronic religious trauma, many—likely a majority—of our LGBTQIA+ members may need to withdraw from or set clear boundaries around their level of Church involvement as they figure out how to re-organize their spiritual and psychological lives in a way that allows them to reclaim spiritual principles that are meaningful to them.

While we continue to support LGBTQIA+ members of the Church who are living the gospel, it would be harmful for us to remove our mental health lens and reassure them that their best pathway to happiness will be a commitment to celibacy, for example, or a belief that their faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ should eventually lead to a change in their sexual attractions or gender identity.

It’s a painful reality that for many LGBTQIA+ individuals that their LDS church experience feels unsafe, often times including amplified experiences of bullying, social rejection, and increased experiences with Major Depression Disorder, sucidial ideation, suicide attempts, and suicide completion. The term “unsafe” is an appropriate term to use in describing many LGBTQIA+ LDS individuals’ lived experience considering the realities and risks of thoughts and feelings of no longer wanting to live (suicidal ideation), attempting, or completing suicide. Natasha’s use of the word “toxic” can be better understood from a clinical lens, understanding that toxic literally means “capable of causing injury or death,” and is a devastating mental health reality for many of our LGBTQIA+ LDS members and their loved ones. 

These mental health realities are all the more urgent, as the rate at which LGBTQIA+ identification in the United States has increased over time, according to the most recent Gallup poll.5 One in six adults in Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2002) identify as something other than heterosexual. While Gallup is capturing a U.S. demographic and the LDS church represents a global community, it’s essential to recognize that LGBTQIA+ individuals are statistically a part of our families and our congregations’ members often—though they often remain silent due to the level of stigma and fear of misunderstanding they face. Our congregations include our Heavenly Parents’ children, and many are impacted, from LGBTQIA+ individuals hurting to their families and loved ones witnessing their journey. As members who have committed to mourn with those who mourn, this is an issue that should inspire and invite all members to mourn, love, and support their LGBTQIA+ community members, as well as understand the risks to safety they experience. Many are affected by the risk factors and potentially toxic consequences LGBTQIA+ individuals face, and these issues should lead everyone to usher in greater love, kindness, and support. Natasha’s work and words honor her awareness that when one suffers and is unsafe, it should impact us all to lean in, get curious, and do better. Loving and advocating for the most marginalized members of our community, including our LGBTQIA+ members, aligns with Christ’s ministry of seeking after the needs and safety of the lost sheep while leaving the ninety and nine. 

Contextualizing “Patriarchal Authority” 

You asked Natasha to explain her quote about replacing one patriarchal authority with another. 

We think it is important to clarify that this specific quote, and its larger context, does not mention “The LDS Church” or “Church Leaders.” In academic social science usage, “the patriarchy” refers to any system in which men have more power than women. In this sense, “the patriarchy” is present in almost every organization and system.

Natasha states further, “Beware of any person/organization/system that assumes they know better than you about what you need.”

This statement is in line with well-researched core principles for mental health and therapeutic best practice. Interpersonal effectiveness and self-mastery require that we be aware of our own needs, that we set boundaries with others, and that we express those needs and boundaries in ways that create opportunities for connection and belonging.6 None of these skills are possible if we do not believe that we have personal agency and choice and accountability—if we believe, as Natasha said, that “any person/organization/system . . . know[s] better than you about what you need.”7

As mental health professionals, we honor that individuals may choose to be obedient to patriarchal authorities for myriad valid reasons including faith, family, loyalty, and security. The paradox between agency and obedience is an essential part of LDS doctrine, and it is this paradox that opens up a space for our clients to choose obedience from a space of discernment and stewardship over their own agency. As mental health professionals, we teach our clients that they can and should be careful about which authorities they choose to obey as a best practice essential to good mental health outcomes.

Use of “Mormon” in Professional Organizations

The term “Mormon” is understood among religion scholars to represent the broad and internally diverse religious movement that traces its roots back to Joseph Smith. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the largest and best known of dozens of organized branches of the Mormon movement. The term “Mormon” is broadly used to signify a historic and contemporary identity rooted more in genealogy, region, culture, history, and even ethnicity than it is in church membership.8

Health care researchers and practitioners who recognize the importance of culturally competent care often seek to build an understanding of the ethnic and religious communities they serve and in service to community health may indicate to clients their capacity to provide culturally competent care.9 Health care researchers and clinical practitioners recognize “Mormons” in North America as sharing common cultural traits and assumptions—regardless of affiliation or church activity—that impact health and well being.10

Balancing Cultural Attitudes with Clinical Best Practices

You expressed concern that some of Natasha’s opinions (about pornography, masturbation) are contrary to those accepted by the church.

As mental health professionals, we employ our well-earned secular education and use research-based interventions. Such interventions and counsel usually feel clear, concise, and ethical. Sometimes, the position of the church regarding a particular matter is unclear, complicated, and shifting. Issues like birth control, divorce, and now masturbation are issues where trained and licensed LDS professionals are ethically bound to balance cultural attitudes in the church with clinical best practices.

Masturbation

Even within LDS theology, masturbation is far from being a black and white issue. “Scholarly Mormon literature offers evidence that cultural masturbation attitudes vary and have continued to change over time. The data reveals a surprising diversity among Mormon viewpoints.”11 The Church has taken a massive step back from the idea that masturbation is sinful, as seen in the removal of the topic from the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, as well as its removal from the list of sins in the Leadership Handbook. 

In clinical best practices, masturbation is a positive intervention and a normal part of human development.12 The American Association of Pediatrics finds self-exploration and masturbation a normal part of development. The American Psychological Association promotes the use of self-directed masturbation as part of the reclamation of self for those who’ve been sexually abused or traumatized. The Mayo Clinic promotes the use of masturbation when treating anorgasmia in adults.13 The American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists endorse the use of sexual agreements around masturbation as an intervention when treating sexual desire discrepancy. 

Pornography 

The topic of pornography is a complex and nuanced one in professional and religious circles alike. However, research has shown that there is more nuance than may have been thought before. For example:

There is a correlation between religious beliefs and the perception of an individual being addicted to pornography. Research shows that many individuals perceive their use of pornography as addictive in nature due to their religious affiliation.14Pornography addiction has not been added to diagnostic manuals (such as DSM 5 and ICD 10). The language used in these forms are based on “compulsive” behaviors and not “addiction.”

In line with this research, the church has made changes like:

Changing the wording used in Church manual in the use of “pornography habit” vs “pornography addiction.” 15Agreeing that there is a need for members of the church to bring more nuance into their conversations surrounding pornography and to develop skills and insight into managing their consumption of media. 16Identifying that many people may struggle to maintain their religious and sexual values when it comes to pornography, but very few of those people are truly out-of-control/addicted with their sexual behavior.17

As mental health professionals, we are glad to see these changes as we draw on evidence-based research and help LDS individuals navigate this space that often creates guilt and shame. Working with LDS folks who struggle with their use of pornography requires a unique cultural competancy, which Natasha consistently displays. Natasha’s approach to pornography is in line with her professional license, as well as the standards established by The American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists. We support clients and members in the community in navigating their relationship and compulsive use of pornography to bring new insights, hope and peace. We advocate for an increased understanding of a person’s experience in sexual behavior, asking “what else is going on to affect this behavior?” to reduce shame around normative sexual development and addressing the real issues that are easily ignored by the focus on binary teachings of “porn addiction.” This helps individuals get to the root of their presenting issue of pornography thereby healing individuals and marriages across the country. For many, this leads to a stronger connection with God, their values, and sexual health.

Guidance Consistent with Church Doctrine and Policy

You asked Natasha: “Are you concerned [potential clients] could believe that guidance provided in these areas is consistent with Church doctrine and policy because it is coming from Church members who identify themselves as ‘Mormon’?” 

We are happy to read in your letter that you welcome a diversity of opinions. Mental health best practice is rooted in respecting our clients diversity of belief and experience. It is not within the scope of our professional ethics to decide what qualifies as “guidance consistent with doctrine and policy,” and while this distinction may be clear in your mind, our clients are frequently confused on this issue. When our clients are confused, our professional role is 1. To provide them with the best information we have available, based on research, and rooted in our professional ethics. 2. Help them clarify their own values, their relationships, their faith. 3. Let them decide how they wish to relate to church doctrine and policy based on their own interpretations and values.
 

It would be unethical for us to represent ourselves as representatives of the church or arbiters or “guidance that is consistent with Church doctrine and policy.” To the best of our knowledge Natasha has consistently acted in alignment with professional ethics and best practices.

Trust and Mental Health Therapy

You asked if Natasha was concerned that potential clients who are members of the LDS Church are more likely to trust her since she identifies as a Mormon therapist.

The issue of trust is a vital one to mental health therapy. Research shows that the single most important clinical factor to our client’s success is the “therapeutic alliance.” At its core this means before we can give our clients tools to improve their mental health they need to feel safe. It is for this reason that we have so many ethical standards concerning informed consent, confidentiality, and boundaries.

While it is true that mental health clients often wish to see a therapist who shares their cultural experiences or religious beliefs, it is our job as professionals to become culturally competent to meet our client’s needs no matter their beliefs, culture, or background.

Many of our LDS clients do come to us with concerns as therapists. These concerns include:

Concern that therapists without an LDS background spend so much time asking questions about Mormonism, the client can’t get to the work they came in for.Feeling unable to bring up spiritual or religious concerns with therapists who don’t signal openness to a spiritual conversation. Clients who identify as active are concerned that if their therapist is inactive or a former member they will “try to get them to doubt/leave.”Clients who identify as unorthodox, inactive, or ex-LDS are concerned the therapist may use religious language/goals, in a limiting, shaming, or harmful way. Mixed-faith families and couple clients, who are concerned that their therapist will “take sides.”

As therapists, we are likely to see clients that fit all of these descriptions, perhaps all on the same day. As Mormon therapists, we are uniquely suited to balance all of these concerns, and ethically build trusting relationships with a wide range of clients. For these reasons, it is appropriate to signal to potential clients that we are culturally competent in LDS/Mormon issues—this saves time and energy for everyone involved. Much like a Mormon Studies professor builds valid scholarship based on the quality of their research, a Mormon therapist builds trust based on the quality of our cultural competency.

It would be highly unethical and ineffective to “trick” our clients into “trusting us” with a goal of influencing them in regards to their relationship with the church or to promote values that go against (or go in favor of) church teachings.

Regardless of Natasha’s membership status, she is a leading expert on Mormon mental health issues, and it is ethically appropriate for her to label herself “Mormon” as a matter of cultural competence.

The Role of Mental Health Professionals in Supporting Individuals who Choose to Leave the Church

You asked Natasha to explain if it is appropriate to help members leave the Church.

It is appropriate to help clients in a therapeutic setting find peace in their lives, develop personal values, and act in accordance with those values. Sometimes in therapy this means that clients will leave the church, and sometimes it means they will stay. It is neither ethical nor effective best-practice for us to encourage or advocate leaving or staying. If clients decide to leave, it is appropriate as therapists to help them find support to navigate what can be a painful process.

Conclusion

We stand with Natasha in her efforts to provide professional services that are in line with best practices, cultural competency, and professional ethics. Countless individuals have benefited from her expertise. Our clients are suffering. Our clients are dying. We are deeply concerned that the excommunication of a responsible, ethical, clinically-sound Mormon therapist will create a culture of fear and shame around seeking and providing mental health care within the Mormon culture. We strongly urge you to respect the separate stewardship of our professional roles and allow Natasha to retain her membership.

1 Gibbs, J., Goldbach J. (2015). Religious Conflict, Sexual Identity, and Suicidal Behaviors among LGBT Young Adults, Archives of Suicide Research, 19:4, 472-488, DOI: 10.1080/13811118.2015.1004476. 

2 Lytle, M. C., De Luca, S. M., and Blosnich, J. R. (2018). Association of Religiosity With Sexual Minority Suicide Ideation and Attempt, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 55(4), 644 – 651. 

3 Simmons, Brian. 2017. Coming Out Mormon: An Examination of Religious Orientation, Spiritual Trauma, and PTSD Among Mormon and Ex-Mormon LGBTQIA+ Adults. University of Georgia, PhD dissertation.

4 Simmons, Brian. 2017. Coming Out Mormon: An Examination of Religious Orientation, Spiritual Trauma, and PTSD Among Mormon and Ex-Mormon LGBTQIA+ Adults. University of Georgia, PhD dissertation.

5  https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx

6  Beck, J. S. (2011). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

7 Berzoff, J. (2011). Falling Through the Cracks: Psychodynamic Practice with Vulnerable and Oppressed Populations (Illustrated ed.). Columbia University Press.

8 Most major news outlets still use the term ‘Mormon,’ study shows, despite church’s wishes. (2020, September 18). The Salt Lake Tribune. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/09/18/most-major-news-outlets/

9 Park, Y. (2019). Facilitating Injustice: The Complicity of Social Workers in the Forced Removal and Incarceration of Japanese Americans, 1941–1946 (Illustrated ed.). Oxford University Press.

10 LDS Church wants everyone to stop calling it the LDS Church and drop the word ‘Mormons’ — but some members doubt it will happen. (2018, August 23). The Salt Lake Tribune. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/08/16/lds-church-wants-everyone/

11 Malan, M.K., Bullough, V. Historical development of new masturbation attitudes in Mormon culture: Silence, secular conformity, counterrevolution, and emerging reform. Sexualtiy and Culture 9, 80–127 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-005-1003-z

12 Strachan, E., Staples, B. Masturbation. Pediatrics in Review April 2012, 33 (4) 190-191; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1542/pir.33-4-190

13 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anorgasmia/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20369428

14 Leonhardt, N.D., Willoughby, B.J., and Young-Petersen, B. (2017). Damaged Goods: Perception of Pornpgraphy Addiciton as a Mediator Between Religiosity and Relationships Anxiety Surrounding Pornography Use. The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 55, pgs. 357-358.

15 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/help-for-me/time-to-get-over-habit?lang=eng

16 Oaks, D.H. (2015) “Recovering from the Trap of Pornography.” Ensign. 

17 Oaks, D.H. (2015) “Recovering from the Trap of Pornography.” Ensign.

Natasha Helfer, LCMFT, is called to a church disciplinary council for her professional opinions

Photo by Carolina Pimenta on Unsplash

I am sorry to report that another Latter-day Saint woman has been called to defend herself before a male disciplinary council as a punishment for expressing her opinions. Natasha Helfer, a marriage and family therapist who specializes in sexual health, has been called to a church disciplinary council by one of her former Stake Presidents for professional opinions consistent with the literature within her field of expertise.

The Council will be held on April 18, 2021 at 7:30 PM Central Time. Helfer has posted the following video explaining the situation and how supporters can help. More details, including contact information for those wishing to send letters or attend the council, is available on Helfer’s facebook page.

I am sharing the letter I sent to Helfer’s former Stake President here:

Dear President ___,

I am a gospel doctrine teacher in the ___ Ward. This Sunday, I will be teaching the Come Follow Me lesson for Doctrine and Covenants 37-40: “If Ye Are Not One Ye Are Not Mine.”

As I studied to teach this lesson, I was impressed with how being “one” does not mean being the same. The lesson emphasizes how different people with a variety of skill sets and viewpoints are necessary to build the church. The curriculum for this week’s lesson includes a video of Elder Ulisses Soares offering the following counsel: “I believe diversity is very important. Every person has their own way of thinking and we should respect that…We should learn from the different ways people are, the different ways people think, and live with that and try to learn and improve ourselves.” It also included a video of Sister Christina B. Franco, comparing the church to a watch that needs parts that are different from each other to function. (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-sunday-school-doctrine-and-covenants-2021/16?lang=eng)

The scriptures for this section say “teach one another according to the office wherewith I have appointed you” (D&C 38:23) and “look to the poor and the needy, and administer to their relief that they shall not suffer” (D&C 38:35). Sister Helfer is a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist and teaches according to that office, administering to those who need her services to relieve their suffering. Casting out members of the church with her kind of professional expertise forces people in need to look outside the rolls of the church for this kind of help.

Sister Helfer also blesses our faith community by using her professional expertise to make suggestions about how we can make our church a stronger, safer and more nourishing entity to support people like her clients, in accordance with the scriptural counsel, “You shall ever open your mouth in my cause.” (D&C 30:11) Silencing people with her unique skill set instead of encouraging them to open their mouths makes it less likely that lay leaders and policymakers of the church will hear diverse insights with potential to benefit the work of the church.

Please do not punish and cast out members of the church for expressing their professional opinions.

April Young Bennett

Note that Helfer moved out of this stake president’s jurisdiction in 2019, but Church Handbook policy 33.6.18 allows local male priesthood holders to retain power over people who have moved out of their boundaries for unlimited periods of time if they have a “serious concern” about that member. No one but the male priesthood leader who chose to retain power over the person who moved away may end this long distance oversight arrangement. The member who moved has no say in the matter.

Within current Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) policy, women are disciplined by councils staffed by 4 men (not women). The female Relief Society president may also attend, but her inclusion is optional and she has no formal role in the proceedings. The stake president who called the council has unilateral authority to choose punishments including “withdrawal of membership.” (Church Handbook 32) “Withdrawal of Membership” is a new term that has recently replaced the term “excommunication” in the LDS Church Handbook but has the same implications, including rendering baptism and other ordinances void that are believed to be necessary to attain eternal salvation according to LDS theology. (KUTV News Feb. 19, 2020)

Tell Me Her Name

 

“I am the utterance of my name…”

Louis Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God

Lot’s wife stands alone, a woman in a town in a desert. She belongs to this moment, but she also belongs to us, her children. By the time we meet her, the writer has stolen the name her neighbors called her, the sound her parents made to mean, “You, daughter, child, part of me.” She, herself, has given birth to daughters, more than two, maybe four: two married, two still in her home. We have no record of their names, either, the two destroyed in hellfire and brimstone. Only the two who procreated with their drunk but God-loved father, who bore him children so that his name, his seed, would survive are named for us. But we lose her name, this wife of Lot, this woman who turned back to Sodom and became a trope.

In a religion that names and renames, that blesses with names at birth and in all our sacred spaces, that repeats those names in whispers, this religion is built on a tradition that tore the names from women, buried them in the desert along with their whispered stories, their prayers and visions. Silent and silenced, our nameless matriarchs have become a pillar of salt.

Tell me her name.

Did she sit with the angels to hear their prophetic direction to Lot? Did she mix meal into water and fry it in a bit of oil, perhaps straining to hear, or perhaps humming to shut out the voices, as the angels warned of destruction? I imagine, if she knew of the coming disaster, she ran to her daughters, knocked on their doors and, breathless, begged them to leave with her, to grab their sandals, bundle up their children (did they have children?) and flee. And I imagine their husbands, steeped in pride and vanity, thought her a crazy old woman and forced her from their homes, or smiled in that Patriarchal way and said, ‘There, there old woman’ while ignoring her prophecy. Or they told their wives to finish cooking because night was setting in and they were hungry. I imagine she tried one last time, before leaving the city, making Lot wait by the gates, so she could kiss their cheeks and remember their smell, their eyes, the way their lips curled to the left when they smiled. Maybe they wanted to join her but were afraid of their husbands or afraid of change. Maybe they trusted their husbands. Maybe they didn’t have a choice. 

Tell me her name.

When she fled, did she stay in the back, straining to hear footsteps in the sand, those beloved footsteps of a daughter or both daughters (please, God, save them both)? She heard a voice, perhaps, the sound of a child calling out to her, yelling ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ Or she heard a scream, deep and tormented, as fire fell on a skirt hem, a husband, a baby (did her daughters have babies? Did they stop nursing to watch the roof, the walls, shudder in flames around them?) Maybe she thought God would answer her righteous, desperate prayer and soften hearts at the last second.

Matriarch to generations, a cipher in the desert, she is stripped naked of her essence and turned into a warning for us: Obey God (or Lot? Was this a cautionary tale about obedience to men?) or He (or a writer) will change your very being and erase your story.

But maybe transforming into a pillar of salt was a God-kindness, like Daphne becoming a tree. Maybe he meant to temper the pain of living with the knowledge that her daughters burned to death, died watching their own children die. He took from her the smell of flesh-smoke, the screams for help, the vision of people running from the city as it collapsed around them. Maybe sanctification and ascension look like a pillar of salt, human form, reaching for the past and refusing a future without all of our loved ones. Maybe she wasn’t erased in a moment of violence, but rather made holy in her grief, cloaked in a veil of forgetfulness so trauma could heal. Maybe, too, she reaches back for us, holds out a hand to help as we claim our names, our voices, our stories. And maybe this time, this burning, we can stop the flames that engulf our sisters as we, too, refuse a future without all of us.

Orazio Borgianni (Italian, Rome 1578–1616 Rome)Head of an Old Woman, after 1610Oil on canvas; 20 7/8 x 15 3/8 in. (53 x 39 cm)The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Gwynne Andrews Fund and Marco Voena and Luigi Koelliker Gift, 2010 (2010.289)http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/...

Historian Colleen McDannell: Mormon Women Speak, but Nobody Listens

A few years ago, I began studying Mormon history in earnest. I realized that my time as a history research assistant about the Mormon Trail in 2009 was not just a summer job before I started my master’s program, but something that rooted questions in me that were growing and expanding as time went on. In early 2019, I felt like I had read some great work on Mormon women in the early Utah period, and that I had some grasp on Mormon women’s writings and history in recent decades, but that I had a major gap in my understanding of the end of the 19th century and much of the 20th century.

Enter Sister Saints: Mormon Women Since the End of Polygamy by Dr. Colleen McDannell, professor of history and Sterling M. McMurrin Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Utah (read Dani’s review here). It is a relatively short book (202 pages before end matter), but McDannell skillfully packs in so much content and context. I knew that the Relief Society had run hospitals and major social programs, but what happened to that progressive organization? What happening in the post-WWII Church when women’s roles in leadership protracted and rhetoric around women became so focused on the home and motherhood? When did the Relief Society lose authority and autonomy over budgets and lesson plans? How did the women act and react during all of these changes? Sister Saints discusses these issues and so much more.

And while Sister Saints covers fascinating history, reading this book was not just an intellectual exercise for me. It was impossible for me to not respond emotionally. To borrow a phrase from Brené Brown, this book has wings—there were many times that I wanted to throw it across the room. It is hard for me to read the decades-long process of male Church leaders rolling back the women’s autonomy in finances, editorial control of publications, exercising of spiritual gifts, and more. The story is not perfectly linear—there are some ways that women have more presence and authority now than previous generations, and, McDannell argues, ways that the Proclamation on the Family leaves gender roles unfixed and adaptable—but so much felt like one tragedy after another.

I was immediately interested when I saw that McDannell was going to be a guest on the podcast The Foyer: Conversations about Mormon History and Culture hosted by Dr. Patrick Mason and sponsored by Utah State University’s Religious Studies Program. McDannell and Mason are long-time friends and it was a fascinating discussion of both McDannell’s larger career as a historian of American religion and her book Sister Saints in particular. The entire podcast episode, available on The Foyer’s website and Spotify, is worth a listen, but there was one moment that I had to stop and re-listen to several times.

Mason and McDannell were discussing the challenge of archives and how what is preserved is a major factor in what can be studied and written about. For Catholic lay women, there are relatively few sources in archives, but that isn’t the same problem for Mormon women.

Dr. Mason: “I remember us talking one time at lunch and you reveling in the fact that there were all these [Mormon] women’s diaries and other things to read that you just haven’t encountered in the study of Roman Catholicism.”

Dr. McDannell: “Yeah, it’s interesting because people have said, ‘Oh, Mormon women have been silenced, you know their voices are silenced, they haven’t been allowed to speak.’ But that’s absolutely not true. They have spoken a whole lot. There’s so much stuff. There’s a lot of stuff. It’s just nobody listens. They speak, but nobody listens. So there’s a lot of primary source material. There’s a ton of primary source material, but there’s almost no analysis. There’s no interpretation. There’s very little history. Even you know, the Relief Society Magazine which has got short stories, and articles, and all sorts of creative ways that women are speaking, no one has written about it. No one has tried to understand what all these women are saying in these short stories that they’re publishing, or reems of poetry that they’re publishing. How are they creating theology, how are they creating Mormon history—a Mormon experience—through their work? And that’s what needs to be analyzed.”

Mic drop.

Mormon women are speaking and have been speaking for nearly two centuries. They make and keep records, and they publish their words. But no one listens. Or at least not enough people. Not enough men in leadership at any level listen to women. Not enough lay members seek out the words of women. Not enough people support, financially or otherwise, Mormon women speaking and publishing. While I will say that within the last decade, there has been an incredible blooming of both scholarly and popular writing by and about Mormon women, there is so much work to be done.

Ultimately, Sister Saints feels like a gift to anyone interested in Mormon women or Mormon history and is a source that I keep going back to. I don’t know of any other book that covers this time frame with this lens and does such a brilliant job of tracing themes and also pointing the way for further research. McDannell’s bibliographical essay at the end of the book is a gem for anyone wanting to dive deeper into any of the issues she raises. I look forward to reading more of her work, including Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America and The Spirit of Vatican II: A History of Catholic Reform in America.

Thanks For The Feminism

Here’s to the Manly Men. To the pimply boys who dutifully protect women from opening their own door. To the overprotective hombres who mistake chauvinism for chivalry. To the dudebros who grace us with their unsolicited pictures. To the creepy, quiet incel leering in the corner. To the sweet old guy who just doesn’t believe girls, marvelous as they are, can do that.

Here’s to the unequal budgets, to the single-minded stories. To the voices that take up space with their proclamations. To the firey, fluid doctrine that has cooled to granite. To all the paternal advice of what we should be. To the Six B’s that never once mentioned bravery. To the people who only hire men. To the ones who taught us to always say ‘yes’ by always saying ‘no’. To the boys’ clubs, to misogyny, to Patriarchy in general —

Thanks for the Feminism. We never would have got here without you.

PC: eren{sea+prairie}, Flickr.com

Normalize Paid Childcare for LDS Services and Activities

A friend of mine organized a group in Iowa City a few years back called “Interfaith Moms.” Her goal: to bring women of varying faiths together to learn, discuss, support, and build community. Women attended from various congregations and backgrounds, including atheists. Most meetings lasted around two hours and professional childcare was provided at no cost.

This vital inclusion of childcare enabled many women to attend and be present to listen to speakers and join discussions without having their focus divided by children. Women felt comfortable leaving their children in the church nursery across the hall because the caregivers passed background checks, earned a fair wage, and had a well-managed sign-in system. The host church’s willingness to pay for this service helped me to feel seen and cared for by their leaders.

On another occasion, I tried out a MOPS group. I entered the host church with my children and was immediately ushered to the childcare sign-in. Warm, welcoming individuals signed in my children and gave me a sheet I would use to pick them up later. My kids happily followed them to age-appropriate classrooms and I joined the meeting. While the group didn’t end up being what I needed, I once again felt seen and cared for by their leaders.

In my final experience outside of my faith tradition, I attended a large, bustling church with a friend one weekend. The moment we walked in, people welcomed me and my children. In fact, they had computers set up, where registered parents could sign children in each Sunday. I created a visitor registration and immediately knew my kids were in safe, well-organized hands. Volunteers happily led my oldest to Sunday School and a group of enthusiastic volunteers reached for my baby. I was confused. You mean, I could just go to services and they would care for my baby? But what happened if the baby cried or needed nursing or a diaper change?

They handed me a number to take with me to the adult meeting. If my baby needed me, my number would discreetly show on a board in the auditorium. But they would change his diaper and soothe him, allowing me to worship undisturbed unless he needed my attention. As I walked away, a woman happily cuddled my son and cooed to him. I don’t recall the exact sermon or songs from that day, but I do remember feeling that my distraction-free spiritual experience was prioritized that Sunday.

I’ve often wondered why the LDS Church does not implement a similar system. I recognize that part of the Mormon work ethic is to volunteer time and energy to the church. I also recognize that parents need the opportunity to worship and commune as couples and individuals. Unfortunately, sometimes to those two goals are in conflict. Our nursery system (now, blessedly, only requiring one hour of volunteers) simply doesn’t offer parents enough support balancing these two goals.

First off, the nursery only takes children beginning at 18 months, leaving infants in parent’s hands throughout church services. Additionally, nursery is only available during the second hour, meaning very young children are expected to sit through adult-oriented services without distracting others. This results in parents (often mothers) having to leave the chapel to quiet, soothe, or chase after children ill-equipped to sit through sacrament. In a busy building, this often means worrying about interrupting sacrament, Sunday school classes, or nursing babies.

Secondly, nursery is volunteer-run, which means members can lead nursery with little-to-no training and minimal accountability. In the LDS church, we like to say that all callings are equal, but no one calls a nursery leader by their title or praises their spouse for supporting them. Instead, nursery is often a calling where you love the children, but are quickly burnt out and exhausted by the end of church each Sunday. Wrangling kids, picking up toys, trying to get them to listen to a short lesson, wiping up snack crumbs and spilled water; this all becomes draining after a while.

Oh, and this doesn’t even cover finding parents to change a diaper or to take a potty-training toddler to the bathroom in time, while your co-leader holds down the fort alone. The nursery calling can often also be isolating and spiritually draining. This is especially true if you manage young children all week at home and miss opportunities to fill your spiritual cup through community and classes each Sunday.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the LDS church invested some of its immense wealth into paid childcare each Sunday for babies and small children? What if we had consistent background checks, experienced care takers, and a trusted sign-in system? Children could participate in age-appropriate activities instead of sitting through sacrament. Parents could enjoy a distraction-free spiritual experience. Volunteers could be assigned elsewhere and we could avoid the burn-out of under-appreciated free babysitting. Lastly, it would simply provide a safer, more trustworthy choice for members and visitors alike.

The second area where paid childcare is sorely needed is for weekday activities, adult sessions, leadership meetings, and even meetings with the Bishop. Finding volunteers for childcare at a Relief Society activity is always a challenge and the burden is usually placed on the unpaid labor of young women. Conversely, I’ve also brought my children into a room with two men, twenty children, and a DVD player. Names of parents and their dependent children are not recorded. Children tend to run free in the halls and even outdoors. This is far from an ideal environment for the adults in charge or the children in their care. More often than not, some adults are excluded or stressed because of lack of or insufficient childcare.

These problems could be easily alleviated by normalizing paid childcare for LDS church services and activities. The LDS Church has $6 billion in investments and additionally utilizes the free volunteer service of lay members to lead congregations, plan lessons, run temples, clean buildings, teach, play organs, lead music, proselyte, and more. Members willingly give hours of volunteer service and spend time away from family and paid employment. Providing funding for well-organized, safe, and consistent childcare would not take away from this. In fact, providing childcare would be a meaningful way for LDS church leaders to demonstrate that women are seen and cared for and that the safety and well-being of children is prioritized.

Excommunication and Listening to Silenced Voices

When I was a teenager my dad was excommunicated. He’d always held a less orthodox view of the church and as a long-time seminary and gospel doctrine teacher, he moved beyond Sunday school answers to challenge members to think deeply about the gospel.

In our home, he taught of an expansive God, who loved all their children and didn’t place conditions on that love. I remember that when then Elder Russell M. Nelson wrote an article for the Ensign titled Divine Love where Nelson explained why God’s love is conditional, my dad not only talked about it with family and friends, but wrote to Nelson and the Ensign explaining why that rhetoric is harmful and wrong.

As a youth I wasn’t always thrilled to sit through one of my dad’s “discussions” (which to teenage me felt like a gospel lecture), but once he was excommunicated there was an added layer of mistrust. Like, “What do you know about the gospel? You can’t even keep the commandments!” It took time for me to turn to him as a gospel guide and embrace the wisdom he had to offer. It took me years to begin to see the complexities of his actions and not equate his mistakes with heresy.

I have only spoken to a handful of people personally about their experience of being excommunicated. Often it was very painful. I can speak of the anxiety I feel to imagine being excommunicated, giving me pause before I choose to speak up about issues important to me or choosing to worship in a way that feels right to me, but may not be in line with traditional, orthodox practices. While I believe that my relationship with God is eternal and that I don’t need earthly authority to share my beliefs, there is part of me that fears how my temporal relationships will be affected.

In the General Handbook of Church Instruction, the church lays out three purposes for membership restriction or withdrawal (this is new terminology from 2020 replacing disfellowship and excommunication). They are: to help protect others, to help a person access the redeeming power of Jesus Christ through repentance, and to protect the integrity of the church. I have certainly heard stories of people for whom the excommunication and re-baptism process was truly helpful, and I feel there are instances where excommunication might actually be needed to help protect others such as in cases of child abuse and sexual predatory behavior. But I think it’s important to highlight how heart-wrenching excommunication can be for an individual and their family.

One story in particular that haunts me is that of Lavina Fielding Anderson. She is one of the September Six, who were excommunicated in 1993. After 25 years of faithful church attendance where she was not allowed to partake of the sacrament, her bishop approached her about the possibility of re-baptism. Sadly her case was denied by the First Presidency.

This week I reread Anderson’s Dialogue journal article, a chronology of ecclesiastical abuse that lead to her discipline. This line in particular stood out to me: “I am less interested in the various positions defended and attacked about, say, the New Mormon History than I am about how such attacks and defenses are conducted, what they do to our community, and the human costs in pain, mistrust, and violations of agency.”

Janice Allred, who was excommunicated in 1995, vividly describes how painful the process is:

A few weeks after my excommunication, my name disappeared from the Relief Society roll. I was not prepared for the emotions I felt. One week, after I passed the roll on without looking at it, the woman next to me put her hand on my lap. I squeezed it, and she smiled at me. Little acts of kindness such as this mean a lot to me, but I continue to be troubled by the lack of public discourse about my situation and problems in general.

Friendliness is good, but it is not enough to create a feeling of love and acceptance. I was violently wrenched from the body of Christ. If a ward member walked into church covered with blood and people smiled and said, “Hello, it’s nice to see you,” there would be something inappropriate about that. But that’s how they treat me and my family. Our wounds, our suffering, the violence inflicted on all of us go unmentioned, undiscussed, and unattended to.1

John Gustav-Wrathall was a young adult when he was excommunicated. He had confessed his homosexuality to God, and felt God’s love declare his gayness was a good, inherent part of him. He then followed a prompting to ask to have his name be removed from the records of the church. He had committed no offense worthy of excommunication, but his bishop started the process anyway.

“When I was excommunicated, there WAS definitely a painful period of adjustment,” John writes. “My whole social network was in the Church, and my whole social network basically vanished over night — including lifelong friendships… It was heart-wrenching for my family. I refused to attend my church court, so my dad went in my stead, and it’s not possible to describe in words the level of pain he experienced. He might as well have attended my funeral. There was a period of approximately 3 years when I had little to no contact with my family at all.”2

When the church changed the language from excommunication to withdrawal of church membership, the reason shared was, “the feeling of the First Presidency and the Twelve [apostles] and members who we did research with felt that [excommunication] was a particularly harsh term.”3

But changing the term doesn’t change the reality of the excruciating process.

“There’s something vicious about niceness that struck me in this,” says Margaret Toscano, who shared her experience of being excommunicated in an interview with PBS American Experience in 2006. “That the niceness covered over the violence of what was being done, because, in fact, excommunication is a violent action. And yet you had this veneer of niceness that covers it over. That was horrifying to me. Afterward it almost made me shudder, that incongruity between the violence of that excommunication and the niceness of the discourse that went on.”4

Margaret’s husband, Paul, was one of the September 6 and shortly afterward, the Toscano family stopped attending church. Margaret described the surprise of receiving a summons for a church disciplinary council seven years later. “What they were hoping to do is to make sure that nobody then would believe anything that I said,” she shared. “That came out several times.”

There are other, smaller ways voices are silenced, such as described in a recent post from wheatandtares.org about a Stake President who outlawed informal discussion groups within his stake unless those groups were sanctioned by the stake. From my own ward, I received an email this week that, “posts submitted to our ward RS Facebook page should contain content directly sponsored by the Church, one of its units, or the missionaries.”

I love these words from Lavina Fielding Anderson,

“If we silence ourselves or allow others to silence us, we will deny the validity of our experience, undermine the foundations of authenticity in our personal spirituality, and impoverish our collective life as a faith community… Reducing the diversity of voices in a community to a single, official voice erases us.”5

At one point in my life, I would have likely discredited anything an excommunicated member said about the gospel. Now I cherish the lessons my dad taught me. In my quest to strengthen my relationship with Heavenly Mother, it is words from excommunicated women, such as Margaret Toscano and Janice Allred that have helped me on my journey.

Who has been a source of inspiration for you that the church may have discredited or counts as an “unauthorized” source?

White Bird Flying: My Struggle for a More Loving, Tolerant, Egalitarian Church by Janice AllredJohn Gustav-Wrathall’s story, quote from this comment sectionGeneral authority Seventy Anthony D. Perkins quoted in LDS Church publishes new handbook with changes to discipline, transgender policy by Peggy Fletcher Stack and David NoyceInterview: Margaret ToscanoThe LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology by Lavina Fielding Anderson

Book Review: Sealed by Katie Langston

When I was a kid growing up in Maine, I used to take church very seriously. It seemed like everyone around me wanted me to take church seriously, but with the frustrated expectation that kids and teens generally didn’t. As a sensitive kid trying to earn love and approval in my family and community, I internalized rigid messages about obedience and perfection, all the while feeling like I was doing what was expected of me.

In Sealed: An Unexpected Journey into the Heart of Grace, released earlier this week, Mormon feminist Katie Langston tells the story of her own faith journey. She also took the messages about faith and belief seriously from the time she was a child and ended up in a cycle of shame and desperate prayers for forgiveness, always feeling that her worthiness and hope for salvation were in question. As a child, Katie asked her mother if families could really be together forever.

“We can, sweeting, we can,” she said, her response both reassuring and disorienting. It was a daunting contingency, but I loved my parents desperately, so I was determined to keep our sealing secure. I only had an inkling then how difficult it would prove to be.

Sealed, p. 6

Katie’s spiritual autobiography tells a compelling story of faith throughout her life, beginning and traveling through Mormonism and eventually ending up in a different Christian tradition. Unlike other Mormon exit stories, this is much more than a journey from ‘in’ to ‘out,’ from belief to unbelief. Katie wrestles over time with her understanding of God, what God needs from her, and her discovery of God’s grace in her life. Her journey is both unique and relatable and touches on sensitive issues of bodies and sexuality in a forthright way.

If you are wrestling with the fact that the church you attend does not speak to the connection you feel with God, this is the book for you.

Buy on Amazon.

Katie Langston, Sealed: An Unexpected Journey into the Heart of Grace (Thornbush Press, 2021).

What is the purpose of a building?

The summer I turned 14, I was so excited to go to EFY. A summer baby, I was a year behind all my friends who despite being in the same grade, got to go one year earlier. I was excited to learn the dances, flirt with the boys. My parents tried to make it happen. My mom spent many hours on the phone, arguing her way up as far as she could go within CES.

She was told my presence simply would ruin the experience for the other youth.

You see, I use a wheelchair and need considerable help getting in and out of bed, dressed, showering etc. Once I’m up, I’m pretty independent, needing help with things like opening packaging or picking something up off the floor; tasks a campus full of LDS youth could have handled.

They went round and round, my mom trying to make concessions. They’d pay double for a caregiver to come with me, literally to sleep there and leave during the day. I’d stay at a hotel and just come during the day. Nothing worked. I never went to EFY. This is still a problem to this day (although a problem we are working on).

That year, at my public high school, I asked that the student section at the football stadium be moved to the side with the wheelchair accessible seating, so I could sit with my friends. I was told no because it would be too confusing.

I have been told my entire life, especially within the church, that other people, buildings, money, tradition are all more important than my ability to participate. 

These last few weeks, I have read many pieces about the renovation of the Salt Lake Temple. Many people are very distraught over the removal of murals and the change in the live sessions. And I do truly feel for people as they grieve that loss. But I hope you can also understand some of my perspective as well.

I welcome changes that allow more people to access the temple. More instruction rooms will allow more people to attend the temple, especially people visiting from out of town. Staying in one room the entire time, instead of moving room to room keeps people with mobility issues safer and saves them the discomfort, and embarrassment of moving again and again, potentially holding up the group. A video presentation allows people who do not speak english or are Deaf or hard of hearing can now attend a session that fits in their schedule, instead of contorting their schedule to fit the temple’s.

There’s a saying in historical preservation that if the Coloseum can be accessible without damaging the integrity of the building, so can everything else. But we have to remember, it’s not acting as a Coloseum. If it were, it would be largely inaccessible. It’s a museum, a reminder of the past, not a vehicle to move work forward here and now. A temple is a building designed for us to do the work for our ancestors and to grow closer to our Heavenly Parents. It is not a museum, a shrine to our ancestors—who are ancestors to really only a small part of our worldwide church body. The Israelites worshipped in a portable Tabernacle for decades, in order to meet the needs of the people right then. 

I worry when we start putting the preservation of a building, when we put the feelings of long-deceased, famous artists over the very real needs of real people right here and now, people largely anonymous and disconnected from the everyday experiences of largely white, American, able-bodied, middle class people along the Wasatch Front. 

Many of the changes to the Salt Lake temple will not make temple worship easier for me personally. It will still be very difficult. But as someone who is already kept out and left out of many places—homes, camps, church buildings—I believe we should not put more barriers to the work going on in the House of the Lord and welcome changes that serve some of the most marginalized among us. 

Shelby Hintze is a news producer in Salt Lake City. She grew up in the Seattle area and then went to BYU. You can find her on Twitter @shelbyhintze