Exponent II's Blog, page 236

Sustain Doesn’t Mean Agree With

Often in the church, a certain segment of members will accuse others of not sustaining church leaders because of a political, policy, or interpretive disagreement. I’ve heard stories of people having their temple recommends revoked because of a stated intention to vote or lobby for various civil laws. This overreach often comes about because of a prevailing belief in the church that sustaining one’s leaders means agreeing with one’s leaders. However, that isn’t what sustain means.

We can disagree with someone, even vigorously so, while still sustaining them. We need look no further than the example of Russell M. Nelson to demonstrate this. During the time that Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson were president of the church, the church ran the “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign and sponsored the movie “Meet the Mormons”. And now that Nelson is president of the church, he took to the pulpit and denounced the use of the term “Mormon” to refer to members of the church and called the term a victory for Satan. Clearly, he did not agree with his predecessors. Not only did he disagree, but he disagreed very strongly, to the point that he thought they were playing into Satan’s hand. Yet, presumably as an apostle, he held a temple recommend and had to affirm that he sustained  Hinckley and Monson.

So, if sustain doesn’t mean agree with, what does it mean? When searching the scriptures, most of the references to sustaining deal not with humans’ attitude toward their leaders, but rather with God’s attitude toward us. [1] God doesn’t always agree with us. When we hurt others, God wants us to stop and to change. But God stays by our side and helps us on the road to continual improvement.

“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.” [2]
“Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.” [3]
“I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.” [4]

Even in the context where the sustaining is being done by a person, not by God, the act of sustaining is not an act of intellectual or theological assent. It’s an act of nourishing and feeding. Isaac sustained his son Jacob with wine and corn. [5] In the only scriptural example of someone sustaining the prophet, the unnamed widow of Zarephath sustained Elijah by giving him a cake and some oil. [6]

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So, the way we sustain the leaders of the church is the way God sustains us. We lighten their burdens, nourish them, and assist them in meeting their righteous goals while fervently hoping and pleading for them to change the things that cause harm. Just as God can do that for us while disagreeing with some things that we do, so we can do that for church leaders even while disagreeing with some things they do.

And maybe one day the winds will change and the things we disagree with will change, too.

——-

[1] The word “sustain” is used 13 times in the standard works. Eight of those are in the Old Testament, three in the Doctrine and Covenants, and two in the Pearl of Great Price. Of those references, two are about our obligations toward civil law, one is a procedural matter regarding canonization of Official Declaration 2, one refers to church members “sustaining damages” from their persecutors, and the rest refer to a person being given aid.
[2] Psalm 55:22
[3] Nehemiah 9:21
[4] Psalm 3:5
[5] see Genesis 27:37
[6] see 1 Kings 17:9-16

Newsreel: Protestors block women from temple in India, modern-day suffragists seek #VotesForCatholicWomen

In this Religious Feminism Newsreel episode of the Religious Feminism Podcast, we cover the controversy at the Sabarimala Temple.  The Supreme Court of India recently ordered the temple to open its doors to women, ending a longstanding ban barring women and girls ages 10-50 from entering.  However, violent protesters have blocked all the women who have tried to enter, resulting in thousands of arrests.  Meanwhile, Catholic women have taken a cue from their suffragist foremothers, calling for the right to vote at the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, where women have been allowed to attend, but not vote.

Is something happening that you would like to hear more about in the next next newsreel? Tell the host about it by tagging April Young Bennett on Twitter at @aprilyoungb or by leaving a comment here at the Exponent website, where you can find Religious Feminism Podcast episode notes: http://www.the-exponent.com/tag/religious-feminism-podcast/

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Sabarimala Temple

News Stories Featured in this Episode:

Indian Supreme Court orders Sabarimala Temple to open its doors to women

Should Sabarimala temple open its doors to women? Here are the arguments heard in court

Anna Isaac, The News Minute, Sept. 27, 2018

Constitutional and legal bases of Sabarimala verdict

Krishna Sarma, Financial Express, Oct. 17, 2018

An Indian Court Ordered a Temple to Admit Women. So Far, It Hasn’t.

Kai Schultz, New York Times, Oct. 23, 2018

Women barred from entering Hindu temple in India’s Kerala state

Priscila LaFitte, France 24, Oct. 19, 2018

India: over 2,000 arrested in protests over court order to admit women to temple

Carie Thompson, Jurist, Oct. 26, 2018

Gender equality Vs religious fanaticism, the battle continues unabated in India

Avina Vidyadharan, News Nation, Oct. 26, 2108

Why Can’t Sabarimala Take A Cue From Haji Ali Dargah? Hardline Hindus should learn a lesson or two from the Muslim community, which did not indulge in any violence when SC allowed women into the dargah.

Nikhil Wagle, News Click, Oct. 27, 2018

Sabarimala temple row: Activist Rehana Fathima expelled from Muslim community

PTI, The New Indian Express, Oct. 30, 2018

Meet Rehana Fathima, the Woman Under Police Protection After Trying to Enter Sabarimala

Anand Kochukudy, The Wire, Oct. 26, 2018

‘They say we pollute the temple’: This powerful song supports women’s entry into Sabarimala

The People’s Art and Literary Association (PALA)

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Catholic Women’s Ordination Conference campaigns for votes for women.

Catholic women call for votes for women at the Vatican

Votes for Women

Regina Bannan, Women’s Ordination Conference, Sept. 29, 2018

Vatican Faces Modern-Day Suffragists, Demanding Right to Vote

Elisabetta Povoledo, New York Times, Oct. 26, 2018

Catholic Activists Demand Women’s Voting Rights At Major Vatican Meeting

Carol Kuruvilla, Huffpost, Oct. 16, 2018

Vatican meeting endorses women at decision-making table

Trisha Thomas and Nicole Winfield, AP, Oct. 27, 2018

Roman Catholic Feminism with Erin Saiz Hanna and Kate McElwee

Religious Feminism Podcast, June 15, 2017

Listen and subscribe for free below:

Guest Post: A Letter to President Oaks

[image error]By Kris Irvin

Dear President Oaks,

My name is Kris and I am a 32 year-old lifelong member of the Church. I live in the Salt Lake Valley along with my husband of 12 years and our 10 year-old son. I am studying English Literature at BYU and hope to graduate in a year or so. I am also transgender.

I’ve known I was trans for as long as I can remember. It was my deepest, darkest secret for most of my life. I felt so ashamed and irreparably broken. I felt that there was no way God could love me. I didn’t even know that there was a word for people like me until I was 28 years-old. When I found out that there are other trans people in the world, I felt such relief. I no longer felt alone and gross and awful. I tried for 25 years to cure myself of being trans, but the only thing that has alleviated some of the depression and pain I’ve felt has been to be open about being transgender.

I would like to remain a member of the Church. It is my spiritual home. But talks like the one you gave in our recent General Conference only serve to alienate me and those like me from our spiritual haven. Elder Ballard once said that there is room for LGBTQ+ people in the Church. But your talk makes me wonder if that’s really true. Is there room for me? Or should I just give up and move on with my life?

Your talk completely erased intersex people—those who are born with ambiguous genitalia—from the picture. Statistics show that at least 2% of the world’s population is intersex. Do intersex people have a place in the Church? If not, why? And if intersex people DO have a place in the Church, what about those whose chromosomes don’t match their gender, like someone who has XXY chromosomes?

You once said that more study was needed in regards to transgender members. I would be happy to put you in touch with other trans Church members or send you resources that could help you with your research, both from a religious and from a scientific perspective. I know many, including myself, who have chosen NOT to transition genders. We struggle with depression, anxiety, and gender dysphoria. I also know many trans people who have transitioned and are much healthier and happier for doing so, regardless of losing their membership in the Church. In my personal case, I have chosen not to transition because my husband is against it. That was an excruciatingly hard decision to make. Despite not transitioning, I would still like to have a double mastectomy. I feel that I can handle being trans if I don’t have to deal with breasts. Not only do they cause mental pain, but they also cause physical pain. I have had competent medical professionals recommend a breast reduction or mastectomy, yet because I am transgender, my bishop says that such a surgery will be cause for church discipline. I don’t understand: at what point does my breast size nullify my membership in the Church?

These things I do know: that my bishop is fantastic and has been a wonderful support to my family as we’ve navigated the last few years. I also know that no matter what happens, my belief in God can’t be taken away from me, even if my membership in the Church is. I know that I want to raise my son in the Church, even if I strongly disagree with the Policy of Exclusion, which makes LGBTQ+ people feel like they are worth less than their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts (and it doesn’t feel like Christ would approve of anything that excludes children from the gospel.)

President Oaks, it seems like you strongly dislike or even hate transgender people. I’m truly sorry if that is the case. I have met some of the most spiritual people I know on the fringes of the Church. It hurts to see them wounded by sentiments like your Conference talk. Regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, we are ALL children of God.

Thank you for your time.

Kris Irvin

 

Kris is an asexual, non-transitioning transguy who lives in Utah. They are studying English Literature and Editing at BYU. Kris is married and has a brilliant 10 year-old son. You can follow their shenanigans on Twitter @krisis86 and on their blog, http://transmormonrising.wordpress.com

#hearLDSwomen: Only Men’s Voices Are Valued in My Ward’s Sacrament Meeting

[image error]I was scheduled to speak first in Sacrament Meeting but realized right before the meeting started that I had left my talk on the kitchen table. I asked my husband to run get it and then told the bishop that I needed to be the second speaker in case my husband didn’t return in time. The bishop said that wasn’t okay because a priesthood holder had to have the final say in the meeting. He told me I could speak second, but he would need to add a few words at the end of my talk to ensure a priesthood leader had the final say. After the meeting, I walked outside and sobbed and sobbed at the idea that my spiritual words weren’t good enough.

– Meredith Reynolds

 

My ward still has a male closing speaker for Sacrament Meeting every week. When I have mentioned it to the bishopric, I am told that they know it isn’t policy, but I’m the only one it bothers, so they don’t feel the need to change.

– Lori LeVar Pierce

 

Last Sunday I realized that during the entire Sacrament Meeting, not one woman spoke. Between the opening and closing prayers, the sacrament prayers, the conducting bishopric member, the bishop, the youth speaker and two other speakers, we listened to nine males speak. The fact that it can be so easy (and unremarkable) to completely omit women’s voices during the most important meeting of our worship service is, I feel, an example of the structural inequality we need to overcome.

– Stephanie

 

Pro tip: It is not church policy to have a priesthood holder speak last. Show that your ward values women’s voices by scheduling women as the final speaker at least half the time, by having at least one woman speak each Sunday whenever possible, and by having some Sacrament Meetings with only female speakers.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. Has anything like this happened to you? Please share in the comments or submit your experience(s) to participate in the series.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)

A Tale of Two Wards

I first moved into the Oakland First ward eight and a half years ago. My first impression was that it was pretty white for a ward that is supposed to be in one of the most racially diverse cities in the country, but also it’s Mormon, so that’s going to lean white anyway.

Quickly, I learned that Oakland has 2 geographically-based English-speaking family wards: the First ward and the Ninth Ward, and it’s the Ninth Ward that contains most of the racial diversity because it contains the city center. I once mentioned (at a ward book group, maybe?) that the First ward likes to say it’s so diverse being in Oakland, but it’s still pretty rich and pretty white. Someone was quick to defend that it’s better than it used to be- apparently (and I don’t know the old ward boundaries) the boundaries used to be much more divided. And that may be true. But as of last week, it isn’t anymore.

We are one of the many families that have been affected by new boundary changes. We’re assigned to the 9th ward now, which is fine by me- I’m personally hoping there will be fewer hills to bike to get to ward members’ homes. But what is not fine by me is the very striking new boundaries. They look almost exactly like the old redlining maps of Oakland.

New ward boundaries:

Redlining map, by Josh Begley:

You can also compare it to the current Trulia map of median listing prices of homes in Oakland, screenshot taken November 1, 2018

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Median House Listing Prices taken from Trulia on November 1, 2018 for Oakland, CA

Redlining was the practice of bankers and loan institutions to not give loans to people of certain demographics, most commonly black people in US cities during the Jim Crow Era and continued afterward. There were whole swaths of Oakland where black people could not get loans. And this caused segregation in the city and continues to cause school segregation and other systemic issues today. Which parts of the city have nice parks? Which are policed more? Which have more regular street sweeping? Where to people move to go to the “good” schools?

And it affects what our wards look like. But it doesn’t have to.

It’s not uncommon for the Church to split wards along major highways. When I was a kid, the small town I was in went through a ward division in my late elementary school years where the main thoroughfare split our city into the 2nd and 3rd wards. Then a few years later when I was a teenager the wards were recombined. This was personally hard for me because it split and then recombined at crucial growing-up years and affected which friends I had and who I connected with and any cliquish behavior among the Young Women in the ward(s). But that is so minor compared to the systemic racism we have in larger cities.

Sure, roads are easy ways to split roads. But roads are not neutral or natural ways for dividing people. In fact, the decision of how, where, and why to build roads, especially highways, in cities is a part of the larger city planning system: a system with hugely racist past and continues to deal with race. For further reading I recommend this Washington Post article, How Railroads, Highways, and Other Man-Made Lines Racially Divide American Cities.

You have to actively fight the way roads and trains divide neighborhoods. Not too far from my house, the Ashby BART station was built underground because of the activist work of Mable Howard, who did not want the train to divide the neighborhood. Sometimes it takes an act of nature to tear down freeways like the Loma Prieta Earthquake did to the Cypress Freeway which divided West Oakland. When that fell, instead of rebuilding the freeway, they turned that space into a long green park and pedestrian/bike path called Mandela Parkway.

One person reached out to me this week and mentioned that people always have mixed feelings about ward boundary changes. Sure, I’m going to miss some people and it’s going to be hard to learn all new people, but I’m not upset about going to a new ward. A change is probably good for me. But I am absolutely seething that, when given the chance to make wards more culturally, racially, and economically diverse, the Church chooses to make our wards more segregated than they already are. It’s like they took the redlining of the 20th century and said, “Yep, that’s what God wants.”

If you are interested in other redlining maps, perhaps for your own city, check this out.

#hearLDSwomen: When I Was Silenced and Spiritually Bullied

[image error]by Anonymous

When I was 16 years-old my sexually abusive father left our family. This was a good thing, obviously. However, at the time, he was serving as the bishop of our ward. When he left, he moved in with his girlfriend. The stake president was alerted to this arrangement. There were claims from both my ***hole of a father and the stake president that even though the Bishop was living with his girlfriend, their relationship was chaste and above criticism. When people called our house looking for the Bishop, we were to take a name and number and then pass these messages along. The stake president said that it would damage too many testimonies of faithful members of our ward if they knew the reality of our family separation.

Months later, the Bishop was honorably released. During the sacrament meeting where this took place, each of his children was called upon to publicly bear testimony of the greatness and glory of  the Bishop—of our love and admiration for him. Because I had lived under the threat of “tell, and I will kill your mother; it will kill your mother; I will make you watch me kill one of your siblings” for most of my life, I stood at the pulpit and mumbled something about his amazing service. Later, a church court was called to determine if I should be excommunicated . . . because I confronted the leadership with evidence that his relationship with his girlfriend was not chaste.

 

Pro-tip: When a child or woman provide evidence of wrongdoing by a priesthood leader, believe them. Do not punish the bearer of the bad news by scapegoating them in order to preserve the reputation of a church leader. Have confidence in church members to navigate their personal faith journeys despite church leaders fallibilities.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. Has anything like this happened to you? Please share in the comments or submit your experience(s) to participate in the series.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)

Why Does She Stay?

[image error] An early version of this talk was given as part of a panel: Staying, Caring and Hoping at the 25th Anniversary Counterpoint Conference on October 6, 2018. 

I like to think of myself as a brave person. I am rarely frightened in my vocation as a medical social worker or in my role as a faith transition and grief therapist. Companioning others, as they sit with distressing feelings, is routine to me. But I do get scared. And in this Halloween season, I share a scary story of true events that changed me.

Instead of a haunted house or forest woods, lovely dark and deep, the setting is West Los Angeles where I investigated child sexual abuse for the County Department of Children and Family Services.

One chilly-for-Los Angeles, balmy for Utah evening. I investigated allegations that a 13-year-old girl was molested by her stepfather. A social work intern accompanied me as we interviewed the girl at her school. I felt that additional responsibility of training a new professional and setting a good example. In my car after the interview, we reviewed the significance of the sparse but highly credible details we had both observed and heard from the alleged victim and made plans to interview the rest of the family at their home.

En route to the interview, I contacted the local police dispatch. They sent a car and we met the officers outside of the home, a junkyard looking property with a large run-down-home in front and a tiny one-room shack at the rear of a property. The large home was owned by the stepfather’s parents who directed us around back to the shack. The police entered first to assess the safety and remove any weapons.

As we entered the poorly lit home I immediately noted the bathroom with no door, just a flimsy fabric remnant curtain at the end of the shoebox room. This detail corroborated information about lack of privacy the girl had shared with us earlier in the day. She’d disclosed she was being molested when showering.

We began interviewing one family member at a time at the kitchen table located between the front door and the bunk bed where the whole family slept. Family members not being interviewed waited outside with the police.

During the mother’s interview, many statements raised red flags and my intern furiously documented everything on her yellow legal pad. The stepfather, her partner was a U.S. citizen but refused to apply for legal status for her. He was jealous and demanded a high degree of loyalty from her with constant loyalty tests. She was not yet worthy.

Worthiness would be determined by the father-in-law, a pastor at a storefront church. The mother was required to obey her father-in-law as well as her spouse but denied any domestic violence in the home. She admitted that her spouse threatened her with deportation when he was upset with her, she was not allowed access to money or finances and she was forbidden to use birth control. When she did attempt to use birth control her husband tampered with her pills or refused to pay medical bills.

This mother seemed so isolated and depressed. In this foreign country where she had made a new family who did she have to support her emotionally? She had extended family about 2 hours away in another city, but her husband did not like to visit them or have any contact with them. She was not allowed to see her family or contact them without his permission. Her only social contacts were related to her husband or the father-in-law’s church congregation. The congregants were not friendly with her as she and her daughter were frequently used as examples in sermons on wickedness.

Isolation, domination, lack of privacy, control, gas lighting, threats of expulsion from the country and separation from family. All of these were documented for the court report as problems that created a climate of emotional abuse for the children and domestic violence for the mother.

The mother exited the room and the stepfather entered to be interviewed. He was charming and mildly flirtatious painting a picture of himself as a devoted spouse and step-father struggling with the challenge of living with hysterical, dramatic, lying women with worldly desires and rebellious attitudes. They were not perfectly obedient to the wisdom of the worthy males in their life.

About midway through my scripted interview protocol, he stood up from his spot opposite me, picked up his chair and walked around the table placing his chair much nearer to me and blocking the only exit from the room with his body.

I broke out in gooseflesh and saw that the intern did too. It was at this time that I noticed a butter knife mostly concealed by the detritus of school papers on the table. The knife was closer to the stepfather than to me.

The air buzzed with the terrible anxious tension of a gathering lightning strike. I listened to my body. While inwardly panicking at the implied threats I assessed in the room, I remained outwardly calm drawing the interview to a premature close. I cheerfully informed the stepfather I had no further questions for him and would like a moment to confer with the officers.

His facial expression turned menacing and for a solid eternal 20 seconds he remained silent and staring. I called out, “Officers we are done can you come in?” and they quickly opened the door, forcing the father to scoot his chair over so they could enter. The stepfather reverted to charm and smiles as the lead officer entered. Aware that our protocol was violated by the positioning of the stepfather in the room, the officer made eye contact with me and asked me if I was OK with his eyes as he placed his body between the stepfather and myself.

The restoration of balance to the power dynamic in the room immediately reduced the pounding of my heart. I nodded to the officer that I was OK. I was not confident that I could fight off the stepfather if attacked, even with the help of my scrappy intern. But, the protective presence of the officer allowed me to resume slow regular breathing. It was the most frightened I’d ever be during my time as a child sexual abuse investigator.

A child welfare case was filed in dependency court. The family split and the mother chose her children over the stepfather. She collaborated with local law enforcement in pursuing charges for child sexual abuse and domestic violence with child endangerment. She moved in with her extended family and was granted a U-visa allowing her to obtain U.S. residency that put her on a path to citizenship. That is about as happy as endings get in a domestic violence with sexual abuse case like this.

In the week following, I spent several hours of clinical supervision processing the experience with the intern who wanted to know why this mother stayed in such a terrible situation for so long. We compared this case to other cases where mothers stayed with abusers after DCFS involvement and children were placed in foster homes. I asked some hard reflective questions: Where in your own life do you see these same dynamics? What systems are you a part of where you are abused, dominated or oppressed?

And then I received a truth drop, a puzzle piece falling into place. Was it possible? Could it be that I too was in an abusive relationship?

Like most women who stay with an abuser, I did not see the abuse.

Until I did see it.

And then it was difficult to stop seeing it. I was deeply in love with my partner and 100% committed. We were part of a wonderful family and community. Our unity was everything to me. I had sacrificed so much to prove my loyalty and worthiness. In that terrible moment of recognition I began a list of signs that my relationship was toxic:

1. I had no authority in our relationship. Every time my intuition or personal knowledge and expertise on a topic conflicted with my partner, we did what he wanted. He decided. If I voiced my differing views it led to questions about my loyalty and subtle threats of violence. Only my family members that proved their loyalty to him could attend our temple sealing.

2. I was rushed towards premature commitment in my relationship. The day I took out my endowments in the Oakland Temple my body flooded with panic for a moment and I wanted to escape. For a second I thought I was being initiated into a cult. I was only 21, how sure was I that this was right? But I looked around the room at kind faces of people who loved me and I stayed. It was what my partner wanted and I was in love.

3. My partner tried to control my body. I needed to dress modestly to stop my wicked body from tempting men and leading them to sin. In spite of frequent urinary tract infections, my partner pressured me to wear the underwear he chose. I was sexually assaulted as a child, a strange man exposed himself to me in college, these events were my fault. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A righteous woman would have died before allowing herself to be sexually soiled.

4. My partner isolated me from my mother and pitted me against my sisters. I was only allowed to speak to my father and brother. I was a disloyal apostate for trying to talk to my mother. If I wanted to thank her for something or ask a question I had to go through my partner or other trusted male relative.

5. I love to read and study. It feeds me. As an introvert, I feel safest in a book. But my reading for personal growth and attainment was also loyalty tested and censored to stories of men with an occasional story of a submissive woman. For 20 years I gathered weekly with other women under orders from my partner and we studied stories of our male ancestors, acrobatically applying their masculine experiences to our feminine lives.

6. I was not allowed to touch money or exert control over finances. My contributions to the family income had to be turned over to my partner. I did not get a say in how the money was spent. He spent my money on real estate investments while children in our family went hungry. Sometimes our money was used to pay the legal fees of child molesters. I felt equally disgusted and complicit.

7. My partner taught me that the melanin in my skin was a reflection of the idolatry and corruption of my ancestors. It was written into our family history. If I was righteous and obedient my skin would become whiter. I was taught that the sexual submission of brown bodies to white bodies was essential to life now and in the eternities. I believed him when he told me, “It is the purifying path to righteousness for people of color.”

8. My partner threatened to separate me from my family forever if I was not perfectly obedient. I would never be reunited with my mother. I was promised I could only hope to meet her again one day in the home of my older brother if my partner (who has many wives) remembered my name and called me to come over.

9. My partner controlled what I ate and drank. When I was most eating disordered (restricting and over-exercising) I was most praised as attractive, pleasing, and disciplined.

10. My partner gave male children authority over me and granted them privileges and power I had tried to be worthy of throughout our relationship.

That is 10. Ten indicators that I was not in a healthy relationship. There were many more I have not listed. You might be asking yourself the question we too often ask of domestic violence survivors: Why did she stay?

I stayed for seduction, charm and codependence I called love. When we were in a honeymoon phase he would put me on a pedestal and call me angel mother, virtuous, pure, spiritual. I would feel special, full of light, joy, and certain I could never feel that kind of happiness away from my partner. I knew he was the one for me and confidently stated hundreds of times, “I know.” He constantly reminded me there was no life or happiness without him and I believed him.

After I recognized the abuse in the relationship. I worked hard to stay and deny the truth. I was afraid I would die if I left. Women leaving a relationship of domestic violence are at the greatest risk of being murdered when they leave.  When I started contemplating leaving and foolishly shared by doubts with him, he laughed and said, “Where will you go?”

I knew other wives of my partner were murdered for rebellion or disfellowshipped from the family. For simple acts: talking to their mother, writing about their mother, writing a true family history, reporting child sexual abuse, or advocating for women to have equal rights. I could be better, true, loyal. I would stay with him forever and live. One day he would reward me with a peaceful life of ease in a mansion filled with friends. I could endure.

There was no physical abuse. The emotional abuse did not seem that bad. I was perpetually in a self-esteem suppressing shame cycle. I stayed.

And I struggled. I did not want to lose my family. I knew leaving might mean permanent separation from all of my family. And I worried about the most vulnerable family members. Would they be safe if I left? Who would protect them?

I was repeatedly told I was responsible for my partner’s behavior and I believed it. I thought if I tried harder and was more perfectly righteous he would change and be the loving partner I knew he could sometimes be. If I just asked for what I needed in the right tone he would surely grant it?

In my culture, women don’t leave their partners. Commitment is forever. There was so much pressure to stay. Almost every friend and family member wanted me to stay. Who would I be if I left? He was my identity. I did not want to be judged, blamed, marginalized, pitied, looked down upon or to become a project.

But after that 2012 vision, as I reflected with the intern on domestic violence, I began to contemplate leaving. Soon it was all I could think about. I knew it would be difficult and dangerous. But I gathered my courage and tried it. I separated from my partner for a few months, before returning, humbled and submissive. He welcomed me and made some changes that gave me hope our relationship could work out. And after the brief honeymoon came more abuse. I cried, grieved and broke things in anger because I wanted to stay. I took my time. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on counseling. I wanted to be a more perfect partner. I wanted to fix us, but the abuse was relentless.

In November of 2015, I had the courage to leave again.

We remain separated. Although I do see him for special family occasions: mission homecomings, baptisms, performances.  It is hard to stay away. I have to choose my safety and well being over and over again. And I pray that one day I’ll be ready to finalize the divorce. But, in moments of weakness, I still hope so hard that he’ll change and we can be together again.

Since my separation, I have tried to move on and dated other partners: Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Buddhist, Unitarian. They do not try to control my body, voice, mind, what I wear or who I love. They encourage my autonomy and listen to me. And it is not what I am used to experiencing. It feels foreign to be treated with kindness and respect.

My partner -The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints lied when he kept me apart from my mother and myself with false traditions, rituals, and doctrines of control and domination. He was wrong to separate me from my mother. Wrong to pit me against my own body, mind, and heart.

I hope I never go back. And I work at it every day. I remain engaged with my broad Mormon family. Because I survived. Because I escaped. Because I won’t let separation from my abuser separate me from my family. I talk to my mother and see her every day. She is divine. I hold her hands in the garden. Bathe in her womb when I swim. I read the words of her prophets: women like Brene Brown, Bell Hooks, Nayyirah Waheed, and Pema Chodron. I see her face when I look in a mirror. I hear her voice when I speak. She is everywhere in nature. And she is feeding me so strong. Healing everything broken inside of me.

I will never again be separated from my Heavenly Maiden-Mother-Crone. I am a healer too. I see her and I can be her. I have learned the Goddess is always with me. And I remain engaged in the rescue and healing of those ready to leave their abusers.  I try to support those that want to stay with nurture and kindness. I remember when staying was all I wanted. I see my messy, broken, abusive family. I love them with strong boundaries that keep us all alive and safe.

And I remember. Once upon a time, all I wanted was to make my relationship to the Church work. I remember when I believed I was the broken one.

#MormonMeToo: A Survivor’s Story

[image error]By Sarah Pulliam

Thwack!

“You stupid woman. Why didn’t you just obey me in the first place. This always happens, you don’t listen and stuff like this happens. You couldn’t just keep your eyes to yourself. I am your husband, not that other guy.”

“But . . . I only said that I thought that he was cute. I could have . . .” I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence before angry hands were grabbing my hair and banging my head against the tile in our foyer of our home. Again and again and again it happened without relent. I prayed for the first time in weeks that he wouldn’t kill me. Thank God my prayers were answered. He stopped after the third time. I tasted the blood coming from a cut in my mouth before I felt it run down the side of my face from the gash above my eye. I felt him let go. I fell to the ground in a heap; shaking and crying.

He ran to our bedroom, I was hoping he wasn’t going to grab the gun that was in there to finish me off. I felt bile in my throat. Oh God, I was going to puke. I didn’t dare move, so I swallowed it down. Maybe if I just sat here and stayed really quiet he wouldn’t come back. That’s when I saw the red spots on the floor. My head. I reached up to just above my eye where my head had made contact with the floor. A sticky residue came off on my hand and I finally noticed the metallic taste. Still shaking, I stayed in front of our front door for I don’t know how long. Then I heard feet coming down the hall from our bedroom. My heart rate shot through the roof. I knew the day had come that I would die.

Still shaking, I looked up. There my husband stood with bandages and ointment ready to help clean me up.

“I don’t know why you always do that Sarah? Drive me to my breaking point. You get me so mad and you do it on purpose.” He began cleaning up my gash above my eye while he talked. “None of this has to happen. All you have to do is be loyal to me. I don’t understand it. I give you everything that you could ever want or need. I try and provide the best life for you. And the minute that another man walks into the room that looks halfway more successful and better looking than me, you want him.

I didn’t dare argue. I knew what happened if I did and right now I was doing everything I could to stay alive. I knew the truth in my heart and that’s all the mattered. He finished applying the last bit of tape across my eyebrow, before discarding the bloodied bandages in the trash. He came back with an ice pack from the freezer and offered to help me up with a touch from his hand. I flinched at him. Scared to death he was going to hit me again. I looked up to see sadness in his eyes for just a second and then the stone-cold wall was immediately replaced and fortified.

“Let’s get you to bed” was all he said before guiding me down the hallway into our bedroom. He left me there to get undressed while he went and got ready for bed in the bathroom. I didn’t bother to remove my bloodied clothes, just my shoes before sliding into bed.

While lying there, I began to wonder if I had imagined the whole thing—if the last hour or two had been just a nightmare. He had never hit me before. Well, no that wasn’t exactly true. He had hit me, just not as bad. Somehow the severity of a hit or maybe the repetition of the hit made things okay. I started believing that maybe I deserved the abuse. That he was right, things wouldn’t be so bad if I was a better wife. I would like to say that I left him the very next day, but I didn’t. It would be not months, but years before I got the courage to leave and never look back.

Sarah is a survivor, not a victim of domestic violence, who has found faith and restoration in Jesus Christ.

#hearLDSwomen: Gaslighted by My Bishop

 

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Gaslighting, whether done intentionally or not, is abusive. It is any behavior that sends a message to another person that might cause them to question reality.

 

After last April’s Saturday sessions of general conference, my bishop messaged those of us on the ward council. He asked us for ideas about how we as a ward could meet Sister Bonnie Osarson’s call in her talk, “Young Women in the Work.” In her talk, Sister Oscarson implores us to ensure that young women in the church feel “valued, have opportunities to serve, and feel that [they have] something of worth to contribute to the work.” As someone who cares deeply about the experience of everyone in the church, but especially those who are marginalized like the young women, I quickly messaged back with at least a half dozen suggestions. I was dismayed the following ward council when almost the entire ward council was spent discussing another issue. When I raised this topic near the end of the meeting, the bishop responded to me as though he hadn’t sent us all that message the previous Saturday. It was as if I were speaking another language: to every point I made about how we might include the young women more in the “work,” he acted as though I was being irrational for bringing up the topic. He reacted to my suggestions as though what I was saying didn’t make sense. These ideas were nearly identical to what I wrote in response to his message just a week before, many of which came from Neylan McBaine’s book, Women at Church.

I later spoke to my bishop in a one-on-one meeting about how he treated me. He initially apologized but then immediately rationalized his behavior as a miscommunication. He said he was focused on another issue that was important to him that day, and that because of time he didn’t want to talk about the young women at that meeting. And yet, despite attending many ward councils since then, the topic of giving the young women meaningful roles in the work of the church was never on a ward council agenda or raised by the bishop again.

Although I think my bishop tries to be an ally to women and other marginalized members of the church, he contributed to my marginalization that day. I share this experience not to criticize him, but because it’s important to point out how even well-meaning church leaders can unwittingly harm those they are charged to serve.

– Anonymous

 

I have been experiencing a belief crisis in the LDS Church for years. I have experienced intense internal conflict trying to reconcile what my core values are with what the Mormon Church requires its members to believe to be in full fellowship. I have been deeply disturbed by the harm done to the LGBTQ community because of discriminatory Church doctrines, policies, and practices. I am appalled that the Church refuses to apologize for the blatant racist practice of denying black women from participating in temple ordinances and not allowing black men to be ordained to the priesthood nor to receive their temple ordinances for well over a hundred years.

I have been the recipient of repeated public shaming, ridicule, and overt hostility by church leaders and ward members as I have used my voice to “speak up and speak out,” as President Nelson has implored women in the Church to do. I have felt the effects of the systematic oppression of girls and women in the Church. I have been reported to the stake president for holding my daughter during her baby blessing at church. I have been “reigned in” by my stake president (his words) for teaching nuanced, faith-promoting gospel doctrine lessons, and for having a testimony Heavenly Mother and having the audacity to say so over the pulpit.

As a result of this cumulative ecclesiastical/spiritual trauma, I have felt unsafe in my faith community and unable to feel peace or receive spiritual nourishment at church for years.

And yet for years I have stayed because despite all of the above, I love the Church and its people. It is my heritage on both sides of my family, and I want to pass on the good parts of Mormonism to my daughters. And I don’t want to lose the community I have invested over 40 years of my life in.

I have spoken to my bishop repeatedly over the years about my struggles with belief in the institutional Church because of how it harms marginalized people, and about the harm I have experienced in the Church. His pattern of responding to my pain has been on the whole invalidating and crazy-making. Every time I have expressed these things to my bishop, he initially says he understands while simultaneously counseling me unequivocally to stay. He says things like, “I’ve lived long enough to know that these things change. Just be patient.” Most hurtful of all, he spends most of his time responding to me by defending the very people who have harmed and silenced me.

After recognizing the damaging effects that staying in a religion that repeatedly harms me has had on me, I recently met with my bishop to let him know that I cannot continue to stay, and that my family and I are looking for a new faith community. His response was alarming: he equated my leaving the church to leaving the country we live in (the U.S.) because of the current political climate neither of us agree with, saying, “You just don’t do that.” He implied that staying in the Church was a matter of morality and referred to it as though it was a matter of life or death. I assured him that I was not planning to end my life. I explained, “I am simply seeking out a new faith community where I can use my God-given talents and skills and freely serve God’s children.”

It was devastating to be treated like I was crazy for doing what I feel is best for me and for my family, and for wanting to help people in ways that I simply cannot in the LDS Church.

– Anonymous

 

Pro-tip: Listen to women’s suggestions about how to improve the church community and take their pain seriously by validating them. Don’t defend abusers or church practices that are dehumanizing. When church members tell you that attending church no longer works for them, demonstrate unconditional love by supporting their agency to choose.

Align your words and your behavior. Utilize nonviolent communication tools such as empathy and honesty. (Learn more here and here.)

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. Has anything like this happened to you? Please share in the comments or submit your experience(s) to participate in the series.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)

 

[Photo via Kat Jayne on Pexels]

#hearLDSwomen: I Was Ignored; I Was Asked to Make My Voice Smaller

[image error]I give answers in Sunday school, and the teacher says “Okay… Next comment?” And a man paraphrases my answer as his own and gets lauded for his thinking.

– Jennifer

 

When I was in the Marriage and Family relations Sunday School class a few years ago, the teacher was fond of doing Powerpoints with a bajillion quotes. He said that he only wanted men to read them aloud to the class because “their voices carry better.” This same teacher also blamed the rise in crime in the US since WWII on working moms and talked about his male students at BYU who couldn’t find a wife because the women were too focused on their careers to get married.

– Anonymous

 

When I was 18 years old I was a Family Home Evening group “Mom.” I was in an off campus ward at BYU with all returned missionaries. My partner (the Family Home Evening group “Dad”) took me on a walk after a game night to tell me that I needed to be quieter, less jovial, more calm.

My wonderful roommates heard and called the bishop. He showed up at my door, listened, counseled with me, then went right over and censured that dude. Dude apologized.



The problem is, I never got it out of my head that being ME was too much. Bishop handled the whole thing perfectly. I just wish it had never happened at all.

– Morgan Hagey

 

Pro tip: When women share their thoughts in class, listen. If you’re not valuing women, the problem isn’t their voices, it’s your attitude.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. Has anything like this happened to you? Please share in the comments or submit your experience(s) to participate in the series.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)