Exponent II's Blog, page 261

Guest Post: Who Is Our Abuser? #MormonMeToo

[image error]By Lesley Ann

Dear LDS Patriarchy,

I have learned a lot in my personal and professional life regarding trials, triumphs resilience, and holistic well-being. I’ve read the wise words of sociologist, Brene Brown, on shame, vulnerability, authenticity, and courage. I’ve studied the work of abuse expert, Lundy Bancroft, on the characteristics of abusers and the cycle of abuse. I’ve learned about the damaging effects of spiritual abuse and tribal shunning from Christian-based therapist, Shannon Thomas. I’ve discovered the writings of researcher, Bessell Van der Kolk, on interpersonal aspects of psychological trauma. I’ve connected with the vision of social reformer Sister Joan Chittister. I’ve consumed the poems of Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, and Rumi, that offer eloquence in pain and expression to healing.

In none of my study, have I ever learned that is it healthy to deny facts, minimize rape, belittle sexual assault, rationalize abuse, enable predators, shame a survivor, and/or placate a population that looks to you for leadership. Nor is it ever acceptable to re-traumatize those who have been affected by abuse.

You have done this, LDS Patriarchy.

The sexual abuse scandal involving former MTC Mission President, Joseph Bishop, has shocked the Mormon community. This last week has been traumatizing for abuse survivors. It has been filled with pain, fury, sadness, heart-ache, disappointment, disbelief, and fury. We have witnessed your attempts to scrub details, to discredit this woman, and to dissociate yourself from the issues of accountability and justice.

You have done this, LDS Patriarchy.

I have held on to hope that surely, my church, this must be a mistake. Surely, my church, you must care about ‘the least of these.’  Surely, my church, you must realize how painful this is for us. Surely, my church, you will fix this when you find out. Surely, my church, will have the utmost integrity in handling this horrific situation.

You haven’t done this, LDS Patriarchy.

My expectation was that a church, that bears the name of Christ and that claims to be the only true and living church, will swiftly right these wrongs. You will assure us you will work tirelessly to address this pervasive issue. You will acknowledge your extensive failings and the unhealthy system that is currently in place. You will provide safety for victims who wish to come forward. You will work for desperately needed cultural change and reform.

You haven’t done this either, LDS Patriarchy.

This week, my hopes in you have faded. Like the notes in the margins of my first set of scriptures. Trauma has re-surfaced. Pain has set in. Profound bewilderment palpable in my waking moments and in my slumber of nightmares. The realization that you KNEW years ago about this abuse and predatory behavior and you did nothing is beyond anything I can comprehend.

You knew. And you did nothing.

I am angry. Call it righteous indignation if this helps. I am being honest. Something I wish you would do.

Don’t villainize my anger. As Sister Joan Chittister beautifully states, “anger is not bad. Anger can be a very positive thing, the things that moves us beyond the acceptance of evil.” Can’t you honor our anger and effect change for good?  Don’t characterize me by my membership status or church activity level. Don’t equate my worth with my willingness to trust, obey, and sustain my church leaders.

I am more than a number. I am more than a victim. I am more than a status. I am not a boxed to be checked or a blip on your radar. Perhaps Brene Brown said it best: “My story matters because I matter. I am absolutely enough.”

Abuse expert, Lundy Bancroft explains, “abusers thrive on creating confusion, including confusion about the abuse itself.” They are also unremorseful, unrepentant, and unempathetic. They tend to tell white lies, misdirect and deflect, have two sets of rules (one for themselves and one for everyone else), will subtly ignore you, have a totalitarian views, require full and unwaivering loyalty, use religious beliefs to perpetuate abuse, have a sense of superiority, can be charismatically charming and operate under benevolence. Their words do not match their actions and they will gaslight and use psychological manipulation as a means of control. They are also extremely concerned about their public perception, instead genuinity, integrity, and authenticity.

This sounds a lot like you, LDS Patriarchy.

You say you have a zero-tolerance policy against abuse.

False.

You say you take reports of abuse seriously.

False.

You say you share our anger and distress.

False. False. False.

I just don’t believe you anymore, LDS Patriarchy.  Not only have you NOT validated your countless victims, but you have not even acknowledged our existence. As Christian therapist Shannon Thomas says, “we are unable to heal from what we cannot, or will not, acknowledge exists.”

Furthermore, you seem to be in severe denial about the very fact that you have victims sitting in the pews of every single one of your congregations and undoubtedly even more that cannot even think of attending church anymore. You try to pretend we don’t exist. But “victims are members of society whose problems represent the memory of suffering, rage, and pain in a world that longs to forget”, Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk explains. You are not just going to be able to forget us, LDS Patriarchy. But I now have no doubt that you will try.

As Rumi says, “every story is us.”

Our stories say something about you, LDS Patriarchy. Have you listened to them?

No.

Please tell me, LDS Patriarchy, where are the women within your patrilineality, paternalism, and male gaze?

Please tell me, LDS Patriarchy, in your system of male dominance, male privilege, male leadership, male decision-making, male control, and male authority, what’s a woman to do….besides what you tell us to?

You see, LDS Patriarchy, in your system:

When we are abused, we have no one to believe us.

When we are hurt, we have no one to help us.

When we are neglected, we have no where to go.

What conclusion am I to reach, other than: The LDS Patriarchy is our abuser.

Slang Terms and Temple Recommends #MormonMeToo

[image error]It was a typical temple recommend interview. I had a previous temple recommend because I went to the temple to do baptisms when I was 12. I was 13 on that spring day when recommends needed to be annually renewed, so I was due for another.

 

My friend’s father was the bishopric member doing the interviews for the young women, I guessed because she was in my class—so it seemed nice that he was doing all of the Beehives. I had known the family ever since I could remember. The interview was on a Wednesday night, in-between whatever regular youth activities were planned.

 

The questions began and were average. But then he went off script. He asked me if I ever did certain sexual things, but he used slang terms with which I was not familiar.  I did not know what those things were. So I asked him. And he told me, rocking back in his chair with his legs spread.  No one had spoken to me about specific sex acts before, and I became frightened as he continued to ask me questions that were nothing like any temple recommend questions I’ve ever had before or since. I still sat through the interview, and finished it because I didn’t want my family to think I wasn’t worthy of a temple recommend.

 

I never wanted to be in a room with him again. I was terrified of him being in the temple doing the baptisms—I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t even shake his hand after the recommend interview, and rushed out the door—pretending I was too dumb to know or remember to shake his hand.

 

Luckily, another good man was the one to perform baptisms. But I was still afraid. It was just words—but words that were used when I was alone, and powerless—in a place where I wanted to come out of the room with the token that would show I was worthy.

 

This man tried to “meet” with me for “official church business” a few more times, but I found ways to be too busy or distracted. To my knowledge at that time, he was not meeting with anyone else for these meetings. I was afraid and didn’t know what to do—“maybe if I were ugly, he would leave me alone?” Wanting to be ugly was a strange concept, but I felt ugly on the inside from the things he said to me. How could I be ugly to him, but still acceptable to my friends?

 

Nearly a year later, and I was 14. Because there were only four Mia Maids, we were all in the Mia Maid presidency, and sort of rotated taking turns of who would be president. I was to be a counsellor this time around. And so this man asked me passing in the hallway to be a counsellor, as I never allowed myself to be in a room alone with him.  I said, “Let me pray about it….” And briskly walked away.

 

But I was terrified. I wasn’t familiar enough with church callings to know others would be in the room for me to be “set apart.” All I could imagine was being interviewed by this man for more detailed sex talk, and then him putting his hands on my head… or other parts of my body. Rumours were swirling amongst the young women about certain men and certain young men in the ward. Not the good kids of rumours– the terrifying kinds of rumours of things– things that President Kimball said that we should fight to the death to avoid, lest we become too complaisant in protecting our own virtue.

 

Luckily, I had a friend who was not a Mormon. And this friend had some electric clippers. After an afternoon at her house, my head was shaved on one side, and asymmetrically chopped on the other. Then I added some jet-black stripes on my otherwise mousey blonde mane. I ripped my jeans in certain places, and bought black Rit dye for most of my clothes.  I was no Cyndi Lauper, but I tried. I looked cool. And ugly—at least I hoped I looked ugly to this man.

 

It worked! I wasn’t called in the Mia Maid presidency! And I still had a temple recommend.

 

My mother told me I was wicked–after all, black nail polish doesn’t look pretty. She suspected I was drinking alcohol or smoking weed with my “non-Mormon” friends. I wasn’t. I just looked wicked. [image error] And I was avoiding one of my Mormon friend’s fathers. But to my mother, rejecting a calling just solidified my walk down the dark side. That and the copious black eyeliner I used on my eyes and lips.

 

But when others looked close, they would see embroidery floss knotted and secured with a safety pin on my jeans. And they would see me meticulously weaving friendship bracelets in joyful pastels, and bright rainbows—colours of freshness and light! Bracelets that I shared with my fellow Young Women—tokens of healing and friendship. Because in becoming ugly, and looking the part of darkness, I was protected. I protected myself. Because no one in church was protecting me.

 

Other Young Women in my ward were not clever as I was, even though we began to talk openly about it.  They were traditional Mormon pretty, “not allowed” to dress like me. I never asked if I was allowed. I did it to protect myself.

 

And thus, being Mormon pretty, they were not protected. They were not protected by the friendship bracelets. They were not protected with their temple recommends.

 

And  they were most certainly not protected by the Bishopric.

“A Wish for Zero Tolerance”

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A Wish for Zero Tolerance

We join Lorie Winder Stromberg of Ordain Women in calling for “significant, systemic change in the way abuse is handled in the church.” In a recent OW blog post, she asks us to participate in their postcard- and letter-writing campaign to send the following message (or one of your own choosing) to the church by this General Conference weekend:

 

“Dear Presidents Nelson, Oaks and Eyring,

Given the recent disclosures of sexual abuse and the reported dismissal of victims who come forward, my wish is that you aggressively address the problem of sexual abuse in the church by taking victims’ claims seriously, holding their abusers accountable, establishing systemic guidelines for reporting abuse independent of the male priesthood line of authority, and ceasing to dismiss or cover up instances of abuse involving members and leaders. There should be zero tolerance for such abuse in a church that bears Christ’s name.

Sincerely,

Lorie Winder Stromberg”

The Church Updates Rules on Interviews and How to Handle Abuse Claims

The church released a statement that effects the global church in regard to personal one-on-one interviews. The new policy supports those who choose to have another adult present. The new policy also amends the church handbook policy in regard to reporting abuse and how Bishops can better handle situations regarding abuse. Included in that is a bishops hotline for those in North America 1-800-453-3860, ext. 2-1911. There is no reported hotline or helpline outside of North America.

The Scandalous Recording Launched During The Same Week The Church Moved to Ban Recording

The Salt Lake Tribune article on the sex scandal that rocked the church the same week we the church supported legislation that would make clandestine recordings illegal.

“Healing From Sexual Abuse” by Chieko Okazaki #MormonMeToo

As part of our #MormonMeToo series, we are re-posting the video and transcript to Chieko Okazaki’s landmark talk entitled “Healing From Sexual Abuse,” which was originally delivered at BYU’s “Embracing Hope” conference on October 23, 2002.  We echo her call to believe victims, to encourage victims to seek professional help, and to support one another in the process of healing.  

My dear brothers and sisters, aloha! This is an unusual experience for me; the conference organizers asked me to speak to you today giving an address I prepared for a regional women’s conference in Portland, Oregon, in the late fall of 1992. That was ten years ago. So this is something of an anniversary for me. A few weeks later, in January of 1993, at the request of Sheri Dew, I taped this talk for Deseret Book. It sold thousands of copies, and even today nearly everywhere I speak, one or two or more women come up afterwards and quietly say to me, “Thank you for that tape. It helped me a lot.” I love the text to be published in a compilation of addresses titled Disciples that Deseret Book brought out in September of 1998, and here I am, giving this address again.

I am indeed honored to be asked, honored to participate in this assignment, and I am greatly saddened by the fact that the information in this talk still keenly relevant to so many members of the Church today. I have never experienced sexual abuse, nor has anyone in my family, but many friends, acquaintances, and troubled Relief Society sisters have honored me with their confidences. President Hinckley and President Monson have condemned this shocking sin in strong terms that brought it sharply to our awareness. In April conference this year, both President Hinckley and President Packer again repudiated this grievous sin. President Hinckley as recently as General Conference earlier this month denounced such sexual abuse again, warning that those who committed it could face action on their membership. I personally believe that the growing awareness of and resistance to sexual abuse is the fulfillment of the scripture which says, “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken [and I would add, have done] in darkness shall be heard in the light, and proclaimed upon the housetops.” Each survivor who tells her or his story, each individual who reports abuse, each police officer who arrests a perpetrator, each judge and jury who enforce the law, and each person who teaches children to protect themselves and to report abuse are part of fulfilling this prediction of Jesus Christ about the last days. This evil must be exposed before it can be repented of, and it must be repented of.

Brothers and sisters, let me share with you how I came to speak on this topic. I was the first counselor of the general presidency in the Relief Society at that time, and when I was invited to speak in Portland, I asked the stake Relief Society president about her concerns and the needs of the women in that area. When she sent me the list, one topic leaped out at me: sexual abuse. I felt a burden laid upon me from the Spirit that this was the message I was to speak in Portland. This was a very difficult thing for me to do. When I speak of love or faith or service or sisterhood, I often sense an easing of burdens and brightening in the feelings of those I address. Would this topic add to the burdens and intensify the pain of those who were already suffering? Did I know enough to be helpful, or would I injure those through clumsiness and ignorance? I fasted and prayed. I thought deeply and continually during the period of preparation. I consulted the stake president in the area. Most of all, I sought the Spirit of the Savior, that I would fulfill the responsibility laid upon me in the way that he would have me to do, that I would speak with clarity and with comfort for my own place of love and trust, that I could put an arm around a struggling sister and for a few steps help her walk the long, painful path of spiritual healing. My prayers were answered. In Portland I discovered that I had come to a place and a people prepared to hear this message. Several groups were already dealing explicitly with the support and healing of survivors. Priesthood leaders were informed, understanding, and supportive. I felt heard. People told me that they understood my message and felt the witness of the Spirit. It was both a sobering and an uplifting experience for me, and it has continued. I pray deeply and sincerely that the same Spirit will attend this occasion.

The case of physical or sexual abuse poses particular challenges. In such cases, we have to develop simultaneously protection against the abuse, shape a pattern of life for ourselves that means we do not become immoral and abusive in turn, and finally develop the ability to forgive those who have violated our agency and damaged our trust. I have chosen to focus on trust because I think that out of all the consequences of abuse, out of the pain and grief and shame and hurt and anger and sorrow and cynicism and rage and withdrawal and rejection of self and rejection of others, out of all these consequences, I think that the loss of trust may be the very worst of all. I want to talk about betrayal of trust in context of sexual abuse, and then talk about how to restore it.

One of the most powerful parts of the gospel for me is its promise of peace. I love the Lord’s reassuring words: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Yet that message, which he spoke to his apostles in Palestine in the context of teaching them about the second comforter, he repeated to Joseph Smith, that imbedded in very troublesome message, the Lord told Joseph Smith: “Therefore renounce war and proclaim peace and seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children, lest I come and smite the whole earth with a curse and all flesh be consumed before me. Let not your hearts be troubled, for in my father’s house are many mansions, and I have prepared a place for you, and where my father and I am, there ye shall be also.” Here he talks of war, of the hearts of fathers turned away from their children, of the cursing of the earth and the consuming of all flesh. This is a message that is very relevant, I believe, to sexual abuse. What the Savior told the Saints in a message annunciated in his day and repeated in ours is a very hard message: that war and unloving behavior and trouble and heartbreak and even betrayal are part of human life. We can count on our Heavenly Father, and we can count on the love of Christ as we struggle to love each other, but even at its best, no human love will be perfect. Perhaps betrayal is too harsh a word for most of the difficult experiences that we have. A gentler way of saying it is that everybody is going to let you down. Your spouse is not perfect; your children will disappoint you in some ways. People in your ward won’t always be thoughtful and neighborly, but betrayal is not too harsh a word for the situation in which the trust of innocent and powerless children does not protect them against physical and sexual abuse from a parent, a sibling, a teacher, or from another member of the Church, someone, in short, whose responsibility before God is to protect and nurture.

I have eight messages that I want to share about the terrible betrayal of sexual abuse. The first is this: sexual abuse is a problem for all of us, both men and women, whether we have experienced it personally or not. The most conservative statistic I have heard is that one woman in ten is sexually abused before she is eighteen. The worst I have heard is that the figure is closer to one in three. One in three. A comparable statistic for the sexual abuse of boys is one in ten, and researchers feel that the sexual abuse of boys is even more severely underreported than the sexual abuse of girls. There are no systematic studies of which I am aware done on Mormon men and Mormon women, but those who work with LDS women and men as counselors and therapists say they have no reason to believe that the statistics are any different for them than for the national population.

Now think about the worst statistics: one in three. If you are a woman, it means that you have a 33 percent chance of being that woman. If you are a man, it means that your wife, your mother, or your daughter, may be that woman. If you have three daughters, if you have three sisters, if you have three daughters-in-law, if you have three granddaughters, this terrible evil could have entered your family’s life with or without your knowledge. Consider the men in your life. Think about your sons and grandsons, your missionary companions. Did one of them struggle silently with this spiritual burden? If you have worked in three elders’ quorum presidencies or bishoprics or stake presidencies, the statistical odds are that one of them bore this grievous, invisible wound. Think of your friends; think of the women sitting in your Relief Society and the men sitting in the priesthood meeting. Think of the children in your Primary. Sexual abuse is a problem for all righteous women and all righteous men everywhere.

The second message is that sexual abuse is not the child’s fault. Sometimes we hear statements from people suggesting that sometimes a victim of sexual abuse has some kind of responsibility for the abuse. I asked a woman, a former Relief Society president who had been sexually abused by her father when she was a child, to help me understand why some people feel that women who are raped or wives who are battered or little girls or boys who with sexual abuse may have done something to cause this evil to come upon them. With her permission, I share her answer. She said, “I think for some, it must have something to do with an understandable desire to believe that parents cannot, and therefore, would not do this without some provocation from their children. I don’t know what will help those who want to believe that as Saints we are immune to such impulses.” She continues, “I often find myself wondering why even we who knows our parents as abusers continue to protect them by idealizing them. At the heart of them, I think it is my child’s self-interested hope of escaping pain. She thinks, ‘He’s not bad; I’m bad. If he’s bad, I’m inevitably at risk. If I’m bad, I can be safe because I can stop being bad. If I can believe that I’m making my father do this to me, I can believe that I can make him stop.’ Accepting such responsibility,” she says, “becomes a way of not feeling the absolute despair of conscious powerlessness and the inevitability of recurring attack without possibility of rescue. Of course,” she said, “the hope is in vain, but the time blocked at the price of guilt and shame can save one’s sanity. Eventually the little child must go back and feel the despair, but only when she has matured enough to bear it.

Now the third message I have is that women and men who have been sexually abused probably need professional help and certainly need personal support. In the vast majority of cases, they need professional help because sexual abuse, and particularly incest, attacks the very foundation of their identity. They need our personal support because they have learned not to trust other people and not even to trust themselves. Sometimes they have terrible memories which they deny. Sometimes there are even more terrible gaps in their memories, which they are terrified to explore. Such profound isolation from other people can come close to a kind of insanity.

One man who shared his experiences of being sexually abused by his father told me, “I told all alone at church a lot of the time. In fact, I have not attended my meetings sometimes for up to a year because I cannot face the members.” And then he told about his agony at sitting through a lesson in which our responsibility to forgive was presented as an absolute requirement. When he tried to suggest that sometimes it is not possible to forgive until some healing has taken place, his comment was received judgmentally and without understanding. The teacher rebuked him, and when he tried to explain his feelings, a heated debate developed. He said wistfully, “I wish that I felt safe and accepted during elders’ quorum, but every time I enter that room that I am commanded to go into, I feel as though I’m going in front of a firing squad.” Normal happy voices, respectful listening, and simple trust can sometimes be lifelines. If you have a friend who needs someone to listen, and if you can be a voice of steadfast love for her or him, please accept that burden if you can. If there are things you can’t understand, please ask questions but also acknowledge you may not want to talk about this and that’s okay. We must never seek to know more than a man or woman is willing to share. We must never violate the privacy of survivors as their bodies and their sense of self have been violated in the past, and we must never betray their trust. That would add one more betrayal to the burden they already carry. Please be wise in your support. Don’t take on more than you can handle, and don’t try to become a therapist. Instead encourage your friend to get professional help while you maintain a close loving contact.

Fourth, women and men who are coming to terms with sexual abuse need all the spiritual help they can get. Pray with them if you wish. Pray for them. Encourage them to seek priesthood blessings. Read the scriptures with them if they wish. Encourage them to read their patriarchal blessings. Attend church functions with them if they need companionship. Go with them to the temple if they want to go. My friend told me that a very important part of her own willingness to start working on her abuse was receiving a blessing from a priesthood holder when she was just beginning to suspect sexual abuse in her past. Her own memories were chaotic and unclear, and she was reluctant to seek the blessings, she says, because, “I needed some guidance from the Lord that I wasn’t able to trust myself to hear. You see, I very much did not want to open a door that could not be closed. I wanted to get on with my life. I feared destroying by my becoming conscious of these things the hard-won and fragile peace in my family, and I was hanging on to the hope that I was making all of this up.” My friend was not making it up, of course, and the priesthood blessing told her things that she did not consciously know about until later. For instance, he told her in the blessing that her mother had played a role in her abuse. Later my friend discovered that her mother did in fact know about the abuse and had refused to help her. Think how much strength you would need to bear that terrible knowledge.

Fifth, those of you who are teachers and leaders have a special role in play in supporting a man or a woman who’s going through the aftermath of abuse. I would hope that every teacher in the Church will remember that in his or her classroom is almost certainly at least one person who has survived sexual abuse. With that person in mind, think of the stories you tell, the questions that you ask, and perhaps most importantly, the assumptions you make. Think of a seven-year-old girl whose father sexually abuses her. What does she feel when the Primary sings, “I’m so glad when my daddy comes home”? Think of a twelve-year-old boy who is physically and sexually abused by an uncle who is the stake patriarch. How does he deal with his confusion during a lesson which teaches that we should obey our priesthood leaders because they want what is best for us? Think of a woman whose husband beats and rapes her. What feelings go through her mind as a Relief Society teacher explains that it is the wife’s responsibility to maintain the spiritual atmosphere in the home and to support the priesthood? To these confused, despairing children and adults in pain, the teachers speak with the voice of the Church. Such messages have a great potential for increasing their pain and despair. Leaders play an especially important role. Parents and husbands, authority figures, and abusive authority figures may make it seem virtually impossible for someone who has been equally sexually abused to seek help from yet another authority figure. But I have had several survivors of sexual abuse tell me that the consistent concern of a priesthood leader, even when he did not fully understand the issue or what was happening, literally kept them from committing suicide. Blessings and respectful listening are very important. They validate to a survivor that he or she is not making it up and does not have to go through the healing process alone.

My friend shared one specific way in which leaders can perform a very real service for survivors in that situation. She pointed out that self-doubt is one of the inescapable results of enduring abuse. “That is why,” she continued gently, “it is so painful when others stand at the pulpit and doubt you, too. I think the reassurance of receiving a blessing from a priesthood leader spared me any further delay from the hopeful doubt that the work ahead of me didn’t need to be done. With the blessing I had permission to undertake the cure.” She continues, “That is one enormous contribution Church leaders can make: give permission to take the cure. Release the victims from having to continue to take care of their victimizers. If you wish to challenge the victims of child abuse, do not challenge the reality of their memories or accuse them of being responsible for what happened to them. Rather, challenge them to take responsibility for their own fate while expressing sympathy for the painful undertaking this will be. And always hold out the promise of the Savior that “I am with you even to the end.’ Who can do this better than those who are his witnesses.”

Another woman who had survived years of sexual abuse from her father spoke to me of the dreadful task of healing. I think of the Savior who shuddered because of the suffering, who suffered and bled at every pore, and drew back from the bitter cup, hoping that it was not necessary. He shrank away, but it was necessary. He says, “And I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.” Children of men is a stock phrase in the scriptures that means all human beings or the human family, but in this context, I hope you will also hear it as a literal phrase, as the little children who have been betrayed and injured at the hands of men, especially who were entrusted with their care. Christ finished his preparations for these children. The time of their physical torment may be over, but the time of their spiritual torment is great. Christ also adds significantly, “Glory be to the father.” For him, accepting and fulfilling the atonement was a dreadful task, but because he did it, we too can lift the dreadful cup to our lips. The scriptures tell us, “He descended below all things in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all, and through all things the light of truth, which truth shineth, this is the light of Christ.” It may seem inconceivable that the light of Christ is eradiating and illuminating the horrifying images and memories associated with sexual abuse, but such is his promise. If this is your situation, cling to that promise. Cling to the light, and let it grow stronger.

The sixth message I want to share is that healing from sexual abuse is a very long and very painful process. According to one study that included LDS women, being able to reach the ultimate step of forgiving the perpetrator and moving on took an average of fifteen years. Many women and men who have been sexually abused respond in ways that they cannot control, with irrational fears and compulsive behaviors, even in repeated transgressions. Very often they are so filled with guilt and self-loathing that repentance seems impossible for them. Let me borrow an image from a sensitive bishop who works hard to help members of his ward who have been sexually abused. He urges leaders, family, and friends to realize that their loved one, a ward member, has been injured, just as if he or she had broken a leg that had never been set properly. Even though the person can walk and may have forgotten about the injury, true healing and true strength cannot return until the injury is acknowledged, the bone rebroken, and the leg set correctly. Please recognize and realize that someone who has been sexually abused has been deprived of part of her or his free agency. The individual cannot get it back except through the long and difficult process of healing from sexual abuse. If you are willing to make a commitment to be a friend during this process, make a long-term commitment. Often when we acknowledge a problem, we want it fixed quickly. We think a few visits to a therapist, a few priesthood blessings, a few tears shed, a few hugs should make everything all right. Not so. The process of healing may be more complex than I realize, different for each survivor, but let me share with you again what my friend says: “It is hard to answer questions that one hasn’t been asked, to explain to people who already think they know, to talk to people who do not talk to you. It is especially hard when their talking to you is an attempt to make the subject go away. I want it to go away, too. I thought it would go away after I woke up screaming in the night, or after it made me so afraid I would throw up over and over, or after I’d recovered the three-year-old and the six-year-old parts of myself, or after I wrote the letter to my father, or after, or after–the pain just ebbs and flows. I am in so much pain that I will do anything to pass through this as efficiently as possible. A lake cannot repent of its pollutants; it can only submit to being dredged and flushed of its debris and poisons. I am learning that the pain is not an end in itself, but it leads me to what I am to learn, and with each lesson, I get more of my life back.”

Now the closing words of her most recent priesthood blessing assured her “that Christ not only sorrows at my suffering, but suffers with me as I suffer. I am amazed at the love he offers me. I also lose what hope I had of escaping my pain any other way than by experiencing it. I wanted to be otherwise; then I remember Alma’s great testimony that Christ will descend below all things that he may succor his people according to their infirmities.” And then she continues, “I remember my own experience of being with someone who is suffering, knowing that it is their fate and that all I can offer is to suffer with them. Though I would take it away or explain it away or find someone else who would and who could, the Spirit tells me that it cannot be done and that I must stand there in the pain with them in the suffering.”

The seventh point I want to make involves the perpetrator. I realize that women also physically and sexually abuse children. What I saw applies to them as well, but in most cases of sexual abuse involving women, girls, or boys, the perpetrator is male. As women we know the victims and hear their stories, but we also know perpetrators. Most abusers have mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters, yet the secrecy with which we shroud the victim is nothing to the secrecy with which we shroud the perpetrator. When the abuse is incest, that means that a wife and a mother either does not know or chooses not to know what her husband is doing to their child. She may love him and choose to not know what is happening because the knowledge is too painful, because she feels to helpless, because there is too much to lose. Please remember the words of the Savior: “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea.” If you know a perpetrator and if you love him or if you love his victim, set the processes in motion so that the perpetrator can receive help and start on his own process of healing. He needs professional help; he also needs ecclesiastical help, and he has committed a crime which he must answer for in the courts of justice. My friend was born into an LDS family that had been active in the Church for generations on both sides. That lineage did not make her father pure; it did not make her mother brave. It did not protect my friend. I implore you not to shield perpetrators out of mistaken sense of love. I’ve never seen any studies suggesting that those who sexually abuse children will alter their behavior without direct intervention. We must believe this message. No child in the neighborhood is safe from a sexual abuser. No child or grandchild in a family is safe. In many ways, the whole topic of sexual abuse is strange to me. I feel unskilled in thinking about or in knowing how to help someone who is a survivor. I’m one of the other two women, not the third. I think of my father, of his steadfast willingness to work his life away as a laborer on a plantation in Hawaii to provide for his parents, for my mother, for me and my brothers. I think of his quiet pride in me and the determination he and my mother had that I would get an education even when that meant sending me away from them, even when it meant sending me beyond economic and social level they had reached. I think about my husband, who lived his life for others in the purest expression of Christ-like love I have ever known. I think about my two sons, strong and gentle and loving. My heart is filled with gratitude to the point of overflowing for these men in my life. Then I think about other daughters who are brutally taught that they exist as instruments to serve the twisted sexual needs of their fathers. I think about sons who are abused until they grow up thinking that all fathers torture their sons. I think of wives who live with the threat of physical abuse from their husbands or turn their heads away from the tears of their daughters or other mothers who see their sons grow up to become abusive husbands. I am filled with sorrow.

My eighth message is that we can do much to stop the abuse before it starts by holding the men and women in our lives to gospel standards. I’ve heard the disgusting report that some incestuous fathers justify their vile behavior by saying they are simply carrying out the Church’s instructions to make sex education a topic that is handled in the home. We can refuse to accept rationalizations and twisted logic. We can label such behavior for the sin and the crime that it is. We can raise sons and daughters who do not make disparaging remarks about other girls or boys or who think that they can bully anyone else just because they are stronger. We can teach children to feel ownership of their own bodies and to trust their feelings. We can insist that our sons respect the young women they date. We can raise daughters who have a sense of themselves and daughters of God too strong to submit to abusive treatments from their husbands. But perhaps most importantly, we can be adults who accept fully our divine identity as children of our Heavenly Father. We can accept and be ennobled by the eternal sacrifice of Christ’s atonement, not for someone else, but for us, ourselves. We can refuse to accept abuse, to make excuses for an abuser, or to turn our heads away from those who have suffered abuse. We can refuse to keep the guilty secrets of abusive men and women in our families, our wards, and our neighborhoods who are damaging and destroying innocence.

I have spoken today of us and them as though all of us are the fortunate two or the fortunate nine and as though the one statistical victim of abuse is someone else, a woman or man who is a statistic in another state, a person who is comfortably distant so that we do not have to deal with his or her pain. This is not the impression I want to leave. We are all here together in this Church. We are all here together in this problem, and we must be all part of the solution. How is it possible to reveal trust that has been betrayed? When the fabric of our lives is ripped and wrenched, what will make it whole? Let me use the analogy of a piece of lace or a crocheted dolly or a cat’s cradle. All of them begin with a long, straight thread or string. It becomes complex and beautiful when it touches other parts and other strings, but all of them are fragile. They can be shredded, unraveled, and torn, but we need to remember that there is a pattern. Even if it is damaged, it can be rewoven. Second, each part supports the other parts and is connected to them. You cannot pick one string out without destroying the whole pattern. I am part of the pattern. The bishop who sits with the injured members of the ward while they face the injury and begin healing is part of that pattern. My friend who discovered the abuse buried deep in memories of her childhood is part of the pattern. You are part of this pattern, and the Savior is part of this pattern. I like to think of the Savior’s love as filling the spaces in the lace where there is no thread because there wouldn’t be a pattern if there weren’t spaces. I think of him as the intersections where the threads come together, making something special happen where they touch and connect. We can be part of this network of service and support, and we can be part of the Savior’s pattern.

And now how can you build and keep that image in your mind? One thing that helps is to find a scripture that breathes a promise of healing to you or a hymn or a poem. When I was recovering from the sudden death of my beloved husband, who died in the spring of 1992, I clung to the second verse of “Abide with Me,” which says: “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day. Earth joys grow dim; it glories pass away. Change and decay in all around I see. O thou who changest not, abide with me!” The promise of the sacrament prayer, that we may always have his spirit to be with us, is another promise of great power and consolation. Hymn 115, “Come Ye Disconsolate,” acknowledges pain but also promises hope. Let me read the first verse: “Come ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish; come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel. Here bring your wounded hearts; here tell your anguish.” And then it promises and says, “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure.” These words breathe a spirit of comfort and consolation to me. I hope they do the same for you, that you can find others that speak the same strength from the Savior, the same never failing support and love. When times are hard for you and when you struggle with emotions you wish you didn’t have, will you think of them again? Draw deeply from their strength. But there is healing in the gospel and in the unfailing love of our Father in Heaven.

How do we rebuild our trust in the Lord and in other human beings when a human being has so seriously violated that trust? First accept that you will have very conflicting emotions. It is normal that you should. Psalm 55 seems to me to be something like a dialogue between the hurt and the injured self and the self that trusts in the Lord. Listen as I read it, adapted slightly to this situation; first the troubled and pained voice speaks: “Listen to my prayer, O God. Do not ignore my plea. Hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me, and I am distraught at the voice of the enemy, at the stares of the wicked, for they bring down suffering upon me.” And now this seems to me to be the very antithesis of the Savior’s reassuring promise when he said, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” And in a situation of betrayal and violated trust, even our memories bring down suffering upon us, so the troubled voice continues and says, “My heart is in anguish within me. The terrors of death assail me. Fear and trembling have beset me. Horror has overwhelmed me. I said, O that I had the wings of a dove. I would fly away and be at rest. I would flee away to my place of shelter.” Then the sense of betrayal comes out sharply, and it says, “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it. If a fool were raising himself against me, I could hide from him. But it is you, a person like myself, my companion, my close friend with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship as we watched with the throng at the house of God. This person attacks his friends and children; he violates his covenant. His words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords.” Now as sisters and brothers we can understand this. Because of this betrayal comes rage, violent anger, even a desire for revenge. Now listen to the voice of the Psalmist as he prays in anger and despair: “Let death take my enemies by surprise. Let them go down alive to the grave. Bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption, bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days.” But then, ah, then comes the voice of promise and reassurances and says: “But I call to God and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning, and noon I cry out in distress and he hears my voice. He ransoms me unharmed from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me. Cast thy burden on the Lord and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Thou, O God, I will trust in thee.” Accept that ye will deal with much emotional turbulence, with anger and pain, with desire for revenge with a desire to flee away. Accept that the process of having the corruption drained away is a long and painful process. Trust in the Lord throughout that process.

Second, find others whom you can trust. I think it is very important that you seek out your bishop or another priesthood leader when you feel you can and share this burden. It may be hard to talk to a man if a man was your abuser. Find a trusted woman leader to talk to and accompany you when you are ready to go to your priesthood leader. In material prepared with the support of the Brigham Young University’s Women’s Research Institute, I quote, “Victims need to be believed. They need to be listened to. They need to be relieved of any inappropriate guilt about their role in the abuse. Many women reported the strength they felt as their bishops and therapists worked together. This arrangement allows bishops to concentrate on the spiritual and physical welfare of their ward members while the trained professional works with the victim to resolve emotional issues.” One of the women was so anxious and frightened about going to her bishop that she wouldn’t let him shut the door of his office during their first conversation. But when he heard her story, “he cried with me,” she said, “and that is when I started trusting him. He is the first man I ever remember trusting. I gave my therapist permission to talk with him to better understand how he could best help me.” And now another woman reported that her bishop was also initially baffled about how to help her, but he took the time to go out and get educated. He still keeps in touch with her even though she has moved to another state.

Third, do not try to rush or short circuit the forgiveness process, but continue to work towards it as you can. Wendy Ulrich, a psychologist in private practice, talks about the need to balance both justice and mercy during the process of coming to forgiveness. She writes, “The principle of justice requires an honest appraisal of our current systems and the realities of our pain. To forgive prematurely can close doors to the important realities that pain can open. Justice requires that we not assume responsibility for sins we have not committed, that we not assume power to control decisions we cannot control, and that we not exonerate others’ actions when they are dangerous and destructive. To attempt to be merciful in the absence of justice is to deny the characteristics which make God God. The principle of mercy follows the principle of justice but cannot rob it. Mercy allows peace to come to the forgiver as he or she enlarges her understanding of all contributors, take action on his or her own behalf, and extends to others the mercy he or she would claim for himself or herself through the atonement of Christ. The forgiver leaves to God the sorting out of responsibility and intentions, acknowledging others’ circumstances and agency and accepting any and all good consequences that have come from his or her relationship, just as he or she has acknowledged the evil.”

Brothers and sisters, we still have our free agency no matter what other people do to us and even if we must work hard to regain parts of it that have been taken away. Our Heavenly Father’s spirit is constantly available to us. He sorrows with us and is with us in our pain when abuse occurs. He is there when we start to make the first steps back. His love is steadfast. We may feel betrayed by our family, our Church, our society, and even by God, but God does not betray us. His love is never changing. I want to read to you another psalm, and I want you to speak the words in your own mind to imagine that this is your psalm, spoken in gratitude and praise to the Lord: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. In him will I trust. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my high tower and my refuge, my Savior, thou savest me from violence. When the ways of death compass me, the floods of the ungodly made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compass me about; the snares of death captured me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he did hear my voice out of his temple and my cry did enter into his ears. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them that hated me. He delivered me because he delighteth in me. Thou art my lamp, O Lord. Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation, and thy gentleness hath made me great. Thou hast girded me with strength to battle. The Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock, and exalted by the God of the rock of my salvation.”

Perhaps these are not words that are in your heart yet. I pray that someday they may be, that the words of other scriptures sink deep into your heart. Hear his voice saying, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He knows the burdens with which you struggle. He understands your heartbreak, your self-doubt, the anger, and the despair. Perhaps when he says, “Come unto me,” all you feel is paralysis. If you feel you cannot go to him, remember that he is already with us. Listen to his words from Hebrew 13: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” So that we may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what others shall do unto me.” Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Matthew records the Savior’s final words to his apostles: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” In 2nd Kings, the Savior speaks gently to a sorrowing person: “I have heard thy prayer. I have seen thy tears; behold, I will heal thee. Go up unto the house of the Lord.” Now think of those words as if they were spoken to you, and listen to this promise of the end times as though it were your vision: “And I, John, heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is among us, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither there shall be any more pain for the former things are passed away.” Believe that assurance. Believe the prophets who promise us, “And he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness, and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female.” What greater bondage can there be than being enchained by a sin from which you cannot even repent because it was not you who committed it? I implore you to turn to the Savior. I testify to you that when the scriptures tell us, “He descended below all things,” it means that he understands, knows, and accepts the pain of sexual abuse, as well as other kinds of innocent suffering. He is there with you in that suffering. I tell you that I love you. I pray daily for you, for your help and healing. For those of you who have been spared the scourge of abuse, I ask you to open the circles of your sisterhood and brotherhood. Include those whose trust has been betrayed by those who should have been their protectors. Open your hearts to them. Let them open their hearts to you. This is a burden that is grievous to be born. May we shoulder it together, not many adjust it upon the backs of those who have born it so long alone. May we love each other with a pure unselfish active love as the Savior has loved us. May our troubled hearts find the peace we seek with him, I pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Guest Post: Open Letter to the MTC abuse victim and the LDS Church #MormonMeToo

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To Our Dear Courageous Sister:

I have not been able to post about this so far because the only words I had were incoherent, soul-wracking wailing. But today I say:

I BELIEVE YOU.

I BELIEVE YOU.

I BELIEVE YOU.

I KNOW that his confessions are true.

I KNOW that you are one of manymanymanymany who have been betrayed and abused and silenced and broken.

I KNOW that the church’s practice of believing powerful men over victimized women is pervasive, and longstanding, and evil.

I KNOW that the forces gathering to shame and discredit and harm you are legion, and powerful, and vile.

I KNOW that manymanymanymany of our sisters are watching how the church and its people will respond as they decide whether to finally tell their stories. And I KNOW that we are failing them, and failing spectacularly.

I KNOW and I am so deeply, truly sorry.

I REPENT of my own complicity in keeping silence about abusive, powerful, dangerous Mormon men who have harmed me and others. I REPENT of the ways I have enabled and hidden those abuses. I COMMIT to speaking out about the abuses I have seen and will see, and to never again letting concern about my standing in the church (I am so ashamed as I write those words that I am brought again to tears) prevent me from shouting those abusers’ names from the rooftops.

To my Mormon friends who have not read or listened to the confession–please read it.

Do not trust the words of those who would minimize or excuse or deny this man’s testimony of his abuse of multiple victims, his “confessions” on multiple occasions to high church officials, the utter lack of church discipline or accountability for those actions, his blatant conscious manipulation of the faith of innocent girls and women to irreparably harm their bodies and their souls. Do not listen to those who would explain away the conscious betrayal of at least two women by church authorities, and the deliberate, self-serving, gaslighting dishonesty of the church’s official statement and their church-owned newspaper.

READ and LISTEN and BEAR WITNESS to this evil. Do not allow your heart to be distracted by those who would excuse the vilest sin. If we ignore or deny this epidemic of violence against the bodies and minds of the daughters of God, we (WE, each of us) enable this evil to continue.

I am so sick. I am so angry.

I pray that this shatters wide the secret combinations of abuse enabled by power and misogyny and the sinful ghosts of Mormon polygamy. I pray that it burns clear through to the very heart of the church and purifies the rotten festering core of misogyny and power and lust and greed.

Finally, to my silenced suffering sisters: I BELIEVE YOU TOO. I believe you. I hear you. It was not your fault. NONE OF IT was your fault. It has NEVER been your fault.

IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT.

I support your decision to speak, or to stay silent. To do what you need to do to stay safe.

If you choose to speak, I will amplify your words. If you choose to stay silent, I will make space for your silence.

I BELIEVE YOU.

And to the members of the Strengthening the Members Committee (or “members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles” or just “church leaders” whatever you think best, I don’t have a preference).

You are running out of time. You are losing the chance to protect this church from becoming only a church of elderly straight white men.

If the church wants to be a church that cares about women, if you truly believe that the church does actually care about women, then you must FIX THIS NOW.

NOW.

NOW.

NOWNOWNOW.

YOU ARE HARMING US. YOU ARE LOSING US. YOU ARE LOSING OUR CHILDREN.

If you care about the pain of God’s non-male children, you MUST stop insisting that a structure that will always, by its very nature, harm girls and women is from God. A structure which keeps men separate from women, which never allows women to be seen in any position of real authority, and which cultivates relationships of reciprocal trust only between men while casting any interaction between men and women as dangerous, as inappropriate, as always leading to sexual “temptation,” will always harm the church and the women in it. Such a structure will always assure that men believe other men instead of women, that men see victims of violence as “accusers of their friends and priesthood brethren” instead of human beings who have been harmed by abusive men.

Mormon men, in general, cannot imagine a scenario in which they would be sexually assaulted by a church leader and then repeatedly blamed for that assault. Mormon men, in general, can much more easily imagine a scenario in which it is alleged that a family member assaulted others and they personally have to experience the shame and embarrassment that accompanies that knowledge. This is why men protect men. And this is why an all-male power structure will always disproportionately harm women. And this is why this power structure must now finally be changed.

Fix it.

Fix it NOW.

You MUST stop believing that God is willing to sacrifice the safety and health and LIVES of women and girls on the altar of male priesthood and male ego (“but men won’t come to church if they’re not in charge'”) or male inadequacy (“but women are naturally superior and therefore men need to be in charge to LEARN how to be as spiritual as women etc etc etc”) or whatever “explanation” we are peddling this year.

GOD DOES NOT THROW THEIR DAUGHTERS UNDER THE BUS TO GLORIFY/IMPROVE/JUSTIFY/EXCUSE THEIR SONS.

Man does.

YOU MUST FIX THIS.

We are dying inside. We are fleeing the church for our own survival. We are taking our children with us for theirs. If you care, if you want us to believe that we matter, if you want us to believe that you are listening to God, if YOU believe that you are listening to God, listen to the cries of God’s children.

Fix. This. Now.

If Mormon men do not see women acting as their equals, they will never see women as their equals. It will never happen. You MUST change these structures that enable and ensure that women and girls will continue to be abused, continue to be disbelieved, and continue to suffer at the hands of well-intentioned, “God-serving” men who cannot and will not hear their cries.

This fire is going to burn through all the rotten hidden oozing places of the church’s secret shame. This might be your last real chance to save the church from these sins. To assure that there is anything left after the fire to save.

Please listen to us. Please listen to her. Please listen to our Heavenly Mother and her daughters who are pleading with you to finally change these things that wound us, body and soul. We need our daughters to be safe to stay. We need you to make the church a place where we can believe that they will protected, and when they cannot be protected, a place where they will be believed.

This might be your last chance. You are running out of time.

Olivia Meikle was born and raised in Utah and now lives in Colorado where she teaches Women’s Studies at Naropa University, hosts the women’s history podcast   and authors the travel website Around the World in 80 Diapers which empowers parents to travel internationally with their children. 

“Meditations on Belief”- Announcing the Church’s 11th International Art Competition

The Church History Museum is now accepting submissions for the 11th International Art Competition. The submission period will be open from February 1, 2018, until June 1, 2018. You can submit your artwork online.

We are also pleased to announce the jury members for this competition: Herman du Toit, J. Kirk Richards, Jean Richardson, Analisa Coats Sato, and Elaine Thatcher. You can read more about each juror on the museum website.

We look forward to seeing the artwork you have created in connection with this competition’s theme, “Meditations on Belief.”

If you encounter any issues with submitting your work, please contact the museum at 1-801-240-3310 or at ChurchMuseum@ldschurch.org.

Start Here: Change These Policies to Better Prevent Abuse by LDS Priesthood Leaders #MormonMeToo

[image error]Include women equally with men in LDS Church policymaking.  Current policy is written almost exclusively by men, with almost all women in the church banned from even reading many church policies.  As such, it is not surprising that church policy is biased toward protecting men from false allegations instead of protecting women from rape.

Provide a hotline or ombudsman program for church members to report abuse.  At present, a hotline exists for male church leaders to call and get legal advice to protect themselves, but rank-and-file members have no recourse.

Church disciplinary councils need to include women.  Currently, only men may call or staff church disciplinary councils, so women have no say as to whether abusers will be permitted to stay in our congregations and female survivors must endure the traumatizing experience of describing how they were sexually abused to all-male panels.

Two-deep leadership and background checks should apply to all church leaders who work with children.  Mormon boys are protected by these common sense approaches at Boy Scout activities, but the church does not require the same degree of protection for girls.  Neither are protected during ecclesiastical interviews.

Ecclesiastical interviews should include standard informed consent language, informing church members of their basic rights such as the right to refuse to answer questions and the right to end the interview at any time.

Require church leaders to refer sexual assault survivors to professionals for counseling. Untrained, volunteer clergy are not equipped to handle such cases.

Limit ecclesiastical power.  There is no bill of rights for church members and many policies on the books give untrained, volunteer, male clergy, working with little or no oversight, broad power to punish local members who do not comply with their demands.

Ordain women.  Mormons are taught that men preside and protect, but history has taught that systems in which women must depend on men to protect them do not work. Dependent women are not safe women.

For a more detailed list of potential policy changes, see A Values-based Approach to Woman-friendly Policy in the LDS Church.

Like A Fire #MormonMeToo

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Photo by Evaldas Daugintis on Unsplash

When I was a teenager, my stake adopted “The Spirit of God” as a theme song for the young men/young women programs. I always felt a thrill at the opening words, “The spirit of God, like a fire is burning. The latter-day glory begins to come forth!” I imagined my pioneer ancestors singing that same song at the dedication of the Kirtland temple, bursting, like I was, with all the conviction and certainty in the world that this was God’s work. That we were part of a chosen people. That this Church was something special.

Fire has always been a symbol full of contradictions. Fire brings warmth and light, but can also destroy and burn. The spirit of God burns in our bosom. So does anger.

In Wicca fire is holy, representing destruction and creation, death and rebirth. The idea of birth through fire is mirrored stories and myths and belief systems throughout history. The mythical bird, the phoenix, grows and matures through its life cycle until it catches fire and a new phoenix is born from the ashes. In the New Testament John the Baptist says “Indeed I baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire,” (Matthew 3:11). Baptism is a metaphorical recreation of the resurrection; baptism by fire, by some interpretations, is the rebirth that comes from true conversion to Jesus Christ, when our hearts become new.

It seems that this idea has its roots in the natural world. Small, regularly occurring forest fires help clear out underbrush, allowing new plants be exposed to the sun and grow strong. Some trees, like the Eucalyptus, even require fire to release their seeds. The clearing of underbrush prevents future fires as well, by pruning tree branches that are close to the ground and eliminating potential tinder. That same underbrush, allowed to accumulate too long, can result in larger, catastrophic fires later, and may prevent new trees from developing. Some trees, the ponderosa pine for example, are equipped to cope with small fires and remain behind to produce new seeds.

This week I, like many of you, have been burning with holy anger, and in that anger I feel the Spirit of God. I am mad as hell that Rob Porter’s wives’ accounts of his abuse were dismissed and brushed aside. I am raging at the recording that was released where a former MTC president admits to sexually assaulting multiple women. I am furious that one of the survivor’s bishops did not report her claims to law enforcement because he decided she was not credible. I am livid at the Church’s response to the recording, and at the systems that the Church has perpetuated that allow such abuse to flourish, unchecked and protected in its shadows. I have read the experiences and views of many other women in the Church who are equally as angry as I am.

We need that anger now. We need it to motivate us to continue pushing for change, even in the face of seemingly deaf Church leaders. We need a cleansing, angry fire, that will clear out the toxic underbrush of rape culture and misogyny, modesty rhetoric and priesthood exceptionalism, that have grown in the shadow of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to clear out the bad so the good – compassion, inclusivity, love, Christ-like humility – can flourish and expand.

I pray that the events of this week spark change. I pray that the anger many of us feel can be channeled into real and necessary action. I pray that it’s not too late. I pray that there enough good left for the forest to survive and recover. I pray that there’s not too much dead undergrowth, and that this fire does not prove catastrophic. I pray that we, like the eucalyptus and ponderosa pine, can come through this necessary and well-deserved fire stronger and healthier.

Amen.