Exponent II's Blog, page 38

Our Bloggers Recommend: Why are LDS seminary teachers paying for their own printer paper?

As high school students in the United States return from winter break, many LDS students return to LDS seminary classes. For those outside of the jello belt where full-time, salaried teachers may teach seminary, these early-morning classes are taught by unpaid volunteers (through church “callings”). Guest writer Jenny Smith has shared that many teachers have to self-fund classroom supplies and treats, causing great discrepancies between the “haves” and “have-nots.” Smith is the admin of a large facebook group of seminary teachers and conducted a survey that revealed how much budget woes impact teachers and classroom experience. Smith also wrote about the issue for By Common Consent: “A Seminary Teacher’s Dirty Little Secret.”

Recently, Tamarra Kemsley at the Salt Lake Tribune wrote about the issue and Smith’s survey for the Salt Lake Tribune’s Mormon Land coverage. Check out her article, “LDS Church has billions of dollars. So why are some seminary teachers paying for their own printer paper?“

What do you think about seminary teachers having to pay out of pocket for supplies to teach as volunteers?

My Feminism Was Working Against Me

In the last couple of years I have been asking myself, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”

My children are now ages that I have been longing for since they came through my body screaming at my milk-laden breast. They’re still young enough to want cuddles and seem to (mostly) like me, but old enough that they can make themselves food and attend public school all day. In my head I have been anticipating finally making my big feminist debut (cue blinking lights and fireworks) of either going back to school or getting some kind of paying job so I can contribute to the family income and finally add to my resume. That’s what a good feminist does, right? –becomes financially independent and enters the workforce in true Taylor Swift “If I Was A Man” style. And to throw it back a decade, the song “I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T” by Lil’ Boosie and Lil’ Phat is playing in the background of my head.

I recognize that many women would love nothing more than to stay home with their kids but are unable to in this financial climate. This thought also plagues me and makes decision making even more strenuous. “Trad-wife” idealization and fanciful displays on social media are not representative of my stay-at-home mom life, but maybe I should try to do that or become an influencer and then I won’t have to make the decision to leave home for work

For thirty years I had a plan; it happened to coincide with the Church’s plan of happiness for me as a woman:
I got married to a returned missionary in the temple at age 20.
I did not wait to have kids.
And now I’m raising children as a stay-at-home mom, filling the measure of my creation…
(Check, check, …check?)

Even after stepping away from the church three years ago, a lot of my identity is still tied up in all the teachings that spell out what women are here for. There are hundreds of mentions on the church’s website stating where women’s priorities are supposed to lie and where we should be–at home, raising righteous children. Leaving the church forced me to unpack what I actually want, and I still ask myself that every day. As a reaction to leaving, I felt like I needed to cut off the decades of prophets’ teachings in my head of being a mother raising the next righteous covenant-keeping generation. To be a good feminist (I thought) would be to break away from gender norms and empower myself through formal work experience, higher education, and participate in equal opportunities alongside men.
After attending the Exponent II retreat in 2022, I came home feeling inspired by all the women who have advanced degrees and careers. I decided to apply to the local university to start taking prerequisites for a masters in social work. Through my Introduction to Social Work class, I was able to volunteer at two local organizations for over a year. I learned so much through those experiences and thought I was on track to apply for a masters degree. I had to ask myself what this (going back to school full time) would mean for my family. The financial stress was something we weren’t prepared for yet, and we would have to outsource rides for the kids to their activities and probably have an expansive eating out budget. Even with those challenges, we could totally make it work. My husband wants what I want. This seemed like the perfect segway into my big feminist debut as a woman chasing after her wants.

But what if I got it all wrong?

My feminism was working against me. As I have weighed the pros and cons to attending graduate school and/or working, I realized that I had taken stay-at-home mom completely off the table. But what if I kept that as a choice? What if that is the most empowering, feminist thing for me to do right now–to choose to stay at home as the primary parent?

When the other options are in front of me, ultimately, I do not want to sacrifice the time that I have with my kids driving them to activities after school. Right now, I want to be the parent they can count on when they need to come home sick from school. Right now, I want to be able to help in their classrooms. I previously took those opportunities off the table in an attempt to break away from my Mormon norm. In asking myself why I want to pivot and do more outside the home, I realize that maybe it wasn’t for the right reasons and I can take a period of time to re-evaluate–I am not in a position where I must choose right this second. It’s tempting to think that I may regret not being home with them while they are still young, but I also know it’s never wise to make decisions based on fear! I know plenty of Mormon women who have gone to graduate school and/or have amazing careers while also being incredible parents to their children. I mean, men do it all the time….

I think I’ve convinced myself that I can choose to stay home, continue to be the primary parent, be available and around to influence my kids, and that choice doesn’t make me a bad feminist.

It took me a while to be okay with the idea that maybe what I was conditioned to want is something that I actually want. I needed the time and space to get to this, and the more I explore if future schooling and jobs are for me, the more I feel like the answer is “yes, and you don’t have to start right now.”

Have any of you made decisions based on what you felt like you should do as a feminist versus what you actually wanted to do? Or where you felt liberated by your feminism and are where you want to be? Please share in the comments!

Shame, Fear, Violence: An Analysis of the Utah Area Presidency Message

During the second hour of the fifth Sunday this past December, many members of the church living in the Utah Area were subjected to a video recorded message from the area authority and his counselors. Several people described the message as “icky”.  While members in any given area comprise a small percentage of church membership, I share my analysis of the broadcast because the messaging is harmful, yet common in the church.

Here is a link to the broadcast recording on the church’s website: November 20, 2024 Utah Area Broadcast: The Power of Making and Keeping Sacred Covenants

Title: Covenants and Our Relationship with GodSpeaker: D. Todd Christofferson, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Elder Christofferson introduces covenants as the broadcast topic. His remarks comes across as a web of contradictions; reading the transcripts highlighted for me why I often feel confusion when he speaks. For example, he states, “Our principal covenantal promise to God is to obey Him in all that He commands and to love and serve Him and our fellow beings.” Cue puzzled minion look on my face. I still have not figured out what exactly this statement trying to communicate. A question I have is since some general authorities assert that obedience to the church is synonymous as obedience to God, does this statement mean we covenant to obey church leaders?

If Elder Christofferson’s remarks leave you puzzled as they do me, know that his remarks are often like trying to follow a snarled tangled thread. Here is a summary I extrapolated from his talk: We must make a covenant to obey God in order to have a place in the kingdom. Obedience is the most important. Oh, also love God and serve others. Covenants create a relationship. Our side of the relationship is to obey God. Covenants allow us to transform. Obedience is what gets us back to God. Obedience looks like keeping covenants. Keeping covenants means obedience which means doing the things these guys in the area presidency are going to tell you about. If you don’t do these things, you won’t get back to God and I will have failed to honor church pioneers. Please, please do the things these men are going to talk about. 

My takeaway:

Obedience as defined by church leaders is the objective of many messages by church leaders. 

Title: The Power of Sacred CovenantsSpeaker: Kevin W. Pearson, Utah Area Presidency

Pearson begins, after what seems to have become an obligatory quoting of President Nelson, by stating that he will talk about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost because youth and adults will not understand covenants if they are not taught by parents and leaders. I assume that Pearson places himself in the category of a parent and leader rather than an adult learner.  He then goes on to describe attending a stake baptism where he was concerned about what was said and not said about the Holy Ghost. Here is the story upon which he builds his talk: 

Image of talk transcript

Did he really say that we don’t receive a remission of sins when we are baptized? For now I’m going to set that statement aside because I have so many questions about it. How did that statement make it past correlation? Is this a new teaching? Is the song “When I Am Baptized” going to be taken off the church website since it teaches that wrongs are washed away at baptism? So many questions.

As I sat listening feeling flames of anger growing in my body, I wondered why I was having such a visceral reaction to Pearson. There is beauty and truth in teaching about the Holy Ghost. The expansive role of the Holy Ghost as a revelator, teacher, and comforter are what I have shared with my kids. So what exactly was going on with Pearson in his talk? 

Shame and violence. 

Kevin Pearson is adept at shaming people; I’ve heard him shame people before. If you aren’t familiar with shame and what it is, here is a less than two-minute video that describes shame: Shame vs Guilt. Here are ways Pearson shames his audience: 

Tone and word choice. Pearson’s harsh, stern tone communicates that his audience is not as good as he is. He is the leader; the wise one. His adult audience can’t be trusted to learn things for themselves. He must “boldly” teach them. With his tone, he sets himself up as superior to his audience of fellow disciples of Christ. As a parent, I have learned that tone is what my kids and students hear first. When I am exasperated, frustrated, or tired, I try hard to stay patient to keep my volume down, words kind, and curious about any given situation. However, it took me a long time to learn that my kids still said I ‘yelled’ because they picked up on the tone of my words. Tone communicates what we really feel inside. Judgement.The stake baptism he attended did not give talks that were up to his standard. Rather than using what they did say as a starting point to build upon, Pearson rants about what he didn’t hear. He clearly communicates that what was shared at the baptism was inferior and not good enough. Listening to Pearson, I felt so sad for the people in that stake who I hoped would never hear what he had to say about their efforts that Pearson initially described as a beautiful service before ripping into the ways that it was inadequate. Assumptions and Exclusion.Pearson assumes, based on what he did not hear at the baptism service he attended, that church members in the Utah area do not understand the Holy Ghost, the importance of baptism, or the sacrament. He says, “Sacrament meeting is a sacred time. If properly understood, no one would intentionally miss partaking of the sacrament and honoring the Sabbath day. It would be unthinkable!” He shames by exclusion as he presents himself as the superior who knows better than the not-good-enough inferiors he is speaking to. Without curiosity about people’s lives, he broadly dismisses people to make assumptions about why someone would not attend sacrament meeting on any given Sunday. 

Next is violence. (TW: rape)

I never met Haim Ginott. He died a few years before I was born. His writings as a teacher and later child psychologist significantly influence my parenting and teaching. In his book Between Teacher and Child, Ginott shares a report of one person’s observation of a 7th-grade class: 

“I went home, stunned by what I had seen. Thoughts ran through my head. No one had smiled. In the whole time, no one had smiled… All that we call education was conceived in love…warmth, caring, ease, sensitivity, tenderness, skill. What I had witnessed had nothing of this. It was more like a sadistic attempt at forcible penetration –a raping of children. And still we demand that the children respond.”

As the second hour wore on that Sunday, I looked around the room. There were no smiles. The climate of the room was frigid. When the meeting ended, there was a literal stampede for the door. Later that night, I thought of the violence with which Pearson delivered his message; shaming is an aggressive act. Pearson’s violent delivery was the equivalent of psychological rape; he attempted to force his message into people with every bit of power of domination acceptable in a church setting. 

My takeaway:

I know Pearson is a real person. Kevin, I hope that this post somehow finds its way to you and that you are open to feedback. Perhaps you are not aware of the damage you cause people. To quote Uncle Ben from Spider Man, “With great power comes great responsibility.” The power of your position carries with it a responsibility to stop harming people. 

Title: Temple Covenants and the EndowmentSpeaker, Elder Hugo E. Martinez, Utah Area Presidency

Condensed, this talk consists of two words: wear garments. 

This talk pulsated icky vibes. Would there be any other setting in which people, both adults and teens,  would be in a room with some people they know and some they don’t to hear a message about liturgical clothing that functions as underwear given by a person they’ve never met? I find myself at a loss for words to describe how icky this is. I do not want that level of intimacy with adults in the room who I may not even see outside of church. I don’t want that level of intimacy with the teens in that room; some of whom are my former high school students. It’s incredibly inappropriate. 

My takeaway:

Most of this talk consisted of quoting President Nelson. I want to reiterate that we do not make a covenant to wear garments. Wearing garments is not part of keeping any of the temple covenants. There seems to be a great deal of fear about members creating their own relationship with garments that is different from the relationship church leaders want members to have. 

Title: The Great Blessings and Godly Power in the Sealing OrdinanceSpeaker: Brian K. Taylor, Utah Area Presidency

I confess by this point I was tuned out. Reading the transcript confirmed this as I didn’t remember anything past the second paragraph. A few thoughts that ran through my mind as I counted down the minutes to the end of this talk: 

Are young adults not getting married as much in the temple or married as young as leaders would like them to? Beth Allison Barr’s next book, Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry, releases on March 18th and I am eager to read it. Will the scholarship in the book change how I see the sealing ordinance? The eternal marriage thing really messed up my approach to marriage. My husband and I have had to do a significant amount of therapy to create a partnership marriage based on choosing each other instead of a marriage based on completing a church ordinance. Telling people who aren’t sealed that it’s ok because their day is coming ignores the pain of life now. In my ward divorce both recent and long past, as well as people who have never married constitute a significant percentage of the ward. The youth who heard these messages are implicitly told that Jesus is not enough; that it is marriage that saves. I do not want the promises in Doctrine and Covenants 132 -the  thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions quoted by Elder Taylor. I want the opposite of that. I want a little cottage in the woods, near mountains and ideally not too far from an ocean, where family and friends gather for meals and linger with warm conversation and cheery laughter. Elder Taylor refers to sealing as the crowing sealing covenant. For me, baptism is enough. Sometimes I wish I had never gone to the temple. Baptism brings me joy and connects me to Jesus. Sealing, on the other hand, is complicated. 

My takeaways:

As my kids are growing into young adulthood, my wish is that they focus on a relationship with Jesus. If they choose to be sealed, I hope it is something they choose to do with a partner because that is what they both want as opposed to feeling like it is something they have to do to be accepted by God. 

I felt a bit sorry for the two area presidency counselors because I’m not sure they had much say in their topics given that both talks heavily relied on quoting President Nelson. It must be exhausting and scary to be given a calling for which you may or may not be prepared or for which you may or may not have skills to succeed. I feel the same way for the men serving as the bishop and counselors in my ward. They are kind, thoughtful souls who want to do right by their congregants. It would have been great if they had previewed this message and chosen not to show it. I got the feeling they were a bit blindsided by some of the things said in the broadcast.

In the end though, the kindest thing we can do for church leaders and ourselves is to develop critical thinking skills to recognize when we hear shame, violence, and fear at church. With critical thinking and reflection, we can choose to toss out the harmful, incorrect, or poisonous messages while keeping anything  good, beautiful, and nurturing.

Latter-day Saint Families Gamble for Children’s Belonging and Salvation

A Weakened Sense of Religious Identity

In one of our recent Exponent II blogger email discussions, Linda Hamilton wrote “My children (ages 13-6) do not identify as Latter-day Saints/ Mormons. The way they are being brought up in the church programs right now does not include much culture because there are so few cultural offerings. My kids see church as a place we go or something we do, but respond with confusion when I talk about the church being part of their/our identity. I think this is in large part because our stake does nothing outside of church programs, no cultural events, no mention of “Mormonism” after.”

When I read this, I resonated, and felt inspired to write this post. I grew up with a strong sense of religious identity, but my kids and their peers are having a different experience. I agree that the Church providing significantly less community funding and programming and dropping “Mormon” as a kosher term are obstacles to our youth gaining a sense of LDS faith and belonging. 

The weakened sense of religious identity and community can make parents’ efforts to pass down faith feel more like a precarious crapshoot than anything satisfying or sure-footed. We can feel like we are gambling for our children to win big on the covenant path rather than steadily hiking along the iron rod together. Our anxiety is exacerbated by many factors we can’t fully control beyond changes in the Church, including our generations’ economically necessary nomadic lifestyles, the current rise in mental health problems among youth, and ways society is rapidly changing due to the tech revolution. Black and white definitions of success and salvation–children staying in the Church and following the covenant path as a life-long temple recommend holders–lead to intense stress and fears of failure and disconnection for many parents like me.

Particularities Become High-Stakes Liabilities

Today, when an LDS family has to move, parents may feel they are risking all prospects for their kids having any kind of future in the faith. They may ask themselves: Will local Church leaders foster a welcoming and community-focused environment, or not? Will our stake have resources or will members be fatigued and spread thin? Any chance that church could be enjoyable and supportive to our kids wherever we’ll need to move?

I don’t think even the strongest stakes and local leaders are having an easy time passing down the faith right now. It can be hard and frustrating anywhere, including where it is the majority religion. Despite recognizing this, I have sometimes feared that details in my kids’ lives could tip the scales hopelessly against them developing any kind of religious belonging or faith. In addition to where a family ends up living, this could be an unsupportive leader, a mental health issue, a friends’ influence, a lack of friends at church, and so on. Sometimes it has felt like eternity itself could hang on one unpleasant relationship with a bishopric member or a Young Women’s leader, an unhappy four days at FSY camp, boredom during family scripture study, or failure to complete early morning seminary. All of this doesn’t even acknowledge how adverse and unfair things can get in a family’s relationship with Church life and teachings if a child comes out as queer or is questioning, esp. since new exclusionary transphobic policies were set in place. Families in which no children are queer (as far as they currently know) also report feeling their safety within and commitment to the Church are weakened by its antagonism toward queer and trans children.

Faulty Equations for Conversion in our Families

During the Fall 2023 General Conference, we were instructed that parents’ lack of total concordance with institutional teachings/platforms put their kids at risk of not achieving exaltation. As if the following is the equation, with much being determined and controlled by the parents’ stances and efforts:

Parents submitting to institutional policies +diligent gospel teaching at home = a happy family headed for eternal life together

Messaging like this gives the impression that whether children get on board with the “covenant path” depends on exposure to Church teachings/policies and submitting to their truthfulness. 

Religious conversion is not a matter of conforming to ideology–that’s just indoctrination. In reality, all kinds of community and relational experiences are major parts of recipes for how young people’s values and choices turn out. Developing faith is more likely to happen through feeling loved and safe in a community and gaining access to personal spiritual meanings and experiences. The actual equations that contribute to our children’s religious outcomes include complex and often ambivalent experiences with faith, the Church, and greater society. Here is an example of a list of contributing factors that two siblings in just one family today could face based on things I’ve witnessed (from the youth’s perspectives): 

Living away from extended family/ close family friends

+ using today’s addictive apps for kids and teens

+ supporting friends during times of depression, suicidality and disordered eating 

+ lonely and depressed periods due to lack of social contact

+ 5 minutes of family scripture reading a few times a week motivated by treats

+ having a close friend who is queer, or realizing I’m queer myself, and then learning about the Church’s rules for gay marriage and transgender members

+ a panic attack when my youth leaders confronted me about something that they disapproved of

+ being pressured at YM and YW to commit to a heterosexual temple sealing while I’m 12 years old, not interested in thinking about marriage, and don’t feel confident of my orientation

+ not wanting to pass the sacrament because girls aren’t allowed to

+ watching Keep Sweet Pray and Obey (Netflix doc. about FLDS sexual abuse) and realizing my own Church also abused people using polygamy doctrines and still upholds the practice as having been divinely sanctioned

+ that time a ward member was racist to my friend in the church bathroom 

+ hearing my grandparents’ or other relatives’ testimonies every few years

+ high pressure from my ward/stake/relatives to do early morning seminary and being physically and emotionally miserable when I tried it

+ not having many friends at school who understand my religious background

+ semi-regular family night discussions and/or Come Follow Me Lessons

+ thinking a prayer was answered, and then worrying it wasn’t 

+ my anxiety about the world’s future and how I will survive

+ being chided by the bishopric for not passing the sacrament one Sunday

+ not feeling sure whether I should listen to people believe in God or those who don’t 

= ??? A spiritual result that parents cannot control much. As in this equation, the odds are often not in the Church’s favor, and this is not the child’s or the family’s fault. The Church’s lack of care and accountability for children’s individual experiences is running amok. Children’s flourishing and well-being are not treated as priorities. Instead, adherence to authoritative messages and institutional goals take center stage. The Church could do much better at meeting our children where they are actually at and supporting them as people.

Spiritual Belonging and Salvation for Our Kids Shouldn’t Be a Cruel Game of Luck

When kids do get and stay on the covenant path, this will not necessarily be because those families are more righteous, faithful, or deserving. This success will largely be by virtue of random circumstances that gives them a leg up LDS-wise. This can include where they end up living or are privileged to choose to live, their socio-economic situation being more favorable to a non-dissonant and enjoyable LDS life, winning the leadership roulette, not having any queer family members to be persecuted by Church policies (by chance), having better mental and/or physical health/genetics, having kids who are less independent, defiant, or questioning, etc. By chance, the equation adds up favorably, and in the eyes of the Church, it is these lucky people who are religiously successful, valiant, elect, and worthy of receiving God’s favor and infinitely superior blessings and statuses in the next life.

What an arbitrary, cruel, crap game we’ve been asked to play! I don’t think our Heavenly Parents want for us helping children develop a sense of spiritual identity and belonging to be this kind of disheartening, crapshoot gamble. Surely they don’t opt for such poor odds themselves when it comes to their children reaching their potential and finding joy. Jesus’s healing is not just for the lucky, the prosperous, the comfortable, the conventional, or those with a natural affinity to believe, to fit in, to be heterosexual, and so on. He intends for it to reach the downtrodden, the sick, the questioning and doubtful, the outcast, and the broken. Our hierarchical, conformity and submission-based heaven has never aligned with the gospel Jesus taught. I condemn the ways we treat kids who struggle most at Church and who are on the margins of the Church as disfavored and spiritually unfaithful or inferior. Our Church today is no better than the self-righteous people in The Best Christmas Pageant ever who insist a family of unlikeable, defiant, impoverished children should be left out of Jesus’s community.

The Church is strong at supporting spiritual worldviews from the early and less developed “simplicity” and “complexity” stages of faith. In these stages, preferred frameworks for life’s endeavors are comparable to a war (stage 1, simplicity) or a game (stage 2, complexity, see Brian McLaren’s The Four Stages of Faith Chart). Things are cut and dry in these earlier stages: You’re right or wrong, good or bad, a winner or a loser, exalted or stunted. Institutional frameworks are much weaker at supporting a more mature, compassionate and inclusive “harmony” stage of faith. In these more fully developed faith perspectives, we perceive life as “a mysterious gift.” We acknowledge that not all things are knowable, and that one of the greatest purposes of life is loving collaboration with those who are different from us. Raising kids in the church shouldn’t be a spiritual war or game to win, but a learning experience that gives them opportunities for connection, love, and growth. The Church doesn’t see the arbitrariness and cruelty of its own approach to kids’ belonging and salvation because of ways it is stuck in spiritually underdeveloped, black and white, certainty and superiority-focused assumptions.

Wanted: A More Realistic and Expansive Framework for Familial Spiritual Success

During a time when fewer and fewer kids are meeting the Church’s definitions of righteousness and many families are in pain, we need revised definitions for success that are more expansive, inclusive, healing, and practical. Parents like me are recognizing that being a fully active, conforming member does not necessarily equal spiritual growth, and that the afterlife is not a flipchart with clear outcomes. We also see that the influence of religious values and principles can benefit our kids in many ways even if they aren’t fully on board. If church community decreases loneliness, depression, or purposelessness in any way, that’s no small victory. If it helps kids avoid drugs and alcohol, harmful media, or teenage sex, those are wins. If kids become even just somewhat more thoughtful, religiously literate, compassionate, or service-oriented thanks to church experiences, this benefits the world. Should they learn even just one spiritual practice at Church that helps them throughout their lives, even this is huge. And if our children happen not to benefit in these ways, the gospel can help us minister to them as Jesus did. The Church should focus much more on the more practical and direct ways it can help our children in their lives, and aim to help our kids through many diverse ways besides temple covenants.

Parents can also find greater peace in recognizing that the Church and our temples don’t have a monopoly on spiritual growth or drawing closer to God, and that spirituality is not one-size-fits-all. One faith’s set of mystical founding stories, religious texts and spiritual gifts, however legitimate, does not dominate over all others or by default or mean other paths or traditions are inferior or impotent. Other faiths have unique and intersecting paths to God, and many non-religious people have underappreciated, courageous ways of making meaning out of life and growing spiritually. We parents can trust our children will find a spiritual path and uphold values we’ve passed down to them, even if this will end up looking quite different.

Church, It’s Time to Adopt a More Accountable, Caring Approach Toward Our Children

Church administration needs to take more responsibility for ways they are failing youth and their families rather than put yet more pressure and responsibility on parents. They should address how narrow, impersonal definitions of familial success are preventing many of us from experiencing a “Church of Joy.” Inadequate, top-down, tone-deaf approaches to today’s children are a major aspect of what’s preventing rising generations from developing faith and belonging. Much of what is going wrong is due to the stripping away of religious community life, failures to move toward gender equality, antagonism toward queer and trans individuals at church, and a lack of institutional care and concern for members as individuals. The Church needs to turn away from indoctrinating children, making decisions for them, offering conditional acceptance, and invest their energies into ministering to their needs–social, spiritual, emotional, economic, mental health, and temporal–in the here and now. Church, its time you let get go of long-held imperialistic impulses to be bigger, richer, and more powerful at the cost of members’ interests and well-being. It’s time to grow up and get more spiritually mature and culturally humble. Let’s reframe raising children in this tradition as a wonderful opportunity to help and serve young people in their lives and offer them a foundation to be grounded in rather than a high-stakes game that produces winners and losers, insiders and outsiders.

Our Bloggers Recommend: Amy from Women on the Stand in the Salt Lake Tribune!

Amy Watkins Jensen is a guest author here at Exponent II (“Not Enemies, But Friends: Advocates for Equality and the Institutional Church”) and creator of the awesome Women on The Stand Instagram page. She just had an excellent op-ed published in the Salt Lake Tribune that you should all check out too! It’s called “Voices: As Long as LDS women are invisible in the church, we will continue to be misrepresented in media”.

I always appreciate Amy’s calm and levelheaded approach to advocating for partnership over patriarchy as she consistently shares the many ways LDS doctrines already point to gender equality. 

Unfortunately, despite the many reasons to not do so, we still place men unnecessarily at the top of every single hierarchy in the church. This might’ve made sense in the 1800s when women were still legally considered property, or even a hundred years ago when our current church leadership was born and women didn’t hold the rights they now do. None of this still makes any sense 2025. I love people like Amy who do such a good job pointing this out!

Amy writes, “The rare sight of women in leadership on the stand reflects a wider issue of visibility and representation. When Hollywood steps in to fill this vacuum, it offers a narrative that the women of the church could instead be telling for themselves. Visibility matters not for worldly acclaim but because it reflects doctrinal truths and helps align our practices with them.”

Check out her great article today and follow her on Instagram!

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I’m not looking forward to studying the D&C this year – and what I’m doing about it

Is anyone else feeling a little bit of dread as we move into studying the Doctrine and Covenants this year for Sunday School?  

I’m not looking forward to studying the D&C at all. My latest faith crisis happened in 2021 partly because I was so annoyed at the lack of depth in the curriculum about the D&C. I didn’t like the way history was polished. The way the church was shown to be so perfect. The way it felt like we were encouraged to idolize Joseph Smith and the early pioneers. 

I didn’t like the grumpy and vindictive tone of the God of the D&C. I kept looking for a loving Jesus and could barely find him. Everything felt about the past and nothing felt relevant to my life. I spiritually starved that year. 

I solved the problem by joining a Ladies Bible Study with a local non-denominational church. I was able to get the spiritual nourishment I needed while we studied Titus. I spent the rest of the year ignoring the Doctrine and Covenants.

Four years later, I’m in a much better place spiritually, but I still don’t think I can handle following along with the Come Follow Me manual’s study of the Doctrine and Covenants. 

Usually my complaint about the Come Follow Me curriculum is that we go too fast. I’ve compared the pacing to a pogo stick, rock skipping, and a food tour. I’ve wished for a curriculum schedule that allowed us the time to go slow and deep into a few books of scripture rather than rocket through everything in a year. 

That’s not my complaint this year. 

This year I feel like we are going to spend too much time in the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History. Specifically we are spending too much time on a very small window of history. The curriculum focuses on revelations given during Joseph Smith’s life. The revelations spanned something like 25 years. Sure, official declarations 1 and 2 and the Proclamation to the Family are thrown in there at the end, but the vast majority of our year will be spent in a small period of time.  

I wish we had a curriculum that didn’t start in the year 1820. Our church is actually woefully uninformed about the history of Christianity. I once talked with a soon to be missionary who had no idea that Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr were two separate people. 

I wish we started with First Century Christianity. I wish we learned about the people who kept Christianity going for the first thousand years. I wish we could talk about the way the Catholic Church shaped our views of the Bible and who Jesus was. I want to look at the second thousand years of Christianity with all its nuance. Could we please talk about the Protestant Revolution? While we are at it, could we take a clear eyed look at many of the religions of the world? Not in a “look how dumb they are because they aren’t the True Church” kind of way, but in a respectful way that honors the role religion plays in people’s lives. 

I also wished we moved past the 1850’s in our study of the history of the church. We often have an attitude of “and they all lived happily ever after” when we talk about the pioneers making it to Utah. It’s like we just handwave over more than 150 years of history. Could we please talk about more? It would be great if we learned about the controversial stuff like the Mountain Meadow Massacre or the efforts to lift the Temple/Priesthood Ban. But I’d settle for the benign stuff like the beginnings of the Church Welfare Program or the reinstitution of the Relief Society. 

Obviously, these are just wishes at this point. The lesson schedule is set. I’m not able to change anything about that. But I can control what I’m studying and where I’m focusing. I’m going to share some of my plans for the year with you. You can adopt these plans for yourself or you can use these as ideas for your own custom study. 

Ladies Scripture Study Group

I host a scripture study group for LDS women in my area. It’s based off what I’ve observed from the non-denominational ladies study I’ve been attending since 2021. Last year we spent the whole year in Mosiah and it was wonderful. This year I couldn’t think of anything in the Doctrine and Covenants that I wanted to spend a year studying. So instead we are going to function kind of like a Book Club. 

We will read four books that are related to living in the restored church. 

In the Winter we’ll read Restoration: God’s Call to the 21st-Century World by Patrick Mason.

In the Spring we’ll read The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother by Kathryn Knight Sonntag.

In the Summer we’ll read Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman Scholar’s Ventures Through Life, Death, Cancer, and Motherhood by Melissa Inouye.

And in the Fall we’ll read Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It by Brian McLaren.

I even made a cute graphic to help everyone keep track.

Listen to a Podcast

I’m also going to listen to the “Year of Polygamy” Podcast put together by Lindsay Hansen Park. The podcast starts with episodes about each of Joseph Smith’s polygamist wives. I’m very interested to hear about these women who are often dismissed or ignored. I read Mormon Enigma about Emma Hale Smith a few months ago and this podcast feels like a good follow up to that book. 

Read Scripture 

I want to make sure that I’m incorporating actual scripture into my life this year. So I’m going to be spending some time in the Old Testament getting ready for what my study group will study in 2026. Yes, I already know what we are doing in 2026.

I want my study group to spend that year studying the 12 minor prophets AKA the Book of the Twelve. It will be perfect because there are 12 months in the year and 12 prophets. But as of right now I feel woefully unprepared for that study. I can’t even name all 12 minor prophets let alone tell you the specifics of something like the book of Micah. So I’m going to be spending this year studying those books to prepare for next year. My husband bought me a commentary for Christmas and I’m so excited about it. (Which just goes to show you how NOT excited I am about studying the D&C.)

** ** **

Having a plan for the year helps me feel better about not wanting to engage with the Doctrine and Covenants this year. Yes, I’ll probably still have to sit through some discussions when I’m in Sunday School, but I’ll have other things to think about it if don’t want to pay attention to the lesson.

How about you? Are you dreading studying the Doctrine and Covenants? Or are you looking forward to it this year? I’d love to hear your thoughts as well as any of your study ideas.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Launch Party for Winter 2025 Issue with “At Last She Said It”

Join Exponent II and At Last She Said It podcast for “a launch party” for the Winter 2025 issue of Exponent II magazine on January 9th at 6 p.m. MT / 8 p.m. ET.

Register for the Zoom link at tinyurl.com/exiiparty

In this collaborative issue we asked contributors to “say it at last,” and they showed up with sharp pens and open hearts. The themes range, covering everything from adultery to menstruation, witches to the pain of a partner’s faith transition, trauma at the temple to the power of a found family. We have pieces rooting out abuse, wrestling with theology, and expressing profound spiritual experiences. From attending Relief Society as a trans woman to navigating church as a person of color, the truths pop and the metaphors linger on the tongue long after the story ends.

Come get a sneak peek and honor all of our amazing writers and artists!

The deadline to receive this issue as part of your annual subscription is January 15, 2025. Subscribe here.

When God Speaks

The fine line between religious delusion and belief. 

I’m sure each of us know stories about people in our lives or the media who took the idea of “personal revelation” too far. Their religious beliefs or promptings warped into true delusions which led them to make unsafe, bad, or even evil choices all in the name of “God told me to.” 

We need not look any further than the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon to understand how someone could believe that hurting someone else, or even killing them, might be sanctioned by God for the “greater good.” One common thread is woven through media stories about Lori Daybell, the Lafferty brothers, Jodi Hildebrandt, and more- God wanted them to do something important, needed, necessary- and they believed they were acting on faith.

So how do we draw the line between religious delusion and personal revelation? This is something therapists and psychologists have wrestled with since before giving a diagnosis was even a thing. It’s almost impossible to do so because it all comes down to social and cultural context. 

In one culture, it may be normal and acceptable to cry out in the middle of a church service and convulse on the ground while a church leader commands the demon inside of you to leave. In another, that type of behavior would be seen as quite unusual and unhealthy. In one culture, it seems reasonable to go to an elderly man, have him place his hands on your head, and listen while he tells you your future or potential as a child of God. In another, that would seem “out there” and “woo, woo.”

It gets even more complicated when you look at the research because studies of the brain show “religious/ spiritual experience” and “delusion” as activating many similar places. It’s difficult to distinguish between the two. 

And while we know that there is almost a non-existent line between religious experience and delusion because it’s all based on social context, religious experience is still seen as a kind of thought-stopping, end-all when it comes to decision-making. 

If your sister came to you and said “I think I need to go to that bagel shop on the corner.” You might say to her “It’s 3pm and you’re in the middle of your work day, why do you need to go to the bagel shop?” She might reply “I am just feeling prompted to.” or “I feel like the spirit is telling me to.” Or “I was just praying about it and feel like God is leading me there.” All of these responses would likely make you take a step back, shut down any argument you might have, and just go along with it. Maybe she does really need to go to the bagel shop. And who are you to argue with her personal revelation? Who are you to argue with God? 

Going to the bagel shop on the corner likely won’t have life-altering consequences, but replace “bagel shop” with a type of parenting technique that seems dangerous or neglectful. Replace it with “leave my family and my 4 kids to go live in another country” and suddenly the line gets blurry. Could they really be acting through God’s will? Or are they using the idea of God’s will to justify their delusion (without even knowing that that’s what they are doing)? 

I wish the leaders of the church gave more voice to this and all of the potential harms that can come when these lines get blurred. I wish they helped members know more about how to spot the difference between personal revelation and delusion. And I wish they publicly condemned the choices of members who take this to such an extreme that they end up on the news and in jail. 

Through my own research on this topic, I have compiled 12 questions that can help someone determine whether their religious choice could be crossing the line into delusion. 

Does this behavior conflict with social/ cultural norms practiced by people I love and trust? Does this behavior cause harm to others or myself?Have I talked about this idea/ thought/ prompting with someone I love and trust? Do I feel any conflicting feelings about this choice? Guilt, hopelessness, fear, etc… can be important indicators that not all of the parts of you are on board with this being a good idea. Am I making this choice in a period of calm or does it feel pressured/ hurried?Am I making a choice or am I reacting to something?What are the consequences of making this choice? Does what I’m choosing align with my life circumstances and abilities?Can I give it more time to see if I still feel this way later? Does this choice promote love, kindness, and compassion?Is it consistent with the ethical and moral values of my faith?Am I using “God’s will” as a way to justify/ defend/ shut down any feedback about my choice to others? 

Ultimately, my hope is that more people will recognize the harm that can come when religious choices are taken too far. Members of the church need to know they have a responsibility to call out this behavior or raise concern if they believe someone is making harmful choices in the name of God. I don’t know how to reconcile stories from the Book of Mormon that encourage illegal and harmful behaviors in the name of God, but I can do my part in the present to check myself and others when we are trying to decide if God is speaking.

There Is Something Better than the Covenant Path

My daughter is at home for a few weeks between terms at university. She now lives in another country so this time provides an opportunity to do something together that we both love, which is attending a variety of performing arts shows. In the last two weeks, between the two of us, we have seen my high school students at the performing arts school where I teach in a jaw-dropping semi-professional level production of HadesTown, an interpretative dance of the nativity, the classic Christmas ballet The Nutcracker, a voice ensemble Christmas and Hanukkah performance, a combination ballet and choir performance at the oldest Catholic cathedral where we live, the classic play A Christmas Carol, and the movie Wicked. It’s been delightful and lovely. 

A few days ago after seeing A Christmas Carol, I wondered if it really is possible for someone to change so dramatically. In the book, Dickens’s powerful writing makes this possibility seem real. I wondered, though, about general authorities. With the exception of a few like Uchtdorf and Kearon, so many of them seem to have hearts of stone. Even Holland, who used to be one of the good guys, has lost his soul during his time in leadership. 

The pulpit pounding of garment wearing and covenant path keeping is not leading to transformation as shown in works of performance and literature. As I write this, it occurs to me that transformation may not be what general authorities seek for members. For the purposes of this essay, I assume the goal is transformation. Checklists of how to behave — never miss sacrament meeting or any other meeting, read the scriptures prescribed by the CFM manual, wear garments exactly so, etc., etc., etc, — do not lead to personal transformation. In my observation, what they do lead to is toxic perfectionism, burnout, depression, anxiety, and general misery. 

It is a stark contrast from my recent experiences attending performing arts productions. 

Performing arts move people emotionally. They open us up emotionally, connect us with ourselves and others. Brené Brown explains, “To see and be seen. That is the truest nature of love.” 

“To see and be seen. That is the truest nature of love.”  Brené Brown

Love is better than the Covenant Path.

This is not to say that ritual does not have its place. It does. Ritual can be transformative. However, ritual as currently taught by general authorities does not provide a path to transformation. For more discussion of this, see Jody England Hansen’s illuminative post “Jesus is Coming. Look Busy.”

This past Sunday a friend of mine spoke in church. I knew this person for years in a professional capacity before we were in the same ward. He is truly a person who embodies love. In his talk, he described how in his study of Alma 7:12 he noticed that Jesus constantly takes people’s pain and metabolizes it into love. He shared a desire to be like Jesus in that way. Jesus saw other people. He saw their pain, their hopes, their fears, their wounds. He saw past people’s behavior and into their core as a human being. That is love. Jesus is love. Becoming like Jesus by developing an ability to truly see people and allow ourselves to be seen is better than checking off covenant path boxes.