Exponent II's Blog, page 4

Who Are We Called to Be?

The Community of Christ ordained their first woman prophet, Stassi D. Cramm, in June and I eagerly read about her in The Salt Lake Tribune. Two months later, when I think about her interview with Peggy Fletcher Stack, I keep returning to their conversation about the faith’s decision to ordain women in 1984.

In their discussion, Fletcher Stack delicately mentions that “some say the church lost a lot of members over it [women’s ordination]” and Cramm replies simply, “We estimate about half.”

There’s no tone or inflection in Cramm’s response, but I am disarmed by the quiet, confident honesty in her response. She does not hesitate to share this devastating statistic or rush to defend the merits of women’s ordination. Instead, when Fletcher Stack pushes for more, saying, “Some historians argue the church didn’t prepare the people enough for that move. What do you think?,” Cramm responds,

“It was an act of faith. There are those moments where the spirit’s calling is so profound that all you can do is present it to the body and then see what the body does with it. In talking to then-President [Wallace] Smith, it was no longer deniable to him. He sensed it for quite a while [that] we cannot continue to become who we are called to be without making this decision, that God was saying, “It’s now, and what will you do with this invitation?” The leadership and those who remain demonstrated an amazing willingness to take a risk, along with profound courage. I just pray that if I come to one of those crossroads, that I have the discernment and the faith and the humbleness and the courage to make that choice.”

My breath caught a little reading that again.

“We cannot continue to become who we are called to be without making this decision.“

When I discuss women’s ordination within the LDS Church, the response is often the opposite. People do not want to discuss, let alone ask God about, women’s ordination. The general feeling seems to be that we should leave well enough alone. What we sacrifice in the name of patriarchy is better than any alternative.

I hear things like, “LDS men are made better by the LDS Church” or “they are better than men without the Church,” so the patriarchal system is necessary to conquer the natural man. There’s also the belief that this life is temporary and we endure what we don’t know, even if it feels unfair, unjust, or wrong, because God set it up this way. I’ve been told as well that the Church and much of what we practice is focused on the most basic to bring in and retain as many people as possible. Asking or pushing for more or different disrupts this and would be too much for many current members or potential converts.

And, yet, I cannot shake the persistent feeling that we are called to be more.

Years ago, I sat down to a temple recommend interview with one of the most progressive-seeming members of a Stake Presidency I’d ever met. He was a bit of a feminist in his own way and definitely related to plenty of them. He listened to me with an open heart and mourned with me in a way I had not previously experienced from someone in his position. In fact, his heart was so open, he didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t hold my baby during his blessing (until he just double-checked with the higher-ups, who helped him see the light).

I met with this man over ten years ago and our interaction still puzzles, touches, and infuriates me simultaneously. I recall sitting with him and feeling so hopeful. He clearly also knew that we were called to be more. His heart seemed to ache for it. And yet…He ultimately told me that we all have burdens to carry in life and mine seemed to be to witness the injustices of women and still remain faithful.

His comments immediately deflated me. Thanks. I hate it. I thought, “What does that mean? What do I do with that? Why would a loving God give this to me?”

After this interaction, I believed for a long time that he was wrong because I could not be categorized as faithful. But that was informed by a single, rigid definition of what it means to be faithful and act in faith. Yes, I’ve lost faith and felt directionless because the faith tradition I practiced could or would not answer the call to be more. And, while others could stay and fully practice, making change from within, my heart told me that this only enables a system to continue ignoring the call for more. So, acting in faith looks far different than I once imagined.

Perhaps God has called me to witness the injustices of women and remain faithful by speaking up and sharing my faith in a better gospel for everyone that moves beyond patriarchy…even if it is only so that I know I have the courage to make that choice despite the costs.

There’s an obvious response to this, right? The LDS Church has made a decision when it comes to numbers: to let go of women like me, a number that may be bothersome, instead of potentially losing half of their membership and the men necessary to keep congregations going. It’s the safe choice and steadily keeps things as they are.

But what if we’re called to be more? What if God offers something next, beyond, better – we only have to reach for it? Yes, they’ll be risk, sacrifice, roadblocks, and many things will go wrong before they go right.

Where could our faith take us if we weren’t so afraid of what we’d lose without patriarchy?

Curses are not Covenants: A Sermon for Mormon Women on Genesis 3:14-19

I was a Primary kid in the 1980s and early 1990s and at that time there seemed to be a big push to get children to memorize the Articles of Faith. Each of them was written out in large letters on poster board and there were big sticker charts in the Primary Room that tracked each child’s progress through this task of memorization. When the Children’s Songbook came out in 1989, the book had a song version of each of the Articles of Faith and we had to learn all 13 of these awkward sounding minor songs. And, of course, the easiest Article of Faith to learn was the second one, because it was also the shortest: “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgression.” It is not a great song. 

As we learned each of these, we talked about what they meant and this one was straightforward. I did learn that men in this context meant everyone, and not just men. At other times in the scriptures and in church talks, men meant men specifically. It was kind of confusing to me, but others assured me that it was very clear to them when the scriptural author or a church leader was talking about all people or men specifically. I didn’t think that things were that clear, but who was I to question this kind of received wisdom? I trusted that the adults in my life had also thought about such things and interrogated them and so I must have been missing something.

What I understand now is that Joseph Smith, in writing the Second Article of Faith, was refuting the idea of original sin, the idea that God does not condemn us today for Adam and Eve’s actions in the garden. According to Mormon teaching, people are not born with any kind of systemic taint, but our sins are our own. One of the problems with this, and we might say that there are several, is that this does not jive with what many of us have experienced, with what many women have experienced. Specifically, this teaching is not consistent with what we have experienced as women in the LDS temple endowment ceremony, where our husbands were promised that if they remained righteous, that they would become like God in the next life. We were promised that, because of Eve, we would have our afterlives downgraded and would become priestesses to our God-husbands. I remember feeling a lot of anger when I realized that the second Article of Faith did, in fact, mean men and not everyone. Men will not be punished for Adam’s transgression, but women’s potential in the next life is reduced (in a way that the atonement does not rectify) because of Eve’s action in the garden. 

When I started seminary, I intentionally put off scripture classes because I did not want to confront the creation story. What I soon discovered, though, is that many of my classmates derived a significant portion of their theology from the creation story. It came up in nearly every class. The actions of Eve had never been a burden that my classmates had had to carry in the same way that I had. This isn’t to say that they believed the creation story was historical, but rather that this story is an important one for understanding God. I was trying to get distance from my Mormon understanding of God, and every mention of the beauty of the creation story made me cringe. I needed to find a way to address this. I needed some feminist biblical interpretive assistance to fix this. I wondered about what I had experienced in Mormonism and in the endowment. Was there another way to understand this story? What did contemporary progressive and feminist commentaries have to say about it?

The Creation Story

Genesis 3:14-19 marks the end of the creation story and the transition from the idyllic life in the garden to a mortal life with gendered hierarchies (1). Genesis 3 opens with a scheming snake (Gen 3:1), who converses with Eve (Gen 3:1-5). Eve considers her options, eats the fruit, and offers it to Adam, who also eats (Gen 3:6). This breaks the rule that God gave to Adam about not eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17), though it is important to mention that Eve had not yet been created when Adam received this instruction. Eve and Adam gain the knowledge that the snake promised and then attempt to cover their bodies with leaves (Gen 3:7). Sensing that God is nearby, Adam and Eve hide (Gen 3:8). God talks with Adam and Eve (Gen 3:9-19). Adam gives Eve her name and God clothes them both with “garments of skins” (Gen 3:20-21 NRSV). God reflects on what God has done, sends Adam and Eve out of the garden, and places a cherubim with a flaming sword on the path to the tree of life (Gen 3:22-24). While this part of the story describes the ways in which Adam and Eve create a change in the world that they inhabit, the Genesis text does not describe what takes place as “original sin” (1). Nor does the text use the language of sin, which enters the narrative only later during the Cain and Abel story (2). Jewish feminist biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine notes that the role of the events in Genesis 3 take Adam and Eve from innocence to wisdom, “from nature to civilization” (3).

Eve’s Curse

The issue of genre sheds some light on understanding the purpose of this passage. Scholar Hugh R. Page named 17 different genres used in the Torah and identified Genesis 3:14-19 as a curse (4). The direct language of cursing is used specifically against the snake in verse 14 and against the ground in verse 17, but Adam and Eve are also cursed here. The snake is cursed to move on its stomach (Gen 3:14). Eve is cursed with hard work in childbirth and to be ruled by Adam (Gen 3:16). Adam is cursed to work hard farming the ground (Gen 3:18-19), which is cursed to produce thorny weeds because of him (Gen 3:19) and his attempts to control what he should serve (5). Adam is cursed with mortality (Gen 3:19). God appears to hold the snake the most accountable with the language “Because you have done this” (Gen 3:14 NRSV). God does not offer a similar explanation to Eve, but later curses Adam and the ground “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife” (Gen 3:17 NRSV). 

This series of curses brings about a significant change in situation not only for Adam and Eve, but for the natural world and their relationship to it. There is no indication in the language God uses to curse extends beyond the individuals being cursed. The only exception here is in the relationship between the descendants of the snake and the descendants of women, who God says will be hostile to each other (Gen 3:15). The other curses in this passage are familiar to readers throughout most of time because they describe physical and social realities, but God does not specify that these other curses extend to multiple generations. Instead, the curses mark the destruction of that earlier golden age within this myth.

After this part of the story plays out in the endowment drama, the participants are instructed to make a covenant, which is the first of several covenants that take place during the drama. The language of this covenant has changed over time, but it affirms a hierarchy of genders, where women serve their husbands even in the afterlife.

Genesis Curses in Dialogue

It is also useful to put the curses against Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:14-19 in dialogue with the other curses in Genesis, as their curses are not the only ones with a problematic legacy. Page draws attention to the Curse of Canaan (Ham) in Genesis 9:25, which has been used from the Enlightenment onward as a justification for enslaving Black Africans and establishing discourses and systems of racial hierarchies (6). In both Genesis curses, particular people are cursed and then these curses are later interpreted as pertaining to all people of that group as a way to marginalize some and prioritize others. While there are no broad generalizations attached to the curses that Page points to in Deuteronomy 27:15-26 (65), the Genesis curses have difficult legacies as texts used to create hierarchical categories of humans. To interpret these texts, as so many have done, as creating divinely-inspired social hierarchies is to misunderstand God’s creation of the “earthlings” in God’s image and as equals (7). Just as the Curse of Ham is not a mandate to enslave or denigrate Black people, Phyllis Trible makes the point that Eve’s curse does not require a belief or practice of treating women as inferior (8). To engage in such practices is to deny the equality with which God created humanity (9).

Creation Story as Myth

Levine emphasizes that the creation story is a myth “by which we mean a metaphorical tale designed to explain why life is the way it is” instead of “how life should be” (10). Levine observes that this myth follows the same pattern as others of its era in that it describes a “golden age,” here meaning life in the Garden of Eden, and then a departure from that ideal state to explain why life in the present is the way that it is. Such stories express a nostalgia for a perfect past that never existed and if we mistake these myths for history, we misunderstand their meaning. As a myth, the creation story tries to answer questions about God’s relationship to humans and the natural world and speculates about how we got to this very imperfect state of being. This myth does not answer the question “what happened long ago?” 

While the LDS endowment ceremony does not explicitly describe the creation story as history, there is a strong implication that participants are supposed to understand it as representing truth. In the endowment, a (cisgender, seemingly heterosexual) couple come to the altar and all men are instructed to identify with Adam and all women are instructed to identify with Eve, but they were not the first to make this gender-generalizing leap. 

Early Christian Commentators and Eve

New Testament writers, influenced by ancient Jewish interpreters, extended this idea of Eve or Adam and Eve being cursed to include all of humanity, culminating in the teaching of original sin. Some ancient Jewish apocryphal texts, like Sirach, The Life of Adam and Eve, and the Apocalypse of Moses, described Eve as dangerous and the source of sin and death. The Apocalypse of Moses introduced the idea that Eve was sexually seduced by the snake and that human sexuality is forever corrupted as a result of Eve’s actions (11). The author of 1 Timothy exonerated Adam, giving the full weight of responsibility to Eve (1 Timothy 2:13-14), though scholar Anne W. Stewart also notes that Romans 5 blamed Adam alone (Romans 5:12).

Early Christian commentators, influenced by these Jewish apocryphal writings and New Testament statements, further developed misogynistic interpretations of Eve and spread them. Writing in the second and third centuries, Tertullian held all women accountable with Eve for sin and especially for men’s sin in his text On the Apparel of Women (12). Augustine of Hippo, living in the fourth and fifth centuries, had strong criticisms about Eve’s choices and was a prolific and influential writer. Anne W. Stewart mentions Augustine’s discussion of Eve in his book City of God, where he blamed Adam and Eve together. However, a few quick searches in a database of Augustine’s known writings shows that Adam and Eve made a regular appearance in his work. Augustine referenced them about 350 times and in many texts beyond On Genesis, including letters, sermons, and other theological writings. Eventually this discussion of Adam and Eve and their choices becomes a discussion about the ways in which all of humanity inherits something of this original sin and the events of Genesis 3 take on more significance than is present in the story (12). Not all Early Christian authors come at Eve and all women with such vehemence as Tertullian, but Eve’s sinfulness grows as her choices are contrasted with Mary’s, as introduced by Justin Martyr in the second century (12). 

Early Mormon leaders, like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, influenced the development of the endowment but did not author Christian misogyny. They inherited the discourses surrounding the identification of Eve with all women and the idea that all women, then, hold this responsibility for the Fall. Smith and Young chose not to question this inheritance and made plenty of space for misogyny in sacred Mormon ritual. Their readings of the Adam and Eve story suggest that God is the ultimate bigot, while ignoring the larger doctrinal problems and inconsistencies that this interpretation creates.  

Curses are not Covenants

For some Jewish interpreters, then, the curses of Genesis 3 describe the introduction of the fallen state of patriarchy. Christians turn this episode into the Fall, which is a problem that is resolved in Christ’s atonement. In both readings, though, the cursed state that was created in Genesis 3 was not God’s original intention for creation, but a significant departure from it. The curses described the world as it was when Genesis was written down, and not as it should be (13).

The curses in Genesis have been used to justify hierarchies of genders and races, which is not in harmony with the bigger story of God’s creation in the garden. It is not consistent with the message of Jesus, which does not affirm hierarchical categories of humans but declares that the first and the last will swap places in the kingdom of God (Matthew 20:16). The curses point to gaps between social realities and a higher ideal of gender equity. All women are not Eve and all women are not cursed for eternity because of Eve. The curses are not covenants requiring obedience, not dramas to be enacted by believers who go on to wear symbols of the skins God gave to Adam and Eve day and night for the rest of their lives. 

Genesis 3:14-19 is a myth explaining the creation of patriarchy that also acknowledges its unfairness. The challenge of this answer, at least for Mormon and former Mormon women, is that this answer is not weighty enough to address the harm done to us in the name of this story. For many of us, bad interpretations of this story have poisoned our relationship with God in ways that cannot be easily recovered. This is never what God intended, but what men created to maintain power over us, weaponizing our love of God against us. May we find some comfort in seeking out and proclaiming a God who condemns racial and gendered hierarchies, who created us all in their image. Amen.

Notes

1 Susan Niditch, “Genesis,” Women’s Bible Commentary: Revised and Updated, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 31.

2 Amy-Jill Levine, “Agreeing to Disagree Series: The Creation (Genesis 1–3),” Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, November 3, 2020. https://www.emanuelnyc.org/streickercenter/past-events/#476892624, timestamp 54:30.

3 Levine, “Agreeing to Disagree,” timestamp 51:35.

4 Hugh R. Page, “Early Hebrew Poetry and Ancient Pre-Biblical Sources,” in The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), 65.

5 Clare Amos, “Genesis” in Global Bible Commentary (Abingdon Press, 2004), 7.

6 Page, “Early Hebrew Poetry and Ancient Pre-Biblical Sources,” 65; Rodney S. Sadler Jr,  “Genesis,” in The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), 74.

7 Sadler, “Genesis,” 72.

8 Sadler, “Genesis,” 50.

9 Ellen Davis, “‘As Our Image’ – Genesis 1:1-23,” in Opening Israel’s Scriptures (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 10: Sadler, “Genesis,” 50.

10 Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, The Bible with and without Jesus: How Jews and Christians read the same stories differently (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2020), 105.

11 Anne W. Stewart, “Eve and Her Interpreters,” in Women’s Bible Commentary: Revised and Updated (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 47-48.

12 Stewart, “Eve and Her Interpreters,” 49.

13  Niditch, “Genesis,” 31; Levine, “Agreeing to Disagree,” timestamp 53:33.

Guest Post: A Mother’s Blessing: Ditching Dogma on College Move-in Day

Guest Post by Laura Karren Glasgow

On the morning my oldest child left for college, breaking new personal spiritual ground was not on my to-do list.  While I had embarked on a faith-expansion journey the year before, I hadn’t yet traveled very far so it still felt important to me that my daughter receive a blessing before she left home.  In line with the teachings of the modern LDS church,  I saw my husband as the only possible vehicle for this blessing. For reasons I didn’t understand at the time, my husband had not offered her a blessing despite us having discussed his doing so.  I knew that bringing it up again would create tension, but the not-proverbial clock was ticking and I still wanted this for her. 

That morning, while in the shower and pondering on my desire, I was astonished by a most unexpected thought:  I could give her a mother’s blessing.   I gasped in surprise and wonder and then I was almost knocked over by what happened next.   As surely as water was pouring onto my head, words that were not my own began to flood into my head. Within a few moments I was filled with a clear understanding of what to do and what to say.  Just as the wave of surprise began to ebb another surge of feelings crashed into me.  I was overcome by a tidal wave of love: my love for my daughter, God’s love for my daughter and God’s love for me.  I was grateful for the privacy of a shower where I could freely add a torrent of tears to this unexpected storm of inspiration.  

Nervous, but determined, I asked my family to pray with me before we headed to the airport. There were some snickers and eye-rolls, not least from the new college freshman, but I held my resolve, took her hand, and began. I addressed God as I would any other prayer, but then departed from the conventional prayer pattern.  Instead of listing things for which we were thankful, I expressed how I was feeling. I said that my husband and I are feeling similar to how They, our Heavenly Parents, might have felt when we left Their home: excited for the opportunities and experiences awaiting our child, but also apprehensive about the greatly increased availability of both happy-ending and unhappy-ending choices.   

I prayed that our daughter would feel the love of her parents – both earthly and Heavenly as she adjusted to her new life.  I prayed that she would find people that would cherish her as much as we do.  I prayed that she would find people who would influence her for good and that she’d be a force for good as well.  I prayed that she would have help to make choices that would lead to happiness. 

When this blessing-prayer flowed into my mind I could see that it really was no different from what an ordained man would say with the exception of the words “I bless you” having been swapped out for “I pray.”  And while the words “I bless you” connote power to command the elements of the universe, no one will ever convince me that there is even one milliwatt more power in an ordained man saying “I bless you” in front of any of those phrases where I said “I pray.”

I did not, obviously, open my eyes to find a patriarchy defeated and lying in chains at my feet. While I had felt a seismic shift inside me, my family didn’t seem to have heard anything other than a normal family prayer.  But I had heard God speak to me that day and then I heard myself speak the words of blessing God had given me and I will never be the same.  

Laura is a reader, traveler, feminist, and a huge fan-girl of Jesus Christ. Laura works as the Programs Coordinator for a charity that serves refugee and immigrant children and is also a French language tutor.

What makes someone an anti-Mormon?

Photo by Bailey Burton on Unsplash

A cousin who’s been out of the LDS church since his teens recently contacted me to let me know his family was talking about me leaving the church. He said he tried to defend me to his family, and expressed that he would be there for me if I needed it during this difficult transition. I appreciated his support, but got upset when he also mentioned that his mom said I was “anti-Mormon” now. I was surprised by how hard I took the label, knowing how negatively my aunt would have meant it. Ever since, I’ve been trying to pick that apart.

What exactly makes someone anti-Mormon? It’s a label I definitely applied to people during my active days. I realized I’d been working hard not to become one as I left the church. I didn’t want to portray myself as preaching against the LDS church, trying to pull people away from it, becoming a reverse missionary, if you will. I feel strongly that everyone is allowed to worship how they wish—as long as they aren’t purposefully hurting anyone—and whatever makes them happy is great with me. I only wish my believing friends and family would extend the same courtesy to me. But I’m also fully aware that most of them think they can’t, not without upsetting a whole lot of equilibrium in their brains.

When I first heard about my aunt labeling me as anti-Mormon, I wracked my brain trying to understand what would have even given her that idea. My liberal social media posts? My Exponent blog articles? Most of my posts and views haven’t really changed since I was an active but still nuanced member of the church. Was I also anti-Mormon then? Are the other writers for the Exponent blog who are still attending the LDS church also simultaneously anti-Mormon somehow?

In the end, I know to people like my aunt, any criticism of the church, its history, and its leaders is anti-Mormon. Anything outside of pure conformity and support for every action and every word said or written by the church can only be seen as anti. You’re either with the church one hundred percent, or against it. It’s such black-and-white thinking that creates people who leave the church and feel the need to actively fight it—because it’s either true and the only right way, or its wrong and evil and they must save people from it with the same fervor they once sought to draw people to it. Leaders literally preach this idea, and some people who leave the church still believe them.

Photo by Christopher Sardegna on Unsplash

Despite doing my best not to be one of these people, I can no longer let myself attempt to leave the church “correctly.” No matter how understanding and moderate I think I’m being, it won’t matter to most of my friends and family who have stayed. I simply cannot attempt to curate their viewpoint of me, because it is impossible. I just have to continue as I have been—living my life in the way that feels right, brings me peace, and supports the causes and people that are important to me. To me, none of that is very anti-anything.

Guest Post: What do the young men think?

Guest Post by mhermitmom

(Names withheld to protect the embarrassed. Picture drawn by me.)

 I was doing laundry yesterday, as one does, and as I was changing clothes from washer to dryer, my 19 year old son was passing by and made a semi terrified sound of “AAAH!” 

 As I was shoving my laundry in the dryer, I inquired in our common language, “AAAH?? What AAAAH?”

He replied again, “AAH! Underwear!” Now this was not my white garments-only wash that he saw. It was the colored clothing consisting of my husband’s shirts, pants, and ONE red bra. My only red bra. 

My son has made this kind of reaction before to the red bra. Once, I had all my laundry dumped on my bed as I was preparing to sort and fold it. My son came charging into my bedroom to leap upon the bed with a belly flop, as he sometimes does, and that particular time, as he flopped, he came face to face with my red bra in the pile. He recoiled like it was a rattle snake and bolted from the room with a panicked, loud “AAAAAAAH!” that time.

So this time around, I yelled to my now out of sight son, “IT’S JUST UNDERWEAR!”

He yelled back from the kitchen. “It’s WOMEN’s underwear!”

I said, “What, does the sight of women’s underwear arouse you?”

He said, “No.”

I asked if he had been taught that a man shouldn’t see a woman’s underwear, otherwise men might get aroused? Mind you he decided not to attend church anymore when he was 16 or 17 and now he is 19.

He said not specifically. He recalled a day at high school when he saw a girl getting stopped in the hallway between classes because she had the slightest bit of bra strap showing on her shoulder and she was getting a talking to for it. She got in trouble for it, it kind of reinforced to my son that seeing a woman’s underwear was bad.

I let him know that it was not a woman’s job to police themselves “just in case a man had bad thoughts.” I told him he was responsible for his own thoughts, not women. And not their underwear in the laundry. I think he got it. 

Just full disclosure here, I don’t go around the house parading in my underwear. To my knowledge, my son has never seen me with that particular piece on. My husband, of course, has, and he likes it a lot. I have a hard time finding bras that are comfortable. I don’t like the color myself, but it is fairly comfortable. So it stays in my underwear for occasional use. 

As long as we are doing full disclosure, my son has read most of this, and he said if anyone ever asks if it is him I was talking about, he would deny it. He is grudgingly allowing me to submit it, for what it’s worth. 

My son may be a self-proclaimed atheist, but I think a lot of the values that make up the social mores of the town he has grown up in have stuck in some aspects. I have done my best to keep an amiable relationship with him so he will sometimes let me know what he is thinking. He’ll just have to get used to seeing the occasional flash of red coming out of the dryer. 

mhermitmom is a Gen X, not 100% straight, LDS woman trying to navigate career changes and “failure to launch” offspring.

Ten Ways the LDS Church Is Unsafe for Children

Although the LDS Church has the potential to be a good place for families to worship, its current practices and policies make it unsafe for children in many ways. LDS leaders refuse to implement proven practices that protect children and instead have created a system that leaves children vulnerable to abuse, In the past year, more than 100 claims of sex abuse have been filed against the Church in 6 US states. 

The following are ten ways that make the LDS Church unsafe for children:

1. No child should be required to attend a worthiness interview, yet the LDS church asks children to prove their worthiness twice each year in interviews with their ecclesiastical leaders.  This is a spiritually abusive practice that teaches children they must receive the approval of a priesthood leader to be considered worthy. Too often it has been used to shame, abuse, and manipulate children. Sam Young has compiled over 1,000 accounts of LDS members who suffered serious mistreatment during bishop’s interviews.

Children should instead be taught that they are unconditionally loved by God and their leaders just as they are. If the Church followed best practices to prevent child abuse, it would never allow a child to be alone with an adult leader in a closed room.

No child should ever be interviewed alone by any ecclesiastical leader, yet LDS leaders interview children alone in one-on-one interviews unless they ask for a parent to attend. Thus, the church places the burden for the safety on children,  not on their leaders. If the LDS Church cares about children, it will eliminate all one-on-one interviews with children. In the May 2015 children’s magazine, the article describes a child running into the bishop’s office for an interview while his mother waited outside. This is unacceptable! The LDS Church does not teach children to ask their parents to attend interviews with them when parents should be required to attend.



No child should be taught to strictly obey their leaders in Church classes and through music. In the children’s magazine, the Friend, Elder David Christiansen says, “Children, do what the Lord asks you to do when He asks you to do it. If the bishop asks you to do something, obey. If your Primary teacher asks you to do something, say yes.”

An LDS children’s song, speaking about the bishop, says, “We love him with all our might” and “Let us help him in every way.” LDS children are indoctrinated to blindly obey their church leaders without using their own power of discernment. This is dangerous and wrong. Because children are taught to do anything the bishop asks them to do, it creates a rape culture that gives perpetrators unfettered access to trusting children.

A top LDS leader in General Conference emphasized: “God has chosen His servants,” referring to bishops and other ecclesiastical leaders. No child should ever be taught that God has chosen a pedophile to be their bishop, nor should that person ever meet with the child behind closed door. Although most bishops are good men, some are not, as the plethora of lawsuits against church for sex abuse crimes indicates.

Children should instead be taught to follow their own consciouses and the avoid situations where they feel uncomfortable. They should also be taught critical thinking skills, which include not blindly obeying anyone who may be coercive or abusive.

4.LDS bishops should not be allowed to give perpetrators unfettered access to youth. Because the LDS church teaches that bishops are “common judges in Israel,” they believe bishops have the power to forgive sin. This teaching inspires some bishops to believe that they have the power not only to forgive the sins of sexual offenders but to place them in contact with vulnerable children.

      Tim Kosnoff, an attorney who has litigated cases for sexual abuse victims against the LDS Church, says, “We’ve had cases where the perpetrator was excommunicated and then rebaptized back in, in less than six months. So, well, ‘Bishop,… did you insist that he get any kind of sex offender treatment?’ No. Did you make any effort to determine whether he’d continue to offend after he was excommunicated?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did you reach out to his probation officer?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did any criminal history or background check before you made the decision to recommend him for rebaptism?’ ‘No.’

     Kosnoff adds, “I mean, these are the kind of questions that, if you ask any other kind of defendant—a school district, a corporation… [but the LDS] Church does nothing.”

Because LDS bishops are allowed to forgive the sins of perpetrators, they sometimes feel that perpetrators can again be placed in a position of trust with children. This is wrong and unacceptable.

5. The LDS Church lacks critical controls and oversight of bishops and church members, which allows predatory church leaders and members to groom and abuse victims without scrutiny. The LDS Church does not carefully monitor if convicted predators are allowed to work with children, which is revealed in the account of Frank Curtis, a convicted pedophile, who had served prison time for his offenses. Wih an extensive criminal record, Curtis joined the LDS Church and then spent years going from ward to ward, preying upon young men in his roles as Sunday School teacher and youth leader. When the youth disclosed their abuse, the LDS Church spent years and millions of dollars attempting to silence the survivors but failed.

6. The LDS Church knowingly refuses to protect children by using the priest/penitent privilege to shield perpetrators from the criminal justice system, when it could instead ask bishops to report all suspected abuse to authorities.

Kosnoff explains that the LDS Church attracts sex abusers because they know the Church lacks accountability. He says, “If rules are permissive, you’re going to have more rule violators, and that’s what you have here. The only thing we don’t have is accountability and the ability to prove what is demonstrably true, which is in LDS communities, because of this system of tolerance.”

     He adds, “If [the Church is] pedophile friendly, you’re going to have more pedophiles, which means you’re going to manufacture more victims. Which is why, as a lawyer representing sex abuse victims and civil cases against the Mormon Church, this is a growth industry in this place because they keep producing victims.”

7. The LDS Church too often silences and blames victims of sexual abuse.  Current Church manuals reference a talk by apostle Richard Scott, who said in General Conference, speaking about sexual abuse survivors, “At some point in time, however, the Lord may prompt a victim to recognize a degree of responsibility for abuse. Your priesthood leader will help assess your responsibility so that, if needed, it can be addressed.” This teaching is wrong and unacceptable.

LDS girls are taught they can influence a young man’s behavior by their choice of clothing, a teaching that tells young men that they are not responsible if they abuse someone. This false teaching also tells girls that they are responsible for any abuse they receive. I have worked with rapists and with rape survivors who believed both false LDS teachings.

8. Too often LDS bishops dismiss or minimize perpetrators’ crimes, which allows perpetrators to continue to abuse vulnerable youth.

In January 2012, two victims of an LDS perpetrator, Michael Jensen, who had moved from Utah to West Virginia, told their mother he had abused them in 2007, and she reported the abuse to the West Virginia State Police. She reported that she had told a bishop in 2008 that her son said he’d been sexually abused Jensen. After reporting the abuse to her bishop, he told her that “her kids were not abused” and that “Michael Jensen is a good kid from a good family.”

Before moving to West Virginia with his family, Michael had been convicted of sexual crimes in Utah. Michael’s former bishop in Utah testified that he had attended Michael’s juvenile hearing for sex offenses. (Apparently, his records were not tagged or the bishop chose to overlook his past history of sexual abuse.)

After the mother reported the abuse to authorities, the church sent Jensen home within about a week from his mission, but church officials again did not report Jensen’s abuse to West Virginia authorities as required by law, In total, Jensen abused at least 20 children and has been sentenced to 35 to 70 years for his crimes.

 At that trial, parents said the Church “did nothing to warn and protect” their children, and instead placed the perpetrator, a convicted sex abuser, in homes where he could harm children. The Church spent $60 million trying to silence the victims and eventually settled the case for $32 million.

Among other things, “Church officials permitted Jensen to give the sacrament, serve as a bishop’s assistant, teach young children in Primary, and begin a church mission, despite being kicked out of his family’s home for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old sibling,” the lawsuit said.

     Kosnoff describes how victims of sexual abuse suffer when Church leaders advise them to remain silent: “But when you turn to your religious community and your religious community tells you not to say anything to anybody and treats it like it’s something we don’t talk about, then that… signals that it’s your fault… [and that] you have been part of something bad…not that they were victimized by someone who did a bad thing to them.”

Because bishops are not trained to identify signs or sexual abuse nor are they typically trained sex abuse therapists, they should send all reports of abuse to authorities for review and investigation.

9. The LDS Church refuses to implement best practices for preventing child sexual abuse, knowing that thousands of LDS children have been sexually abused by LDS leaders and members. Best practices include screening and monitoring all who work with children and youth, using criminal background checks and reference checks. Best practices also include eliminating one-on-one interactions with kids and leaders and having two adults present with youth, installing windows in doors, having a no closed-door policy, and quickly reporting allegations and suspicions of sexual abuse to authorities.

Best practices also include teaching youth “no one has the right to force, trick, or coerce them into sexual situations and that sexual offenders, not their victims, are responsible for their behavior.” Best practices also require updated and intensive training for all who work with youth about how to properly prevent, assess, and report sexual abuse. Best practices ask those who suspect that someone is being sexual abused to contact authorities immediately. Best practices would never allow anyone to hide behind priest/penitent privilege or allow an adult to interrogate a child alone behind closed doors.

10. The Church currently requires all bishops and branch presidents to call a helpline before reporting abuse to authorities. The helpline is designed to protect the Church, not children, for too often, LDS leaders are told not to report abuse. 

Before 1995, LDS bishops were told to immediately report abuse to authorities. The Church needs to return to that policy. If it runs a helpline, it should be to help abuse victims, not to protect the Church’s image. 

An example of the Church’s failure to protect children includes the Paul Adam’s case: Michael Rezendes writes: “When an Arizona bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints learned that a member of his ward was sexually assaulting his 5-year-old daughter, he followed church policy and called the faith’s Abuse Help Line.

“The bishop later told law enforcement that church attorneys in Salt Lake City who staff the help line around the clock said that because he learned of the abuse during a counseling session the church considers a spiritual confession, he was legally bound to keep the abuse secret.

“Paul Douglas Adams, a U.S. Border Patrol employee living with his wife and six children in Bisbee, Ariz., continued abusing his daughter for as many as seven more years, and went on to abuse a second daughter. He finally stopped in 2017 with no help from the church only because he was arrested.”

The abuse these girls suffered is too horrific and too sickening to describe here. It could have been stopped and even prevented if their bishops had reported their abuse to authorities.

                                                                                      ******************************

Until the Church removes every policy that prioritizes confidentiality over the safety of its children, it is not a safe place for children. Its current use of clergy privilege protects predators, not children. It’s practices of victim-blaming and -silencing, one-on-one worthiness interviews, and lack of proper training for Church leaders and workers create a system that is unsafe for children. Its teachings that bishops and leaders should be strictly obeyed is unacceptable because it gives some predators absolute control of children and teaches child to submit to predators’ manipulations. Of course, not all bishops are predatory, but some are. Children deserve protection from them.

The Church can do more to protect its precious children. Their safety and lives matter. Too many children have been abused by LDS leaders and members within Church meetinghouses.  The Church spends millions of dollars on attorney fees and sexual abuse settlements which could be better spent on protecting children from sexual abuse.

 

To better understand these issues, please listen to the podcasts, “Architecture of Abuse” and “Heaven’s Helpline.” Also review the excellent research of Floodlit.org.

Ten Ways the LDS Church Is Unsafe for Childen

Although the LDS Church has the potential to be a good place for families to worship, its current practices and policies make it unsafe for children in many ways. LDS leaders refuse to implement proven practices that protect children and instead have created a system that leaves children vulnerable to abuse, In the past year, more than 100 claims of sex abuse have been filed against the Church in 6 US states. 

The following are ten ways that make the LDS Church unsafe for children:

1. No child should be required to attend a worthiness interview, yet the LDS church asks children to prove their worthiness twice each year in interviews with their ecclesiastical leaders.  This is a spiritually abusive practice that teaches children they must receive the approval of a priesthood leader to be considered worthy. Too often it has been used to shame, abuse, and manipulate children. Sam Young has compiled over 1,000 accounts of LDS members who suffered serious mistreatment during bishop’s interviews.

Children should instead be taught that they are unconditionally loved by God and their leaders just as they are. If the Church followed best practices to prevent child abuse, it would never allow a child to be alone with an adult leader in a closed room.

No child should ever be interviewed alone by any ecclesiastical leader, yet LDS leaders interview children alone in one-on-one interviews unless they ask for a parent to attend. Thus, the church places the burden for the safety on children,  not on their leaders. If the LDS Church cares about children, it will eliminate all one-on-one interviews with children. In the May 2015 children’s magazine, the article describes a child running into the bishop’s office for an interview while his mother waited outside. This is unacceptable! The LDS Church does not teach children to ask their parents to attend interviews with them when parents should be required to attend.



No child should be taught to strictly obey their leaders in Church classes and through music. In the children’s magazine, the Friend, Elder David Christiansen says, “Children, do what the Lord asks you to do when He asks you to do it. If the bishop asks you to do something, obey. If your Primary teacher asks you to do something, say yes.”

An LDS children’s song, speaking about the bishop says, “We love him with all our might” and “Let us help him in every way.” LDS children are indoctrinated to blindly obey their church leaders without using their own power of discernment. This is dangerous and wrong. Because children are taught to do anything the bishop asks them to do, it creates a rape culture that gives perpetrators unfettered access to trusting children.

A top LDS leader in General Conference emphasized: “God has chosen His servants,” referring to bishops and other ecclesiastical leaders. No child should ever be taught that God has chosen a pedophile to be their bishop, nor should that person ever meet with the child behind closed door. Although most bishops are good men, some are not, as the plethora of lawsuits against church for sex abuse crimes indicates.

Children should instead be taught to follow their own consciouses and the avoid situations where they feel uncomfortable. They should also be taught critical thinking skills, which include not blindly obeying anyone who may be coercive or abusive.

4.LDS bishops should not be allowed to give perpetrators unfettered access to youth. Because LDS church teaches that bishops are “common judges in Israel,” they believe bishops have the power to forgive sin. This teaching inspires some bishops to believe that they have the power not only to forgive the sins of sexual offenders but to place them in contact with vulnerable children.

      Tim Kosnoff, an attorney who has litigated cases for sexual abuse victims against the LDS Church, says, “We’ve had cases where the perpetrator was excommunicated and then rebaptized back in, in less than six months. So, well, ‘Bishop,… did you insist that he get any kind of sex offender treatment?’ No. Did you make any effort to determine whether he’d continue to offend after he was excommunicated?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did you reach out to his probation officer?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did any criminal history or background check before you made the decision to recommend him for rebaptism?’ ‘No.’

     Kosnoff adds, “I mean, these are the kind of questions that, if you ask any other kind of defendant—a school district, a corporation… [but the LDS] Church does nothing.”

Because LDS bishops are allowed to forgive the sins of perpetrators, they sometimes feel that perpetrators can again be placed in a position of trust with children. This is wrong and unacceptable.

5. The LDS Church lack critical controls and oversight of bishops and church members, which allows predatory church leaders and members to groom and abuse victims without scrutiny. The LDS Church does not carefully monitor if convicted predators are allowed to work with children, which is revealed in the account of Frank Curtis, a convicted pedophile, who had served prison time for his offenses. Wih an extensive criminal record, Curtis joined the LDS Church and then spent years going from ward to ward, preying upon young men in his roles as Sunday School teacher and youth leader. When the youth disclosed their abuse, the LDS Church spent years and millions of dollars attempting to silence the survivors but failed.

6. The LDS Church knowingly refuses to protect children by using the priest/penitent privilege to shield perpetrators from the criminal justice system, when it could instead ask bishops to report all suspected abuse to authorities.

Kosnoff explains that the LDS Church attracts sex abusers because they know the Church lacks accountability. He says, “If rules are permissive, you’re going to have more rule violators, and that’s what you have here. The only thing we don’t have is accountability and the ability to prove what is demonstrably true, which is: in LDS communities, because of this system of tolerance.”

     He adds, “If [the Church is] pedophile friendly, you’re going to have more pedophiles, which means you’re going to manufacture more victims. Which is why, as a lawyer representing sex abuse victims and civil cases against the Mormon Church, this is a growth industry in this place because they keep producing victims.”

7. The LDS Church too often silences and blames victims of sexual abuse.  Current Church manuals reference a talk by apostle Richard Scott, who said in General Conference, speaking about sexual abuse survivors, “At some point in time, however, the Lord may prompt a victim to recognize a degree of responsibility for abuse. Your priesthood leader will help assess your responsibility so that, if needed, it can be addressed.” This teaching is wrong and unacceptable.

LDS girls are taught they can influence a young man’s behavior by their choice of clothing, a teaching that tells young men may not be responsible if they abuse someone. This false teaching also tells girls that they are responsible for any abuse they receive. I have worked with rapists and with rape survivors who believed both false beliefs.

8. Too often LDS bishops dismiss or minimize perpetrators’ crimes, which allows perpetrators to continue to abuse vulnerable youth.

In January 2012, two victims of an LDS perpetrator, Michael Jensen, who had moved from Utah to West Virginia, told their mother he had abused them in 2007, and she reported the abuse to the West Virginia State Police. She reported that she had told a bishop in 2008 that her son said he’d been sexually abused Jensen. After reporting the abuse to her bishop, he told her that “her kids were not abused” and that “Michael Jensen is a good kid from a good family.”

Before moving to West Virginia with his family Michael had been convicted of sexual crimes in Utah. Michael’s former bishop in Utah testified that he had attended Michael’s juvenile hearing for sex offenses. (Apparently, his records were not tagged or the bishop chose to overlook his past history of sexual abuse.)

After the mother reported the abuse to authorities, the church sent Jensen home within about a week from his mission, but church officials again did not report Jensen’s abuse to West Virginia authorities as required by law, In total, Jensen abused at least 20 children and has been sentenced to 35 to 70 years for his crimes.

 At that trial, parents said the Church “did nothing to warn and protect” their children, and instead placed the perpetrator, a convicted sex abuser, in homes where he could harm children. The Church spent $60 million trying to silence the victims and eventually settled the case for $32 million.

Among other things, “Church officials permitted Jensen to give the sacrament, serve as a bishop’s assistant, teach young children in Primary, and begin a church mission, despite being kicked out of his family’s home for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old sibling,” the lawsuit said.

     Kosnoff describes how victims of sexual abuse suffer when Church leaders advise them to remain silent: “But when you turn to your religious community and your religious community tells you not to say anything to anybody and treats it like it’s something we don’t talk about, then that… signals that it’s your fault… [and that] you have been part of something bad…not that they were victimized by someone who did a bad thing to them.”

Because bishops are not trained to identify signs or sexual abuse nor are they typically trained sex abuse therapists, they should send all reports of abuse to authorities for review and investigation.

9. The LDS Church refuses to implement best practices for preventing child sexual abuse, knowing that thousands of LDS children have been sexually abused by LDS leaders and members. Best practices include screening and monitoring all who work with children and youth, including criminal background checks and reference checks. Best practices also include eliminating one-on-one interactions with kids and leaders and having two adults present with youth, installing windows in doors and having a no closed-door policy, and quickly reporting allegations and suspicions of sexual abuse to authorities.

Best practices include teaching youth “no one has the right to force, trick, or coerce them into sexual situations and that sexual offenders, not their victims, are responsible for their behavior.” Best practices also updated and intensive training for all who work with youth about how to properly prevent, assess, and report sexual abuse. Best practices also requires everyone who suspects that someone is being sexual abused to contact authorities immediately. Best practices would never allow anyone to hide behind priest/penitent privilege or allow an adult to interrogate a child alone behind closed doors.

10. The Church currently requires all bishops and branch presidents to call a helpline before reporting abuse to authorities. The helpline is designed to protect the Church, not children, for too often, LDS leaders are told not to report abuse. 

Before 1995, LDS bishops were told to immediately report abuse to authorities. The Church needs to return to that policy. If it runs a helpline, it should be to help abuse victims, not to protect the Church’s image. 

An example of the Church’s failure to protect children includes the Paul Adam’s case: Michael Rezendes writes: “When an Arizona bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints learned that a member of his ward was sexually assaulting his 5-year-old daughter, he followed church policy and called the faith’s Abuse Help Line.

“The bishop later told law enforcement that church attorneys in Salt Lake City who staff the help line around the clock said that because he learned of the abuse during a counseling session the church considers a spiritual confession, he was legally bound to keep the abuse secret.

“Paul Douglas Adams, a U.S. Border Patrol employee living with his wife and six children in Bisbee, Ariz., continued abusing his daughter for as many as seven more years, and went on to abuse a second daughter. He finally stopped in 2017 with no help from the church only because he was arrested.”

The abuse these girls suffered is too horrific and sickening to describe here. It could have been stopped and even prevented if their bishops had reported their abuse to authorities.

                                                                                      ******************************

Until the Church removes every policy that prioritizes confidentiality over the safety of its children, it is not a safe place for children. Its current use of clergy privilege protects predators, not children. It’s practices of victim-blaming and -silencing, one-on-one worthiness interviews, and lack of proper training for Church leaders and workers create a system that is unsafe for children. Its teachings that bishops and leaders should be strictly obeyed is unacceptable because it gives some predators absolute control of children and teaches child to submit to predators’ manipulations. Of course, not all bishops are predatory, but some are. Children deserve protection from them.

The Church can do more to protect its precious children. Their safety and lives matter. Too many children have been abused by LDS leaders and members within Church meetinghouses.  The Church spends millions of dollars in attorney fees and sexual abuse settlements which could be better spent in protecting children from sexual abuse.

 

To better understand these issues, please listen to the podcasts, “Architecture of Abuse” and “Heaven’s Helpline.” Also,  review the excellent research of Floodlit.org.

Rest: A key pillar of mortality

I would like to bear my testimony about the critical importance of rest.

Of a good nap, of sleeping in, of taking a mental health day from work or church or other responsibilities because your body is tired, and it needs a break. This is not a sign of weakness or a way your body is letting you down. Rather, it is an opportunity for self-care, for prioritizing your own needs—it is you following Jesus to the mountains to be away from crowds and simply laying your head down, closing your eyes and listening to your body. I know these things to be true.

We all know this. But sometimes we don’t know it. I learned it for real this summer—the summer that I planned to spend hiking and traveling and playing soccer and going to the lake in a two-piece swimsuit with a boy. Instead, I spent it with chronic tonsillitis. Since the last week of May, I’ve been on four increasingly strong antibiotics, I’ve taken more sick time than ever before, I’ve popped dozens of pills and, though I got better, I never fully healed. By Sunday night most weeks, I was doing OK—well enough to go to the gym on Monday morning, able to be a little social, ready for work the next day.

By Tuesday every week I was sick again. I’ve hardly worked a full week all summer because I had to take the last few hours of the week off. I was rundown, I was achy, I was lethargic. After the final go-round of antibiotics, I returned to the ENT to talk about a tonsillectomy. Despite having zero problems with my tonsils for four decades, in seven weeks they’d destroyed themselves and my summer. They were coming out. I just had to make it about 10 days from my final antibiotic to the surgery. The healthier I was when I went into surgery, the easier (relatively) my recovery would be.

In my mind, healthy came from my routine—getting up early, going to the gym, running, biking, making sure I had a balanced diet. So I did that for a time, including going to my soccer game the weekend before surgery. And I had a great time. But I felt the pattern repeating—after a good weekend, I immediately started feeling sick again.

It was three days before surgery that everything clicked. The reason I felt better over the weekend and started feeling sick again every Monday afternoon was because over the weekend, I slept. I went to bed early, I didn’t set my alarm and I got a lot of sleep. On Monday, eager to get back to normal because I felt good, I set my alarm, I got up early to work out, I pushed myself.

Well, this Tuesday I woke up, got dressed, put on an ankle brace (because I’d recently rolled my ankle playing soccer but that also didn’t stop me from exercising) and walked into the living room to find my keys and go to the gym. And in that moment, I realized I was tired. I was sick. I didn’t need 45 minutes on the bike. I needed to sleep. And I turned around and went back to bed. And you know what? I had a pretty good day. I repeated the next couple of days. And I felt better.

This is a hard adjustment for me—I know the health benefits of exercise, and I actually like working out, and I worry about getting fatter if I don’t exercise. (Two of those are valid points to take into consideration.) But in this situation, where my body was struggling with its regular routine because of illness, it didn’t need exercise. It just needed rest. It took me so long to see that.

It has, quite frankly, taken so long to understand this concept in so many aspects of my life. In my experience observing Mormons and being Mormon, rest is not something at which we excel. My seminary classes started at 5:55 a.m. I was tired every day in high school; falling asleep in class was not unusual. I think about my mission, when I actually did sleep close to eight hours a night, but because there is no time for rest during the day, I was still constantly exhausted. I remember dozing off once during a lesson. And a mission isn’t just physically tiring; as an introvert, never being alone meant that my social battery was constantly drained and I never had the chance to recharge. Every part of me was bone-tired. That is a feature of missions, I will note, not a bug.

Outside of those examples, there’s just always work to be done, people to be served, callings that you’re supposed to say yes to. I’ve been to dozens of meetings that started at 6 or 7 a.m. on a Sunday. I’ve agreed to meetings or picked people up to run errands when I was sick. And I’m not even a parent! How much more exhausting is life when you’re getting up with babies, shuttling children around to various activities, never putting yourself first because the sacrifice is motherhood is considered sacrosanct. How many hours—days—years of sleep have women sacrificed for their families, for their spouses, for the church? And what has that netted any of us? When we are taught that sacrifice is one of the highest and holiest of God’s teachings, we understand, both implicitly and explicitly, that there is always someone else to put first. That self-care is selfish.

Rest is resistance, according to Tricia Hersey, who started the Nap Ministry. It’s a radical act of self-love, of self-care, of declaring that you are important, that your needs matter. It’s an act of self-trust—it shows your body that you are listening, that you hear what it’s asking for, that you know how important your own needs are. It is an act of sanctification and healing for your body. And I believe it matters just as much to God as reading scriptures, praying, preparing lessons or fulfilling callings.

A nap isn’t always the answer. It’s not what healed me—that was surgery. (At least, I hope it did the trick. I’m still in the constant-pain-and-discomfort part of recovery.) It rarely fixes the problem with which I’m wrestling. But I always feel better after. The problem is smaller, more manageable when I am well-rested. I feel better, I am in less pain, my brain is more focused and my body knows it can trust me to put it first.

Photo by Vladislav Muslakov on Unsplash

John Taylor’s 1886 Revelation

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints finally released John Taylor’s 1886 revelation. After years of denying its existence and insisting that nothing like it was found in its archives, the Brigimite sect silently uploaded the original document for the public to see.

The history of this document is quite interesting. For those who don’t know, John Taylor’s son found this revelation in his father’s desk after he had passed away. Speaking in the revelatory language of the Lord, John Taylor’s writings insist that the new and everlasting covenant (polygamy) was an eternal covenant that could never be taken away.

This was the beginning of the Mormon fundamentalist movement. These faithful latter-day saints believed that the Brigimite sect was in apostasy for ending the practice of polygamy. So they broke off and began their own sects.

How can we blame them? Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor, among other church leaders, insisted that this practice should never go away; that it was necessary for eternal salvation.

John Taylor’s revelation, along with uncorroborated claims that he was visited by Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith and later tasked specific priesthood leaders to keep polygamy alive, lit the flame beneath the fundamentalist movements, whose followers continue to practice polygamy today.

Yet the church claimed that this revelation was “pretended.” John Taylor’s son was later excommunicated, along with many other church leaders who continued the practice.

What does this all mean for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Members may have to wrestle with the reality that a prophet did in fact write this revelation. Was John Taylor wrong? Was he right? What could that mean for us?

Some argue that he never presented the revelation in General Conference, therefore, it was never voted upon and cannot be considered as binding upon the church.

But it is important to mention that John Taylor was in hiding for the last years of his life due to the practice of polygamy. He didn’t make public appearances or speak in General Conference because the government was hunting him down. He hid in safe houses, hopping from place to place, keeping his whereabouts largely unknown.

Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t present it to the apostles or to the church for a sustaining vote.

Some say the revelation doesn’t matter because Wilford Woodruff, the subsequent prophet, gained direction from the Lord to stop the practice. More current prophets trump older ones, I suppose. Though the contradictions between Taylor’s 1886 revelation and Woodruff’s Manifesto are so vast, it is difficult to believe that both came from the same God.

So.. where does that leave us? Is this revelation legit? I guess that’s for each person to decide for themselves.

I’m more interested in what this says about our church – the Brigimite sect.

The church, having known of the revelations existence since 1933, lied. For 92 years.

They gaslit the entire fundamentalist movement, insisting that their desire to continue the practice of polygamy was baseless.

They excommunicated and punished loyal and obedient members through the perpetuation of this lie.

I actually don’t find it problematic when church leaders make mistakes. They are flawed men, after all.

But, if they are going to lie and make mistakes, then may I suggest that the church stop doing a few things.

Stop teaching that the prophet will never lead us astray.

Please.. stop. This teaching is nonsense. Primary kids sing this on repeat when the evidence largely points to the contrary.

To be blunt: Prophets get things wrong.

They lie. They deceive. They teach doctrine that is later rescinded.

Stop pretending that this is not so.

We teach that prophets are fallible, yet we act as if they are infallible.

Normalize their humanity. Make known their mistakes. And, most importantly..

Let members disagree with the prophet.

It’s as if someone has said a curse word if they were to say that they disagree with the prophet of the church.

Why?

Why do we kick out our own people, excommunicate our best and brightest spiritual minds, because they simply disagree with a flawed and fallible man?

Why have we created a culture where members can’t be authentic? Where we can’t express our doubts and concerns without fear of punishment? Where our eternal salvation depends on us following an imperfect man?

I applaud the LDS church for making strides in transparency. Yet I’m disappointed that it was done so in silence. The leaders are letting their own people, the members that they are meant to guide, to fumble about, wondering what this revelation means to us. Members are left to scour other resources or rely on social media influencers to determine what this means because the leaders are completely and utterly silent.

Not to mention that there was no acknowledgment of the harm that has been caused by this 93 year old lie. No accountability or apology to be seen.

Just a digital upload made in deafening quiet.

I can’t say this isn’t surprising. Just.. disappointing.

Source: https://www.kuer.org/race-religion-social-justice/2025-06-26/an-1880s-lds-polygamy-revelation-raises-awkward-questions-today-says-historian?_amp=true

Photo by Kevin Woblick on Unsplash

A Response to LDS Church Attorney’s Talk at FAIR Conference on August 7, 2025

 

 

On August, 7, 2025, Randy Austin, LDS Church attorney for the legal firm, Kirton and McConkie, spoke about the church abuse hotline at the FAIR Conference. 

Austin made a number of claims that merit a response:

He said, “Far more abuse gets reported when the bishop calls the helpline than if we didn’t have one.”

 Before the helpline was instituted, bishops were told to report all abuse to authorities. Now bishops are too often told not to report abuse. For example, in Arizona a girl was being horrifically abused by her father, Paul Adams. Attorneys on the LDS hotline told two bishops not to report the abuse to police. The father proceeded to horribly abuse his infant daughter because the violence was not reported. The father would have continued to abuse his baby if his videos of the abuse on pornographic websites had not been reported to authorities.

The Church used priest/penitent privilege to claim they shouldn’t have reported the abuse to authorities, even though any church can report abuse to authorities if they choose.

In Austin’s presentation he and Kerri Nielsen, a licensed clinical social worker for LDS Family Services “reiterated several times the church’s position that abuse cannot be tolerated in any form.”

How can the Church claim that abuse is not tolerated in any form when bishops are told not to report abuse? Recently, a relative who serves as an LDS bishop called the Church hotline to report abuse as is required of all bishops. He was told by a Church attorney not to report it to the police. When he urged the Church attorney to allow him to report the abuse, he was forbidden from reporting it. Floodlit has documented over 100 cases where LDS leaders failed to report sexual abuse of children. Many more have not appeared in newspaper headlines.

“Children and families are safer” because of the help line, Austin said.

How can children and families be safer when LDS bishops are told not to report abuse and when the Church hides behind priest/penitent privilege in the court systems? Attorneys for the Adam’s children ask, “How do you explain to young victims that a rapist’s religious beliefs are more important than their right to be free from rape?”

Austin said, “Local church leaders can call the line to learn their responsibility for reporting abuse to civil officials. The help line staff monitors clergy privilege laws in all fifty states and in countries around the world local church leaders.”

Before the line was established, local church leaders were told to report all abuse to authorities. Now they are told they cannot report abuse until they call the helpline, whose main purpose is to protect the Church, not to protect victims. If the Church genuinely cares about victims of abuse, they will have a helpline that abuse victims could call, not a line for leaders.

Austin said, “While police need time to investigate, bishops can provide immediate action to help.”

If bishops do not report abuse to police, immediate action cannot be taken to protect victims of abuse.  Delaying or eliminating the reporting of abuse by clergy protects the perpetrators but does not provide relief for the victim of abuse. 

Austin and Nielsen said that part of the help line process is to remind bishops that the church’s policy is to report abuse allegations to legal authorities.

  If the church’s policy is to report abuse allegations to legal authorities, why do they require bishops to call the help line before reporting abuse?

Next, Austin describes the priest/penitent privilege or clergy privilege available in 37 US states that the Church uses to exempt bishops from reporting abuse when they learn about it in a confessional with the abuser. He says more abuse is reported because of this privilege.

Austin fails to say that while more abuse may be reported to clergy because of the clergy privilege, less is reported to authorities when churches use the privilege to tell their priests and bishops not to report abuse.

Austin admits that “his team regularly presents to law enforcement officers and asks them if they ever have had an abuser stop them to confess their abuse. The officers always say no.” Why should the Church expect or ask abusers to report their abuse to police when they already know that the abuse will not be reported? This is one of the most compelling reasons that churches should not hide behind priest/penitent privilege.

Nielsen then outlines safety procedures that the Church has implemented to protect children. First, she said that ‘two adults are required to be present for any child or youth activity, and leaders in those situations must complete training on abuse prevention.”

Although two adults may be present, because the Church does not background all who work with youth, it is possible that they may be abusers. (Read “The Sins of Brother Curtis” to better understand this scenario.)

Leaders are encouraged to complete minimal and insufficient training on abuse, but follow-through is not always done to ensure leaders have completed the training.

Next, Nielsen says that if a church member commits abuse, their membership records are annotated in a way that bars them from serving with children and youth.

As the mother of a child who was sexually abused, I receive updates if a convicted sex offender moves into my neighborhood. A few years ago, one moved into our ward. Our bishop placed him in calling serving youth and when asked, replied that he knew that the man was no longer a threat to anyone because God had forgiven Him.

Nielsen said, “Background checks are increasingly a part of screening adults for working with children and youth. (“The church was very supportive of the new Utah law requiring sex offender registry checks for those serving with children and youth.)”

If the LDS Church genuinely cares about protecting children and youth, it would require background checks on anyone working with vulnerable people.

A few LDS members worked hard to urge the LDS Church to require background checks on LDS folks working with vulnerable people in the United Kingdom. They sent letters to bishops, reminding them that in the U.K.,  “they might be considered legally liable if they had recommended an individual to work with children in the church and that person turned out to have a DBS record.”

Eventually, U.K. Church leaders relented and now require background checks, but it didn’t happen until members spent thousands of hours and personal money educating leaders and pleading for action.

Nielsen said, “Church members can invite others into interviews with a church leader. Youth can bring their parents.”

If the Church genuinely cares about protecting its children, it will stop one-on-one worthiness interviews with children, where some predatory bishops can groom youth. This happened to my best friend, and it has caused unspeakable suffering for her. The Church should not place the burden on youth to bring their parents with them to interviews, an opportunity that many may not know exists.

“The Lord expects us to do all we can to prevent abuse and protect those who have been victims of abuse,” Nielsen said.

I agree. If the Lord expects us to do all we can to protect abuse victims, why does the LDS Church ask bishops to call a hotline before reporting abuse? Why does the LDS Church hide behind the clergy privilege in not reporting abuse? Why do LDS leaders allow bishops to have one-on-one interviews with children? Why doesn’t the Church require mandatory background checks on anyone working with vulnerable people? Why doesn’t it tag records of sexual perpetrators for life so that they are no longer allowed to work with children and youth? Why doesn’t it tell every church leader to report all incidents of abuse to authorities?

In a past blog I wrote: “Although the LDS Church claims to be the “gold standard” for dealing with child abuse, it disregards the best practices for protecting its children and members. It is time for the Church to care more about its children than it does about protecting its good name. The Church spends millions of dollars on attorney fees and sexual abuse settlements which could be better spent on protecting members from sexual abuse. Since the LDS Church claims to be the only true Church, it should set the standard for protecting its members from sexual abuse and holding perpetrators accountable.”

Although not all abuse can be prevented in the Church, much could be avoided by implementing proven policies and practices that protect children and youth from sexual abuse. The Church needs to decide how much they value the safety and welfare of their children. Its decisions regarding clergy privilege, background checks, ensuring that convicted sex offenders never work with youth in the Church, and eliminating one-on-one interviews with youth will show if it cares about children–or if it doesn’t.

 

*1st Photo from WikiMedia Commons: Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Governor Tom Wolf, First Lady Frances Wolf, Legislators, Victims and Advocates Rally for Reforms Recommended by Grand Jury on Child Sex Abuse in the Church, Author Tom Wolf.

*2nd Photo from WikiMedia Commons: Lorie Shaull from St Paul, United States