Exponent II's Blog, page 40

Have Mormon Women Uncovered The Eye Opening Truth of Our Own Women’s History?

This is the Equal Rights Amendment:

Original Equal Rights Amendment, introduced in Congress in 1923,

written by Alice Paul:

Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place

subject to its jurisdiction.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

That’s it.

***

Women’s history in regards to the ERA:

Section 1. Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied

or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate

legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the

date of ratification.

The Equal Rights Amendment was written in 1921 by suffragist Alice Paul. It has been introduced in Congress every session since 1923.

It passed Congress in the above form in 1972, but was not ratified by the necessary thirty-eight states by the July 1982 deadline. It was ratified by thirty-five states (green states are those that ratified the ERA).

This is what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints worked to shut down. This is what The Church of Jesus Christ excommunicated Sonia Johnson over (okay, okay…there are a few more details to this woman’s history…read this link for more info)

But, really…The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints said that, “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex,” were words that would rip women out of their homes, where they are safe and belong, and make them go to war. 

This amendment alone could not make that happen.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints believes that equality is a threat to the men, most importantly the men with power.  But they say it is a threat to women.

This law would possibly force the church’s hand to treat women equally, which by the mere fact that it worked so hard to shut this amendment down, shows that it did not and does not treat its women equally.

Women’s history in regards to Sonia Johnson:

Christine Talbot, as a part of a series, Introductions to Mormon Thought, has thoroughly researched the life and works of Sonia Johnson. Giving us a gift of knowledge on an important Mormon woman, that other Mormon/ Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint women would benefit from examining. 

“The legacy of her [Sonia’s] experience reminds all of us that the challenges, problems, and anguish she articulated have not been resolved”1

I had a vague idea of who Sonia was a couple years ago, but knew her as a controversial figure just from hearing her name thrown around in podcasts. In fact, my mother who is a generation closer to Sonia, still has a hazy, if not wrong idea of who Sonia is and what she actually did.

Talbot notes that in Sonia’s “estimation, she watched male LDS leaders conspire against her and against women’s rights, she saw men lying to women repeatedly, and she saw women internalizing patriarchy and following men’s leadership without question.”2

“The church had taught [Sonia] that men could not be reasoned with and would never simply “give” women their rights. Rights must be seized.”3

When you watch/listen to recordings of Sonia (found through the University of Utah), you may find her to come across as I do; like most typical orthodox Mormon women from the 80’s. Permed hair, cut short, and a soft spoken voice that uses delicate language. She epitomizes the female “general conference voice”. I grew up surrounded by women just like her.

This is part of what makes her story hit so close for me. I was a baby as this was all happening. Sonia was trying to support changes that would benefit me – and the church I was brought up in shut her down, shut all the efforts that would change my world for better, down. 

Sonia continued to write and Talbot took all her works, including personal interviews with Sonia herself to create a short, but thorough outlook of what Sonia has put out into the world and how she tried, but failed to stand up against the Patriarchal system that is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

Sonia grew up with the idea that God loves all the same, no matter what gender. She thought it only logical and inline with church theology that the ERA should be passed. When she was asked by her Bishop who was trying to excommunicate her, he pressured her to answer whether she believed in Patriarchy. When she said no, that was the nail in the coffin. He believed that was grounds enough to kick her out of the church.

Sonia went to church for a year after being excommunicated. She still believed in its theology and the ERA as being cohesive.

Talbot notes that Sonia did an interview with Dialogue: A journal of Mormon Thought where she said,

“Women are the experts on being women, but we are told who we are and what we are and what we must feel by men who haven’t a clue…How can they tell me when I am feeling fulfilled?”4

Let’s learn more about the women before us from other women. I highly recommend Christine Talbot’s addition to the Introductions to Mormon Thought Series on Sonia Johnson, A Mormon Feminist.

Other related articles: here, and here

Talbot, Sonia Johnson A Mormon Feminist, 83. ︎Talbot, Sonia Johnson A Mormon Feminist, 16. ︎Talbot, Sonia Johnson A Mormon Feminist,17. ︎Talbot, Sonia Johnson A Mormon Feminist, 88. ︎

Scripture Translations and Who Defines the Divine

Scripture translations have intrigued me since High School when I met Judy Brummer, a South African translator of the Book of Mormon who shared her experience of feeling Moroni’s energy sitting with her while she translated his words into the Xhosa language. Her creative, transformative experience of translating scripture greatly influenced my reading of scriptural texts. Suddenly, these sacred words no longer seemed magical or mystical, but more human– more prone to error and bias. 

From then on, the words on the scritta paper weren’t necessarily the words of God but the words that translators thought were God’s–which seemed much more interesting to me. I realized that scriptural texts are filtered through invisible human translators who influence the messages and ideologies of a text. And yet, we rarely know their names–these writers of scripture. 

Years later, when writing a paper in college, I came across a story about an Iraqw Bible translation project that again transformed the way I viewed God. The Iraqw language, a Cushitic language spoken in Northern Tanzania, posed a translation challenge because the Iraqw word for God is feminine.

According to Aloo Osotsi Mojola, a translation scholar at the University of Nairobi, translators are often confronted with issues of inadequate direct translation–words that require the translator’s creativity and judgment. When faced with a word, “God” in this case, that has no direct equivalent, the translators must make a choice: Do we take the path of domestication, using one of the names of God from the local language? Or do we opt for foreignization, borrowing one of the names of God from the neighboring dominant languages? 

The Iraqw name for God is Mother Looa. This ancient goddess appears in their folktales and myths, in their daily conversations, and in their prayers. For centuries, Iraqw-speaking people understood that the creator of the universe was Mother Looa. She is the protector and loving mother of all humanity, “she represents all that is good, beautiful, and true.” By contrast, the masculine god, Neetlanqw, is understood to bring evil and calamity, suffering and chaos to the world. Naturally, the Bible translation team–consisting mostly of women–decided to translate the English word “God” to the Iraqw “Mother Looa.” 

As I read this scholarly article, I loved imagining these people calling to Mother Looa when they were in trouble, reading Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning Mother Looa created the heavens and the earth.” I knew it was just normal to them, and I hated the idea of Christianity commandeering their Goddess of goodness, forcing her to enact the horrors attributed to the God of Israel in the Bible. But–wow. The Christian Bible held a Goddess in its pages, and she transformed all the hes into hers. 

What a difference a word makes, I thought.

But the story ended predictably: Christian leaders discovered this feminine translation and took immediate action. 

Obviously, there was no room for feminine language in the Bible. The Christian leaders argued that “everyone knows, God is a father and therefore masculine.” I would argue that the Iraqw-speaking people did not “know” that, but Mother Looa was cut from the Bible–erased from Christian tradition, theology, and thought. Instead of listening and straddling two worlds like translators do, the leaders held rigidly to the foundation of Christianity: Father, man, he, him.

And though I love the idea of a Goddess in the Bible, stripping away all those masculine pronouns, I am also–sadly–glad that Looa was released from the barbaric acts of our Old Testament God.

I’ve thought often about this story of translation, the power of a single word, and the decisions of translators–the invisible world-makers. This erasure of Mother Looa was still fresh in my mind when I learned of another instance where translation shaped (or reshaped) religious texts in 17th-century England. Mary Sidney, who knew five languages, including Hebrew, translated many texts into English, but when I read the Psalms that she translated, I was transformed. 

For me, the Bible is literarily clunky and strange and hard to read. This ugliness was always excused to me because people said it was translated from an ancient language, but then I read Mary Sidney’s Psalms and realized that that just isn’t true. Her wordplay, metrical complexity, and linguistic prowess made scripture beautiful to me. Delightful. For example, here is a portion of her translation of Psalm 150: 

Let ringing timbrels so his honor sound,
Let sounding cymbals so his glory ring,
That in their tunes such melody be found
As fits the pomp of most triumphant king.

Her Psalms, which she presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1599, demonstrate rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration. Her words are so much more beautiful, so much more linguistically complex and clever than the King James version of Psalm 150: 

Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.

Yikes. Both translations originate from the same Hebrew poems, and yet, they vary vastly based on the person translating. I find Sidney’s translation more to my liking, but isn’t that fascinating? Two translators take the same Hebrew words and create two completely different products. Translators matter.

Ultimately, Bible translation is not just about words—it’s about power, belief, and who gets to define the divine. 

*This post was inspired by guest blogger Leticia Storr’s beautiful post, God’s Language .

*Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Exponent II is Looking for a Fundraising Chair and Auditor

Fundraising Chair

We are looking to fill this essential position within the Exponent II organization. As chair, you would lead efforts to secure financial resources to sustain and grow the organization’s mission of providing feminist forums for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum. This role involves developing and implementing fundraising strategies and cultivating donor relationships. Job description here. To apply, email your resume and a short statement of interest to board@exponentii.org by February 25, 2025. 

Auditor

Exponent II is looking for a volunteer to audit our monthly income/expenses. The anticipated time commitment is approximately one hour each month. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Jeanine Bean, Treasurer at treasurer@exponentii.org by February 25, 2025. 

The False Parable of Priesthood Keys and Priesthood Locks

Men and women do not have the same experiences reading the scriptures and church materials like the Come Follow Me curriculum. I was reminded of this recently when I went to write the lesson plan for the week that covers the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood. The lesson quotes from The Melchizedek Priesthood written by Elder Dale G. Renlund and his wife, Ruth.

“The term priesthood keys is used in two different ways. The first refers to a specific right or privilege conferred upon all who receive the Aaronic or Melchizedek Priesthood. … For instance, Aaronic Priesthood holders receive the keys of the ministering of angels and the keys of the preparatory gospel of repentance and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins (see Doctrine and Covenants 13:1; 84:26–27). Melchizedek Priesthood holders receive the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, the key of the knowledge of God, and the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the Church (see Doctrine and Covenants 84:19; 107:18). …
“The second way the term priesthood keys is used refers to leadership. Priesthood leaders receive additional priesthood keys, the right to preside over an organizational division of the Church or a quorum. In this regard, priesthood keys are the authority and power to direct, lead, and govern in the Church” (The Melchizedek Priesthood: Understanding the Doctrine, Living the Principles [2018], 26).

When church leaders talk about priesthood, they tend to talk about three things: authority, power, and keys. We’ve started to hear about women using priesthood authority and priesthood power (Using Section 84 to Emphasize the Priesthood Power of Women has a pretty good list of talks), but as far as I can tell, priesthood keys are still taught as a male-only thing.

All this emphasis on keys got me thinking about locks. Locks are a natural counterpart to keys, and keys don’t have much of a purpose without locks. Current discourse teaches that women have the priesthood, but they don’t have priesthood keys. Do women have priesthood locks? A priesthood key could be used with a priesthood lock to let somebody through. The ethical way to use a priesthood key is “only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned”. This doesn’t just mean during the initial sustaining vote. This means with every encounter with every priesthood lock the key interacts with (and the priesthood keys of a man in a leadership position may interact with a lot of priesthood locks as well as other priesthood keys).

Do I want to have a priesthood lock? It means being stuck in one place. The lock’s strength and integrity have to be monitored. A priesthood lock is assumed to passively protect the possessions of the man who holds the key. A lock has a responsibility to constrain the actions of men who try to use their keys to go where they don’t have a right to go.

This metaphor is so close to what girls and women have learned about chastity at church that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And just in case it’s not clear: although I love my female body, I’m not interested in having a “priesthood lock” for men to pick, tamper with, devise ways to bypass, or break. I’m also not interested in being the first line of defense to protect male controlled spaces. This parable is false because, unlike a lock, women have agency to determine where they go and what they do in life. By denying women priesthood keys, the church circumscribes women’s agency in its sphere of influence. Church is the place where many women feel their agency is most restricted.

Going back to Elder Renlund’s quote (and the priesthood duties enumerated in Doctrine and Covenants 84), women already do or are capable of doing all of that stuff. “The errand of angels is given to women” who minister to others, sister missionaries teach the gospel of repentance, and the only reason women don’t perform baptisms is due to church policy, not physical inability. Women are spiritual. Women have insight about God and the mysteries of Their realm. Women are able to receive and give spiritual blessings. Within the current church leadership structure, women are presidents who don’t preside over their organizational divisions. But they certainly could if the men would let them.

If we have to go with a key and lock metaphor, I’d rather have a multifactor authentication system where every person has a piece of the secret combinations presumably required to enter the kingdom of God. We’d all have to work together to get to where we’re going. Hmmm, working together with one heart and one mind, that sounds like…Zion.

Come Follow Me: Doctrine and Covenants 12–17; Joseph Smith—History 1:66–75 “Upon You My Fellow Servants”

Table of ContentsHistorical OverviewStructure of the Assigned Doctrine and Covenants Sections“Upon You My Fellow Servants” – restoration of Aaronic priesthoodDiscussion: Baptism

This lesson covers the part of church history where the Aaronic priesthood is restored and Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were baptized. If I were teaching this lesson, I’d choose to have an open-ended discussion about baptism at the end of class. I’d prime the class for this discussion by saying something like:
“At the end of class, I’d like to discuss baptism and what it has meant for you. During class, be thinking about any experiences you might like to share about a baptism that you’ve attended, something you’ve learned about baptism, or how this ordinance has brought you closer to God.”

Historical Overview

It would be helpful to display or have people find the New York/Pennsylvania map in the scriptures under Study Helps → Church History Maps → Northeastern United States.

The revelations in this lesson were given to Joseph Knight Sr., Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and the Whitmer brothers: David, John, Peter Jr. Who were these people? Where were they from?

Revelations in Context presents historical information from the Joseph Smith Papers (among other sources) in brief chapters. The chapters that are relevant for this lesson are:

The Contributions of Martin Harris

Oliver Cowdery’s Gift

The Knight and Whitmer Families

The Experience of the Three Witnesses

Here’s a summary of these chapters:
Martin Harris was a prosperous middle aged farmer living in Palmyra, NY. He helped with the translation of the Book of Mormon in the spring of 1828. His wife, Lucy, was suspicious of Joseph Smith because he would not show her the plates. Martin convinced Joseph to let him bring part of the manuscript home so she could read them. This is when the 116 pages were lost. Ultimately, despite his wife’s concerns, Martin parted with “essentially all the property to which he had a legal right” in order to print the Book of Mormon. He was one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

Oliver Cowdery was a young school teacher boarding in Palmyra with Joseph Smith’s parents in the fall of 1828. The next spring, Oliver traveled to Harmony, PA where Joseph was living with Emma. The following day, Joseph recommenced translating the Book of Mormon (he had stopped after Martin lost the manuscript.) Oliver was one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

The Knight family lived 30 miles north of Harmony, in Coleville, NY. Joseph Smith had worked as a laborer on the farm of Joseph Knight Sr. He was one of the first people Joseph Smith told about the gold plates.

The Whitmer family was from Fayette, NY. David Whitmer heard about the gold plates when became friends with Oliver Cowdery in 1828. Oliver stopped to see the Whitmers when he was traveling to Harmony, PA be a scribe for the translation work, and he wrote letters to the family when he was with Joseph in Pennsylvania. In May 1829, David Whitmer arrived in Harmony to move Joseph and Oliver to the Whitmer’s home (back in New York), where they could translate and have their board free of charge. Emma later came to live at the Whitmer’s as well, and she also acted as a scribe. The translation was finished about a month later, in the summer of 1829.

Peter and Mary Whitmer had eight children together: Christian, Jacob, John, David, Catherine, Peter Jr., Nancy, and Elizabeth Ann. This week’s reading contains sections of the Doctrine and Covenants revealed for John, David, and Peter Jr. One of those sons, David, was one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon. Mary Whitmer was also a witness of the Book of Mormon:

“A grandson of Mary Musselman Whitmer (wife of Peter Whitmer Sr.) reported that Mary had “so many extra persons to care for” that she “was often overloaded with work.” One evening, after a long day’s work, she went to the barn to milk the cows and met a stranger who “showed her a bundle of plates” and “turned the leaves of the book of plates over, leaf after leaf,” promising Mary that “she should be blessed” if she were “patient and faithful in bearing her burden a little longer.”9 She thus became another witness of the Book of Mormon.”

Structure of the Assigned Doctrine and Covenants Sections

If you feel like you were re-reading the same thing over and over, you were!

Sections 15 (to John Whitmer) and 16 (to Peter Whitmer Jr.) are identical except for the names in verse 1.

Sections 12 (to Joseph Knight Sr.) and 14 (to David Whitmer) are very similar. For these sections:
Verses 1-5 are identical.
Verses 6 say similar things.
The main difference is in verses 7-8.
Verses 9 are similar. Section 14 has a few more verses at the end.

Section 13 is the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood. It was conferred by John the Baptist to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. This section is only a single verse long and is the same as JS—history 1:69.

Section 17 promises Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris a view of the plates.

Joseph Smith—History 1:66-75 is Joseph’s account of the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood and his and Oliver’s baptism in April of 1829. The asterisk in verse 71 leads to Oliver Cowdery’s memories of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood, which was published in 1834, about five years afterwards.

“Upon You My Fellow Servants” – restoration of Aaronic priesthood

After reviewing the historical context and the structure of the assigned reading, go through and talk about whichever verses are meaningful to you and your class. Ask your class what insights they had as they studied this week.

A verse I would choose to cover is D&C 13:1/JS-H 1:69 (it’s the same words in both places):

“Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.”

Two phrases stand out to me here. The first is “Upon you my fellow servants” and the second phrase is “keys of the ministering of angels”.

The first phrase “Upon you my fellow servants”, is also the title for this lesson. What do you think it means to be a fellow servant with John the Baptist?

I’ve become very sensitive to gendered language in the scriptures. The word ‘fellow’ is interesting because it has both gendered and gender neutral meanings:
1. a man or boy
2. a person in the same position, involved in the same activity, or otherwise associated with another
3. a member of a learned society

The first definition does not apply here. When used in the first way, the word refers to a male, but the other two definitions are gender neutral. While the third definition could apply, we say we don’t generally refer to members of the Aaronic priesthood as “the priesthood fellows”. We say “the priesthood brethren”. It’s pretty clear that in this verse “my fellow servants” refers to Joseph and Oliver being involved in building up the kingdom of God, just like John the Baptist. Women can be fellows in this work too, although they are currently not in the same position, because they have not been ordained to the Aaronic priesthood.

The second phrase, “keys of the ministering of angels”, reminds me of the favorite Relief Society song As Sisters in Zion. Verse two begins: “The errand of angels is given to women; and this is a gift that, as sisters, we claim”. Because of this familiar song, the phrase “ministering of angels” helps me, as a woman, see myself in these scriptures. The errand of angels in the song is the act of ministering: “To do whatsoever is gentle and human, To cheer and to bless in humanity’s name”. Women are already doing work of the Aaronic Priesthood.
It is not a trivial desire for women to want to know how their purpose fits with the church. The men around Joseph Smith were concerned about this too. Sections 12, 14, 15, and 16 were revealed because men wanted to understand their individual duties to the church.

In the October 2016 conference talk “Rise Up in Strength, Sisters in Zion,” Bonnie L. Oscarson, Young Women General President said:

“All women need to see themselves as essential participants in the work of the priesthood. Women in this Church are presidents, counselors, teachers, members of councils, sisters, and mothers, and the kingdom of God cannot function unless we rise up and fulfill our duties with faith. Sometimes we just need to have a greater vision of what is possible.”

Discussion: Baptism

Recount how Joseph baptized Oliver, and then Oliver baptized Joseph after they received the Aaronic priesthood from John the Baptist (JS-H 1:70-72). Read JS-H 1:73 together:

“Immediately on our coming up out of the water after we had been baptized, we experienced great and glorious blessings from our Heavenly Father. No sooner had I baptized Oliver Cowdery, than the Holy Ghost fell upon him, and he stood up and prophesied many things which should shortly come to pass. And again, so soon as I had been baptized by him, I also had the spirit of prophecy, when, standing up, I prophesied concerning the rise of this Church, and many other things connected with the Church, and this generation of the children of men. We were filled with the Holy Ghost, and rejoiced in the God of our salvation.”

Give the class time to share about their own experiences with baptism. Conclude by sharing one of these quotes by female leaders*.

“We are all at different points on our journey back to our Father in Heaven. Did the Jews and Greeks whom Paul addressed in his epistle to the Galatians stop being Jews and Greeks when they were baptized? Did the men stop being men and the women stop being women? No. But they had all ‘been baptized into Christ’ and had ‘put on Christ’ (Gal. 3:27).”
Chieko N. Okazaki, First Counselor, Relief Society General Presidency
“Baskets and Bottles,” April 1996 General Conference

“Baptism is the beginning of a new life for each one of us, a life of purpose. The Lord is very clear as to what it means to keep his commandments, come into his fold, and be called his people. His people are ‘willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.’ ”
Dwan J. Young, Primary General President
“ Keeping the Covenants We Make at Baptism ,” October 1984 General Conference

* The Relief Society President in my ward recently gave a talk. In it she quoted some spiritual wisdom from another woman in our ward and attributed the quote just like you would for a general authority. I loved how it acknowledged the worth of insight from those around us. I’m definitely going to challenge myself to do this next time I give a talk or teach a lesson.

Burn it all down: A review of ‘I’ve Got Questions’

The title of this piece is not the thesis of Erin Hicks Moon’s book, “I’ve Got Questions,” a story of deconstruction or, as she puts it “having it out with God.” But it’s what I took away from the book. Burn it all down. Then look at what’s left, even if it’s just ashes. Consider what you want to replant or rebuild, what you want to do differently and what you want to walk away from forever Remember that fire heals, purifies, sanctifies—but don’t feel bad if in the process you douse it with gasoline and throw a match over your shoulder as you walk away in a perfect slo-mo action movie moment, rage fueling every step.

I’ve been a fan of the author for years; Erin is the host of Faith Adjacent, a podcast I’ve listened since it was called The Bible Binge and the co-hosts retold stories from the Bible, casting celebrities as characters and being as irreverently loving with the scriptures as I was becoming in my own study. (Some of my favorites: Winona Ryder as Miriam, Viola Davis as Mary the mother of Jesus, Danai Gurira as Queen Vashti, Jon Hamm as Xerxes—really all of Season 8, the season of Esther, is gold; Chris Evans as Adam, Selena Gomez as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Listen to this podcast.)

Because of this podcast, I knew a little about Erin’s faith journey (drink*). I knew she’d been evangelical, I knew she’d been Episcopalian. When I picked up this book, I didn’t know what she considered herself. I finished the book. I still couldn’t tell you what she considers herself. And that spoke to me because I don’t know what I consider myself.

As promised: questions

Erin starts with a list of questions that look a lot like mine. Here are a few:

Why does an institution that claims freedom so frequently yoke its members with unnecessary burdens?

Why is there cognitive dissonance between what we read in the Gospels and the way our faith is lived out?

Why does Christianity have a reputation for hatred, bigotry, and hidden abuse?

What do you do when the church you love pretends not to notice when the vulnerable are abused?

What do you do when the church is complicit in the abuse?

How do you untangle the knots of grief, anger, and pain in a place that is supposed to bear the fruit of joy, peace, and kindness? (p. 17-18)

I don’t need to explain why those questions stood out to me. Although Erin doesn’t answer these questions, she offers herself as an example that buoys the journey (drink) of so many people looking at the church that they loved and sacrificed for, the faith that carried them through hard times, the doubts they’ve always been able, until now, to place to the side. So many people, especially women, are looking at the religious beliefs they have been taught and saying, “This is not working.” And they are asking why. They are exploring what will work. And often, this puts them at odds with their churches and the men who run them.

In this book, Erin talks about grief and the importance of lament. She writes that grief can be a profound gift: “It’s the way we signal to ourselves and other people: This means something to me, and I am bereft without it” (p. 71). Grieve for it—the lost faith, the lost certainty. The last time I went to Relief Society, I remember realizing how much I missed that certain knowledge that it was all true. I would never go back to that certainty; it was illusory. But it was so much more comfortable. Grieve what you had.

Question. Doubt. Struggle. Wrestle.

The Bible is not filled with stories of people whose faith came easily. It is not filled with stories of people who were unafraid to challenge God. Erin talks about being the bearer of doubts (which is worth noting—you don’t have doubts. No, you are a majestic bearer of doubts, one strong enough to think and question everything you have been taught since before you can remember.) and how people around you, hopefully well-meaning people, suggest that you strengthen your faith. You do that by reading your scriptures and praying and going to church and fasting and ignoring-ignoring-ignoring those doubts and that cognitive dissonance and the voice that whispers, “but Jesus never said anything about gay people and he said we should be feeding the hungry, so why are we ignoring the hungry and going after the gay people?”

“Lobotomizing the part of yourself that is angry, hurt, or frustrated with God is not the answer,” Erin writes. “Beloved, you have a strong faith because you wrestle, not in spite of your wrestling. It is a gift. Don’t believe anything to the contrary” (p. 115).

‘Just because they say it, doesn’t make it so’

This is not an advice or a self-help book; it’s not a map for you to go on your deconstruction. What it felt like is a companion, a reminder that I’m not walking this path alone—that even though I’m the only one on my journey (drink), so many other people across all religions are spiritually walking with me. It’s a reminder that it’s OK to be angry—no, it’s a moral necessity to be angry when I realize I’ve been told not to trust myself or to ignore what I see or to question my worth because I don’t fit the mold.

The book offers a flashing red light that church is not God. That a belief system isn’t Jesus. That other people don’t get to tell me who God is. That no one has the right to tell me that God is not female or to deny access to God-She. That my relationship should always be with God, not with an organization.

It’s a good reminder that I could be wrong. In fact, I probably am, regularly, about a lot. And so are you, and so is everyone around us. That sounds scary, but it’s actually freeing. Knowing I can be wrong is an opportunity to experiment. Decades ago, when I was in Young Women, the theme one year was “Experiment upon the word.” Let’s do that!

The book circles back to what actually matters: Loving God. Loving your neighbor as yourself. Loving yourself. Why is that one so hard? Be good to yourself. Go easy on yourself when you mess up. Be better; don’t worry about being perfect. Trust yourself. Trust the God that you have come to know on your own, in the quiet places in your mind and heart where there are no outside voices drowning out what you say to God and what God says to you.

“They play keep-away with the keys to the kingdom, but the gates have always been unlocked” (p. 137).

“I’ve Got Questions: The Spiritual Practice of Having it Out with God,” published Feb. 4, is available on Bookshop.org and Baker Bookhouse (and lots of other booksellers too). Support local bookstores when you can!

*This is Erin’s joke.

Photo from www.erinhmoon.com

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Guest Post: On Blessings and Blessing

by Anonymous

I’m sitting here next to my mother.  She’s laying in a bed beside me, in the final stages of dying.  She’s sleeping, her breathing is shallow, and at this moment she looks peaceful.  She’s had a long and difficult decline, so this is not a tragedy at all, but it is filled with all kinds of feelings for me.

Yesterday while my mom’s dear cousin Evelyn and I were gathered around her bed as she slept, my older brother arrived.  He walked into her room and said, “I feel impressed to give her a blessing, specifically a blessing of release.”  When he announced that he wanted to give her a blessing, my first thought was “fine”… but the way he announced it made me bristle – it felt full of hubris and very patriarchal for him to walk into a room with three women and announce that.  

I didn’t think he would react well if I asked if I could put my hands on her head as well, so I quickly took my mom’s hands and placed one in her cousin’s hand and one in mine.  At least she could feel our presence as well as hear my brother’s voice.

His blessing was extremely orthodox. “You have kept your covenants.”  “You have attended the temple.”  “You have remained active in the church.” “You will be welcomed home, and you should feel released to go.” My mom was orthodox in many ways, but she was also a fierce ally to the marginalized, and she acknowledged that the institutional church had been a harmful experience for some of her kids and certainly to some of her grandkids — some of whom are queer and/or are choosing a different path than the institutional church.  Love for her family came first for her.  But I think she appreciated the blessing from my brother; orthodoxy was one way that she connected with him.  He is the oldest of her kids, and he feels a lot of pride in leading out in staying loyal to the Church.

I don’t mean to diminish the experience of this blessing for my brother or for my mom, but I really felt the patriarchal squeeze.  The whole event had an air of arrogance to me, and felt as much bitter as sweet — he announced it, he pronounced it, and he wanted to talk about it afterward.  It was hard.

That was yesterday. This morning, I arrived to find my mom in about the same state as when I left last night, still firmly on the path to transitioning to her next life.  She stirred a bit when they came in to freshen her up, and I sat beside her and rubbed her arms to help her relax.  

At that moment, I thought, “What is keeping me from putting my hands on her head, and blessing her from my heart?” 

Is it just what I had heard my whole life, that God only recognized the voices of men in a hands-on-head blessing? It was such a foreign thought — that this might be completely false, and that God would honor my voice just as much as that of my brother.  I felt sad that I was hesitant to push past that feeling and give her my blessing for fear of being wrong.  

If I were to do it, I thought, I would close the door to her room so that her aides or my brother would not stumble upon the scene . . . unlike when my brother felt free to perform his blessing in full view of — but without participation of or consultation with — the women in attendance, as we do in the church.  Such strange feelings.

So.

I closed the door, laid my hands on her head and began:

“Dear God, please let my mom hear this blessing from my heart . . . .” 

And I’m sure she did. And it was sweet, and I’m glad I did it.  

I don’t hate the patriarchy; maybe it serves a purpose in running the church. But I don’t think it’s the pattern our Heavenly Parents would use.  Whatever the rhetoric about “women have the same priesthood authority as men do in the church” — those are just words.  The truth is that patriarchy does privilege one gender over the other. Maybe we need to flex our muscles a bit more in helping our girls understand that they would not be struck down for placing their hands on their dying mother’s head to give her a daughter’s blessing.

And that they should be able to leave the door open when they do.

 

Anonymous describes herself in this way: I’m a lifelong Mormon woman and mother of four wonderful children including a queer daughter. I was raised and spent much of my adult life in orthodoxy and patriarchy; I now look beyond this and find meaning in focusing on the marginalized in our church and community. I love reading, sewing, quilting, cooking, and making a home our kids like to come home to once in a while.

Tensions with our Past Orthodox “Innies:” Thoughts in Dialogue with Severance

This post mentions details from Severance seasons one and two. Watch first to avoid spoilers! It is part 2 of yesterday’s post “Tensions with our Premortal “Outies:” Thoughts in Dialogue with Severance”

Another application of Severance to spiritual development in addition to yesterday’s post is relationships with our past selves who were “all in,” and not so perplexed by religious life.

In Severance, Lumon is not just a company; it is also a secular religious institution founded in 1865 by a man named Kier Eagan. It’s really very odd–the religion seems to be very secretive and esoteric. The “outies” don’t even seem to know the religious aspect exists, yet it is imposed on them as severed employees. Old company handbooks are treated like scripture. Wax figures of past CEOs are reminiscent of deities at a temple, and company events are glorified in paintings displayed around the office building. Kier religion is authoritarian and top-down. Severed workers are beholden to the teachings, objectives, and policies Kier established like teens at boarding school under a strict headmaster whether they like it or not. The purpose of this aspect of the story is in part to explore and critique something called “corporate Gnosticism,” a term for when select leaders within an organization act as if they possess special, secret knowledge that is essential to administer it.

Some severed workers are enthusiastic about Kier religion. Others are not, but all of the members of the “Macro-data Refinement” team the show focuses on have become subdued by the authority, punishments, and incentives of the company such that the religion controls their behavior and their lives at the beginning of season one.

Each team member, except Helly R., whose narrative arc as the rebellious, depressed newbie is different, undergoes a transformation comparable to a faith transition. Each takes on more of a more independent, differentiated status by exploring outside their office space and team, subverting supervisors’ authority, and finding an ingenious way to exit the Lumon building to experience life outside. 

Mark starts out as a submissive employee. Trips to the punitive “break-room” have conditioned him to be this way. He only seems to live for friendship, but his best friend at Lumon (Petie) has left the company in mysterious way. The unexpected appearance of a self-help book at the office leads Mark to develop an urge to to reframe everything about what it means to have a job and to start to rebel against his employers.

Dylan starts out very satiated by childish work prizes, such as erasers and Chinese finger traps. One day, the company awakens his innie self at home using a technique he didn’t know about. Just a few seconds receiving a hug from his outie’s young son leads him to become determined to know more about his life outside and to fight his employers for more rights.  

Irving is the most orthodox person on the team. He quotes passages of the company handbook regularly as a wisdom text and treats Lumon’s museum space, the “Perpetuity Wing” like a shrine. Irving falls in love with another severed employee and spends time with him against Lumon’s wishes. Supervisor Milchik punishes Irving by forcing his lover Burt into early retirement, essentially a death for a severed innie. Irving’s once zealous trust in the company suddenly dies.

These characters’ experiences are relevant to the question of how we relate to our past selves when we undergo shifts in our religious lives. I’m not saying the Church is an evil corporation, but I am suggesting that like Lumon, the Church tends to try to control adults as if they are in need of authoritative parenting. And like Lumon, it has tendencies to use fear tactics and questionable rewards to motivate and deter behaviors. When we watch these characters, many us of can relate to their experience of waking up to the fact that they don’t want a life that is dictated by others. And watching how Kier and the tradition he established are glorified and treated like a supreme paternal authority might remind us of our experiences in Mormonism–whether this amuses us, disturbs us, or both! Both were established by one young man in 1800s America after all. But honestly, it reminds me of how many religions glorify their founding stories and mythologies. In some ways, what is depicted more closely resembles approaches in Islam or Baha’i faith. Their founders inhabit a significantly higher spiritual space than we place Joseph Smith in.

I’m also not saying that the proper outcome of spiritual growth or a faith transition is necessarily leaving the church or fighting it as an institution, but I am suggesting spiritual growth requires seeking to learn about things as they really are, maturing emotionally, claiming the personal moral autonomy that is healthy for adults, and dealing with a whole lot of discomfort. If we want to grow, we can’t avoid these experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant. The growth experience I’m referring to here is about aligning with and tapping into our higher, fully developed adult selves whether we’re religious or not, participating in Church or not, not about achieving one kind of “right” outcome.

If you’re like me, you’ve faced moments of self-loathing or shame in relation to both your past and present selves after transitions in your faith and spirituality. We might feel embarrassed about how we used to be. Or have harsh feelings toward our current selves. Two iterations of ourselves wrestle together–one that on some level still identifies as a loyal “innie,” and one that is determined to grow despite risks.

How do the characters on Severance respond to their transitions? In a nutshell, they continue to grow, love and relationships become more important to them, and the possibility of living more fully opens to them. For the first time, Mark doesn’t just tolerate work but feels excited about it. Being awakened to his personal desires and agency makes what he already valued– friendship–even better than what it was before. While before as a boss, he literally read off the Lumon script, now he creates his own plans and becomes a true leader. Moving into season two, his confidence, courage, and closeness to others continues to grow. He explores even deeper into Lumon’s labyrinthian halls, pursues his own goals (such as finding Ms. Casey) rather than Lumon’s mandates, and even pursues personal joy through romance and intimacy with Helly.

Dylan becomes a more mature and courageous person. Once sheepish and fearful of any rules being broken, now he physical attacks Milchick in response to his abuses and endures great physical pains and personal risk to enable his teammates to experience the world outside by activating the “overtime contingency” function. In season two, things become conflicted for Dylan because Lumon hatches an scheme to control him through promising time with his outie’s family as rewards. They accept Dylan can’t be motivated by lame prizes anymore. This manipulation disrupts his collaboration with his team and his newfound confidence. He won’t help Irving search for a door to the outside, and meeting his wife isn’t all good. He learns from her that her husband has always struggled to hold down a job. Disappointed and surprised, Dylan makes a comment about his outie being a screw-up. Time will tell how Dylan continues to develop and whether he’ll continue to be partly controlled by Lumon!

Irving might have the most reason to be embarrassed of the past or to cling to it, but he doesn’t indulge this. Instead, in season one, he embraces his new-found independence and expanded range of emotions, dropping the things he doesn’t value anymore, and taking the things he does (his love of Burt, especially). Once the most conned by Lumon, Irving goes on to become the most discerning and daring of the characters, which we see develop more in season two. His shift of worldview has allowed him to really tap into his intelligence. Irving discovers that an exports hall with some kind of exit to the outside world exists somewhere close in Lumon’s halls based on paintings he saw in his outie’s house. It is Irving who sniffs out that Helena has deceitfully replaced Helly through noticing subtle changes in her personality and details that don’t line up in her false story about the outside world. He has the courage to immediately remedy this violating situation. He has become a sort of detective. Irving’s growth and learning also bring sorrow and despair. Losing Burt and learning that he appears to be happily coupled in the outside world has led to poor mental health and despair; love and romance are what his innie seems to have come to desire most.

Watching these characters as they grow and face challenges reminds me to move onward in my spiritual life without longing for the past, clinging to orthodoxy or the safety of submission, or showing contempt for my past selves. I want to be more like these characters in their moments of courage and growth than I have been in real life. They remind me that when we undergo major shifts and periods of growth, we need to exercise intentional self-compassion toward both our past “innie” selves and our current evolving selves. We need to leave the past behind and refrain from beating ourselves up.

When we “taste” the fruits of personal growth, we know that it’s is good for us and what we need; it is much like ideas suggested in the Adam and Eve story or Alma 32. The fruit is good and delicious or it’s not; we can know with confidence that we are growing and that this is good for our souls.

Becoming more knowledgeable, wiser, stronger, more loving, more mature people is exactly what we need. It can bring sorrow, greater vulnerability, and obstacles. But it can also bring incredible expansion, freedom, and joy. Our personal growth and learning to love are in my mind the most important reasons we’re here on earth. Watching Mark’s team reminds me to keep moving forward with confidence that I am indeed on the right path whenever I choose learning and personal growth over comfort, excessive security, or stagnation. There is no need to look back with longing or regret.

Severance also reminds me that one of the best things about personal emotional and spiritual growth is that it consistently enables us to connect more deeply with others and to collaborate with them more in our journeys. It is only after their transitions that the Macro-data Refinement team are able to become emotionally close and to really collaborate with one another about things they care about. At times, they create incredible synergy as they share with each other and brainstorm plans.

It’s really not fun or comfortable being a liminal member of the Church, but I wouldn’t trade the increased closeness I feel with others in my life or learning and growing together with others–esp. my siblings, and Mormon friends both in and out of the Church–for anything. Overall, the spiritual growth I’m experiencing is a healing and joyful path shared with others that feels like exactly what God intended for me all along. 

Sometimes I notice friends doubting their role and influence on others. Friends of mine often suffer from a sinking feeling of guilt, for example, if a friend or family member we’re close to or have supported becomes inactive, joins a different faith group, or leaves the Church. But we need not feel any guilt if we’ve been our honest selves, have shared good resources, and have respectfully supported others in making their own choices. Let go of the fears you are ruining things for others or affecting their lives for bad. We’re all in this together on a path of development and becoming strong and wiser people, making the choices that are best for ourselves. God knows it is complicated. And sometimes people really need to use their agency to differentiated religiously in order to keep growing in the ways that are right for them.

A couple final Thoughts about integrating the self

Ultimately, we don’t have two selves, each of us is one progressing whole who is worthy of love and compassion however we evolve as we gain experience. It’s okay that I embraced some black and white thinking in my teens and twenties and sometimes cared about pleasing authority figures back then. That was developmentally normal and understandable at the time. And it’s okay that I think and feel very differently today. I feel joy that I have progressed. There are things I loved about myself then, and there are things I love about myself now, and many of them are the same. 

I’m seeking to internalize the fact that my identity and spirituality as a human transcends and extends beyond my Mormon identity and upbringing in the Church. I had an experience recently when I saw myself as someone else who loves me would see me from the outside. I saw my spiritual strengths and gifts, I saw my openness toward and love for others, I saw the wisdom and skills I have gained. And I perceived distinctly that Mormonism didn’t “make” me and cannot be given full credit for who and what I am or what I am capable of, including spiritually (much as I do affirm that I feel I have benefitted from having it as a spiritual community, framework, and anchor to ground my life in). I felt so much peace about who I am in that moment, and I felt confident that however I will need to grow and evolve spiritually in the future, I am an undivided, whole self. I can trust my own discernment and intuitions about what is right for me, rather than feel scared that I will betray past or future iterations of myself. 

I’m very curious to see what kinds of experience characters in Severance season two may have as they may attempt to reintegrate themselves into one mind and one life. Marks’s arc suggests love will be the motivating factor of the risk of total integration. I really hope this will be a healing and incredible thing for them if it happens.

Tensions with our Premortal “Outies”: Thoughts in Dialogue with Severance

This post mentions some details from Severance (mostly season one, with one brief observation from season two). You may prefer to read after watching to avoid spoilers! 

A premortal “outie”

Latter-day Saint religion teaches that each human was an individual, conscious being before birth–that we had past selves in the spiritual realm and made decisions to be born on earth. Leaders have also taught that premortal performance plays a role in determining what kind of life and blessings we receive at birth. These teachings have been passed down to the young people of the Church through sacrament meeting talks, Sunday school lessons, and firesides. Personalized revelation about our premortal selves can be offered through priesthood blessings, esp. patriarchal blessings, which serve as a kind of life map.

I’m not interested here in addressing whether these ideas are literally true. They are mysterious possibilities they may or may not be affirmed by study and spiritual experience. But I’m curious about how these teachings impact our spiritual lives, including our sense of self, our relationships with God and others, and our overall well-being. 

I’ve been watching Severance (Apple TV). In this world, workers at a company called “Lumon” have opted into having a procedure done to their brains such that they have become “severed” into two separate selves: a “outie,” who lives at home, remembers their birth, family, and all their life prior to working at Lumon, and a new “innie” self who has no memories outside of what happens at work, and who is essentially stuck at the office, only experiencing hours spent at Lumon.

This serves as an interesting analogy for the two selves outlined in LDS teachings. Like the outie, the premortal self has a fuller range of memories, and makes a major decision that requires the mortal self to accomplish something arduous. Like the innie, the mortal self has no memory of having made this decision and their experiences are limited to what happens due to the decision.

There are benefits that can come with teachings about the premortal life or having an “outie,” esp. during our formative years. Trusting in these teachings, young people may enthusiastically say, There’s a reason I’m here, and I chose this! I’m special to God, and I had gifts and a personality even before I was born! Yet, do the benefits continue as we grow older and continue to spiritually develop?

Hazards of ulterior motives

I grew up with a strong sense of my premortal outie. She was hardcore and bold. She fought bravely on God’s side in the war in heaven. If you grew up LDS, you were likely told similar things about your premortal self. I don’t share these descriptors here to mock them. This view of myself helped me in many ways. In fact, it is one reason I became someone who has the courage to post on this blog. Yet, as a middle-aged person, I am concerned about how premortal merit may be used in the Church (whether intentionally or not) to influence behavior and beliefs. To me this seems like quite a hazard and easy trap to fall into.

In Severance, Lumon subdues workers by telling them flattering compliments about their outies. When Irving suffers from truth-telling nightmares about Lumon, he is administered a wellness treatment in which bizarre “facts” are read to him about his outside self that are designed to appeal to personal fantasy. “Your outie is an exemplary person,” wellness worker Ms. Casey explains as she introduces the treatment, “These facts should be very pleasing.” She goes to share: “Your outie is a friend to children, and to the elderly, and to the insane. Your outie is strong and helps someone lift a heavy object. Your outie attends many dances and is popular among the other attendees…A photo of your outie with a trophy was once in a newspaper. Your outie has no fear of buggers or knaves…Your outie is skilled at kissing and lovemaking.”

These things may or may not be true about outie Irving. The problem is that Lumon uses these claims about Irving’s outie to motivate him to do things their way. It’s also a red flag that many of the “facts” are inappropriately intimate; we sense that seduction rather than wellness is the true intention. These are things Irving should discover for himself rather than be told by his employer. The compliments are meant to distract him from his growing malaise, and to keep him in a stagnant, passive state of trust in the company.

We should be mindful of the danger of ulterior motives any time people try to tell us they know things about our spirits or premortal selves. Recently, I listened to something called “The Dream Interpretation Podcast” looking for support making sense of a dream. I became uncomfortable when I realized the hosts teach listeners that the content of their dreams provide strong evidence that they are reincarnating beings. They claim listeners’ specific dreams reveal very detailed things about their spirits, premortal pasts, and futures. They appear to do this without acknowledging listeners’ spiritual worldviews or making space for what others believe. I found the imposition of this very personal spiritual material boundary violating and paternalistic. How much are intriguing pre-life details divulged in hopes of selling courses, programs, and books?

It may very well be true that we lived with God before this life and that teaching this can help people, but if this concept is to be taught, motives should be conscious and pure. Shaping behavior or trying to cement religious loyalty through flattery, ego puffing, or creating a elite “in” group is not loving or edifying. Teachings should inspire awe and compassion for creation rather than pride or superiority. How much has premortal-based flattery at church slowed down growth and distracted us from the real spiritual work in our lives?

Any efforts to use premortal life as a persuasion tactic to convince children and converts that they fully opted into a Latter-day Saint life before birth are sketch. Like at Lumon, the message “you chose this path before you came here, but you just don’t remember,” proves unethical (see section below entitled, “Resenting and questioning our premortal outies’ choices“).

The flattery aimed at Irving works to keep Irving in a more child-like, dependent state for quite a while; he enters a very pleasurable state of mind during the wellness session. Yet eventually, dissonance with Lumon causes him to grow out of being satiated by fantasies about who he is on the outside world. We may experience something similar at Church as pressing issues in our personal lives make the importance of life before and after mortality fade into the background.

It is not necessarily an advantage to have an outie who was a boss

Another hazard of being taught your outie was a spiritual overachiever at Church is how this may be used to set high expectations. Was your outie super faithful, hardworking and brave? Even just to maintain who you are, you are expected to measure up to this, and this can feed perfectionism and self-criticism. To what degree have we been needlessly hard on ourselves due to trying to live up to the versions of ourselves described in patriarchal blessings or firesides we attended as teens? Have we resented or been jealous of our past iterations of ourselves that we have no memory of?

What if I’m a very different person from my outie?

What if it turns out we are radically different as humans than we were as spirits in the premortal life–if our personalities and behaviors changed in ways that made us almost unrecognizable? In Severance, innie Helly R. is a dramatically different person than her outie, and not in negative ways. At the beginning of season 2 (as far as I’ve gotten while writing this), Helena appears to be very intrigued by and jealous of Helly’s uninhibited ways. Her innie is free to develop her own values and personality without pressures from her dynastic, controlling family. Helly R., for example, spontaneously kisses her co-worker Mark as they go their separate ways on a daring adventure to the outside world. Helena watches this moment over and over as if she’s obsessed with this other version of herself. It’s like a soap opera about her alter-ego that feeds personal fantasy. Perhaps Helena has never loved someone the way Helly R. has learned to do.

I feel pretty different from my “outie” sometimes. While she seems to have been some kind of a fierce warrior, I am naturally shy and struggle with things like driving anxiety. And while she badly wanted to be born into the Church, I feel ambivalent about whether this same Church is really good for my soul as well as whether it actually cares about me, my development or my well-being. And ironically, the Church I’m in also doesn’t actually seem to like or tolerate women who are hardcore, brave, fighting spiritual warriors.

Yet is it possible that if my outie could see me now, she’s the one who would be impressed? Despite the fact that I may appear weaker or less confident about things than my outie, what makes sense to me at this point is that I am actually wiser, stronger, and more informed now than I was then. Theoretically speaking, we should be more developed people than we were in the premortal life because we’ve surmounted all kinds of things they didn’t have to face. Maybe we’re meant to become very different than we once were, and maybe sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to become so or to let go of the things we were told about our past selves. It’s unfortunate premortal narratives are so centered on a war between God’s children and the people coming to earth being the ones who won this. Is this really good for us to identify with? I’m not very interested in warring over religion or spiritual approaches, it feels like the real skill set I need and want is being a compassionate peacemaker.

Hazards of being taught we earned a Latter-day Saint Life in the premortal life

I grew up being taught that my premortal self’s valiance is the reason I was born into a family with the restored gospel. Today, I am troubled by the idea that I somehow earned a more advantageous life than others. Earning the blessing of being born in the Church seems equivalent with earning a middle class life in the US and all the social and economic privileges that comes with that. These ideas are conducive to feeling guilt and pity toward others instead of gratitude or love. It’s comparable to my least favorite aspect of Hindu thinking: a spiritually-based social caste system. The idea that superior performances in past lives lead to greater privilege, comfort, and choices here and now can lead to all kinds of social inequalities and vices to avoid.

A LDS meritocratic view of the premortal life implies God enhances inequity in the world–that God places weaker souls in circumstances in which they are even less likely to succeed, and gives yet more advantage to those already thriving. Like Adam Miller in Original Grace, I seek faith in a God who provides what is needed for healing and progression for all, rather than who doles out justice through assigning deprivation or suffering.

Resenting and questioning our premortal outies’ choices

Sometimes we might experience tensions with our outies’ choices to come to earth. This came to the forefront for me a few years ago when a child at my son’s school died in an accident. A familial wound awoke in me. My six-year-old aunt was killed by a speeding car in Utah in the 60s, and this chance event has created many painful ripples in my family. I became angry at God as I grappled with the realization that the same exact kind of event could easily happen to my own children. I didn’t feel capable of facing the grief that would follow such a death. I wanted to scream at God that I wanted out of this life, that I regretted my choice, and that this whole plan was manipulative. I wondered who that premortal self was to throw me into such a fragile and grief-filled world (I wrote this essay about spiritual experiences surrounding this for Wayfare). 

A comparable dilemma is portrayed in Severance season one. Newly severed worker Helly R. instantly becomes despairing in her new life, which presents her with very limiting conditions that she is not allowed to control. Helly R. asserts she shouldn’t have to live out the decisions of her “outie,” Helena, who never asked her consent. Helly makes a request to be released from her work at Lumon that her outie quickly denies. Helly threatens to cut her fingers off with a paper cutter and even attempts suicide, but Helena stays firm.

Helly doesn’t have a choice; she has to live with the situation she finds herself thrown into. Steven Peck has pointed out that Helly’s narrative arc calls LDS theology into question. Is it possible, he asks, that premortal decisions prove problematic or void since we couldn’t really understand what it would be like to experience earth life? “In coming to Earth under these conditions,” he writes, “has something manipulative and unsettling occurred?

Premortal frameworks are used to try to resolve the problem of evil and suffering in LDS thought. Opening the possibility that human spirits are co-eternal with God certainly is interesting when grappling with the problem of evil (the question of why evil exists/why God allows suffering). But to what extent do teachings about the premortal life only complicate such difficulties rather than resolve them? As Peck asks, what does it mean that God asks us to choose to be born on earth when we couldn’t know for ourselves what it would actually be like until we arrived?

It’s healthy to explore the fact we usually experience life as if we’ve been thrown into it

LDS premortal life frameworks tend to conceal and diminish the fact that practically speaking, we don’t experience life as if we chose to come here or ever lived before. We really can feel like we’ve been thrown here without choosing it, much like Helly R. when she begins her life splayed out on a conference room table, having no memory or sense of who she is. Recognizing this for myself is helping me work through my ambivalence and concerns about the things I was taught about the premortal life growing up.

Interesting questions and meanings can open up if we’re willing to embrace the fact that we experience life as if we find ourselves here by surprise whether we believe in a premortal life or not. Doing this might help us experience life more as a grace or mysterious gift rather than a burden or something we take we granted. It might also help us lower high expectations for ourselves and break down walls we’ve put up against others.

It would be healthier for everyone to make space for uncertainty about the premortal life at Church instead of encouraging young people to treat this as a crucial point or a point of pride. It is not necessarily an important part of the gospel to have faith in or focus on, and the hazards it brings are reason for caution. Ultimately, we don’t know much at all about what happened before this life and we have very few scriptures about it. If young people resonate with it and it genuinely helps them, great, but if they don’t, we should probably just not worry about it. We need to do a better job of making space at Church for people at Church to do their own personal meaning-making. Members of all ages should be given more space to explore and develop their spiritual identities and attributes themselves rather than having them fed or dictated to them.

Watch for part 2 tomorrow, “Tensions with our Past Orthodox ‘Innies’: Thoughts in Dialogue with Severance”

When God Speaks (Part 2)

In my last post, I wrote about ways we can decipher between harmful delusions and the voice of God. Since writing that post, I’ve thought more about ways that these spiritual delusions can cause harm, specifically when they give us a false sense of control over our life circumstances.

We’ve all heard the stories. A woman who feels like her family is incomplete with her 5 girls, gets pregnant again because she has a prompting that the next will be a boy, all to find out the 6th is also a girl. A sick family member is blessed that she will be healed through the power of the priesthood but she still dies. A family moves across the country because they are prompted they will find a good job there but they never do and end up moving back. 

These are the kinds of stories shared in general conference addresses and sacrament meeting talks framed not as failures of faith or misguided spiritual promptings, but as the opposite- an opportunity for humility and learning. And while that might be the case (I’m sure the people in these stories had to have humility to follow through with these promptings), I worry that we jump too quickly to the “make it make sense” stage and forget that there is real grief and real hardship when promptings don’t work out how we expected. 

The idea of a “spiritual prompting” adds weight to any given decision we might make. If I said to myself,  “I’m headed to the donut shop because I’m craving a chocolate donut with sprinkles” but it turned out the donut shop was out of sprinkles, I’d shrug my shoulders and say “oh well.” and move on with my day. But if I said to myself “I’m headed to the donut shop because the spirit told me to eat a chocolate donut with sprinkles”- now I have to reconcile the fact that the donut shop is out of sprinkles with the “prompting” I received. It adds an entire extra level of mental energy and processing- and grief. Because not only do I not get to eat a donut, now I have to figure out why God told me to get a donut when He must’ve known they didn’t have the sprinkles. 

There is grief and difficulty in the added loss of control promptings can bring. We can logically accept that we don’t control the gender of our baby or whether someone is healed, but when we believe that God has told us through the Spirit that things will turn out a specific way, it’s that much harder when they don’t. We are left to question “Did I interpret my prompting incorrectly?” or “Was there something else God needed me to learn from this?” or “Did I not have enough faith?” or  “How will this situation be perceived by others that know about this prompting?”  Having these kinds of questions on top of the grief and hardship we are already experiencing drains the mental energy we have available to cope with it all. 

My proposal to combat the added emotional weight that comes with unfulfilled promptings is to stop making life decisions based on what you believe God is telling you to do. This might seem like a radical take, but hear me out. Instead of making the decision based on the prompting and putting the weight of the decision on God, use the Spirit to help you take ownership over your own choice. Let the Spirit guide you to be confident, do your research, access your resources, and then make the well-informed, peace-driven choice and accept the consequences as they come. Take ownership of the choice as yours, an imperfect human, and use God and the Spirit as your supports to help you get through it. If the baby turns out to be a boy when you hoped for a girl, you can rest easy in the knowledge that you made the choice based on what felt best for you- God didn’t make that choice. If the job doesn’t work out, you can know that God still has your back regardless.

When we allow for the choice to be ours and not Gods’, we expand the Spirit’s opportunity to speak to us and help us through it. When we place the weight of the decision on the Spirit’s promptings, we set ourselves up for complicated questions, doubt, and difficult feelings about something that was never in our control to begin with.