Exponent II's Blog, page 44

Of Ritas and Rhodas: Deciphering the Origins of the Women’s Temple Names

By J. Martinez

{I understand that revealing a temple name is a sensitive choice, if you continue reading, you will know what my name was. Though I try to treat the subject with sensitivity, there’s no secret or sacred here} 

What will you call her?

November 16, 2013, I went through the temple for the first time. 

Like most members, I went in blind—it turned out the multiple temple prep courses did little to prepare me for what I was about to experience. I did have some vague inklings, I had heard whispers about a temple name, I thought it might have been the name I had had before I had come to the earth. I had hoped for something pretty or at least meaningful… maybe Esther or Lydia. 

What I didn’t and couldn’t know was that if I had scheduled my appointment for three days later, I would have been a Lydia. Four days later and I would have been an Esther. 

Instead, I got R***a. 

I’m sure I tried to freeze my face to keep it from betraying my dismay. It felt like I had already failed some test, that God had only deemed me worthy of an old lady name. Did this say something about what he thought of me? Were there any takebacks? Could I appeal? 

As soon as I got home, I raced to my scriptures, hoping to divine the meaning behind my name. What I found was a story about a girl who got so excited that a prophet had arrived at her house that she forgot to let him in and left him waiting on the doorstep. 

Surprisingly, I was satisfied. It was funny, it had personality. It’s not like I had high expectations when it came to representation of women in my faith. I’d take what I could get. Besides, it’s not like I could do anything to change it. 

I am looking for further light and knowledge 

When I got back from my mission, I worked at the temple for several months. I learned that there is one name given to all women who enter the temple on a particular day. I also had a temple worker mention that she thought it was so sweet that the name Camilla had been included in honor of the wife of Spencer W Kimball. I still didn’t know about the calendar. 

In 2020, I began my transition away from the church. Like many, my journey included Lindsey Hansen Park’s podcast, a Year of Polygamy. As I listened to the biographies of the wives of Joseph Smith I was startled when I hit episode 29: Rhoda Richards. I felt horrified. Had I been wrong? Was my name not a tribute to an excited girl but to a lonely, old woman? It felt like a gross joke. Was this the case for all the names?

Unveil your faces 

I turned to Temple Name Oracle. For the uninitiated, Temple Name Oracle is a website cross referencing temple names against the date the name was received. It was there I learned about the calendar. 

It turns out that until 1880 there was just one name given to women in the temple: Sarah. Then, for almost 100 years, it was left to the discretion of the temple worker to give whatever name they chose for initiates. 

I was not surprised that the church eventually chose standardization over what I can only imagine was recordkeeping chaos. 

In 1965, the church produced a standardized list of 31 female names. If you went on the first of the month, you were an Adah, if you went on the 31st, you were a Zina. And yes, the list was alphabetized. 

The list was updated periodically. 

❖ In 1974 they returned to a more haphazard list that assigned a name to each day of the year. This list included 50 female names repeated throughout the year and included unique finds like: Carla, Christina, Joan, Rita and Victoria. 

❖ 1983 reduced the list back down to 31 names 

❖ 1993 had the strictest list of all: still 31 names and this time 100% of the names were scriptural. 

❖ That list lasted 20 years until our current list was introduced Jan, 1, 2014. 

As I read through the names I decided to tackle the project, find out once and for all where all the names had come from. I figured between the Oracle, a detailed spreadsheet and google, I would be done in no time. 

As Touching the Principle 

My fears that the names all came from wives of Joseph Smith were quickly assuaged.

❖ Of the 34 women listed by Todd Compton as the wives of Joseph Smith, only 17 of the women have been used as temple names. Removing duplicates, we are left with 14 unique names. 

❖ Of those 14 names, 7 were Bible names. 

❖ Of the remaining 7, all but two had significant roles in church history (Emma, Eliza, Zina and Helen were all prominent presidents of the Relief Society and Lucy was Joseph Smith’s mother among several other significant references). 

❖ That only leaves the names Agnes and Flora. Given that Flora was only used in the most recent cycle, it is much more likely that it was in honor of the wife of Ezra Taft Benson than a secret reference to the plural wife of Joseph Smith.

❖ Agnes was only used in the chaotic 50 name cycle of 1974 so it’s possible that her origins are more obscure. That said, Agnes was the name of John Taylor’s mother which could explain her origins. Given that there is no other evidence that the names were likely inspired by Joseph’s plural wives, I doubt that this one was either. 

At least my Rhoda appeared safe from that. 

Why will you call her Eve? 

From there, I expected the majority of the names to be scriptural. After all, of the 92 men’s names that have been in rotation since 1965 only TWO cannot be found in Mormon scripture. I know there are fewer women in scriptures than men but surely there were enough for a month or two of temple names. 

❖ Of the 80 unique female names recorded on Temple Name Oracle, only 39 are mentioned in the scriptures. 

❖ 22 of the 31 names in the current cycle are scriptural, 18 of the 31 in the original cycle and 23 of the 50 in the 1974 cycle. 

❖ The 1983 and 1993 cycles were the most scripturally dense, 1983 only included one non scriptural name: Eliza. 

❖ The 1993 cycle is currently the only cycle to include 100% scriptural names, though it did use Miriam, Ruth and Naomi twice each to do it. It’s fascinating to me that they choose to repeat names rather than simply keep the scriptural names Priscilla, Hagar, Johannah and Eve from the previous cycle. How those names lost out but Eunice made it through to the next round we’ll never know! 

❖ The scriptural names that have been used every cycle are: Esther, Lydia, Martha, Miriam, Rachel, Rebekah, Ruth. The only other name that has been used every cycle is Emma. 

❖ Many of the names are one verse wonders like 

➢ Claudia who was “greeted” in 2 Tim 4:21, 

➢ or Judith the wife of Esau in Genesis 26:34 

➢ or Lois and Eunice in 2 Tim 1:5, the grandmother and mother of Timothy.

❖ Even some of the most prominent scriptural names have been excluded in recent cycles. Eve only made one appearance in the 1983-1993 cycle (though her name is still included for any initiates whose given name matches the new name of the day). Mary was only included in the first two cycles. 

❖ Some of the names are technically mentioned in the scriptures but are almost surely not scripturally inspired, like 

➢ Zina the son of Shimei in 1 Chronicles 23:10 

➢ or Isabel the harlot of Alma 39:3-4. 

➢ Judith, the Hittite wife of Esau also seems questionable to me. 

❖ Some of the female names that are technically mentioned in the scriptures weren’t even names of people! Looking at you, Ruby and Grace!

So many of the women were simply “wife of” or “mother of.” It seems Johnny Lingo might have had it wrong and it wasn’t cows that determined your worth but the number of verses your temple name earned in the scriptures. Suddenly my five verses weren’t looking too shabby. 

I was happy to see when the queens, prophetesses and priestesses came in force.

❖ The Prophetesses: Deborah (3 cycles), Huldah (2 cycles) and Miriam (all five cycles).

❖ Phoebe the deacon was only absent for 1974-83. 

❖ Esther the queen has never been absent. 

❖ Junia, the apostle, however, has yet to make an appearance. 

I know most women weren’t thrilled to get Huldah as their temple name, but it makes me sad to see that the names of such powerful women as Deborah and Huldah were pulled from the current cycle. Especially when they were traded for names like Camilla, Grace and Ruby. 

Maybe the next cycle will exchange Miriam, Esther and Emma for Danzel, Pearl and Chastity.

Is there no other way? 

I had grown up in the church, I knew there weren’t a lot of women mentioned in the scriptures. But I had certainly expected that there were enough to cover a few 31-50 name cycles. Were most of the women in the scriptures evil and therefore ineligible? Did the church simply run out of the names of righteous women in scripture and therefore had to fill the gaps with family names? I wanted to compare the numbers. 

Starting with the Bible. 

❖ The Biographical Bible found 1,940 character names in the Old and New Testament.

❖ From a list of women in the Bible I found a total of 100 unique women’s names in the Old Testament and 33 in the New Testament. [These numbers were based off of google searches and removing duplicates in excel, it was not a meticulous process so please don’t cite my numbers, they are only meant to give a rough picture] 

❖ 17 of the 100 names in the Old Testament are represented in the temple names and 14 of the 33 New Testament names. 

Now, it could be that some names were excluded because they would not be familiar to the average temple goer or because they were represented as evil in the text. 

Some recognizable names that have never been included are: Jochebed the mother of Moses, Zipporah the wife of Moses, Anna the prophetess at the temple and Junia the apostle. 

In the Book of Mormon, there are 6 women named. 

❖ Three of those women are references to the Biblical matriarchs: Eve, Sarah and Mary, all have been included as temple names in at least one cycle. 

❖ That leaves Sariah, Abish and Isabel. Though Isabel is represented in the temple names, it’s hard for me to imagine that it is in honor of the harlot from Alma.

❖ Abish was included in the two scripture heavy cycles of ‘83 and ’93

❖ Shockingly, Sariah has never been used as a temple name. 

It is possible that Sariah was excluded because her name is so similar to Sarah (a name used in every cycle except the first). However, Naoma and Norma were both included in the ’65 cycle, Naoma was even repeated in the ‘74 cycle with Naomi. Emma and Emmeline also made an appearance together in the ‘74 cycle. I feel like we could handle Sarah and Sariah. {As a side note, the inclusion of Naoma is so bizarre to me, I still can’t help but wonder if it was misheard or misremembered…despite being recorded for two different cycles.} 

Finally, I turned to Doctrine and Covenants. A google search turned up a grand total of 2 women. Emma Hale Smith and Vienna Jacques. Honestly, I didn’t believe it. After much hemming and hawing, I sat down and skimmed the book, searching for names. 

❖ While there are just under 200 men’s names used—119 unique names—there are only 5 women mentioned. 

❖ Three of them were Biblical. 

❖ Google was right. There are two women unique to Doctrine and Covenants mentioned in the 138 sections. 

❖ Only one of them made the temple name list. 

❖ To add further insult to injury, of the five female names of the D&C, Emma, Sarah and Hagar make their appearances in the infamous Section 132. One woman being castigated for resisting polygamy while the other two are used as models of obedient plural wives. What representation. 

There are enough female names in the scriptures to fill out the temple name logs. The 83 and 93 cycles prove that. There are not only more than enough names but there are significant women who have been underutilized or excluded entirely. Abish, Dinah, Deborah, Elizabeth, Huldah and Leah were all removed when the current cycle was released. It is hard not to wonder if the downsizing of prophetesses was intentional. 

You are beginning to see already 

Once I realized how many names were nonscriptural I assumed that the rest would be prominent women from church history. 

❖ Eliza made the list every cycle except the scriptures only one. 

❖ Lucy had been on the list for the last two cycles. 

❖ Emma had managed to be on the list for every cycle in spite of being such a controversial figure in church history. 

I was no expert on church history, much less women in church history, so I figured that many of the names might be unfamiliar to me but that a simple google search would quickly connect them to church history. 

The last thing I expected was to come up empty. To simply not be able to find a significant or obvious connection to the church. When my google searches came up empty, I wondered if the names were simply more “wives of.” I started with listing out wives of church presidents, curious if each would have a wife represented. They didn’t. I added every member of the quorum of the twelve. The assistants to the president. 

I searched each man on google and then the Church Biographical Database, sometimes in desperation I even turned to tracing family lines in Family Search. Tediously, I added the names of their wives, then, when that wasn’t enough, their mothers. Occasionally a name would pop and I would wonder, was this her? When I reached the first presidency and quorum of the 12 serving in 1965 cells started lighting up. 

Coincidentally or not, every member of the big 15 in 1965 has had the name of a wife or a mother used as a temple name. Now, I have to be clear, they were not all used in the 1965 cycle but they have all been used in one cycle or another. 

Could this be a coincidence? Absolutely! But there has not been any other set of 15 so heavily represented. I have to add the disclaimer, I know that some of their family names were Bible names so more likely explained by that connection but the list also included Ethel, May and Camilla—names with little to no other obvious connection to the church. I felt like I might have found something. I wondered what was so special about that board of church leadership that they had wives or mothers represented in the temple names. 

I switched to looking for any representation from the female leadership. I listed out the General Relief Society Presidencies, General Young Women and Primary presidencies.

❖ The names of each member of the 1965 YW’s presidency was used in the 1965 cycle. Their names were: Florence, Margaret and Dorothy and therefore not chosen from being Bible names. 

❖ Now, Florence could also be in reference to the daughter of Heber J Grant

❖ Margaret could be the wife of Lyman White or mother of Melvin J Ballard or Bruce R McConkie (he does seem like the type to get a name represented somewhere)

❖ Dorothy could be the sister of Howard W Hunter. 

We’ll never know. It could have been a random coincidence. 

Let us go down {the rabbit hole}

Now, if you’ve made it this far, buckle up because we’re about to really go off the rails. I was in deep. Searching everywhere. Astonished that I hadn’t found references to the names out of luck or sheer commonness of the name. I was left staring at names like Rita, Carla, Ramona. How could these be such hard names to connect? In desperation I started just looking for any result that came up in the Church Biographical Database for the names I had left. For Carla there was only one entry: Elna Carla Pederson (1898-1984). Nothing about her appeared significant. Sorry Carla. I was stymied. 

I turned to Ramona, there were only three entries 

Ramona Foulger

Blanche Ramona Bywater 

Ramona Stevenson Wilcox. 

Ramona Stevenson Wilcox served with her husband, Joseph J Cannon, as Mission Presidents of the British Isles Mission from 1934-1937. 

There was an elder who also served in the same mission during the same time frame: Elder Gordon Hinckley. 

I couldn’t believe it. I triple checked the dates. Was it possible that somehow, someone had suggested the name of the wife of his mission president? Is this where my other missing names came from? Before you get excited or hopeful (like I certainly was), if that is the secret, it is a secret that will remain hidden. Though I began adding missions and time frames to my spreadsheet, isolating mission presidents for the time frames went well beyond my amateur google sleuthing. If there is a real church historian willing to lend a hand, I will gladly take it. It was a momentary high that led exactly nowhere. 

I was left with 12 names and no strong connection or persuasive explanation for their inclusion on the temple lists. 

We will…rest from our labors for a season 

The truth I was finally forced to accept was that I would never know. 

Even for the names that did have a connection to a general authority, was a mother’s middle name REALLY the most likely explanation? For all I knew, it could have been for a beloved grandmother from some Seventy on some committee. 

We don’t know how the names are selected. Given how the church runs, I mind summons an image of a committee tasked with selecting the names for a new cycle. I imagine them being told to study, ponder and pray about the selection. Perhaps each contributes a name or several, perhaps they pray as they vote for which names to include. Perhaps they are thinking of women who they love or admire. 

I wonder…if such a committee exists, are there women on it? 

It doesn’t seem likely to me. Maybe the next time they create the list, there will be.

Return and Report 

As I have shared my findings–from scripture references to wild theories–with people on their journeys with the church, something has been clear. We felt something about these names. We were disappointed, touched, excited. Sometimes the names felt inspired, sometimes they fell flat or were even triggering. Most of us wanted them to mean something. To be more than a name drawn from a hat. We wanted to know why they were chosen, who they were chosen for. We’re curious and, like so many things in the temple, we have so few answers. 

I wish I knew who Rita was. I wonder if she had any idea that her name would be remembered by countless women whispering a name to their husbands to be. I wish we knew the stories and women behind the names. 

Honestly, I just wish we just remembered the women. Not just as “mother of” or “wife of.” But as people. As prophets, as priestesses, as poets, as queens. 

As so much more than a name whispered through the veil. 

Author bio: After a true, blue Utah Mormon young adulthood—BYU, mission, temple work and temple sealing—J Martinez was a part of the great COVID Exmo Migration of 2020. She now spends her time voraciously consuming audiobooks and exploring new trails with her kiddo.

Am I a Fascinating Woman and a Mormon Feminist?

For me, the word “feminism” is a community-building word, a clarifying and liberating word, a word that explains so much of my grief and confusion in the LDS church and brings me into communion with others who are also aching and questioning and creating. It’s the word I use to explain the time I wept in my bathroom after reading an Ensign article about “Women in the Scriptures,” the hope I had as a little girl in a Book of Women to compliment the Book of Mormon, and the search I undertook to find Heavenly Mother. For me, Feminism is an ache for the silenced women in history, it’s like they are all inside me, pumping my blood and screaming their silence, screaming for me to speak and listen. 

However, in the LDS church, as Colleen McDannell explains in her book Sister Saints, “Feminism is still a dirty word for many Mormon women” (199). And I wonder why? I understand that everyone has different experiences and journeys and not everyone cares about the screaming silence inside my veins, but why systemically fight it? Why halt representation and stories and theology creation? In my mind, feminism is just asking for equal space in a system of men.

In the 1970s, my grandmother, an Equal Rights Amendment activist, was asked by her bishop to choose between her good standing in the church and her political affiliation with the ERA movement. She chose her good standing in the church and my aunt says that a spark went out inside my grandma. But the bishop’s message was clear: Feminism or Mormonism. She had to give up one to keep the other. This was not the case with all Mormon bishops, some feminists celebrated their Mormonism and Feminism; however, during this time, church leaders distributed anti-feminist pamphlets and organized anti-ERA meetings and conferences. Feminism became a dirty word within the LDS church, an anti-family and anti-marriage word. 

In Fifty Years of Exponent II, Katie Rich and Heather Sundahl mention writings from Mormon women during this time. In one such document, a Mormon woman expresses surprise “at the intensity and hostility [other] Mormon women” showed concerning equal rights. “These meetings and anti-ERA literature circulated in Relief Societies pit homemakers against feminists” (28). This hostility and division surrounding feminism in the wards and stakes of Mormonism centered around “protecting” the family and marriage as defined by the LDS church leaders. 

In the 1990s, my mom was in a book group of powerful Mormon women and one of them, a BYU professor, was excommunicated for her feminist writings. This woman served as a beacon to all of her former students and friends on what happens to feminists in Mormonism: you can’t have both. Well, unless, maybe, you’re an undercover feminist? Hiding in a marriage with a family and aren’t too loud? Maybe I can have both?

Recently, in preparation for a comedic skit, my friends and I read Fascinating Womanhood. The author, Helen Andelin, is a Mormon woman who first published her book in 1963 and sold over 2 million copies. This book is “designed to teach women how to be happy in marriage” and seemed like the perfect content for a skit at a Mormon Feminist retreat. Granted, my friends and I laughed till we cried reading passages out loud in our one-room cabin. However, I’d found this book on my grandmother’s shelf and I found her in the ideas of the text. The juxtaposition of my Feminism with the femininity described in the book was hilarious . . . and tragic. I found not only my grandparents and my parents in the pages, I also found my husband and myself. 

Fascinating Womanhood prescribes “femininity” as the balm for a husband’s unhappiness. Andelin describes this femininity as a “fundamental law” and outlines a woman’s role in marriage. This role is to be “child-like” with “dear little whims, and caprices.” It explains that a wife must have “girlish trust in” her husband and make obvious “her absolute dependency upon others to provide for her.” The whole book is a guidebook for women on how to make a husband feel like the “superior male.” It’s the antithesis of feminism.

And this, I think, is what the church is protecting from feminism—the superior male. This type of marriage. 

And as I laughed irreverently while preparing for a Mormon Feminist skit designed from a Mormon femininity guidebook, I had to face the reality of the paradox within myself: I’m a Mormon Feminist and a Fascinating Woman. Like the women before me. 

Even though I had never previously read this book, it described my anti-feminist marriage. I’d never once acknowledged, chosen, or examined the fascinating woman inside me. I didn’t even know she existed. But there she was, trained by this book’s ideas that demonize working women, suggesting that “gone is the luster, the charm, the poetry that says ‘she is a phantom of delight’” when a woman works outside the home. A book that infantilizes both men and women, and condones a relationship built on pretending, blame, and avoidance of emotion, communication, and vulnerability. This book is an anthem for upholding a strict gender binary, a society where men and women are enabled by each other. 

This is a whole other blog post, but everyone loses in this marital system built by patriarchy. In the book For the Love of Men, Liz Plank, after much research, declares that “Patriarchy kills men, too.” 

And now I think I understand why feminism is a dirty word for many members of the church. Because it is an anti-marriage, an anti-fascinating woman word. It has the potential to disrupt everything. It’s not just about making room for women. It’s about redefining masculinity, too. It’s about relationships. It’s about re-writing the scripts of how humans are in relationship to each other. It’s about throwing out these ancient and modern gender binaries. It’s about freeing everyone from stifling roles. I’ve been so naive, thinking I could protect my marriage from feminism. Thinking I could be a Fascinating Woman and a Mormon Feminist. But just like my grandma and my mom, I can’t. Because I think that one of the silenced women screaming in my veins is me. 

*Read more about Mormonism, Feminism, and gender roles at the Salt Lake Tribune.

Photo by Elias Maurer on Unsplash

“Faithfully Agitated: Stories from Everyday Saints who Struggle, but Stay”

The saying goes something like, “Everyone has one book in them. Almost no one has two.” “They” might be right.

In 2021, in the aftermath of the unexpected death of my ten-year-old son Sawyer, I wrote
a book entitled, Heartbroken, but not Broken. The book addresses cultural narratives around grief,
especially faith-based narratives and offers some experienced based suggestions on what to do and not do as when supporting someone on a loss journey. This post isn’t about my first book. It’s about my second book.

Spoiler alert-there was no Book Two.

In Heartbroken, but not Broken I let readers know from the onset that my perspective is grounded in place as a practicing member of the LDS faith and a feminist. I acknowledge up front that my world view might not be for everyone. I never dreamed I’d use the ‘f’ word (feminist) in a book sold at Deseret Book, but it happened, and I was thrilled. Looking back, I think about how including the literal word “feminist” was so important to me. I wanted people to understand that if they were going to come on a portion of my loss journey, they needed to know a little about me. My feminism shaped me, grounded me in my testimony and the way I engage with my faith. It’s that particular perspective that prompted the idea for my second book. Well, that and good
conversations.

In 2022 my publisher reached out and asked if I had another idea for a book, and I suggested a few. The publisher gave me the green light to go ahead and start working on an official pitch for my second book, which I immediately submitted. The publisher was interested, and I was energized.

My idea was the confluence of two specific events. The first took place at my son’s graduation from BYU. We
held a graduation party for him, and he invited a really diverse group of friends and mentors. A woman he’d met playing pickleball came up to me at the party and said she had read my book and would love to chat. She said after reading my book she read some of my blog posts on Exponent II. I had only authored a couple, but she read lots of posts from all of the great people who share their wisdom and perspective on this blog. She said she was struggling with her faith but had no one to talk to about it. She said, “If I brought any of these issues up during Relief Society, I’d be shunned. I work at the temple with my husband, we are seen as a true blue
Mormon couple, and I know there would be a lot of whispering in the halls if I said what I was
really thinking and asked the questions I really need to ask.”

Fast forward a couple of months and that graduation party conversation still lingered on my heart. My friend Bee and I met for lunch at a downtown café and I was excited to swap life stories. Bee and I both call The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-days our faith tradition so often our conversations regularly turn to discussion about our own current worship strategies. She was sharing how she’d drawn strength from a particular article written by a fellow Latter-day Saint author, and I found myself speaking critically of the author Bee was talking about. I (admittedly and embarrassingly now) said something like, “I don’t really read her work anymore because she wrote a piece that I found to be extremely offensive.” Taken aback, Bee said to me, “Hm, well I am not aware of that piece. Regardless, I find spiritual wisdom wherever I can. Just because I don’t agree with everything someone
might espouse doesn’t mean they can’t teach me something valuable at any given moment.” Insert my shame face. I wholeheartedly live by this wisdom. At least, I thought I did. Yet there I was, in a tiny, overcrowded, downtown cafe, eating crow. Why hadn’t I been willing to offer grace to this random author, but was willing to offer it to everyone else? I even felt myself getting a little defensive as the conversation continued, harried by what I was feeling and processing what she said.

Looking back, I think it was pride seeping in as I realized Bee was right and I was wrong. Bee and I are friends. We can cordially disagree and move on to the next thing as friends do. We proceeded to finish our delectable turkey, blue cheese, and cranberry jam sandwiches, hugged, and went our separate ways. My lunch devoured, I had an hour-long drive home to mull over my thoughts and I did just that. But it wasn’t just for the hour-long drive home that the conversation weighed on my mind. It was over the next several days which turned into weeks that the conversation took up space in my mind. I merged my feelings from both the downtown lunch conversation and the graduation conversation, and I knew book two would need to be less of my perspective and more of the stories of others. I wanted to create a space for everyday Latter-day Saints with stories about their faith struggles, and sitting with those struggles while still going to church. There are so many stories we should all be hearing and sharing. book two would be a collection of these stories, not just my words.

Now, I have a confession. I had been struggling with some aspects of my testimony when Bee and I met for lunch. Bee has a solid, albeit somewhat nuanced, testimony of the Gospel espoused by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our common faith fueled most of our conversations over many lunches. During lunch, Bee expressed concern about a couple of things she’d been processing during her worship over the previous months. In a moment, out of nowhere, and with no censorship or decorum, I asked her, “With all of these questions and concerns, why do you stay a member of the {LDS} Church?” As I said the words out loud, I couldn’t believe I was saying them. I felt my heart quicken as I realized I was asking her audibly what my head had been asking my heart silently. I think I had been too afraid to ask myself this question but asking her felt like a safer way to force the issue in my mind. I think it has been a persistent question in my heart, jostling for attention, since Sawyer died in 2016. Until that moment I hadn’t had the energy to give it much
consideration.

After publishing Heartbroken, but not Broken, I started speaking at book groups and doing interviews
on podcasts about the intersection of grief and faith. I talked a lot about how we can mourn with those who mourn. About how grief has this dirty underbelly no one ever creates space for, and about the importance of making space for tough faith conversations. Common themes kept emerging during these public discussions. In the quiet aftermath of several of these events, with just a few lingering guests, people would approach me
and thank me for my willingness to speak about difficult subjects so openly. They expressed their
own concerns about difficult subjects in their lives; sometimes grief and death, sometimes faith, sometimes about whatever was most pressing on their hearts. By sharing stories of Sawyer’s death, I was seen as willing to talk about dicey subjects so people would open up to me about other dicey subject matters.

Sharing portions of my intimate grief journey with others it taught me several things. First, it helped me express what I was feeling inside so the darkness didn’t weigh me down and bury me alive. I once heard a survivor of sexual violence say, “I heal out loud, so others don’t have to suffer in silence.” Second, it helped me understand a measure of the depth of the pain and sorrow others feel. Not always because of death, but often because of grief. Grief over death, sometimes. Grief over the life they thought they would live but haven’t. Grief over the loss of a specific aspect of their life, maybe a job or a home or a vision held close to their heart. Grief about trials and
struggles that have come their way and grief because the anger has settled and there is nowhere left for it to go.

Aside from opening my heart to the pain of others, sharing stories about Sawyer-his death and his life- also allowed me passage into the deep, sacred waters where other people hold their pain. But also, it showed me a window into their resilience. Central to the resilience in the many stories I heard was the role of God, spirituality, and an enduring faith in what people believe but may not know to be true. That faith, that belief, became the arc of many discussions I had with strangers and friends alike as we shared what was on our hearts. In addition to grief, a slew of other subjects arose, including fears harbored over openly discussing questions and concerns they had about God, gospel doctrine or church culture. Their realistic concerns, they feared, would make them seem faithless. Instead of talking about them and seeking camaraderie and support from others, they often let their concerns fester. And more regularly than not, those festering feelings had nowhere to go, so they resulted in people sticking around full of resentment or leaving their Church membership behind. It seems like there should be more middle ground.

I wholeheartedly disagree that discussing problems or doubts about gospel subjects makes us faithless, yet we have somehow landed in a culture where hearty discourse can often lead to labels and judgements. Sometimes even worse, depending on where we have landed in the leadership roulette. In our current cultural climate, we seem to have lost our dependence on honoring personal revelation or, at the very least, our personal willingness to discuss hard things. An adjective like “faithless,” in the LDS culture can be tantamount to “sin” for a lot of
people. The goal is to avoid “even the appearance of evil”. Okay so “evil” feels a little strong, but often the regrettable byproduct of that notion for many who struggle is to remain quiet. It’s almost as if the shame of being labeled a “doubter” has worse reprisal than actually doubting. That day in the cafe with Bee, it didn’t really matter which it was-being faithless or appearing faithless-that kept me largely quiet discussing my struggles publicly. I wasn’t speaking up. I assume it was a fear of that “tainted” persona that kept me from asking
myself why I stay. For a culture that espouses the love of God over His judgment, there tends to
be a little confusion sometimes about who is the ultimate Judge. Maybe that isn’t an explicit LDS cultural aspect,
but my own personal experience with faith culture and I have conflated the two. After Sawyer died, I was quiet about a lot of things. Until I wasn’t. I had too much to process, too much to say and no way to say it. The grieving process was breaking me and I had made a commitment to my husband and my family that I wouldn’t let Sawyer’s death break us. Break me. So, slowly, I started to speak. And by speak, I mean write. Writing down every little detail I could remember about Sawyer’s brief time in the hospital, his death, our lives in the wake
of his death, all of it. Then one day, as if by magic, those words had a title and a cover, and you
could “suddenly” buy it on Amazon and or in Deseret Book. 

Book Two felt similar as it began to unfold. I had heard too much and needed others to hear it as well. I naively felt like Book two would be so much easier to complete than the first one. I started laying the groundwork, reaching out to people I knew and those I didn’t to schedule interviews for the manuscript, and it was exciting. My pitch to people was essentially this:

“{After introductions} I am compiling a series of essays about people who have a million
reasons to leave the LDS faith, but who instead opt to stay. Would you be interested in sharing
some of the experiences you personally have had that made you question your faith involvement,
but the reasons you ultimately decided to stay engaged?”

Some people did interviews with me. Some people sent me essays. Traction was building. I even had strangers reaching out to me saying they heard about my project and they were interested in participating. I originally pitched 13 stories (chapters for individual stories) centered around 13 different topics. As interest grew, I
thought I might even have enough material for two books. I even had my title. “Faithfully Agitated: Stories from Everyday Saints who Struggle but Stay.” The concept was to gather stories from everyday Latter-day Saints who, despite having a lot of reasons to abandon thr LDS faith, actually stick around. There are a lot of books about why people leave the LDS faith. There are also a lot of books about what people get from their faith and how it helps them. A lot of these stories are by the famous and “pseudo-famous” Saints who are in the LDS-limelight. They are almost protected by their popularity which allows them space to publicly share their concerns with aspects of the LDS Church culture, doctrine, and policies while decision to stay engaged with the faith. Sometimes those stories, while important and valuable, are inaccessible to the everyday Latter-day Saint. I wanted to change that.

I had two goals. The first was to share the stories of those who are “boots on the ground,” so to speak. Not so much from people who are protected by status, wealth, name, or position. Sharing these everyday stories I thought could bolster those who are struggling to help them know they are not alone. Help me know, I am not alone. My second goal was to reach those who don’t understand people who struggle with their testimonies. Maybe, just maybe, it would help create a learning space to “convert” those who have the gift of believing and can’t understand the struggler, or non-believer. Convert them to the idea that struggling, while maybe incomprehensible to them, is a natural outcome for many living in 2025. Maybe the story sharing could work towards creating an ebb and flow of ideas from both sides of the fence and generate compassion and understand for different perspectives. I see others working towards these goals and I wanted in.

Then it started happening. Or rather, stopped happening. The crickets. People who were genuinely engaged, stopped calling back. Follow up interviews were cancelled or no shows. Emails correspondence stopped. Finally, a couple of people started answering my calls/emails. The gist across the board from those who had gone silent was, “When I went to write down all the reasons I stay, in relation to the reasons I need to leave, I realized the disconnect. I’m not sure I have reasons to stay, so I think I am leaving.”

Over and over again, a similar sentiment.

At first, I panicked. My first panic was about my relationship to others disengagement. Did I make them leave? Did me asking the question result in an answer that could impact their salvation? I did a lot of processing and ultimately landed on a less egocentric answer. This was for them and God to work out, I wasn’t a part of it. Then I panicked that I would not be able to write Book Two. Did I commit to something I can’t follow through on? That hurts. I did a lot of processing and ultimately landed on a less egocentric answer. Book Two was not for me to create, it was for me to share. If there was nothing to share, then I was not needed for this project. I let the book go. Finally, I panicked that for those who had put time and effort, energy, heart and soul into an essay for a chapter, I wouldn’t have an outlet to share their story. They deserved to be heard, I told them they would be heard. I did a lot of processing. A lot of stalling. A bit of hiding. But then I landed on a less egocentric answer and realized that these stories could still be shared.

With permission, over the next several months, I will use my space on the blog to share the
stories of those who have experienced things like racism, homophobia, and scrutiny for mental
health issues in their LDS congregation but stay engaged in the LDS faith. I will share the stories I was able to collect in my attempt to create Book Two as a blog series, “Faithfully Agitated.” I hope by sharing these stories there will be some measure of fulfillment of the goals I intended for the book, but bigger than that, I hope these important stories by everyday saints with their everyday struggles will be heard and used to build a more robust Zion.

10 Things To Know About the Suffs

If you ever have the chance to see Suffs, a Tony award winning musical detailing the experiences of women agitating for suffrage during the Wilson administration of 1912-1920, gather your best girls, pin on your suffragist ribbons, and experience the magic together.  

While Suffs unfortunately closed on Broadway starting January 5, the show will fortunately go on a national US tour starting in Fall 2025. If seeing the show live is not in your wherewithal, it will also be featured by Great Performances on PBS and is streaming now as a cast recording via Spotify and Apple Music.  

Created by Shaina Taub, the story follows the arc of Carrie Chapman Catt and Mary Church Terrell as the staid, institutional faces of a 60 year suffrage mission. Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells show up as upstarts, shaking up the status quo, demanding more decisive action. The play explores the internal fissures and fractures of the movement along the lines of age, race, and class with these four characters standing in as archetypes. 

As the women wrestle along, they confront questions like who gets to be involved in the movement? How does a suffragist present herself? What does she stand for? What is she willing to do? What is the movement asking for? Can their efforts ever possibly by enough? Did they do the right thing? 

No one is free from self-doubt or moments of startling realization, all leading toward a final stirring call for us in the now to continue the work (covered beautifully by Alex Newell and Broadway Inspirational Voices):

“I won’t live to see the future that I fight for 
Maybe no one gets to reach that perfect day 
If the work is never over 
Then how do you keep marching anyway? 
Do you carry your banner as far as you can? 
Rewriting the world with your imperfect pen? 
‘Til the next stubborn girl picks it up in a picket line over and over again? 
And you join in the chorus of centuries chanting to her 

The path will be twisted and risky and slow 
But keep marching, keep marching 
Will you fail or prevail? Well, you may never know 
But keep marching, keep marching 
‘Cause your ancestors are all the proof you need 
That progress is possible, not guaranteed 
It will only be made if we keep marching, keep marching on” 

The experience of this show, the moments where I laughed and cried and felt so seen reminded me of the Ordain Woman movement, which bravely asked the biggest ask there could be for Mormon women, right at the doors of the building, upsetting the status quo, risking the eternal damnation of excommunication (is that better or worse than the torture of force feeding?). In President Wilson’s many evasions, I heard the echoes of all the arguments against equity in our own church. In the power of Ida B. Well’s resounding rebuke at the suggestion of a segregated protest march, I saw all the continuing pressure points of race and gender our Mormon feminist movement navigates. One character even hesitates to be married because she knows it will result in the end of her own legal personhood, echoing my own internal unease at the fine print of marriage in general and temple sealing ceremonies in specific.  

With catchy songs, poignant moments, and fully weighted arcs, I hope to see this musical again and again and I would love to know what you thought if you’ve have the experience of seeing the show.  

In the meantime, courtesy of my current hyper focus, here’s 10 Things to Know About the (historical) Suffs:

It’s suffragist, not suffragette. While the media coined the term suffragette, the suffragists found it demeaning.  Inez Millholland, labor lawyer, led the procession of 8000 suffrage marchers in the first ever protest march down Pennsylvania Avenue. She was chosen to highlight the femininity, youth, and respectability of the marchers. The famed and influential Howard University sorority Delta Sigma Theta participated in the protest march. So did Helen Keller, though she left early when the crowds began to threaten the marchers.While the march was largely integrated, tensions rose in the Illinois delegation and among southern participants the day of. The Illinois delegation leader attempted to oust Ida B. Wells, but was unsuccessful. Mary Church Terrell’s National Association of Colored Women delegation was also threatened by a southern boycott and a participating group of men offered to act as a buffer. The Silent Sentinels stood in protest outside the White House for a peaceful six months before police threatened to arrest them, largely in response to Sentinel banners targeting a Russian delegation visiting the White House. The Russian revolution had resulted in women’s suffrage and the Sentinels wanted the Russian delegation to pressure the US to do the same as part of their wartime partnership.  At least two dozen Sentinels were sent to Occoquan Workhouse following arrest during picketing. They survived deplorable conditions, physical violence, and learned how the workhouse system trapped Black women in forced labor. In all, about 218 women from 26 states were arrested during the protests.  Alice Paul would suffer all her life from the effects of the force feeding she endured in both British and American jails in the pursuit of suffrage.  Woodrow Wilson referred to his first and second wife as “little girl.” His ick is legion. From 1912 to 1918, Wilson largely ignored the suffrage movement until it became clear that women’s suffrage would help improve the democratic reputation of the US on the global stage while he tried to sell the League of Nations. His personal views never changed (“universal suffrage is at the foundation of every evil in this country”), but he was willing to put his support behind the amendment for the political gain.  The deciding vote in Tennessee that finally ratified the 19th Amendment in 1920 voted aye because his mother asked him to.   

Facts from Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait? Alice Paul, Woodrow Wilson, and the Fight for the Right to Vote by Tina Cassidy and Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote by suffragist Doris Stevens. 

Photos are public domain from Wikimedia Commons.

As a Little Child

The scriptures teach us to become as a little child. Many times, I’ve heard people at church use that directive to mean that we should be quiet, submissive, obedient, seen but not heard. However, upon observing children, I think there’s more to the story.

Children are inquisitive. They constantly ask “Why?” And when they get an answer, they think about it for a minute and then ask, about the answer, “Why?” on and on until they’re satisfied.

Children are open-minded and aren’t burdened by expectations. Everything is new to them, so they’re not stuck thinking about things the way they’ve always been thought about. I’ve spent many years at church teaching primary, and the kids have had some amazing insights. When I taught about the parable of the Good Samaritan and the directive to love our neighbor, one of the kids asked if space aliens were our neighbors, too. She wasn’t being sassy; she genuinely wanted to know. And then after addressing the ethics of interstellar relations, another kid asked about how to handle bullying at school, so we discussed that.

Children tell the truth, even when they’re the only ones. In the story The Emperor’s New Clothes, none of the adults were willing to state the plainly obvious, for fear of social ostracism. The only one who told the truth, that the emperor wasn’t wearing anything, was a child, who didn’t care what others thought. Real children act like the child in the story; they’re unfailingly honest.

Children care deeply about justice. A refrain often heard from the lips of a child is “That’s not fair!!” As adults, we can sometimes get complacent after a lifetime of little injustices, but children won’t put up with any unfairness.

As we become like little children, or rediscover the child within us, we should likewise be inquisitive, open-minded, honest, and committed to justice.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Guest Post: In Defense of the Fence Sitter

By Kara Stevenson

Lately, I have found myself sitting on the fence. I can’t say that it’s comfortable. Fences aren’t designed with a place for us to sit, after all. They’re designed to separate; to show whose land and property is whose – to show where you should not step foot.

If the land and property is not your own, you ought to stick to your side. To merely peek over the fence is seen as invasive. You stick to your side, and they will stick to theirs.

I’m not suggesting that this is an inherently bad thing. Sometimes, there is good reason to have a fence. Safety and privacy are the top reasons that come to mind.

However, if there were a person who used their walls, the locks on their doors, and their high tech security systems to never let a single soul on their property, we may agree that their use of such tools has been taken to an extreme. Their goal for safety may be preventing them from learning about – and learning to love – those just outside their front door.

Safety, security, and comfort are important. But so is inclusion, diversity, and compassion.

To stand in one’s convictions is admirable. But so is openness and the willingness to allow other ideas in.

Human history is full of separation. Governments and powerful people have used separation as a tool to keep their own thoughts and ideas in, while keeping others out. Sometimes physical walls are built to separate people along with their ideas.

The Berlin Wall was constructed by the Soviet controlled east side of Berlin to keep their people in. Not only did the wall serve as a physical barrier, but it symbolized the deep political divide of a fractured nation, a nation that was struggling to find its identity after the fall of Hitler and the Nazi regime.

East Berliners who held jobs in the West were cut off from their employment. Even families were separated by the domineering concrete structure lined with armed guards.

Pictures from the time period show faces peering through barbed wire, friends reaching across barriers to hold hands, and fathers lifting children upon their shoulders to peer across the divide. Some pictures show East Berliners escaping, climbing over the barriers or even digging tunnels to escape to the other side. Even infants and the elderly were dragged through such tunnels to find freedom in the West.

Many of us won’t have to experience the division caused by a literal wall. It is not a physical fence that I sit upon, but rather the proverbial fence of Mormonism.

We don’t have a West and an East side. We have Mormons and Ex-Mormons. The divide between the two can feel just as menacing and impenetrable as a concrete wall.

There are some who may peek over at the other side, curious about their beliefs or their reasoning for being on such a side, only to quickly step away, fearful of how these new and differing perspectives might impact them and possibly change their very lives.

There are some who may be separated from their family. Some refuse to meet their loved ones at the wall; their differences in beliefs are too vast that they would rather not have a relationship at all. Others gladly meet their friends where they are, and even reach their hand over the wall with love.

Some, who find themselves desperate to get to the other side, feel like they have to claw, fight, climb and dig if only to experience what the other side is like. They don’t have the freedom to wander to and fro. The consequences of picking the other side can be devastating.

The wall has become normal to us. We hardly even notice it. The divide between Mormons and Ex-Mormons has been around for almost as long as the church has existed. It was constructed out of fear and anger, betrayal and ignorance.

I have found myself on both sides of the wall. I had to fight my way to stand firmly on either side, digging metaphorical tunnels and pushing past proverbial barbed wire. When you finally arrive, it feels good to be on one side. You know where you stand. You have your people who stand by you. Life feels clear because you “know” you’re on the right side of things.

And yet, over time, I have found that to be painfully unsatisfactory.

I lacked spiritual humility. I forgot what it was like to be curious and excited about the unknown. I felt intellectually imprisoned within the walls of our cultures own construction.

If it were in my power, I would destroy the wall. I wish for a culture that is truly free; where members can flow back and forth seamlessly, without the fear of losing relationships or their perceived worth in the eyes of God. I wish doubt and uncertainty were celebrated, not seen as weak in comparison to faith.

But wishing only gets you so far.

The fence is still here. I don’t expect it to go away any time soon. If that’s going to be the case, then I will use it to my advantage.

I’ll sit on the fence, because up here, I can see both sides. I can see the hurting faces of members and non members. I can see the families torn apart. I can see friends meeting in the middle, finding holes in the wood where they can see eye to eye. I can see the painful journeys of those finding a way to cross.

I have no desire to be right. I don’t want to place my feet on solid ground that gives me the illusion of “knowing.” I don’t care to feel spiritual safety on either side.

We should care about being inclusive, making sure that people on both sides don’t feel like outcasts. We should care about diversity of thought, being willing to hear both sides express their passions and struggles. But mostly, we should care about being compassionate, and loving others regardless of where they stand.

For me, I can do those things best when I sit on the fence.

Some people don’t like fence sitters. They’re seen as unable to make a decision, perhaps even lacking the courage to do so.

I would argue that it actually requires courage to sit on the fence. It requires humility to accept what you do not know. And it requires love to be willing to see both sides.

Needless to say, I am far from perfect in this regard. I may slip off the fence from time to time, finding momentary comfort in the solid ground beneath my feet. It’s tempting to stay, and even more tempting to leave the fence far, far behind, creating an even greater divide.

But the easy path is never worthwhile.

So I climb back on the fence.

Perhaps you find yourself standing at the border of a different fence that juts its way through the church. Feminists vs traditionalists, or progressives vs conservatives, just to name a few.

I’m sure there’s plenty of room on those fences, too.

It may be obvious to note that there are certain topics that necessitate a choice; where fence sitting is not an option. Racism, sexism, and all forms of bigotry are examples of such topics where I cannot sit on the fence. And neither should you.

There are few topics that are so black and white, where neutrality can’t be possible. If we boil down racism, sexism, and bigotry, we quickly see that the opposition found in such topics is between love and hate.

In such cases, may we always choose the side of love.

But in cases that aren’t so black and white, where the nuance blends toward a tone of grey, fence sitting may very well be the greatest act of love that we can muster.

If you haven’t yet, I would encourage you to give fence sitting a try. I can’t guarantee your comfort, and I certainly can’t guarantee you safety in your current beliefs.

But I can promise you that you won’t find a better view anywhere else.

Kara Stevenson is a BYU-I graduate with a bachelors in communications. She primarily uses her degree to negotiate with her two independent and fierce daughters. She is a Disney addict, a video game lover, and she enjoys dabbling with writing on the side.

Photo: Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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

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

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

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

My Feminism Was Working Against Me

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

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

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

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

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

But what if I got it all wrong?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My takeaway:

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

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

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

Image of talk transcript

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

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

Shame and violence. 

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

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

Next is violence. (TW: rape)

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

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

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

My takeaway:

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

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

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

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

My takeaway:

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

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

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

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

My takeaways:

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

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

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

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

A Weakened Sense of Religious Identity

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

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

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

Particularities Become High-Stakes Liabilities

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

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

Faulty Equations for Conversion in our Families

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

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

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

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

Living away from extended family/ close family friends

+ using today’s addictive apps for kids and teens

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

+ lonely and depressed periods due to lack of social contact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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