Exponent II's Blog, page 45

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s not my complaint this year. 

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

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

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

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

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

Ladies Scripture Study Group

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen to a Podcast

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

Read Scripture 

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

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

** ** **

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

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

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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

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

Register for the Zoom link at tinyurl.com/exiiparty

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

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

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

When God Speaks

The fine line between religious delusion and belief. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There Is Something Better than the Covenant Path

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love is better than the Covenant Path.

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

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

Guest Post: What Man Can I Trust?

by Anonymous

Like many other people, I read the disturbing New York Times article that recounted the sexual harassment Justin Baldoni and Jamey Heath (the creators of the Man Enough podcast) allegedly inflicted upon Blake Lively on the movie set of It Ends With Us. I’ve been wondering why the news felt like a gut punch to me. After a lot of processing, I think I pinpointed why I felt betrayed over this news: these men has held themselves up as male allies who were emotionally attuned, critiqued rigid gender roles, and embraced a masculinity that was caring and empathetic. In them I had finally found male allies that I thought were examples of the “ideal man,” and I am now terribly lost and don’t know which men to really trust.

I think that many LDS people specifically would wonder why I would ever be dramatic enough to say that I feel lost when it comes to finding examples of “ideal men” because they would just point to the massive list of male General Authorities and say, “Pick one! They’re men of God!” I believe that this way of thinking is a form of hero worship that demands people to view their priesthood leaders as infallible, incorruptible people whose opinions should be seen as doctrine and whose actions we should all emulate. There is no better quote that summarizes this pedestalizing than “If God is male, then male is God” (Mary Daly). These men release their books and go on their public speaking tours and create a culture where they are elevated above the average member simply because of a position they hold; whether this is intentional or not I’m not sure, but it does happen and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

I used to be a sucker for this kind of hero worship mentality as well. Ever since I was young, my family members and fellow ward members would really only speak about how great priesthood leaders were. I never heard the men of influence being referred to as human beings with complications and nuance — they were simply men called by God, so therefore they were without fault. The glass façade started cracking for me in 2022 with President Wilcox’s disrespectful and racist laden sermon at a stake conference and how it was simply brushed aside without any form of meaningful consequence. The other difficult component is that when I attempted to talk to the fully committed family members and friends about President Wilcox’s disgusting behavior, I was met with furrowed brows and dismissive words. It was more of a “well, we must forgive him” response and a moving on that felt way too abrupt and unresolved.

In the time period from Feb 2022 to the present, I have had many instances where I have witnessed troublesome behavior and actions from General Authorities down through bishops at local levels. I know now from very personal experiences with the Bay Area ban of women on the stand that you get “leader roulette” and that, no, not all of the leaders in the church actually care about women’s voices, safety, security, opinions, or progression outside the bounds of marriage and motherhood. Sure, many leaders will prop their wives up in meetings and have their wives talk about how they feel empowered in this church, but then the leaders don’t make space for their spouses at the decision-making table. Many leaders will claim to value your input but not include you in meetings of influence, nor make it easy for you to give them feedback, especially in what I call the “middle management,” which is the Area Authorities’ division. The leaders will say you’re a daughter of God but then when presented with damning information about sexual assaults/harassments you face, many will not use their priesthood authority appropriately and will shield abusers and leave you out to struggle alone.

I would also be remiss to not mention someone like Tim Ballard in this conversation. Tim was also a self-proclaimed truth seeker who was an “advocate” for trafficked victims. It wasn’t until he crashed and burned his own image that people started waking up about him. I found that Tim had become so much of what he claimed to be fighting, and that happens to many men regardless of religion, age, race, etc.

So, you can imagine the stirring of hope I had when I stumbled upon Jamey and Justin’s podcast. Here were two men claiming to be sincere, open, honest, vulnerable, and caring in ways I had never actually seen most of my church leaders be when it came to creating space for women. These were men having difficult conversations that I would never even imagine most priesthood leaders being interested in having. And to top it all off, these men claimed to want to be held accountable for their actions. Accountability, that pesky but wonderful word I recited every week in Young Women’s as part of the Young Women’s Theme. What does accountability even look like to our priesthood leaders? When mistakes are made, who do they apologize to and how do they go about repairing the harm they have done? What do they feel like they owe to the people who have been affected by their actions? And are they that interested in stepping aside if their actions have been too damaging and are distracting away from their callings to be representatives of Jesus Christ Himself?

In closing, I think this whole experience has been good for me because I have been confronted with the fact that I can’t just foolishly trust any man and that the only men I can fully trust are my savior Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. Anything else is idol worship that I must steer away from. I now know that my “ideal man” is someone who is consistently humble, thoughtful, and inclusive. And, yes, I know that there are some LDS priesthood leaders who are consistent in all things good. Nevertheless, I now realize that from now on, I should remember the phrase, “It’s all men until it’s no men.”*

*”It’s all men until it’s no men” points to the fact that we are all embedded in a patriarchal system that harms women, even though individual men may themselves be beneficent. It’s also a response to the common reaction “Not all men” when hearing about the violence and/or inequity that women experience at men’s hands. “It’s all men until it’s no men” points to the proactive work that men must do as a group to address sexism and gender-based violence.

Guest Post: Growth and Grace

by Keely Richins

 

I thought I didn’t like action movies,

But then, I saw one with a female lead

 

I thought I didn’t like watching sports,

But then, I discovered Ilona Maher, Caitlin Clark, Simone Biles

 

I thought I wasn’t interested in politics,

But then, I listed to Sharon McMahon

 

I thought LGBTQ were confused

But then, I listened

 

I thought I needed to fear “the world”

But then, love conquered my fear

 

I thought I had to endure to the end, 

But then, I was freed by the present

 

I was told to use priesthood power,

But then, I guess I already did?

 

I thought my garments were to “cover my nakedness,”

But then, I realized I had nothing to hide

 

I thought I only needed to follow,

But then, I already knew my own way

 

I thought I knew Heavenly Father

But then, I lived the life of my Mother

 

I said, “That’s not my experience,”

But then, I lived it myself

 

I promised a lot of things forever,

But then, I didn’t have all the information

 

I thought I was fully grown with all the answers,

But then, I became a child with only questions

 

I thought I was grounded in knowledge,

But then, doubt taught me to fly

 

I thought I loved who I was,

But then, I still do

 

Keely is a reader, runner, proud Utah native, Idaho backpacker, nightgown wearing millennial, friend, and rabbit-owner. She loves to laugh, be outside, and gaslight my anxious soul into doing things to make me tough. She lives a thrilling life with a CPA and three kids in a home with a red door.

Keep two-deep leadership in Primary. Scrap rules that equate co-teaching with sex.

According to two-deep leadership rules, all Latter-day Saint (LDS) Primary classes must have two co-teachers, but a man and woman are allowed to co-teach together only if they are married to each other. It’s almost the same rule as the Law of Chastity: a Latter-day Saint man and woman are only allowed to have sex with each other if they are married to each other. But does it make sense to treat co-teaching like sex?

According to two-deep leadership rules in Primary, a Latter-day Saint man and woman are allowed to co-teach together only if they are married to each other.

My local bishopric recently extended a calling to me and my spouse to co-teach a Primary class at our local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) ward. I love teaching (and it’s a great motivation to share my lesson plans here at Exponent II) but I had to think twice about accepting this calling. I examined the rules around teaching Primary and could see why staffing Primary is such a nightmare for Primary presidencies and bishoprics.

In this article…Primary teachers never get a day off.Primary requires two-deep leadership.The two-deep rule in Primary is a reasonable precaution.The time commitment would be more reasonable if Primary teachers worked in teams of three.Primary co-teachers must be married to each other or of the same sex.But what if everybody has sex?Let’s keep two-deep leadership in Primary, but let’s scrap sex-phobic co-teaching restrictions.Primary teachers never get a day off.

Adult and teen Sunday School classes are held only twice a month, alternating with Relief Society/Priesthood and Young Women/Young Men. That means teachers of adult and youth classes get every other week off. 

Primary classes are the only church classes that meet every single week.  Each week, kids attend a shorter Primary class preceded or followed by Singing Time.

That’s great for kids, who tend to have short attention spans. It’s not so great for Primary teachers, who are required to be present every Sunday, with no days off. When a teacher of an adult or youth class needs to miss church for travel or illness, there’s a 50% chance they won’t have to worry about finding a substitute because it’s already their scheduled day off. A primary teacher needs to find a substitute every single time they miss church.

Primary requires two-deep leadership.In keeping with the principle of two-deep leadership, a Primary teacher is not allowed to teach without a co-teacher. Put a second teacher in that empty chair!

But wait, you might ask, since you and your husband are co-teaching this class, you wouldn’t need to find a substitute if just one of you gets sick, right? The healthy spouse could teach alone.

When we co-taught adult Gospel Doctrine, that’s how we covered whenever just one of us missed church. No need to find a substitute if one of the two co-teachers was still available to teach the class.

However, unlike adult classes, Primary classes require two-deep leadership. (Church Handbook 12.3.5) That means both co-teachers must be present every week. So even when it’s my husband’s turn to teach, I’ll still need to be there or find a substitute to sit in the classroom in my place.

The two-deep rule in Primary is a reasonable precaution.

Requiring two adults in every children’s class is based on a precaution developed by the Boy Scouts of America following a series of child sex abuse scandals within their organization. [i] Requiring the presence of an extra adult seems reasonable, given the importance of preventing sexual abuse of children. I mean, it’s literally the least we could do. (What about background checks? Security cameras? Glass doors on classrooms?)

The two-deep rule in Primary began in 2019, after a series of well-publicized activist efforts calling attention to child sexual abuse in church settings. Before that time, only male Primary teachers were required to have a co-teacher. Women could teach Primary alone. Church policymakers were apparently more concerned that men might abuse children than that women would, and the statistics bear that out. Most child sex abuse offenders are male. [ii] But I think there is a strong argument to be made for taking reasonable precautions to protect children from any demographic of abuser, even if the incidence is less common among women.

Another problem with the old policy was that it created an incentive for local wards to staff primary with women and not men. Under the old rule, some bishops and stake presidents even went so far as to ban men from Primary callings altogether. Why would a bishopric choose to use up two male volunteers to staff one classroom when they could staff the same classroom with only one woman? Women are already barred from many callings because of the female priesthood ban, and so the last thing we needed was another excuse for bishoprics to confine us to Primary all the time at the exclusion of other opportunities.

Overall, requiring two teachers in every Primary classroom, regardless of the sex of the teacher, is a win for child safety and gender parity. I think it’s the right way to go, although it certainly creates staffing difficulties for Primary presidencies, who need to recruit a much larger number of teachers for their organization than any other organization in the ward.

The time commitment would be more reasonable if Primary teachers worked in teams of three.

For a time, my local ward experimented with calling three teachers to each Primary classroom. I co-taught a Primary class then with two other women. Each Sunday, one of us taught the lesson, one of us sat in the classroom to provide the mandatory two-deep leadership, and the third person had the day off. If one of us was sick or traveling, we had a built-in substitute available to us; we could trade with the co-teacher who was supposed to be off that week. It was a great way to bring Primary callings closer to the more flexible time commitment of other teaching callings.

Eventually, however, my ward had to abandon the experiment. Not only did it require more people, but assigning three rotating teachers per classroom was complicated by the gendered rules around who is allowed to co-teach with whom. It would have been easier for me to accept this new Primary calling if we could have added a third teacher to our team to lighten the load, but that would be impossible because half of the adults in our ward are forbidden by church policy from co-teaching with me, and the other half are forbidden from co-teaching with my husband.

Primary co-teachers must be married to each other or of the same sex.According to Primary two-deep leadership rules, two people of the same sex may co-teach Primary together.

The LDS Church has a longstanding ban on people of the opposite sex serving together as co-teachers unless they are married to each other. The Handbook states that co-teachers “could be two women, two men, or a married couple.” (Church Handbook 12.3.5)

When I need to miss church, I must find a male substitute because I am the only woman in the ward allowed to co-teach alongside my male spouse. If both of us will be gone, we can’t just group-text the substitute list and take the first two substitutes who say yes; we might end up with a man and a woman teaching together who are not married to each other, and that is not allowed.

This rule has nothing to do with preventing child abuse. In fact, the two-deep leadership policy of the Girl Scouts program requires the two adult leaders to be unmarried, or they need to add a third, unrelated co-teacher to the mix.

But what if everybody has sex?

Since requiring co-teachers of the opposite sex to be married doesn’t improve child safety, and may even make children less safe, why do we have such a rule?

If you thought, “But what if everybody has sex?” you’re thinking like a church policymaker.

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I can’t trace exactly when these gendered co-teaching restrictions began, but it appears that some version of this rule has been in place since before the feminist revolution of the 1970s brought American women back into the workplace in droves. General Authorities who retired from secular work before the ‘70s may have never worked with women, and then they went on to serve full-time in priesthood quorums where women were banned. These men had no practical experience having professional relationships with people of the opposite sex, and invoked policies and teachings based on assumptions that if men and women worked together, adultery would be rampant.

Ironically, while there should be nothing sexy about a man and a woman spending half an hour co-teaching a group of children, the ban on co-teachers of the opposite sex makes the innocent sight of a man and woman teaching a Primary class together seem tantalizing and suspicious and lurid.  

Let’s keep two-deep leadership in Primary, but let’s scrap sex-phobic co-teaching restrictions.Latter-day Saint men and women who are not married to each other are not allowed to co-teach a Primary class, just like they’re not allowed to have sex. But why does the same rule apply?

Before the two-deep leadership policy, following gendered co-teaching restrictions was easy. Put only one teacher in each classroom and no one will have a co-teacher of the opposite sex! But today, these outdated, gendered co-teaching rules interact with the two-deep leadership policy and make staffing Primary even more complicated. What’s the solution?

Implementing two-deep leadership in Primary requires a larger number of staff than ever before, but the safety of our children is worth it. On the other hand, when staffing Primary is already so challenging, why are we clinging to outdated rules that do nothing to protect children and make staffing even harder? It’s time to end gendered rules about who can co-teach with whom so we have maximum flexibility to fully staff our Primary programs.

[i] Here’s my interview with Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), an advocacy organization that helped expose these child sex abuse cases.

[ii] Ironically, although the rule in Primary suggested an awareness among church leaders of the higher risk of sexual abuse by male perpetrators, church policy also required one-on-one interviews of children by bishopric members who were required to be male due to the female priesthood ban. In 2018, this policy improved by allowing a child or youth to have a second adult in the room when the minor requests it, but this policy only allows for the minor being interviewed to request that a guardian be present, not vice versa. The guardian may not even be aware that an interview is taking place. (Church Handbook 31.1.4)

Making Mormon Feminist Spaces More Inclusive

I am proud to call myself a Mormon feminist. I’m an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an adult convert, a mixed-race Asian American woman, and the only member in my family. I’ve always identified as a nuanced member and have been so grateful to find pockets of welcoming, inclusive spiritual spaces for me in almost everywhere I’ve lived.

Exponent has been such an important part of my spiritual life, and it hosts crucial conversations I don’t see taking place anywhere else. But as my time as the blog’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) rep comes to a close, I want to gently call in this community and ask that we all share the labor of making Mormon feminist platforms like this more inclusive and welcoming to marginalized voices. For example, it’s not fair to ask the very few women of color to be the only ones commenting on race. If we don’t know what we’re talking about regarding a specific marginalized community, we have an opportunity to learn from members of that community and then share what we learn with others, including amplifying those sources directly with full credit.

I’d love to see more of an effort from Exponent volunteers and readers to hear, get curious about, and engage with issues outside of their experience that may be more representative of global Mormon women and less familiar to white American women (in addition to the issues that are already being discussed that are more familiar to that audience). This could happen on commemorative days and months like Black History Month, but it should also happen year-round.

Just because many Mormon feminist spaces haven’t felt the most inclusive before doesn’t mean they need to stay that way. In Mormon 9:31, Moroni says, “Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.” Let’s learn to be more wise than we have been.

Let’s talk about language access, the uneven distribution of the Church’s financial resources worldwide, the lack of racial diversity in leadership of an increasingly globalized church, the fear and discomfort many privileged members feel addressing issues of race, class, disability, and other marginalized identities, and more. Let’s inform ourselves and our families and our communities with what others who are different from us are saying are their priorities. Let’s explore what we can do in our callings, Sacrament talks, Sunday School lessons, temple prep and institute and seminary classes, social gatherings, social media pages, and human-to-human interactions to let everyone know diverse voices are not only tolerated but welcomed in our circles. Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to speaking up, reaching out, and advocating for others who are different from us. Let’s normalize repentance when we fall short of our values.

In Romans 15:7 Paul writes, “Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.” As 2024 reaches its last days, I carry a prayer in my heart that next year and beyond we will all better receive each other, even “the other” that is different from ourselves, as Jesus receives us to the glory of God.