Exponent II's Blog, page 46

How much more is 85 than 78?

Author’s note: I wrote most of this post before the election. I thought I might hang onto it until June 2025 and post it around the anniversary of the end of the Priesthood and Temple Ban. But somehow it seems relevant to post today – two days after the election that saw Donald Trump re-elected as President of the United States.

A month or two ago I read the book Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Matthew L. Harris. This book looks at efforts to remove the Temple and Priesthood Ban. The book was fascinating to read. I highly recommend it. 

But as I read I kept getting distracted by one question. The question was, “how much more is 85 than 78?”

I was born in 1985. I’m not sure how old I was when I first heard that there had been a time that black men could not hold the priesthood. Maybe I was 10 and I heard about it in 1995. I learned that President Spencer W Kimball had a revelation in the 1970s that allowed black men to hold the priesthood. This had all sounded like ancient history to my young mind. 

I know that sounds all sorts of privileged. The removal of the Temple and Priesthood ban didn’t have a direct impact on my life. I was a while girl in Salt Lake City, Utah. Racism didn’t impact my life and so I didn’t think it existed anymore. All that Civil Rights stuff had ended racism along time ago, right?

I grew up and realized that racism wasn’t gone. But I still have my blind spots. That’s one of the reasons I read this book.

In fact, I before I read this book I couldn’t have even told you the correct year that the Temple and Priesthood ban was lifted. I thought it was in 1976 so I was surprised to read that it was in 1978. 

I also realized that I’d always been a decade off in the timeline in my head. To me, the 1960s and 1970s were compressed into one unit. I was accustomed to think of the lifting of the Temple and Priesthood ban as happening concurrently with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Really the ban had happened in the 1970s – the late 1970s. More than 20 years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956. Almost 15 years after Martin Luther King gave his “I have a Dream” speech in 1963. More than a decade after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went into effect.

That’s when I started to wonder. How close to my birth did this ban get lifted?

I stopped reading and tried to do the math in my head, but my brain seemed resistant to the calculations. So I started counting on my fingers. 

1978 to 1979 One year

1979 to 1980 Two years

1980 to 1981 Three years

1981 to 1982 Four years

1983 to 1984 Five years

1984 to 1985 Six years

Six years separated my birth from when black men couldn’t hold the priesthood and black people couldn’t attend the temple. Actually a little less since the ban was lifted in June of 1978 and I was born in February of 1985. 

How had I never realized this event happened so close to my birth? How had I missed the fact that if I’d been born 6 years earlier I would have been born into a church that openly discriminated against black people?

I flipped back through my knowledge of family history. Where were my family members in 1978?

My dad was still in high school. My mom had started college. My grandparents were raising their eight children – my youngest aunt was born in 1977. They’d just bought a 12 passenger van that my family would inherit in 1990.

My in-laws were married and had already had their first child. 

I stopped thinking about my family and started thinking about pop culture. 

Star Wars had come out in 1977. 

Jaws had come out three years earlier – I’d only recently watched that movie for the first time. 

The songs “We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions” came out that year. I’d sung along to those songs within the last week. 

1978 wasn’t the ancient history I’d always thought. People I know had been alive then. Pop culture I still enjoy had been created then.

The Temple and Priesthood ban was in place up until 6 years before I was born. It was rescinded. But the effects continued on. Folk doctrines supporting the ban were not removed from church literature and consciousness. I grew up in a world impacted by that ban’s existence and its removal. I just didn’t know it.

And here we all are today. The United States has elected an open racist (among other things) to be President – again. I’m heartbroken over this. Civil Rights and many other things that I’ve taken for granted are suddenly seeming very fragile. I guess that they’ve always been fragile, but I didn’t realize that until recently.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

The Election Makes it Clear: I Don’t Share Values With Most Mormons

Eight years ago, I thought for sure it would be the year that Utah flipped from red to blue. I couldn’t imagine people from my church voting for a man who did these things (to name only a few):

Bragged about sexually assaulting women

Referred to immigrants as criminals and rapists

Ran on a campaign based on building a giant wall between us and our southern neighbors

Wanted to create a database for tracking Muslims in the US

Wanted to ban Muslims from entering the US

Encouraged his supporters to use violence

 

I live in Oregon, but I remember being shocked when I noticed that Utah went red in full force. Didn’t the majority of Utahans go to my church? I thought my church taught things like, “Don’t assault women” or “Don’t be racist.” 

I remember scrolling through my facebook feed the day after the election and realizing that all my Oregon friends voted for Clinton EXCEPT my Mormon Oregon friends. Of course I had some Mormon Oregon friends who voted for Clinton, but there were lots who voted for Trump. Again, I thought my church taught things like, “Don’t assault women” or “Don’t be racist.” So why were the only Oregonians I knew who supported Trump Mormons?

This morning I woke up and felt less shocked than I did eight years ago. I had already learned eight years ago that I don’t share values with members of my church community. 

But I still feel sad. 

I feel sad that members of my church care more about strict (and arbitrary) gender norms than they care about youth suicide rates. 

I feel sad that members of my church care more about reducing abortion than they care about supporting women’s reproductive health.

I feel sad that members of my church care more about banning critical race theory or diversity/equity/inclusion than they care about eliminating racism.

I feel sad that members of my church care more about toting whatever kinds of guns they want than thinking logically about and relying on research to help us keep kids safe. 

I feel sad that members of my church support a man who brags about sexual assault and who is openly racist. 

I feel sad today.

 

***

 

Featured blog photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash

Neurodiverse and Garments Too

How’s that late-stage ADHD diagnosis treating me?

Don’t ask me that during the week it took me to refill my ADHD medication. I barely remembered my name.

But anyway, now that I am properly medicated and have focus again, I want to share a realization that sat me down and has kept me sitting.

When I did wear garments, I was trying to turn them into compression clothes.

At first, I would have said it was my millennial generation’s obsession with layering. I always wore a more form fitting layer under my shirts that unfortunately had to go once garments came into my life, and I honestly missed that comfort layer. I just felt better in my body with my pre-garment layering situation.

Of course, I soldiered on with garments, because obedience…until my body evolved with childbirth. With a belly and extra weight, I saw what a good bra and the right shape-forming underwear can do for a lady (except make me not fat – it’s fine that my body has fat).

And while a predilection for excessive layering is certainly a good start for garment wearing and changing bodies can throw a wrench in the works regardless, it’s really the ADHD underpinning this whole story (AuDHD, we’re circling each other in a will they or won’t they multi-season storyline, so stay tuned).

The first time I put on garments, following the initiatory and endowment, it was like putting on loose basketball shorts on under my dress. Horrid. The typical elderly volunteer at the distribution center who had helped me buy my garments sized me to my standard size clothes. Like a cat with an unfamiliar collar, I wasn’t sure how to exist or function with roomy underwear.

Three+ size reductions later, plus a shift from mesh to cotton to the Carinessa style, that fabric was skintight to my thighs and not moving an inch on my waist. Still, I always wanted them to be just a little bit tighter. A little bit more form fitting. A little bit more of that feeling of resistance pushing against my skin. When I moved to nursing garments, I felt that need for resistance even more.

I like the feel of a stiff, sturdy article of clothing “holding me.” It’s calming. Long before I ever knew about compression clothing and their potential value to neurodivergent people, and long before my body shape changed with childbirth, I knew I felt better in my body when my innermost layer of clothing was providing some resistance. 

So while I have gratefully sidestepped the medical issues most associated with garment wearing, the neurodivergence connection has me floored.

At the moment, I have more questions than answers.

Does neurodivergence “count” for altering garment wearing in the same way we would say that people with UTIs can and should alter garment wearing so it can work for their needs?

 I mean, yes, obviously. But also, can you imagine that conversation with a Bishopric member in a temple recommend interview? The roulette wheel would surely be spinning.

And then there’s the internal shame. That little voice that says, “but aren’t you just looking for an excuse to not wear garments? Can’t you sacrifice just a little more?”

 Given the absolute slog it’s been just to get garments to be sort of compatible with women’s physical bodies (yay skirts and shifts options!), are we even ready for women’s neurodivergence-related garment issues?

I hope the answer to that question, someday, or better yet now, is yes.

Photo by MissLunaRose12 at Wikimedia Commons

Stark White: The Wedding Dress That Wasn’t!

When I was a little girl, my cousin and I would always play brides.

I often scowled, relegated to being the groom, wishing for the white trail of a toilet paper veil.

As I grew, weddings held no spark. Life soured. Life took. Love was the mirage for fools in love who wished upon fairy tale dreams and believed in starbursts and gilded ages.

After all who chooses a wedding dress without a groom?

I had long since made up in my little cynical mind that I would never be a bride. I would never be a wife.

Yet here I stood, fighting buttons and tulle, beating my bosom into stark white fabric in a tiny Idaho garment shop.

Where was my groom?

Are you getting married? The burning eyes of the bubbly sales clerk seared into my fragile flesh. The flesh that couldn’t be contained. The flesh spilling from the too small dresses that failed to accommodate my ample bust.

No. There was no wedding. There would be no wedding.

I kicked the starbursts, sending them erupting into tiny explosions. Disappointment marred their faces.  

This dress was for the Lord. This was for no man.

Feeling proud I strode into the Meridian temple, my wedding dress in hand.

Sitting in the bride’s room, staring at the bride without the husband.

Wishing for my paper veil, praying for a simple golden band.

My husband was not here. I was the bride without the groom.

My groom would not find me here.

Stark white..stark white with no groom in sight.

Poor Ramona…groomless and alone.

Stark white…. With no husband to bring home

The stares of an expectant congregation mocked.

Their jeers, laughter and insults screamed loud obscenities kissed with the innocence of Mormon swears.

Stark white… stark white with eyes filled with unshed tears.

I felt the hand of the loving matron bringing me back to reality, slamming the door on the critics who believed my worth was only tied to my marital status.

You’re beautiful my dear.

Even without a groom… even dressed in white.

With no eternity in sight.

Stark white…stark white…stark white.

Shame and Healing: Navigating Depression and Medication in my LDS family

As we start experiencing shorter days and longer nights this time of year, I am reminded of depression. 

Almost exactly twelve years ago, I was driving home to our apartment with my screaming ten-month-old in the car seat. I had a troubling and false belief that I couldn’t comfort my own flesh and blood, and had the distinct thought, “My boys will be better off without me.” I daydreamed about leaving my family and driving far far away. 

These feelings of inadequacy and depression came during a difficult year as a first-time mom. My son was born with a bowel disease and needed two very invasive surgeries–one when he was five days old (story told here), and another when he was eight months old. The first surgery was to place a colostomy. 

The second surgery was to remove the colostomy, reroute his intestines and eradicate the parts of his large intestine that were missing the nerve endings needed to move his stool to his rectum. This was a five-hour surgery and the post-surgical care involved making saline, lubing a catheter, and giving him an enema. We had to pin him down to do this, and it was traumatizing for all involved. We had to do it every day for almost two years, or risk him getting enterocolitis. He needed diaper changes upwards of 15 times a day for those first couple months, including through the night. We were sleep-deprived first-time parents worried for our baby. It was the most challenging time of my life–wanting to help and heal my baby but feeling like I couldn’t even comfort him as his mom. I knew he was in immense pain. 

So, it was around that time that my thoughts of leaving my husband and baby came. I called my Obstetrician’s office, asked to speak with a nurse, and could barely get the words out of my mouth, “I am worried that I’m not okay. I think I have postpartum depression. I need help.” 

“How old is your baby?”

“Ten months.”

“Oh, we can’t help you here. Call your doctor.” 

She may have said something else, but I don’t remember anything registering.

With a lot of courage, I searched for a primary care physician in the area, got an appointment, and admittedly, with a dose of shame, I started the medication Citalopram (Celexa). After about a month, the medication did its job– it took the edge off, and the intrusive thoughts went away. 

A couple of months later, I visited my parents out of state with my now one-year-old. I was really nervous and told my parents that I had gotten on much-needed medication to help with my recent challenges, and one of my parents exclaimed, “You don’t need medication! If you just exercise, read your scriptures, eat healthy and pray then you won’t need to be on it!”

At the time, their reaction absolutely devastated me. I was, indeed, exercising, reading scriptures, eating (mostly) healthy and praying my heart out. 

Here are some falsehoods that existed in my world at that time:

Righteousness is tied to happiness. Wickedness never was happiness (Alma 41: 10-11). Therapy and medication are for weak people. This was my outlook on mental health–only people who are not disciplined and who are probably making bad choices will struggle with their mental health. If you are feeling depressed, then it’s your own fault and you need to take action, talk to Heavenly Father more, and examine your life for things you need to repent of. If you are grateful and express that gratitude, then you won’t be depressed. 

These ideals were ingrained in me, and I absolutely judged others for having any mental health struggles. So, this response from a parent broke my heart but also did not surprise me. Today my heart goes out to anyone who was raised that way. Being raised with those ideals is potentially very harmful. Is there some truth to those statements? Absolutely. But if I had let those mindsets on medication rule my life, I worry about where I would be today.

Elder Holland’s talk “Like A Broken Vessel” in 2013 was groundbreaking. That General Conference talk gave members of the church permission to start seeing depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues as conditions to be treated and talked about versus my default reaction–to suffer in silence and feel ashamed and unworthy. Now, the church offers several mental health education resources and even emotional resiliency classes.

Many have situational depression or Seasonal Affective Disorder and perhaps can wean off of medication eventually. Others depend on medication just to get through each day. Women have hormonal challenges through menstruation, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause and menopause that include mental health difficulties. I have tried going off of my medication a few times through the years, and have always come back to it. I feel more like myself when I am on it. I am so incredibly grateful for the decreased stigma associated with depression and anxiety since the year 2012. And as it turned out, this parent got on the same medication that I did shortly after that conversation. I hope that with my vulnerability and openness in sharing my struggles and getting on medication they could find the courage to do the same. And I hope the same for any of you. 

I am curious–did any of you grow up with those same inaccurate and harmful ideals in your family or church circles? Have you felt any shame for having depression/anxiety?

On Witch Trials and Mormon Feminism

The feature image is a medieval miniature depicting the torture and execution of women convicted of witchcraft.

As we recover from Halloween festivities, I’m thinking of witches. This week I visited an exhibit currently on display at the Pointe a Calliere Museum of Archaeology and History in Montreal called Witches–Out of the Shadows. 

I was looking for Halloween fun, but most of the exhibit was a very serious history from the Middle Ages.

It was an eye-opening glimpse into a long historical arc of religiously-justified violence against women. The exhibit was dimly lit and quiet; it felt sacred like a tomb or memorial. I learned that between 1560 and 1630, 50,000 individuals, mostly women, were executed by church and civic courts for witchcraft throughout Europe. They were usually burned or hung. Many of them were tortured first to force confessions. A major purpose of this exhibit was to reveal witch trials for what they really were: misogyny, hysteria, and murder. The vocabulary and concepts used immediately spoke to familiar Mormon feminist experiences, and I knew I’d be drawing comparisons throughout my visit. This post compiles some of what I learned. Quoted text is from the exhibit.

“Witch trials helped to tighten political control over the populace and encouraged idealized social and religious behaviors.” Witchcraft was defined and legislated by male church authorities and magistrates. Their perceptions, codified and disseminated in numerous texts, were much more myth than reality. The underlying motivation for trials was to control and scapegoat women. The whole movement was empowered and perpetuated by what the exhibit identified as “patriarchal rhetoric.” I viewed several books clergy and other leaders used to identify and convict witches. The one pictured here, Malleus Maleficarum, was especially misogynistic and influential. It was used to convict women for two hundred years.

“At the time, women were believed to be more susceptible to temptation by the devil.” This is one of the central themes of the text above. Misogynistic readings of the Adam and Eve narrative were the central justification for assertions of women’s spiritual inferiority. Witch hunters’ intent was to protect Christendom from women who adhered to Satan’s will. The idea of magic had been around for a long time. For hundreds of years, “cunning folk” and wise women, largely folk healers, were tolerated and respected. Things changed when church authorities started to conflate the power of magic with that of Satan. Witch trials waged war against the devil’s efforts to wreck havoc on earth through (mostly) female servants.

While our church upholds fairly Eve-positive readings of the Garden of Eden narrative, it also propagates archaic thinking about women’s agency and their supposed dependence and weakness. Like medieval predecessors, Latter-day Saint leaders frequently associate women’s autonomous thoughts and feelings with the deceptions of Satan. Last spring, during the Relief Society anniversary worldwide gathering, leaders counseled women that if they feel discontent with what they are offered in their religious lives, this is likely due to Satan’s influence. This idea isn’t scripturally based, nor is it message that is given to males. This messaging teaches women to distrust their spiritual intuitions and desires, and it assumes they need paternal monitoring. To provide another example, a woman I’m acquainted with recently told her bishop she wouldn’t be coming back to Church. The bishop bemoaned how she was being seduced by Satan’s lies. She experienced things very differently. Her bishop regularly exhibited behaviors she considered misogynistic, one of the reasons she lost interest in attending.

Witch hunts were a way to eliminate women who were gifted, leader-like, and prophetic. Joan of Arc experienced visions and other revelatory experiences. Angels and saints sent her messages from God about a special role she needed to play to help France. She was brought to trial before a church court. Her captors treated the messages she had been following as demonic, and partly because of these assumptions, she was burned at the stake. This painting from the exhibit depicts her execution.

Joan of Arc’s story reminds me of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ history of excommunicating women for bringing feminist concerns to the forefront. Such excommunications have followed a comparable impulse to get rid of women whose ideas threaten male agendas. In some cases, Latter-day Saint feminists and scholars have been disciplined for following personal revelation. For example, Maxine Hanks, excommunicated in 1993, has shared her story about how she compiled and edited Women and Authority thanks to divine revelation. Through such excommunications, the Church communicates that women’s revelations are not welcome additions because such content challenges male preferences and power. Leaders treat women’s revelations as something like hysteria or the influence of Satan. This is a symptom of misogyny and it shows a lack of intellectual humility.

Sometimes women have been disempowered by the Church in other ways. The First Presidency disfellowshipped Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery after they published Mormon Enigma in 1984. Leaders disapproved of its unconventional portrayal of Joseph Smith’s life. The writers had fulfilled a cherished goal to research and publish an accurate historical account of Emma Smith’s life. International outcry over punishing scholars checked Latter-day Saint authorities and the discipline was withdrawn. 

In the Middle Ages, women were regularly considered witches if they were invested in female bodies and relieving their suffering. Sometimes women were punished because they were so skilled in nature-based medicinal arts and remedies, including for childbirth. Many of them were midwives. Religious authorities devalued and were suspicious of their efforts to relieve female suffering. Much of their superstition about witchcraft in general centered on worries that cunning women would intentionally harm fertility, births, and babies. Ironically, in their paranoia, churches and villages rid themselves of the women who helped these causes the most. Older women and widows were targeted most frequently because they had more life experience and independence and were more likely to fill healing and caregiving roles. 

The LDS Church has ignored and invalidated women’s work to relieve female suffering. Our wise women and feminist thinkers have been treated as if their work is by default suspicious or not worthy of consideration. I remember hearing Carol Lynn Pearson share on a podcast or post about how she sent a copy of her feminist treatise The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy as personal gifts to each member of the Quorum of the 15 (I apologize that I can’t find this source now). Her book shares hundreds of witnesses to the spiritual abuse and pain that continue today due to polygamy doctrines. Yet Pearson received no response from leaders, and the Church does not appear to have considered any of her recommendations for remedying women’s suffering.

Witch trials benefited churches financially at the cost of making women vulnerable and disposable. Witch hunts were a way for churches to reap profits. Church agents claimed the personal properties of women whom they executed. Starting after the reformation, churches also used trials and executions as “perverse advertisements” to gain patrons. In some cases, villages took advantage of the option to target women they disliked. “The slightest hint of collusion with Satan, either from accusation or from mere rumors, could lead to an investigation.” Offending authorities or neighbors could put a woman’s life at stake, a reality that must have been devastating to their mental health and self-actualization. 

The idea that women are sexually debauched was integrated into witch rhetoric and trials. Old sketches and paintings of witches from the Middle Ages don’t depict them wearing pointy hats and capes. Instead they show groups of naked women having orgies, partying with Satan, and harming others’ bodies. A medical textbook from the Middle Ages on display in the exhibit showed a woman’s pregnant torso, with a portrait of Satan’s face covering the female genitals. Male genitals are covered by an innocent leaf. Males projected their religiously-based sexual shame onto women’s bodies. 

As Latter-day Saints today, we’re impacted by long-standing Christian attitudes of misogyny and suspicion toward women’s sexuality and bodies. We might not vilify women’s sexuality, but we are anxious about it, and we don’t give it any space. I sense we’re ill-at-ease with the idea that women are just as sexual as men, even though the fact that this is true is vital for healthy marriages. The repression of sexuality and male leaders’ scrupulosity about sexual sin seem to be underlying reasons Church leaders bear down hard on practices like garment use. It is male leaders’ biases against women’s bodies that make them intolerant of women dressing according to personal desires. The LDS Church treats the female body as something unsafe that is to be monitored by male clergy much like churches did in the Middle Ages.

Today it is obvious to see that all the thinking and periods of hysteria around witches were really just a way to gain a tighter grip over women in times of conflict and anxiety. European countries have exonerated all those murdered for witchcraft. It’s painful to witness what women suffered because of men’s irrational, anxious thinking, and men’s impulses to harm vulnerable people in order to gain a financial or religious upper hand. Below are objects created to stave off black magic and witches from the exhibit.

It is bizarre to realize that people were sincerely convinced by the goodness of their misogynistic and violent thinking. At the time, they believed they were doing the right thing for society, the church, and God. Now just about anyone can see that they oppressed and murdered the poor and the helpless, and that their anxious oppression of women only held the Western world back from progress and a more enlightened and compassionate kind of Christian faith. 

Managers of the LDS Church are consciously well-intentioned and convinced of their moral uprightness. Yet they suffer from distorted thinking about women’s spiritual autonomy that is comparable to that of the Middle Ages. Hundreds of years from now, will Latter-day Saints look back at patriarchal rhetoric as irrational, anxiety-driven and oppressive? Will feminists be exonerated like Joan of Arc, who was canonized in 1920? Or, will the Saints still be convinced of the divinity of misogynistic thinking for centuries to come and dwindle in numbers? All I know is that there is a lot of cautionary content for our Church in the European history of witch trials. If our administrators humbly considered this history, it might even lead them to wonder if they are in fact the ones who have been deceived about women’s roles and needs. 

Today, witches are often symbols of female emancipation and resilience. In recent decades, some feminist groups have taken up the witch as a symbol of their subversive work.

When Mormon women join feminist forces like Exponent II, we enter a space that is comparable to “Mormon Witchcraft.” There are experiences of empowerment, healing and sisterhood, but this also comes with a cost of social acceptance and ecclesiastic safety. We may be snubbed, criticized, or invited to unwanted one-on-one meetings with priesthood leaders. We may not feel safe to talk about our work with our own families.

We feminists don’t always deliberately choose this path. When a woman receives revelation that contradicts what she was always taught to believe, she may be surprised. When God inspires her to write a certain book or advocate for marginalized people, her spirituality may suddenly become autonomous and untamed in a way she did not foresee. It doesn’t always feel comfortable, but someone needs to steward these strange and beautiful woods of autonomous Mormon female thinking.

 

Guest Post: What LDS Diet Books Tell Us About Mormon Culture

by Rachel Noorda

Do you remember when Susan W. Tanner (then Young Women’s General President) gave a 2005 talk called “The Sanctity of the Body”? In this talk, she told a story about her mother losing spiritual capacity because she had eaten too many sweet rolls. Here is the story in Tanner’s words:

I remember an incident in my home growing up when my mother’s sensitive spirit was affected by a physical indulgence. She had experimented with a new sweet roll recipe. They were big and rich and yummy—and very filling. Even my teenage brothers couldn’t eat more than one. That night at family prayer my father called upon Mom to pray. She buried her head and didn’t respond. He gently prodded her, “Is something wrong?” Finally she said, “I don’t feel very spiritual tonight. I just ate three of those rich sweet rolls.” I suppose that many of us have similarly offended our spirits at times by physical indulgences. Especially substances forbidden in the Word of Wisdom have a harmful effect on our bodies and a numbing influence on our spiritual sensitivities. None of us can ignore this connection of our spirits and bodies.

I was 15 years old when I heard this story in General Conference and I have never forgotten it. Not because it was spiritually enriching or astounding but because something that had previously been implicitly taught to me in my religious culture was being explicitly stated: you can’t be spiritual if you eat too much, if you weigh too much. It’s a lesson I took to heart and have only recently been trying to unlearn and untangle.

In my work life as a teacher and researcher, I wanted to explore diet culture and fatphobia in Mormonism through the lens of diet books. For this purpose, I chose 5 LDS diet books as case studies. If you encountered any of these in your life, I’d love to hear about it. 

The Mormon Diet: 14 Days to New Vigor and HealthThe Diet Solution: Weight Loss, Wellness, and the Word of WisdomLosing It! An LDS Guide to Healthy LivingDiscovering the Word of Wisdom: Surprising Insights from a Whole Food, Plant-Based PerspectiveThe Word of Wisdom: Discovering the LDS Code of Health

 

Through this analysis, I found some interesting things. I’ll briefly share a little bit about them here.

Much like other diet books, diet books for an LDS audience frame the discussion as a health discussion, rather than a weight loss one, even though weight loss is consistently discussed in the books. But unlike other diet books, diet books for an LDS audience focus on the narrative of obedience to the Word of Wisdom as the basic premise. These diet books frame the reader as disobedient (not fully living the Word of Wisdom) and offer various calls to action to remedy the disobedience. In other words (according to these books), Mormons are experiencing poor health, and lack of complete obedience is the culprit. As an individual, it’s much harder to argue against a call to weight loss when it is framed in the narrative of obedience because now size becomes a physical manifestation of spirituality. If it’s not obvious so far, I disagree very much with this premise.

As I explored this research topic, I was struck by the unique way that LDS doctrine frames the relationship between the body and spirit. “The natural man is an enemy to God” suggests that the body and its appetites are sinful and evil; but on the other hand, we’re taught that God has a body so the body is also divine (and as God is, man can become). In any case, there is an extra close connection between body and spirit here, illustrated strongly in Sister Tanner’s story that I shared at the beginning of this post: with the idea that indulgence of the body can negatively affect the spirit. 

But the doctrinal connection between body and spirit is problematized by fatphobia and size bias in Mormon communities. A culture of regular non-eating (fasting), BMI restrictions for missionaries, and modesty standards often highlight fatphobia. And this is how we get diet books preaching obedience to the Word of Wisdom in order to lose weight, and leaders telling stories about being unable to pray after eating too many sweet rolls.

If you’re interested to read more of this research, you can check out my article in Fat Studies here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/....

Rachel is an Associate Professor at Portland State University and director of a graduate program in book publishing there. She’s originally from Utah, but studied in Scotland and really enjoys currently living in the Pacific Northwest. She loves to bake, read, and spend time with her husband.

I was a Mormon sister missionary, and here’s what I thought of Heretic, the new horror movie about missionaries

Table of ContentsWhen I saw the trailer for Heretic, I knew I had to see that movie.Will Mormons like Heretic?Oh yeah, and it’s rated R.The makers of Heretic actually have more Mormon ties than you might expect.Both actors cast as missionaries in Heretic have Latter-day Saint roots.Oh my gosh! The fictional Mormon missionaries in Heretic seemed real.Hugh Grant plays Mr. Reed, a “cool professor” type investigator who loves to chat about religion.Some people underestimate young Mormon missionaries, but not the writers of Heretic.When I saw the trailer for Heretic, I knew I had to see that movie.

The trailer for Heretic shows two sister missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or better known as Mormon) pulling their bikes up a huge flight of stairs, where they meet a potential convert who (lucky them) happens to look and sound just like the charming British romantic comedy star . Unfortunately, this guy might be a psychopath.

It brought back memories for me. Not the part about the psychopath, but the part about the missionaries. I was a Mormon missionary when I was in my 20s, and I love a movie with characters I can relate to.

Heretic trailerWill Mormons like Heretic?

As a group, Mormons (or Latter-day Saints, as we call ourselves lately) tend to be extremely sensitive about how we are portrayed in movies, and some Latter-day Saints can’t tolerate LDS characters in anything but a church promo ad. Pioneering Mormon filmmaker Richard Dutcher once said, “There’s a vocal minority who think I’m a child of Satan,” although the missionary characters in his movie, God’s Army, had an uplifting coming-of-age storyline without any lurking psychopaths around!

If Latter-day Saints of this mindset do show up at a theater to watch Heretic, they might walk out during the very first scene, when the missionaries casually chat about some borderline taboo topics that will make more prudish Latter-day Saints squirm. It’s almost as if the screenwriters are trying to say, “Look, this is definitely not a church promo ad, so if you keep watching, know that you have been warned.”

Oh yeah, and it’s rated R.

Back in the 80’s, then-president of the LDS Church Ezra Taft Benson gave a sermon to teenage boys and told them not to watch R-rated movies. It was one throw-away line in a long speech, but it caught on and ever since there has been a large contingent of church members who abstain from all R-rated movies, even as adults.

However, the first half of this movie stays pretty solidly in PG territory, and I think most LDS people, like everyone else, like to indulge in a scary movie every now and then, especially on Halloween.

Besides, most of us Latter-day Saints are so curious about what non-Mormons think of us, we’ll show up for a Mormon-centric movie even if we don’t think we’ll like it.

The makers of Heretic actually have more Mormon ties than you might expect.

Co-writers/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods started working on Heretic before A Quiet Place made them famous. By the time they came back to it, Woods had married a Latter-day Saint, giving him a more close-up view of the faith. (Who is this LDS spouse, you may ask? Are they still married? No idea. I couldn’t find anything else anywhere about Woods’s marriage beyond the one line mention in the movie’s press kit.)

Both actors cast as missionaries in Heretic have Latter-day Saint roots.

While neither actor is currently active in the LDS Church, both were raised Mormon. At the Toronto Film Festival, Chloe East, who plays Sister Paxton, said, “So many times you see Mormon missionaries in movies as the butt of the joke, not real humans. I really wanted to represent a real sister missionary. I had friends on missions while we were shooting, and I was texting them like, ‘Is this accurate? Is this accurate? Give me a scripture to read.'”

Sophie Thatcher, who plays Sister Barnes, said “it’s been awhile” since she attended LDS church in her childhood, but added that “a lot of my family is still Mormon, so I was just asking a lot of questions.”

Oh my gosh! The fictional Mormon missionaries in Heretic seemed real.

They wore the perfect style of skirt for bike-riding and the same practical shoes I wore as a missionary, good for church or a long walk. (Or for running away from a psychopath! So much better than the stilettos horror movie victims usually wear.) I looked just like that when I was a missionary. And they sounded like missionaries, too. They knew missionary jargon and Utah slang, and they did not have a ridiculous made-up Mormon accent. (I’m looking at you, Under the Banner of Heaven.)

(L-R) Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East. Credit: Kimberley French

More than that, the relationship between the two missionaries, Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, seemed like a real missionary relationship to me. On our missions, we’re paired with another missionary as a companion and required to stay together constantly until we are reassigned to work with someone else in a different city or neighborhood a few months later. We’re always working with people we haven’t known very long but we quickly develop a camaraderie because we spend all day everyday together. The missionaries in Heretic seemed like that: close, but also strangers. They were obviously products of the same culture, but they were also different people with distinct personalities.

When the trailer for Heretic came out, the LDS Church Newsroom cast some shade in the film’s general direction with a news release about media that “irresponsibly mischaracterize the safety and conduct of our volunteer missionaries.” Now that I’ve actually seen it, I don’t think Heretic does that. The missionary characters do behave in reasonable and safe ways, and the film shows some of the safeguards put in place by the LDS Church mission program which only fail because the villain, Mr. Reed, is an evil mastermind.

Hugh Grant plays Mr. Reed, a “cool professor” type investigator who loves to chat about religion.

“Investigator” is missionary-speak for a person who agrees to hold discussions with the missionaries. (And the writers of Heretic knew the term and used it right. Good job, writers!) Most of us missionaries worked with a few investigators like Mr. Reed during our missions (cool professors, not psychopaths). We had to find people who wanted to talk to missionaries, and so we would end up spending a disproportionate amount of time with the tiny minority of the population who thinks chatting about world religions is a fun hobby.

Mr. Reed begins his missionary discussion with as much charm as Hugh Grant in a romantic comedy, but gradually pivots toward antagonizing them with controversial but well-documented facts about Mormon history. The film does not fictionalize any of Reed’s arguments, but he does add his own spin. He then expands his argument to critique religion generally.

“We felt we needed to learn more about religion in order to catch up with Reed’s knowledge,” said Woods. “As we started writing this complex character, we realized that he’s a genius who knows more about the subject than we could ever know in our lifetime, or at least knew at the time.”

Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton sense that something is off, and not just because Mr. Reed is confronting them about their religion; that’s the sort of thing missionaries encounter all the time. Something more sinister is happening than a difference in philosophy. They try to leave, but find themselves trapped.

Some people underestimate young Mormon missionaries, but not the writers of Heretic.

Beck and Woods spent time with missionaries as they researched the script. “Sometimes you could perceive this almost surface-level naiveté in the missionaries we spent time with, which is easy to laugh at and color a certain way in the writing,” said Woods. “But we found them to be super smart and cool and even bad-ass in their views on religion, society and culture. We wove that into our characters, because what we wanted most from Paxton and Barnes was for Reed to underestimate them.”

I didn’t underestimate Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes. I knew them. They reminded me of myself when I was a young missionary, and they reminded me of other missionaries I worked with. I related to them so much, that by the time the movie climaxed, I was shaking.

No one wants to see their friends get trapped by a psychopath.

Dysfunctional Communication About Garments from the Top

Two weeks ago, when news of the new sleeveless garment design hit the internet I experienced a range of emotions. 

Happiness that a helpful change had happened. Anger that I’d spent so long justifying why I had to wear certain types of clothing to cover my garment sleeves to only have it all change now. Annoyance that I’d have to find a new way to show my nuance. 

I understood where most of those feelings were coming from. However, there was one emotion that took me a few days to understand. 

Frustration. 

Every time I went online and read reactions to this change or more stories about this change I got more and more frustrated. I figured it out after a few days.

I was frustrated because of how little communication was actually coming from the church. Like many people, I read about this change in the Salt Lake Tribune. Then I read more about it in online discussion groups. Bloggers here at Exponent and other blogs started writing about it. Instagram and TikTok chimed in.  

But did I read anything about it from the church? No. 

Adding to my frustration was the fact that General Conference had ended less than two weeks before the news about the garment design change came out in the Salt Lake Tribune. Over the last several years I’ve found that General Conference is less and less relevant to my day to day life. This whole thing with the garment change illustrates why. 

The talks at General Conference were like, “la la la everything is fine. We are going to rehash the same topics we always do. No big changes have ever happened or will ever happen. Just focus on how much you LOVE the church and how perfect it is. You can trust us to tell you everything.”

Ten days later I read about a big change to church mandated underwear in the Salt Lake Tribune. Could at least one of the talks have at least mentioned a change was coming?

I get that talking about something as sacred as garments in General Conference is probably a little weird. It might not be the best Public Relations moment to detail changes in the garment or to show a picture of garments up on the big screens in the Conference Center. 

But is it any more weird than having adult men ask other adults about what underwear they wear in order to obtain a temple recommend?

Part of me thinks that the General Authorities are cowards. They get to talk about love and compassion at General Conference. All the while they’ve written policies that require the local leaders and members to have awkward conversations and deal with the fall out from the policies. 

Even the General Authorities with the more inflammatory talks (cough Oaks cough) don’t have to deal with the nitty gritty of how their advise/doctrine/dogma impacts the day to day life of members.

It’s all feeling very dysfunctional to me. The church puts on this good looking show every six months. We are supposed to watch or listen to it so that we can hear God’s messages that we are supposed to live by. All the while, the real policies and changes that affect the actual living of our lives aren’t discussed. We find out about these changes later and then have a flurry of reactions online. The church hardly responds to the online discussion – if they respond at all. In the end we are all left feeling frustrated and the conversation just kind of gets dropped.

It’s not just garments either. As I’ve thought over some of the church’s major policy changes from the last few years I’ve realized I didn’t hear about them from the church. In most cases I heard about the changes in the Salt Lake Tribune. 

Here’s a list just off the top of my head from the past few years. 

The new exclusionary policies regarding transgender members. Any news relating to tithing. (Investment funds, lawsuits, etc.) The 2019 changes to the temple ceremony. The policy that allows civil marriages followed by a temple sealing without waiting a year. The end of the 2015 policy of exclusion. The policy that children can have an adult with them when they are interviewed by priesthood leaders.The 2024 changes to the wording of the temple recommend question about garments.

I’m deeply grateful for the Salt Lake Tribune and I love the work of Peggy Fletcher Stack and the other religion reporters. But I’m frustrated that I’m not hearing about these things from the church itself.

If the church does announce a change is usually through the Church Newsroom. But unless you are following the church’s social media accounts or getting a print subscription, the announcements can be easy to miss. For example, In October 2019 When I first read the announcement from the Church Newsroom that women could witness baptisms I immediately texted my mother in law to ask if she would want to act as a witness for an upcoming baptism in our family. Her response was something like, “Well if that turns out to be true I’d love to.” I had to explain that I’d read it in an article on the church website that was directly quoting the First Presidency. 

My husband is rarely on social media. His calling in the church doesn’t require him to read the handbook. I’m his main source of news about changes in the church. Without me relaying information I’m not sure he’d ever hear about changes. How many other members are like that? How many members really know that their children can have another adult member with them when they see the bishop? How many members know that the wording to the temple recommend question about garments has changed? How many members know that there will be sleeveless garment options available in a year?

Currently General Conference isn’t the venue for announcing policies and procedures. But maybe it could be? We already have time during conference for the statistical report. What if there was also a 30 minute segment for announcements and acknowledgements of changes.

We already have a precedent of some changes being announced in Conference. Visiting/Home Teaching changing to Ministering was announced in General Conference and there were even a few talks dedicated to how the program could work. When the temple recommend questions were updated a few years ago President Nelson gave a talk where he read each of the new questions. Could there be more talks dedicated to detailing changes?

I’d like to know that when I watch General Conference I’m getting the full picture of what is going on in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’d like to know that I won’t read a surprise story in the Salt Lake Tribune within the next month. I’d like to know that the General Authorities have talked with real members of the church about the policies and procedures that are written in the handbooks.

It’s sad that right now that feels like too much to ask. But I guess that’s what happens when you are in a dysfunctional relationship.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Remembering Breanne: Domestic Violence Awareness Month

This is a Guest Post by Anonymous. Anonymous is a BYU graduate, former stake leader, and mother of a large family with pioneer ancestry on both sides.

[Content warning: abuse, domestic violence]

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It is also the birth month of Sister Breanne Pennington, whose LDS husband killed her a few days before her 31st birthday. Last year, Exponent published “Remember Breanne,” in December, and within two weeks, Breanne’s case began appearing in the news again. I want to credit the Exponent sisterhood for their contribution to the following developments:

January 5th, police reinstated their previously suspended manhunt for Sister Breanne’s killer: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/aaron-pennington-gardner-massachusetts-state-police-search-ashburnham/February 21st, Sister Breanne’s aunt hosted a vigil for her in the town where she lived; local domestic violence groups were there to show support and advocate: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/gardner-vigil-breanne-pennington/September 2024, police again resumed the search for Pennington in the woods where his car was found, an area where local LDS youth also camp with the ward and stake brethren: https://www.thegardnernews.com/story/news/local/2024/09/23/aaron-pennington-search-camp-collier-gardner-mass-state-police-drones/75350070007/ [NOTE: paywall]The GoFundMe for Breanne’s four children remains active as of October 2024: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-pennington-childrenKeep Her Memory Alive

As a member of Sister Breanne’s stake, I want to keep her memory alive for the sake of other sisters whose well-being is at risk due to hidden abuse. I offer the following action items we can perform in memory of Breanne and all other sisters like her:

Learn how to talk about domestic violence. Listen to podcasts, follow DV nonprofits on social; learn from them and share what you learn. We can all be influencers for women’s safety.Break the silence.  When a church lesson discusses a passage of scripture with violence against women, consider raising your hand to talk about it. Hidden victims in those classes need to know that somebody cares about them. Women’s safety is an issue where the sisterhood presides.Show up for women’s safety. Local domestic violence organizations host bake sales, fun runs, walkathons, pet parties, safety merch, and more. By getting involved and showing we care about this issue, we send a message to our daughters, sisters, and women everywhere that they are not alone.Get Help

If anybody reading this article has ever felt unsafe, neglected, or coercively controlled at home, please consider calling a hotline or reaching out to a local DV shelter, where they offer private, confidential, web-based counseling.

Sisters, your well-being matters. You matter. Countless advocates have built entire, even global, organizations to help YOU stay safe. Please reach out.