Would the LDS church allow 15,000+ rebuttals to a statement by a male leader? I doubt it.

When Sister J. Annette Dennis, First Counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency,  said “no other religious organization in the world …has so broadly given power and authority to women” as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), thousands of LDS women disagreed in the comment section of the church’s Instagram account. (Worldwide Relief Society Devotional and Testimony Meeting, Instagram)

When those comments vanished from Instagram, many people were angry but few were surprised. Suppressing criticism of church leaders is a longstanding tradition in our church.

But in this instance, a technical glitch, not censorship, appears to be to blame for this temporary disappearance. The comment section reappeared and quickly grew to over 15,000 mostly critical comments.

I watched in awe. I could hardly believe that the church hadn’t intervened and shut this down.

But then I remembered, the person being criticized wasn’t a priesthood leader. She was a woman. Sustaining a male General Authority is mandatory in our church; sustaining a woman leader is more of a grey area.

To participate in temple worship, we are required to sustain a long list of male priesthood leaders, including:

The Church PresidentThe First PresidencyThe Twelve ApostlesGeneral Authorities (Temple Recommend Questions)

The term General Authority includes the men already listed here plus the First and Second Quorums of the Seventy and Presiding Bishopric, which are also male-only units. The women of the General Relief Society, Young Women and Primary Presidencies are not considered General Authorities. (Topic: General Authority) Whatever authority women are now said to have, it is inadequate to earn them the title of General Authority.

There is one final category of leader the temple recommend interview requires us to sustain: local leaders. In theory, that last category could be interpreted to include local Relief Society, Young Women and Primary leaders, but the only local leaders who have power to enforce this requirement are Stake Presidencies and Bishoprics. Whatever authority women are now said to have, it is inadequate to revoke temple recommends or staff disciplinary councils—now rebranded as membership councils, but still authorized to invalidate baptisms and temple sealings at the discretion of their all-male judges and juries.

“When you sustain someone, you obey them. What does sustaining mean to you?” a local priesthood leader asked me once. It was a pointed question; we were having this conversation because he had called me in to chastise me for not sustaining/obeying male leaders.

I sustain my priesthood leaders by helping them with their responsibilities. I do my part, contributing my time and talents to my local ward and the worldwide church. An important way I contribute is by offering feedback. I have ideas about improving church policies and practices, and I don’t think I would be doing my part if I passively stepped aside and ignored harmful problems when I could make myself useful by suggesting solutions.

There are scriptural examples of people who sustained leaders in this way. Aaron and Hur literally sustained Moses by holding up his arms, helping him when he was becoming weak. (Exodus 17:8-13) Jethro sustained Moses by sharing constructive feedback about Moses’s leadership style and suggesting better ways to administer the church. (Exodus 18:13-27)

Even so, priesthood leaders often disagree with my definition. “That’s not how the brethren define sustaining,” another local priesthood leader told me at another chastisement session. He shared his brethren-approved definition of sustaining, which was something along the lines of agreeing with the leader and not criticizing him.

Jesus Christ demonstrated a tolerance for rebuttal that I rarely see among modern LDS priesthood leaders. When he rejected a Canaanite woman’s request, she persistently disagreed with him and he listened, eventually changing his position. (Matthew 15:22-28)

Jesus reprimanded religious leaders who prioritized their own needs over the needs of women in vulnerable circumstances, so it’s concerning that modern temple recommend criteria mandate loyalty to so many men with power in the church while not asking a single question about our treatment of more vulnerable people, with the exception of our own family unit. (Matthew 23:14, Temple Recommend Questions) Systematic efforts to protect male priesthood leaders from the discomfort of hearing criticism demonstrate that our church prioritizes the preferences of men with power over the needs of women in their stewardship. The church cannot meet the needs of women as long as its leaders refuse to hear them.

I don’t know if whatever authority women are now said to have includes the authority to delete comments from social media posts. Nevertheless, I suspect the church’s social media team would have erased criticism of Sister Dennis’s talk if she had asked them to. Instead of trying to silence the feedback, Camille N. Johnson, General Relief Society President, said, “We are collecting and reading the comments on all the posts and appreciate knowing these heartfelt messages, concerns, thoughts and experiences.” (Does the Mormon Church Empower Women? A Social Media Storm Answers. New York Times 3/22/24)

I believe her. I hope male priesthood leaders will follow the example of Sister Dennis and President Johnson and work toward developing a Christ-like tolerance for unpleasant feedback.

Georgia O’Keeffe—Hands and Thimble by Alfred Stieglitz, 1919 Courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago

This post is part of a series related to the March 2024 debacle where 8,000+ comments, largely by women, responding to the LDS Church’s Instagram post quoting Sister J. Anette Dennis appeared to have been deleted for several hours. Though the comments were restored, Sister Dennis’ talk and the Instagram post have inspired significant thought and conversation.