Guest Post: A Prophetic Prescription Goes Rogue
by Laura Karren Glasgow
Counter to the popular orthodox opinion that faith crises are the result of a person’s failure to follow the prophetic prescriptions, my faith crisis began when I did EXACTLY what President Nelson asked me to do.
In October 2019 he asked the women of the Church to begin a deep study of priesthood power. He said:
“I entreat you to study prayerfully all the truths you can find about priesthood power” (emphasis his). Spiritual Treasures, General Conference Oct 2019
Sometime during the months of the 2020 lockdown I took up that challenge, and it was, at first, exhilarating to discover the priesthood power to which I hadn’t realized I have access through my divine nature, through general righteous living, and through partnering with God. I was so excited. I took copious notes and shared them with other women. I was a Relief Society teacher at the time and I worked these discoveries into all my lessons. I was a priesthood power evangelizer!
Then I started to learn more about priesthood authority. I already knew that women have no meaningful authority in the church. I’d been living with this truth for 43 years and had become partially desensitized to the sting. But then I learned that the Church teaches that women hold no governing authority in their own homes and families; that I would only ever possess presiding authority if my husband were to die before me.
In his October 2005 General Conference talk “Priesthood Authority in the Family and the Church” President Oaks taught:
“The authority of the priesthood functions in the family and in the Church, according to the principles the Lord has established. When my father died, my mother presided over our family. She had no priesthood office, but as the surviving parent in her marriage she had become the governing officer in her family.”
President Nelson confirmed that a woman can only preside in her home after her husband’s death. He said:
“And remember, if your husband should die, you would preside in your home.” (General Conference October 2019 “Spiritual Treasures”, emphasis original)
I shouldn’t have been surprised and yet I cannot overstate the stunning blow that this was. I cannot overstate the spiritual devastation this has wrought. In September 1995 the Church published “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” that professed marriage to be an equal partnership, but I could now see that this is simply not the Church’s true position on the issue. This new knowledge brought its own agony but it also released an explosion of all the pain and anger I’d been suppressing for decades about women’s lack of authority, representation and decision-making power in the Church. A surprise, full-blown faith crisis had made a fiery crash-landing in my lap.
I took my pain to God and They have guided me and been with me on a journey of learning, unlearning and discovery. I have come to understand that the Church’s policies about women’s authority at home and at church are cultural baggage that the Church has been dragging around for more than 200 years. I have come to understand that Joseph Smith and other early Church leaders modeled this aspect of the Church on the world they lived in and not on a revelation; that the Church’s embrace of patriarchy is based on an assumption and not a divine mandate.
While the Church now refuses to use capital letters when writing Heavenly Parents and will only speak of the Father’s love for His children and the Father’s plan for His children, I will never ever again refer to God as He, Him or His but only as They or Theirs. I tried to illustrate my pain for my Bishop by asking him to look ahead to his near future when his oldest child will leave for college. I asked him to imagine how hurt his wife would be when their son leaves if the son were to only ever call home to speak with his Dad and only spoke to his peers about his Dad and about how much his Dad loves him. I asked the Bishop to consider how erased, belittled and betrayed his wife would feel. That’s how I feel about the Church’s treatment of women — both of our Eternal Heavenly Mother and of us, the mortal women.
Back in that fall of 1995 I was a new freshman at BYU. I had my sights set on medical school. I wanted to be a surgeon. Had I gone to any other university I believe I would have achieved this goal. But 30 years ago, the messaging from the Church and thus also at BYU was that such a goal was an unrighteous one for me due to my gender. The strong messaging was effective, and I soon accepted the idea that being a stay-at-home mother was the only righteous choice for women. I believed I was obeying God, but I now know that I was only obeying and reinforcing patriarchy.
Ironically, I’m grateful I “followed the prophet” and responded to his entreaty to deeply study the Church’s teachings on priesthood. I’m now awake to all that patriarchy has stolen from me. I’m slowly clawing back some of it, but some things are gone forever. I will not sit idly by while it steals from others. I’m certain that this is NOT the result President Nelson had in mind when he instructed women to study priesthood power! I am equally certain that this rogue outcome, however anathema to the prescriber, was just the medicine I needed!
Laura is a reader, traveler, feminist, and a huge fan-girl of Jesus Christ. She works as the Programs Coordinator for a charity that serves refugee and immigrant children and is also a French language tutor.
