A clear, forceful, important message is being sent here from faithful female followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints straight to the faith’s mostly male leadership. That message: Listen to us. Hear us. Make meaningful changes that better connect women — and people of all kinds, of all races, of all backgrounds, in all stages of faith and life — to the gospel they cherish or would or could cherish more.
That message was voiced recently when I, as a male interviewer/interloper, attended a scripture study group comprised of a large gathering of Latter-day Saint women and asked them a simple question, a simple question that quickly stirred into a comprehensive wave of responses and discussion that would be useful and helpful for certain prophets and apostles, top decision-makers, not just to take in and ponder but also to seriously consider and implement.
The question: What subjects would you like church leaders to address at the coming General Conference?
The answers indeed churned massively thoughtful swells that Hawaiian surfing legend Eddie Aikau would have appreciated, at least in the physical form. I felt like I was sitting on the sand at Waimea Bay on Oahu’s North Shore as big, spiritual barrels rolled in.
Here are some of their responses:
• “The talk I am waiting for is a woman speaker explaining to men what a ‘man of God’ is. There have been numerous talks from men over the years explaining to women what a ‘woman of God’ should be. There also are talks from male leaders to men about what is required to be a ‘man of God.’ But a female speaker being an instrument of inspiration on that topic would be interesting.”
• “More talk of Christ’s law of love and acceptance of all, rather than the items on the checklists we know all too well.”
• “How we can maintain and strengthen relationships with loved ones who are LGBTQ and also with friends and family members who have chosen or are choosing a different faith journey.”
• “What a woman’s role is as part of a temple-sealed couple in the eternities.”
• “How women can not just feel more equal to men in the church but actually be more equal.”
• “We want to be uplifted, want something that is encouraging, something that helps us be who we are divinely meant to be. Most people listen to conference to be buoyed up, not torn down. There are lots of things that we as women wish we would hear more of. We would love more female voices sharing their perspectives on living the gospel.”
• “We’d all agree that we want more women’s perspectives, hearing from strong, capable women. There are great female thinkers in the church who would be amazing to hear from. When women speak, they have different perspectives than men, even if they cover similar principles or life experiences.”
• “There are speakers who focus on the things we’re doing wrong, things we can do better, and then there are speakers who focus on more inspiring topics. What I would like to hear about is the stuff in the middle, practical words that teach how to deal with life’s challenges. That’s what’s missing in conference. I would love to hear from people, women in particular, about what they do to get through, how they get from here to that inspirational space, what’s their pathway for that. Such as … recovering from divorce or losing a child or personal faith troubles and transitions, what does it look like beyond just, ‘Get up in the morning, pray, read scriptures.’ How do you push through things, things that are messy? How do you hold onto something when all around you it feels like it’s falling apart? People are living those experiences, every member of the church is living that to some degree, including those who are speaking to us. I wish there was a little more honesty about the challenges.”
Get to the ‘nitty-gritty’
• “It’s a regular experience as a woman in the church to feel like you’re falling short. And then you have a conference drop-off, especially this concept of being urged to be on the ‘covenant path’ and then, when circumstances are less than perfect, your family’s eternal fate is hanging in the balance and is at stake. That has been incredibly painful to me because I — we — don’t fit the mold, so I’m not succeeding. If this was a biannual report card, I’m not doing well. After hearing that you’re not doing well, year after year after year, why do you tune in? If there’s more Jesus, coming to my Savior and being strengthened and sustained by him, I happily come back. But it has become work for me to return to conference because of the evaluation that is so loud.”
• “They preach the ideal and ignore the nitty-gritty, meaning this is the way you want things to be in your faith journey, but what about those of us who aren’t there? How can we still engage and wrestle with some of the challenges, but still feel like we fit? Largely, the women in this room have days when you go to church and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is awesome,’ and then days when you think, ‘This is not working for me.’ … It’s OK to talk about the nitty-gritty, the realities of living the gospel. The ideals are out there, but there should be a place for you, even if things aren’t perfect. Talk about that at conference. Help us.”
• “Some of us feel targeted. Imagine how you would feel if you were gay, listening to conference. I’m divorced, and I was in the process of getting my [temple] sealing canceled and there was a talk, and the speaker actually said something along the lines of, ‘You can get your sealing canceled, but you should do so very thoughtfully because if you do, you are forfeiting your blessings vertically and horizontally.’ That’s the opposite of everything I’d heard, that if you keep your covenants, you keep all your blessings. I felt targeted. … I was troubled by what was said. It’s painful.”
• “There are some beautiful, peaceful things that I’ve heard at conference, things I turn to, but also some things that hurt.”
• “I want messages of inclusion, not messages of exclusion, messages where you feel included, that you are loved where you’re at. ‘Come from where you are, and let’s work together,’ instead of where you feel like you’re excluded because you don’t fit a certain mold.”
• “Elder (Patrick) Kearon’s message at the last conference was so beautiful. I’d like to hear more of that, that God’s in relentless pursuit of all of us, regardless of where we’re at.”
• “I’d like to hear talks about how we can be the salt of the Earth in our communities, with other religious groups, with others in this political climate, how to make the here and now better. Enough about personal worthiness and family and covenant paths and kingdoms in the hereafter — how we can make a difference right here now, like Jesus did.”
• “I’d like to hear how disciples of Christ find their paths. That’s why I tune in. I want to know about the Savior, about how I can follow that example.”
• “If there were more women speakers, we’d connect with that. You get more emotion, more on-the-ground perspective, more, ‘I was in this, we experienced this as a family.’ You get more heart and guts out of a woman’s talk, generally, because very few men open up about what’s really going on inside them. It’s often more general brush-overs, like, ‘We had a rough time, but then our faith took us through.’ Women will be more vulnerable about their personal stories.”
• “I’d like to hear a man’s perspective and a woman’s, those two things together create a more cohesive picture about how to live a Christlike life. When we read the scriptures, I wish we had a female perspective in these stories. I wish we had the moms’, the sisters’ voices. I hope there will be a revelation in the future where more of those can be put out there.”
Women’s history is being ‘erased’
• “The more that female voices are missing in conference, the more our history is erased. If we’re going to build all of humankind, we need all perspectives. If we erase the female perspective from our religious narrative, we can’t really become the best we can be. That, to me, is a heartbreaking sadness. Does God favor a man’s perspective over a woman’s? I think he would say that they are equally important. But we don’t see that taking place in our faith community, where men’s voices and women’s voices are equally valued. There are some men who are so good at asking and pulling out the female perspective and kudos to those men, but it’s not the norm. We continue to erase the female narrative. It might be better than it once was, but we’ve got a long way to go.”
• “One of the things that hearing from female speakers shows is that church leadership is inclusive of women. It shows that those who are at the top value what women bring to conference. Some of the women have vulnerable speeches and some of the men do, and some of the women are boring, some of the men are boring, but to be able to see that is important for all church members. It’s important for young men and young women to see that women have positions of influence. If you’re giving a talk to potentially millions of people, that sends an important message to everyone, and when we don’t hear from women, that message is sadly missing.”
• “It seems we’re in a time of retrenchment when we’re pulling the stakes of the tent closer together. I would love to hear in conference a vision of how we’re going to expand our tent, to be inclusive and Christlike, to reach out to and include all kinds of people. I need to see a way for that tent to expand, not messages that exclude.”
• “There’s a political pull to issues that aren’t what the church should be focused on. What should be focused on are things like, ‘How can we build humanitarian services in our communities?”
• “We’re spinning our wheels in political hot points, rather than how we can really serve the vulnerable around us. We should be serving and loving the vulnerable, not penalizing them. We lack concrete relationships with those who are the most vulnerable. We make these sweeping generalizations about the vulnerable that prevent us from meeting their specific needs because we don’t have a close proximal relationship. Until you’re really right there, you don’t understand how generalizations affect people, affect families. That should be talked about.”
• “Talk sensibly about solving real problems the right way. If the church is worried about trans women in bathrooms with other women, why aren’t we worried about men in bathrooms with young boys?”
• “I don’t want to have fear and judgment as a part of having an eternal family. I want a family that is based on love and listening and compassion and growing together. This is a long eternal process, not some sound bite they’re going to put on a book bag at Deseret Book. The church needs to be careful about embracing this influence culture. You pick up your phone after General Conference to see if someone has messaged you, and I look at my children’s reactions to see what damage control I need to do. And I see influencers in the church making their banners, taking some sound bite from conference. That’s the wrong energy. We should be talking about serving others.”
• “We hear from the same 15 men every six months. Then we teach lessons from those same talks again and again in other meetings. I think they could revamp conference entirely. I believe they have inspiration, that they are prophets, I believe that. But they don’t have to be the ones always drumming in the messages. Find good subjects to talk about, and then get the best person to talk about them.”
It’s time for an ‘apology’
• “My best conference ever would be if I heard an apology for the past treatment of people of color in our church. That would be my best conference.”
• “We, as a church, don’t repent. It’s one of the most important principles of the gospel for individuals, but we don’t do it as a church. The church doesn’t model that repentance.”
• “I’d like to hear more love expressed for LGBTQ people, nothing punitive.”
• “Church leaders seem to be afraid of pulling back the curtain and taking responsibility for mistakes.”
• “It would be beautiful for church leaders to give women serious responsibility. They don’t give us the power of making decisions. We’re like kids in the cart at the grocery store. We’re made to think we’re driving the cart, but we’re not. The adult pushing from behind is the one with the control. I’m not even talking about priesthood power. I’m talking about having a voice in getting things done.”
• “I don’t have a specific topic, but I don’t want to hear about the Word of Wisdom and tithing and things like that. It’s more a matter of stressing an overall emphasis on and tone about how we can learn about Christ.”
• “We rarely hear anything about a Heavenly Mother, only a Heavenly Father. There is an emphasis on heavenly families, sure. But omitting acknowledgment of a Mother in Heaven diminishes the role of women in heavenly families.”
• “I’ve heard that only a third of the women in the church are married. I’d like to hear talks about valuing and serving the needs of the other two-thirds of the women.”
• “We need to hear from more women leaders, but there aren’t nearly as many of them as there are men. That’s the wrong model for young people in the church, young women and men who don’t like that patriarchy.”
That’s some of what these Latter-day Saint women said. It’s apparent that there are gaps between the patriarchal leadership and structure of the church and the female worshippers who make up more than half the faith’s membership. The biggest question of all is: Will male leaders listen to these women, address their concerns and make significant changes?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Tribune columnist Gordon Monson.
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