Thursday, March 20, 2014

Part 1 of 3: Imaginary conversations with a conservative Mormon woman about feminism and the Church.

Mary Cassatt, Five O'Clock Tea
                        
I am not a member of Ordain Women. Though I am open to the possibility of women someday receiving the priesthood, I don't see female ordination as the obvious answer to the inequalities  women face in the Church. Moreover, I have serious reservations about some of the tactics used by the Ordain Women organization. Nevertheless, I count myself among those who believe that the roles of women in the Church must continue to evolve in a way that promotes equality. I see real, solvable problems in the institutional church regarding women's authority, autonomy, and leadership.

Over the past several days, I have read many comments from women and men adamantly defending the status quo and criticizing those who advocate change. As I struggle to maintain a sense of unity with members of my church whose views are different than mine, I hear in my mind Christ's admonition, "If ye are not one, ye are not mine." I imagine myself having a conversation over a cup of herbal tea with a conservative Mormon woman, a fictional character representing many of the wonderful women I know. I imagine myself speaking honestly and without fear. Here is what I would say.

I have known you for a long time. You teach my son primary songs, you sing with me in the choir, and you sit next to me in Sunday School. You have reached out with genuine love to my non-member husband. You have been patient with my unanswerable questions. You have mourned with me during the terrible days after my father died.  You have helped sustain my faith with your love and testimony. I have seen your great capacity for empathy and understanding.

The sacrament meetings, visiting teaching appointments, Relief Society lessons, and acts of service that we have participated in side-by-side have bound us together with hundreds of ties. We have sung the same songs, read the same scriptures, and felt the same Spirit telling us that this is where we belong. I hope that we will not let our differences divide us. 

You have told me how happy and fulfilled you are as a woman in the Church. You feel respected, loved, and listened to. Those feelings are real, and I know that you're capable of deciding for yourself what makes you happy. I have heard you express frustration that church members whose views on women and the church are radically different from yours get so much press. That's a fair point, and I hope that your voice is heard. Above all, you have a strong conviction that we have living prophets on the earth today, and you sustain them without reservation. You cherish the belief that they speak for God, and that faith has blessed your life. I honor that.

As I talk about points of disagreement, my purpose is not to persuade you to adopt my paradigm, but rather to explain it clearly. I want you to see my advocacy for women's equality as coming from a place of thoughtfulness, faithfulness, and hope.

Fallibility of Leaders and Changing Doctrine


Much of our disagreement can be traced to differences in how we see prophets, leaders, and church organization. I believe that leaders of the Church, even members of the first presidency and quorum of the twelve, sometimes make mistakes. I believe that the Church is a work in progress, an imperfect approximation of God's will for His kingdom. Inspired leaders receive revelation and process it through a human filter of cultural baggage, prejudices, and preconceptions. Certain ideas that were once taught as doctrine are now de-emphasized, abandoned, and in some cases refuted.

I want you to make room for members who think like me. No, I need you to do more than that. I plead with you to understand that accepting the reality of prophetic fallibility is the only way I can make peace with church history. Acknowledging that prophets make mistakes is uncomfortable, and it is not something I do carelessly or lightly. But it is the only way that I can see past the mountain of discarded and sometimes disturbing prophetic teachings in our not-so-distant history. Please don't push people like me out of the church or marginalize our voices.

You can imagine how this belief in prophetic fallibility might influence my views on church organization and doctrine. I listen to General Conference, and it nourishes me spiritually. I strive to help and sustain my leaders. I am grateful for their service. But in my worldview, it is possible that a teaching or practice that is in conflict with my own conscience might someday change, because it might not reflect the mind of God.

This belief influences my willingness to speak out about my views, even when I sometimes disagree with church leaders. In a recent response to Ordain Women's request to attend the general priesthood meeting, church spokeswoman Jessica Moody referenced the "wonderful conversations . . . relative to women in the Church," and stated that "recent changes . . . were facilitated by the input of many extraordinary LDS women around the world." If the Church really is sincere about seeking input and encouraging productive conversation, then I want to be a part of that. And I don't see how we can have a conversation that facilitates change without actually talking about the positive changes that we would like to see.

This does not mean that I think all criticism is fair game or that all methods of protest are appropriate. I believe that any discussion of thorny issues must be thoughtful, respectful, and mediated by the Spirit. I hope that every member would follow the dictates of their own conscience in how they advocate for change.

This post is the first of three parts. Parts 2 and 3 will discuss specific issues regarding women in the Church. 

I welcome you to turn this imaginary conversation into a real one by sharing your thoughts in the comments sections.



14 comments:

  1. Genevieve, I love your thoughtful perspectives. I appreciate your careful introduction to your view. At some level I share your view - I certainly acknowledge the human frailty of humans called to do God's work. Regardless of my own paradigm, I need you in the community of saints. Even if I am not able to sit by you in church since I moved, I miss you. Your perspectives are completely valid and you build my faith and raise ideas and truths that strengthen me. I eagerly await part 2.

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    1. Thank you, Merinda, for that kind comment and for helping me not to feel marginalized but valued.

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  2. Genevieve, I've enjoyed reading your questions over at Ben's blog, and appreciate this post quite a bit. You, like the other women in your family, are so thoughtful and caring in your thinking. I find that believing in prophetic ability AND fallibility is one of the scariest intellectual choices a faithful person can make. Because it means you have to carefully think about many things, and seek guidance on things you agree with (to be certain you're not just agreeing because it matches your world view), and things you disagree with (to be certain you're not just chalking something up to fallibility just because it does not match your world view). Doing so makes us intellectually and spiritually stronger. But it is a lot of work, and requires putting a lot of things on the "I'll get back to you" shelf in our minds.

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    1. "I find that believing in prophetic ability AND fallibility is one of the scariest intellectual choices a faithful person can make. . . Doing so makes us intellectually and spiritually stronger."

      Yes! Thank you for sharing.

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  3. I love this blog post, so much. So well-written. You don't know me, but I was roommates in NYC with your amazing sisters. I'm a member of Ordain Women, and your words really spoke to my soul. I feel the same way, that women's ordination won't solve gender inequality--and I believe OW is not for everyone, and that's ok: we are all needed in our different perspectives and methods as members of the church who sustain our leaders and are praying for change. I loved your respectful dialoguing, so empathic and needed. Thank you, thank you for your voice in this Mormon feminist movement! -Kristy Money

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    1. Kristy, we actually met briefly, and I do remember you! Thank you for your comment. Because my sister "liked" it on facebook, I read your Mormon.org profile. I thought it was beautiful. I loved how you expressed your desire for the priesthood in an uplifting and faith-affirming way.

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  4. I'm probably ones of those conservative women. I do feel the need to improve our primary and things that affect my own callings so I tend to be butting heads with other women more than with any priesthood. In terms of the greater ward/church, I feel like I'm more focused with my personal spirituality that all of the social stuff doesn't matter to me so I am curious to understand your thinking a little more.

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    1. Wendy, thanks for sharing your perspective. I appreciate the reminder that our personal spirituality is paramount.
      I do believe that we should be conscious of practices that detract from the main message of our faith, discourage faithful saints or even drive some members away from the church.

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    2. I would agree with that. What practices in particular are you thinking about?

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    4. Wendy, here is something that I did not address in Part 2 or 3:

      Probably one of the things that bothers me the most is that some priesthood leaders micromanage the people beneath them in the hierarchy so much that the stewardships that people are supposed to have in their callings are compromised. I believe that people who are set apart for callings should be mostly left to do what they feel inspired to do rather than be subject to heavy-handed oversight. Bishops and stake leaders can step in when correction is necessary: Perhaps church policy is not being followed, or special information that only the bishop is privy to needs to be considered, or maybe the Bishop has an undeniable prompting from the Spirit. But if it's simply a matter of opinion (e.g. which hymn would be better for ward conference), I believe that bishops should defer to the person actually called to do the work. Let Young Women's leaders, primary presidents, music leaders, etc. make decisions about their stewardships. (This is not a criticism of the bishopric in my ward, by the way. They're wonderful.)

      When I was asked to direct the stake choir a few years ago, the stake music chair chose the choir selections, got them approved, and gave them to me to rehearse. The night before the stake conference the music chair was informed that the area authority decided to cancel one of the numbers that we had rehearsed. There was nothing controversial or inappropriate about this number. It was just a hymn. We were in line with the parameters for stake conference music outlined in the handbook. I never heard the reason why he made this last-minute decision. I highly doubt that he had a revelation about it, though I suppose it's possible. He probably thought, "Oh, it would be better if we had one musical number instead of two," or something like that. The person who communicated the change to us was, I believe, the high councilor over music, and he didn't seem to understand why the change was made either. The impression I got was that nobody in the meeting where this was communicated to the stake presidency felt that they should disagree with this area authority and say, "Well, maybe it's too late to make this change, since they've already rehearsed that number." Or, "What's your reasoning?" He was the ranking priesthood leader; the choices that the stake music chair had made were erased without a backwards glance.

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  5. I don't think this is strictly a question of fallibility, as much as line-upon-line. Doctrine (and derivative practice, policy, interpretation, etc.) is what it is, until some catalyst prompts further revelation from the heavens, which takes time to echo through the system.

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    2. Yes, that is an excellent point. I should have made that more clear in my post.

      I will add this: Paul teaches that we "prophecy in part." I get the impression that prophets, through revelation, get an incomplete picture of God's truth and then attempt to fill in the blanks with their own understanding based.

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