Zelophehad's Daughters

In the psychology of perception, there’s the idea of a just-noticeable difference (JND) in some stimulus. For example, if a person is looking at a light, a JND is the smallest change in light that they’ll notice.

Some of the discussion around the changes that were just made in the temple ceremonies has made me think that we could define a parallel idea for how meaningful a change is: a just-meaningful difference (JMD). A JMD would be a change in something that’s just small enough to be meaningful.

To me, the changes the Church just made are far, far beyond the JMD threshold. The fact that women’s and men’s covenants are now parallel to each other rather than having women covenant to hearken to their husbands and men covenant to obey God is, I think, huge. The hearken covenant (and its even harsher predecessor, the obey covenant) have been the source of so much pain to so many Mormon women over the years. Similarly, the changes that have Eve no longer be silenced for the latter part of the endowment, and dropping the requirement that women be veiled are also very big. All these changes signal a fundamental reorganization of how women and men are though of being in relation to God. Instead of a hierarchical view where God presides over men, and men preside over women–one that Paul and Brigham Young would have preferred–we’ve taken some steps toward one where God is over all, regardless of their gender.

In Christmas, Fun

The Night Before Smithsmas

Ziff22 December 20182 Comments

Twas the night before Smithsmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The manuscript sat on the table with care,
In hopes that the translator soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of stick pulling danced in their heads;
And mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon, it was casting a pillar of light,
And I shielded my eyes from the heavenly bright
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a self-propelled sleigh with four men drawing near

In GA's, Women

Sheri Dew and the Unimagined Unknown

Ziff18 December 201823 March 20198 Comments

A few weeks ago, the Church News ran a story about Russell M. Nelson being interviewed by an Argentine journalist. The real headline is captured better by this LDS Living story with a great clickbaity title: President Nelson’s Incredible Response When a Journalist Asked If the Church Excludes Women.

“Many churches are ruled by men, at the exclusion of women,” said Mr. Rubin. “Is this the case for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?”

“Well,” said President Nelson, “you should talk to a woman about that.”

President Nelson then turned and looked at Sheri Dew, executive vice president of Deseret Management Corporation, the CEO of Deseret Book Company and former Relief Society general presidency member.

“Can you help with this answer about the role of women in the Church?” he asked her. He motioned her into camera range.

Sister Dew told Mr. Rubin that he would have a hard time finding a church where more women have more authority than in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“There are hundreds of thousands of women, right now, who have legitimate leadership opportunities and expectations. As women in the Church we teach and preach, we expound doctrine, we serve missions as full-time proselyting missionaries, and we have leadership responsibilities,” she said.

She thinks he would have a hard time? Seriously?

In Children, Church Policy

Good, Good, Good

Ziff21 November 20187 Comments

When I started school at BYU, back in the 1990s, the school used to celebrate the day before Thanksgiving by bringing a bunch of wrecked cars onto campus and leaving them in various quads to remind us all to drive safely if we were traveling for the holiday. This wasn’t an issue for me, because my family lived nearby, but I recall thinking that if the university had really been serious about students’ safety when traveling over the long weekend, they would just close the day before Thanksgiving to make it easier for people to travel without having to make dangerous overnight drives.

I was reminded of this when reading President Oaks’s talk in the Women’s Session of this last General Conference, where he lamented that Church members are marrying later and having fewer children. He said that people are delaying marriage “until temporal needs are satisfied.” I think he’s making the same error that the BYU administration of the 1990s was making: he’s oversimplifying complicated situations where people face competing goods. BYU students of the 1990s, wanted to attend their classes and do well in school, but they also wanted to go home and see their families for Thanksgiving. Young people in the Church today likely do want to get married and have children, but they also face (in the US, anyway) runaway education costs that mean they’ll be paying for their own schooling for decades, high medical costs that make it ever more difficult to bear and raise children, and high child care costs that make it more difficult for both spouses to get all the education they can. It has often been observed on the Bloggernacle that the Church’s admonitions to marry young, have lots of kids, get all the education you can, and stay out of debt are impossible to satisfy all at once unless you have the good fortune to have been born into wealth.

In Church Policy, GA's

What President Nelson’s Talk Tells Us about Decision-making in the Q15

Ziff2 November 201818 Comments

President Nelson stirred up a lot of discussion with his Conference talk, “The Correct Name of the Church,” where he explained that the use of nicknames like “Mormon” for the Church or its members are a victory for Satan. As many people have pointed out (for example, Jana Riess), the arguments he made were similar to ones he made in an earlier Conference talk almost 30 years ago. As a relatively junior member of the Quorum of the Twelve, he found his arguments didn’t gain much traction, as President Hinckley gave a talk in the very next Conference where he embraced the use of the term “Mormon.” This time around, though, he’s in the top spot in Church leadership, so he’s getting things done. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has been renamed the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, for example.

One thing that really struck me about the comparison that shows that this issue has been on President Nelson’s mind for decades is what it reveals about the decision-making process in the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. The D&C says that decisions made by these bodies must be unanimous. If this rule is followed, it means that then-Elder Nelson must have been on board with unanimous decisions made that followed President Hinckley’s approach of embracing and owning the term Mormon. It also means that all the Q15 members who were also on board with President Hinckley’s (and Monson’s) strategy have all changed their minds together, and are now on board with President Nelson’s view.

In Uncategorized

Call for Papers from AML

ZD29 October 20181 Comment

See details here: Association for Mormon Letters 2019 _ Call for Papers

In Fun, General Conference

Two Is the New Three

Ziff8 October 20184 Comments

In a special press conference, President Russell M. Nelson announced a series of changes in the Church related to the shortening of its Sunday meeting schedule from three hours to two, which had been announced in this last weekend’s General Conference:

The afterlife now includes only two kingdoms: Celestial and Telestial. “We considered keeping Terrestrial, since it has the benefit of being an actual recognized word,” he explained, “but as I read the description of this kingdom in Doctrine and Covenants 76, it was impressed upon my mind that the Lord’s will is that any so-called ‘honorable men of the earth’ who can’t manage to see through the subtle craftiness of men be grouped with the wicked in the Telestial Kingdom.”
The triple combination has been renamed the double combination, with the de-canonization of the Pearl of Great Price. President Nelson noted that although the Pearl of Great Price contains “some inspired writings,” it may also be misleading, for example, in that the Articles of Faith purport to summarize the Church’s key beliefs, but make no mention of the importance of heterosexual marriage or of God’s eternal hatred of gay and transgender people.

In Uncategorized

Remembering Katie, A Year Later

Lynnette6 October 20186 October 20184 Comments

It’s been a year now since we heard the terrible news that our co-blogger Katie (Vada) had been killed in a car accident. I feel like a year should be long enough for me to believe that this horrific incident actually happened, but I don’t always feel like I’m there. Part of it is maybe the absurd awfulness of the whole thing—could the universe really be so cruel as to have this happen to a mother of six, driving home from seeing her twin girls in the NICU? I mean, really??? And part of it is maybe tied up with what it means to have a relationship with someone when most of your interaction is online. I hadn’t seen Katie in person since her sister’s wedding in 2011. But it felt like I “saw” her all the time, because she was around on Facebook, and in our blog discussions. And yet—people disappear from the internet regularly. It doesn’t usually mean that they’re actually gone. It’s like I can’t get my brain to entirely process that the reason she isn’t on Facebook anymore isn’t just that she decided to take a break. That’s she’s not going to reappear. It’s still wrenching to grapple with the reality of what happened. Read More

In Fun, Scripture

Book of Mormon Stories that Get a Chuckle Out of Me

Ziff18 September 201812 Comments

I suspect I’m not alone in generally thinking the Book of Mormon isn’t particularly funny. But I must admit that there are a few passages that usually make me chuckle.

In Mosiah 11, Abinadi has to flee for his life after condemning the wickedness of King Noah and his people. At the beginning of the next chapter, he returns in disguise, and the first words out of his mouth are: “Thus has the Lord commanded me, saying—Abinadi . . .” So he had carefully put together his disguise so he could sneak in among Noah’s people without being recognized, and then in just one line, he blows it all. I imagine him saying that and then thinking D’oh! Should’ve used a pseudonym!

In Children, Church Policy

Let’s Support Breastfeeding Mothers and Children

Ziff16 September 2018

The folks at the Exponent have launched an action to request that Church leaders make a policy that mothers are permitted to breastfeed their children publicly in LDS churches. I think it’s deeply unfortunate that so many women who want nothing more than to feed their children–something that you would think the Church should be deeply supportive of–are pushed to use terribly inadequate mothers’ rooms, shamed, told they need to cover up and that they’re contributing to the porn problem. Seriously, we’re a church that appears to not be able to get enough of the idea of divine gender roles. Let’s join this action to raise the issue with leaders, both general and local, to ask them to put their policies where their rhetoric is.

The action is called “Let Babies Eat,” and you can read more at the Exponent or at the website for the action.

In Fun, General Conference

More Conference Predictions

Ziff10 September 201811 Comments

Given my remarkable success at predicting things that would happen in April General Conference, I thought I would try my hand again with some more Conference predictions for October.

In a stunning rebuke of the murmurnacle, President Nelson will announce that not only will the three hour block not be shortened to two hours, it will actually be lengthened to four hours. Existing meetings and classes will not be changed in length. The extra hour will be used for a mandatory meeting where all ward members (including primary and nursery-aged children) sit in council and discuss the importance of Defending the Family. Meetinghouses used by three wards will follow the 8-12/10-2/12-4 schedule. Fifth Sundays will be celebrated with a special five-hour block, with each meeting lengthened by 25%.

In Wonder

Is there room for wonder in the Church?

Ziff7 September 20183 Comments

Earlier this year, I blogged about the Pew Religious Landscape Study and looked at some of the results, comparing Mormons to members of a few other groups. One of the questions in the survey asked people how often they felt a deep sense of wonder about the universe. Here are results for Mormons and the other groups I was looking at.

Mormons don’t have quite as many people answering “at least once a week” as do Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, or agnostics, but like all the groups I looked at, we have more people answering this than any other response frequency. By this measure, Mormons are pretty middle-of-the-pack when it comes to experiencing wonder.

I was recently thinking about this question when I read Nate Staniforth’s book Here Is Real Magic. Staniforth is a magician, and the book is largely memoir, but he also spends a fair amount of time discussing the question of why magic is fascinating to him. The answer boils down to wonder: Performing magic often allows him to see wonder provoked in his audiences, and he treasures this experience because in his view, wonder is so uncommon and so precious. He even subtitles the book A Magician’s Search for Wonder in the Modern World. Here’s one point where he describes his experience of using magic to induce wonder:

From the students on the playground at recess to this man named Ahmed who worked in a terrible neighborhood in Kolkata, the response to great magic is the same: a mouth stunned open, widening eyes, fear, doubt, and then openly, nakedly, joy. Pure joy. The transformation is far, far more amazing than the trick, which is just a tool designed to create this moment. A moment of pure astonishment makes you forget to be cool. It makes you forget to be composed or distinguished. It make you forget to–consciously–be anything. The faces that are revealed when our masks of self-awareness are propriety are blasted away are, simply, beautiful [p. 100].

In Depression, Mental Health, Prayer, Revelation, Spiritual Experience

When Good Spiritual Practice Goes Bad: Prayer, Rumination, and Revelations of Damnation

Lynnette21 August 201821 August 20187 Comments

CW: brief mention of self-injury

I still have vivid memories of a particular day in December over a decade ago. I was in my second year of doctoral work at the time, and I spent an evening talking with some of my fellow students. We found ourselves disagreeing about a number of theological questions, including the topic of whether God’s justice would allow for universal salvation. I was the only LDS student in the group (in fact, I was the only LDS student in the doctoral program); the other participants represented a variety of religious backgrounds and theological outlooks. My memory is that people were trying to be respectful, but there was an undercurrent of tension, and I left feeling a little unsettled.

In Church Policy, Fun

Mormon Edits

Ziff17 August 20184 Comments

Joseph Smith taught that Mormon means more good. Taking this meaning, then, I’m wondering what Mormon edits we might get to see now that President Nelson has announced that God isn’t a fan of Mormon as a label for LDS (sorry, Latter-day Saint) -related things.

At a minimum, I’m hoping to see the following edits made to the scriptures:

Mosiah 18:8

And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God . . .

3 Nephi 5:12

And behold, I am called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, being called after the land of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . .

D&C 135:8

. . . their innocent blood on the floor of Carthage jail is a broad seal affixed to “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-ism” that cannot be rejected by any court on earth . . .

In Agency, Modesty, Sexuality

Modesty and Locus of Control

Ziff8 August 201812 Comments

The discussion over at the Exponent about the Utah woman who had her bishop and stake president refuse to renew her temple recommend because she refused to follow their counsel to cover herself while breastfeeding in church reminded me of a concept I remember discussing in psychology classes. That concept is locus of control. Here’s the first line of the Wikipedia article on the subject:

In personality psychology, locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control.

People are thought to fall along a continuum from having an internal locus of control–those who think that what happens to them is primarily caused by decisions they make–to an external locus of control–those who think that what happens to them is primarily caused by other people or other things outside themselves. You can read the full Wikipedia article or look up any of a big pile of academic papers talking about locus of control, but the level I’m thinking about it is as simple as this brief description.

I think it’s clear that Church teachings are heavily focused on pushing us to have an internal locus of control. For example, Lehi tells Jacob in 2 Nephi 2:27: Read More

In Gay Marriage, Singles

How to Support Same-Sex Marriage Without Throwing Single Straight People Under the Bus

Lynnette27 July 201827 July 201811 Comments

When it comes to the topic of gay Mormons, I don’t even know how many times I’ve seen some variant of this conversation:

Defender of gay Mormons: “It’s unrealistic and unfair for the church to expect gay Mormons to give up all hope of companionship and remain celibate for their whole lives.”

Defender of the church: “It might be a difficult thing to ask, but it’s doable. Look at all the single straight people who also have to live the law of chastity!”

Defender of gay Mormons: “Those two situations aren’t at all parallel, because at least straight people have the hope of marriage.” Read More

In Agency, Obedience, Revelation

On Not Being God’s Victim (or, Nephi is Still Responsible for Killing Laban)

Lynnette22 June 201822 June 20189 Comments

An unsettling tendency among religious people, especially those with a strong belief in an interventionist God, is to throw God under the bus when dealing with decisions they or others have made that seem unwise or even immoral. The narrative goes something like this: “I didn’t personally want to do x. It wasn’t my idea. But God told me to do it, so I had to obey.” There are clear payoffs for the person who adopts this story: you don’t have to take responsibility for decisions you’ve made that might appear morally dubious, just so long as you can maintain that they were divinely mandated; and as a bonus, you get to feel extra righteous because you were so obedient, even in a situation where you ostensibly didn’t want to be. Read More

In Hymns, Music

Now Let Us Rejoice in the Hymnbook Revisions

Ziff18 June 201810 Comments

The Church has announced that the hymnbook and children’s songbook are both going to be revised. I have a bunch of random thoughts on this. I’ll put them in three lists to try to create some illusion of organization.

Good News

The Church is actually asking for our feedback for once! Here’s the survey. (I’m assuming they’ll do something to limit multiple responses from the same person. I’m actually surprised that it looks like they’re not requiring an lds.org account login to participate.)
From the FAQ on the project: “New and existing hymns and songs from around the world will be evaluated and considered for inclusion.” This seems like great news, and a welcome change from the English-only hymns we have now. In the Church News story, Elder Kopischke, who’s an adviser to the project, says “We hope that these new books will also include some of the best hymns and songs originating in other languages that will then be translated into English and the other languages of the world.”
Elder Curtis, another adviser to the project, says (in the Church News story) “As an extension to the new printed hymnbook and songbook, additional sacred music will be made available online, including music of local interest in each language.” This also sounds like very welcome news to me, as so much music in church is limited by what’s in the hymnbook, so if the hymnbook is expanded with these official supplements, this will give us much more music (potentially) to choose from in church.
Also from the FAQ: “Because the new core collections will be the same in every language, national anthems will not be included in the printed hymnbooks.” I am very happy at the possibility of a little more uncoupling of nationalism–particularly American nationalism–from our religion.

In Fun

Our Donald

Ziff17 June 20183 Comments

Evangelical Christians aren’t typically big on saying the Lord’s Prayer, but I understand that this revised version is gaining some traction:

Our Donald which art in the White House, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy tariffs come, Thy will be done in Congress, as it is by executive order.
Give us this day our daily tweets.
And reduce our taxes, but reduce moreso the taxes of our corporations.
And protect us from brown people at our border, as thou deliverest us from brown people kneeling at football games. For thine is the Presidency, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

In GA's, Statistics

Do women really like Elder Uchtdorf more?

Ziff13 June 20185 Comments

Yes. Yes they do.

Or, at least it looks like they do more on Facebook. Here’s a list of the most common patterns of likes of Q15 members by women and men. In the second row, liking Elder Uchtdorf alone is done by 6% of women but only 4% of men. The two percentage point difference (in the last column) is the largest difference for any Q15 like pattern. (Perhaps he really does need to cover up to prevent the women of the Church from sinning in their thoughts!) The pattern men have most compared to women is liking all Q15 members but the three most junior, which 2.5% of men, but only 1.3% of women do.