Zelophehad's Daughters

The Faith and Knowledge Conference has just issued its Call for Papers. If you’re in a relevant discipline, you should definitely consider participating; it’s an awesome conference.

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The Faith and Knowledge Conference was established in 2007 to bring together LDS graduate students in religious studies and related disciplines in order to explore the interactions between religious faith and scholarship. During the past four conferences, students have shared their experiences in the church and the academy and the new ideas that have emerged as a result. Papers and conversations provided thought-provoking historical, exegetical, and theoretical insights and compelling models of how to reconcile one’s discipleship with scholarly discipline. Read More

This guest post comes to us from Greg Nelson. Greg lives in Allen, Texas, with his wife and three kids, and has business degrees from both BYU and BYU-Idaho.

“In many ways, I feel about the Church the same way I feel about my family…I and my siblings might go on for hours about what’s wrong with the family, but let an outsider say one negative thing and my claws will come out.  I fight it and complain about it, and it’s so deeply woven into my identity that I can’t imagine who I would be without it.” –Lynnette

This behavior is everywhere, but especially in our young missionaries. Just about every one of them returns home with a newfound loyalty and commitment to the church, developed at least in part by the refiner’s fire of outside criticism and persecution. With each slammed door, skins thicken and commitment swells. To be sure, some develop a loyalty because they’ve actually seen how the Gospel of Jesus Christ can transform and bless lives. But I submit that a significant number return home so certain of their testimonies simply by virtue of having that  testimony challenged and questioned day in and day out. We as a people relish these missionary experiences. They strengthen our resolve.  An example would be Elder Holland’s April 2014 General Conference talk, which describes in disturbing detail how two sister missionaries had food spit and thrown at them simply because they were Mormon. Read More

I’ve been inactive for a few years now. In some regards, it was a conscious decision. 3-4 years ago, my life got really complicated, and those complications included God and religion. I needed a break to find my center and figure out how to be okay with who I was, and I needed to do that work independently. My inactivity was never meant to be permanent. My husband (I think) used the term “sabbatical” at one point to describe my time away, and that idea stuck with me. I was still as Mormon as ever. I was just on a temporary sabbatical from church attendance. Read More

I don’t remember where I was when I first heard about the September Six. However, I do know that I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I read about it obsessively, trying to make sense of what was happening with my church. But there was only so much to read. There was no internet, no friends posting on Facebook, no storm of blog posts. I was just starting my freshman year at BYU, and leaving the church didn’t feel like a viable option. I don’t think I even really wanted to leave. But I felt like I had nowhere to go to process the anger and disillusionment I was feeling.

When I read the first NYT article about Mormons facing church discipline, by contrast, I immediately starting texting and emailing friends, who shared the shock and outrage that I was feeling.  I’m finding it impossible to keep up with even a fraction of the online discussion. At church on Sunday, I skipped Sunday School with a couple of friends to discuss the situation.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about communities. Read More

I loved my mission. It was by far the time in my life when I felt the happiest and most confident in the Church, most certain of its truth, most integrated into its community. Swedish Mormonism seemed an idyllic and open-hearted version of its American cousin, where the utter weirdness of the Church relative to the dominant, very secular Swedish culture meant that the Mormons trying to keep their church alive needed everyone–they couldn’t nudge each other out over small things, they couldn’t afford to reject the weirdos or the disaffected. The boundaries were bright and the margins were thin–if you were willing to be in at all, you were in all the way. Read More

In a surprising turn of events, LDS Church leaders have finally agreed to meet with female ordination activist and human rights attorney, Kate Kelly. After ignoring or rebuffing her requests for over a year, Church leaders have invited her to a meeting in her former ward building in Virginia on June 22nd.

According to the Church Public Affairs department, this meeting is an attempt to continue the many “wonderful conversations with Mormon women” that the Church has reported having taken place, including past discussions with Margaret Toscano, Lavina Fielding Anderson, and Maxine Hanks, to name only a few.

However, having temporarily moved to Utah, Kate Kelly is refusing to attend the meeting, much to the confusion of Church leaders and members alike, who are wondering why she would avoid a conversation that she and her organization, Ordain Women, has long sought.

Nevertheless, the Church is pushing forward in its outreach to Mormon feminists, with many local bishops now seeking “wonderful conversations” with women in their congregations in order to discuss matters of importance to these women, such as church callings and temple recommends.

The outcome of these conversations remains to be seen and is difficult to predict since they are structured by rules in Church Handbook One, which is not available to women. Church leaders insist, however, that such conversations are being held “out of love” for these sisters, and that they will clarify the place for Mormon feminists in the LDS Church.

A collective statement from a number of bloggers, podcasters, and other online publishers, in support of clemency and openness.

We face a difficult and pivotal moment in Mormonism as LDS leaders and church members wrestle more openly with complicated aspects of our faith, its doctrine, and its history—often in spaces afforded by the Internet. In light of possible disciplinary action against prominent voices among us, we the undersigned Mormon bloggers and podcasters affirm the value of the conversations that take place in the LDS “Bloggernacle” and express our hopes for greater understanding and compassion from all of us involved in current tensions.

May we all remember, as scripture teaches, the intricate intertwining of mercy and justice. May we all follow the admonition to seek understanding before judgment, even as we address matters that can be difficult to talk about. Read More

Here are a few things I learned from the disciplinary action Kate Kelly and John Dehlin are threatened with:

• The Ninth Article of Faith can pretty much be blotted out of the canon. As of 1842, there may have been “great and important” things still to be revealed. As of 2014, they have all been revealed, and we have no need of addressing new questions or receiving new revelation.
• Jesus has been overruled. He said we should ask, seek, and knock. He was out of line. Asking is apostasy. The new rule is that your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him, so shut up!
• Our God is a Correlated God. We don’t even need to limit ourselves to looking to scripture or prophets’ statements now to see the will of God. We simply need to look at the status quo in the Church to know God’s very mind. If there are organs and basketball hoops in our buildings, it is because God wills it. If lesson manuals are printed on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper, it is because God wills that. And if, with no scriptural or prophetic basis, we have banned women from holding the priesthood, God must have willed that too.
• Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s “Come, Join with Us” wing of the Quorum of 15 isn’t as strong as Dallin H. Oaks’s “Would You Just Please Leave?” wing.



•  The PR department really is running the show in the Church. Kate’s informal discipline letter chastises her for “acting in public opposition to the Church and its leaders after having been counseled not to do so.” Which leaders? Who counseled her not to have OW events? Her local leaders never wanted to meet with her. And of course general leaders made a point of ignoring her requests to meet. That leaves only the PR department. She went against the PR department’s counsel, and acted in opposition to the PR department, so she’s being disciplined.
• The PR department clearly doesn’t even care to try to be subtle with lying anymore. The blatant misrepresentation of the OW event was bad enough, but at least it could only be refuted by people who were there. But the claim that the disciplinary actions are completely local is just absurd. That they would say this knowing that it’s not remotely believable is depressing.
• The Church really isn’t Kate Kelly’s or John Dehlin’s or yours or mine. It’s President Monson’s and maybe the FP and Quorum of Twelve’s a little bit. If they and the PR department decide they want to excommunicate people for asking questions too persistently, they can do that. If they decide to excommunicate people for wearing pants, or for being left-handed, they can do that too. There’s not really any check on how ridiculous they can be.
• The Church is not a safe place for people who have questions. Perhaps it never was, and I’m only now seeing its true nature revealed. It could have gone other ways, though. There are scriptures and words of prophets that could support a more inclusive version of the Church. But I’m afraid these disciplinary councils will cast a long shadow for a long time on any attempts to push for that. I am so sad. I had hoped for so much better.

Jessica Finnigan and Nancy Ross are writing an article on Mormons’ views of their bodies and garments, and are using the survey below to gather information. They want to know how you feel about your body and how you feel about your garments and how your feelings about those two things interact and/or intersect. They will also collect some demographic information and some info about your beliefs. Please help them out by following the link below. To participate, you do need to be Mormon (of any variety, including former/ex) but you don’t need to currently wear garments or have received your endowments to participate. We need all the Mormons! Please share far and wide.

http://bit.ly/LDSgarments