About the Latest Gospel Topics Essays

Nearly two years ago, the LDS Church began publishing what has become a series of thirteen essays, prepared by scholars and approved by the highest church leaders, to officially address some of the more difficult issues of LDS history, doctrine, and practice. The last two (for now, at any rate, with no immediate plans for more) were released this weekend, and apparently took the most work, since it’s been over a year since the eleventh essay was released. My reaction was too long for Facebook, so here it all is on my blog.

Mother in Heaven

It’s now definitively okay to talk about God the Mother in Church. I guess we don’t actually know enough to say very much, but there’s no taboo on the subject either, and there is now a definitive (if short) statement endorsed by the First Presidency and the Twelve, not just a bit of poetry that made it into the hymnal, or occasional mention of “heavenly parents.” I’m hopeful that the doctrine can develop further since it is now actually getting some attention.

One thing I appreciate is that although unsavory speculation about God the Father being polygamously connected to multiple Mother-gods is not specifically refuted, it is also not raised, and is generally inconsistent with the way the idea is presented – note language like “our Mother” or “we have a Mother.” If it said “each of us has a Mother,” it would allow room for multiple Mothers, but “we have a Mother” does not. Similarly, “Just as we have a Father” implies a one-to-one correspondence, not many-to-one.

The insistence that we don’t worship or pray to the Mother is unsurprising, but it’s still odd to me. What eternal God, worthy to be a full partner of God the Father, does not deserve our thanks and praise? The Son was worshiped in the Book of Mormon, when He appeared to the Nephites. (3 Nephi 11:17). For that matter, we conflate the Father and the Son so regularly, we hardly know which is which. If we identify Jehovah as the premortal Jesus, is David worshiping the Father or the Son when he prays “Blessed be thou, LORD God of Israel our father”? (1 Chronicles 29:10). Yes, we pray to the Father because that’s what Jesus said to do. But considering that Jesus is never recorded as even mentioning a divine Mother, we’re already pretty far afield – would it be too blasphemous for our worship of the One God, that includes the Father and the Son, to extend to the Mother too?

Joseph Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and Women

This essay begins with an LDS understanding of priesthood inherited from other Christians in the 1830s, when only men could be priests in most Christian denominations. Our understanding grew from there, and the essay emphasizes what women can currently do, but makes it clear that “[a]s in the earliest days of the Church, [only] men are ordained to priesthood offices.” These statements remind me of the “Race and the Priesthood” essay: neither one explicitly says that church policy was caused by nineteenth century sexism or racism, but both are careful to situate the discussion in that context. Also, in the race and priesthood essay, several justifications that had been advanced for withholding priesthood ordination and temple blessings from black people were explicitly disavowed, so that there really could be no other explanation than the context of racist American culture for the former ban. Similarly in this essay (but without an explicit disavowal), no justification other than “as in the earliest days” is given for withholding formal priesthood ordination from women.

(A few clarifications: First, being a black Mormon still isn’t easy, even if you’re ordained. I want to be clear that I don’t view LDS racism as solved, or the racial priesthood/temple ban as too closely parallel to the current situation of LDS women. I’m just noticing that the Church’s approach to explaining both situations is similar in some ways. Second, when it comes to the lack of justification in this essay, there is at least a footnote to Elder Oaks saying that the Lord has directed that only men will be ordained to priesthood offices, and that LDS presiding authorities are not free to alter divine decrees. Oaks may well believe that if the Church is directed by God, then “that’s how we’ve always done it” is equivalent to “the Lord has directed” – I don’t if that’s how Oaks thinks, but I can’t help noticing that he omitted any footnote of his own that might point to some recorded revelation to show what “the Lord has directed.” Failing to support a key proposition really doesn’t seem like Oaks’ careful, lawyerly style. Anyways, even when we treat “the Lord has directed” as distinct from “as in the earliest days of the church,” the second is the reason that’s emphasized, and the first is buried in a footnote. Also, neither is really a justification in the sense of explaining why the distinction is just, or why God may want it that way.)

The lack of justification for not ordaining women is a good thing, in a way. I was very worried that I would see something about motherhood being equivalent to priesthood, or about men needing priesthood to be more spiritual, like women, or some such thing. I’m very glad that Church leaders have chosen not to endorse such problematic, sexist justifications. There are still plenty of teachings in the LDS Church about complementary gender roles that seem to squeeze me and others into a box that doesn’t quite fit (that’s a post for another day), but if Church leaders aren’t using any particular gender roles as justification for not ordaining women, maybe Church members can stop doing that, too.

I’m glad to see an emphasis on how women exercise priesthood authority to carry out the Relief Society’s charge to relieve the poor and save souls. With the Relief Society established in preparation for the temple, I’m also glad to see the “endowment of power” conferred on women and men in the temple, and the “order of the priesthood” connected with marriage in the temple, described as bestowals of priesthood power.

Additionally, the history of women blessing the sick is also now definitively okay to talk about at church. However, the current insistence that “only Melchizedek Priesthood holders may administer to the sick or afflicted” provides a stark contrast between the idea of expansively conferred or delegated priesthood authority and the hard limits that still exist on formal priesthood ordination.

Currently, as the essay clarifies, women in the LDS Church can preach and pray in Church meetings, be full-time proselytizing missionaries, officiate in the temple, participate in priesthood councils, teach in Church universities and educational programs, lead organizations of women, girls, and children, and minister to families and the Church in many important and significant ways. However, women cannot baptize, bless the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, bless the sick (anymore), or perform any other function that requires formal priesthood ordination. It’s greatly to the credit of Joseph Smith as a visionary that in the 1830s and 1840s, he established a “kingdom of priests” that grew to include women in so many ways.

By contrast, the modern LDS Church looks pretty non-visionary for continuing to insist on a hard line separating women from particular priestly functions. The lack of justification for the distinction is good in that it doesn’t perpetuate particularly sexist teachings, but continuing an old, sexist practice without a good reason isn’t great either. Maybe the absence of a good reason could prompt us to reconsider some things, but the Church seems particularly unwilling to even consider some things, recently.

The authors of the article might accuse me of being distracted by formal offices. Apparently, I risk misunderstanding or overlooking the priesthood authority that LDS women do exercise, or mistakenly equating priesthood with religious office and the people who hold it. Well, I do appreciate the expansive notion of priesthood – not quite as broad, theoretically, as a “priesthood of all believers,” but close in practice, since any practicing Mormon will have many opportunities to minister in ways that we now understand as involving priesthood authority. However, the word “priesthood” is also still used throughout the English-speaking world to refer to the condition or state of being a priest, or to a body of priests, and it’s silly to pretend that the word doesn’t mean those things too – it’s what the “-hood” suffix means, after all. So, if I’m concerned that women are barred from “priesthood,” in the narrower sense, it’s not a very good answer to explain all the ways that women exercise priesthood power in the broader sense and then insist that I misunderstand the word.

Are the Heavens Gendered?

Both essays seem to double down on a gendered eternity. The LDS church teaches that it is God’s plan for men and women to be exalted together as partners, to become more like the divine Mother and Father in whose image they are created. Single people don’t fit into that mold very well, since vague assurances that God will sort it all out when you’re dead aren’t actually much of a theology (or even very comforting). Not to mention that if the highest heaven only admits people who fit into matched up “man” and “woman” cubbyholes, that means that if you prefer a partner of the same sex, or don’t identify as either a man or a woman, then you either don’t belong there, or you do belong there, but with a big chunk of your personality erased. Neither of those options sound like heaven to me.

Honestly, I’m not sure to what extent I believe in the divine Father and Mother as distinct beings, or in a gendered heaven. I certainly believe that heaven does not have an exclusively masculine King without a Queen. However, if, as Joseph Smith taught, some spirits are more intelligent than others, and God is the most intelligent of all (Abraham 3:19), then there should be nothing about masculinity or femininity that the most intelligent spirit does not comprehend. If there is a distinct divine Mother, I don’t want to erase her, but it seems just about as likely to me that there’s a God the Parent that we have failed to understand the feminine aspects of.

A Final Note on Reinterpretation

As I was reading and checking the footnotes, I noticed one more interesting thing: the footnotes seem to take some liberties in re-interpreting scripture. Scripture about an endowment of power associated with the first LDS temple in Kirtland, Ohio, is read to apply to the second LDS temple, in Nauvoo, Illinois, which had significantly different rites. Scripture that describes the temple covenant of marriage as an “order of priesthood” entered into by a man (and described in another footnote as a “patriarchal” order) is read as describing both spouses entering together into an order of the priesthood. Of course, I do understand that what began in Ohio might continue or improve in Illinois, and that we often read scripture to refer to both genders when only one is mentioned. I’m also aware that reinterpreting scripture to mean something new goes back at least as far as the New Testament. It’s just interesting to see, so clearly, that we’re still doing it.