Category: authority

Dear Sister Larson, This is Why I Stand with the LDS Women who Spoke Out on Instagram

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Priesthood, authority, Holy Ghost, General Conference, Race, Excommunication, Church Discipline, Mormon Feminism8 Comments

DEAR SISTER LARSON, I want to respond to your recent, public post that pertains to the aftermath of last week’s Relief Society Worldwide Devotional, as well as those who agree with its content. I consider myself an LDS feminist, something I haven’t come to easily or without decades of study and reflection, both of Church doctrine and history. I’m disheartened because I think your words alienate LDS women from one another. There’s been too much of that lately, from both views. Because of the many hats you wear (therapist, chaplain, RS leader), your words bear a unique sway that, I think, deserves to be answered. It’s unfortunate that this answer is coming from a place of my own perceived self-defense, but you were neither generous nor kind to those of us who think differently than you do. As you can see, I will be at least as direct in my tone as you were. What I’ll do is repeat each paragraph you wrote and then respond.

(Note to readers: you can click here to read it straight through.) 

Sister Larson, you write:

“So I don’t normally weigh in on stuff like this because honestly I feel like it shifts our focus away from assisting in bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man(kind). But I feel like I have an interesting perspective because of all of the hats I wear.”

Continue reading “Dear Sister Larson, This is Why I Stand with the LDS Women who Spoke Out on Instagram” →

LDS Men, Power, and Gender Equality: A Continuing Discussion

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, Feminism2 Comments

IN MY PREVIOUS POST, I make the controversial assertion that LDS men who recognize LDS women don’t have fair, much less equal, footing in the Church should resist edicts of up-level priesthood leaders when those edicts diminish the visibility and influence of women. The essay was a reaction to Bay Area leaders removing Relief Society (RS) presidents from the stand during Sunday meetings after being instructed to by an area authority. In general, LDS will acquiesce to higher authorities, even if they object on ethical grounds, to keep their callings. Giving in on this, they reason, will let them positively influence on that later. I don’t fault anyone for wanting to continue serving as best they can in a flawed system. However, as long as our forward-thinking, local priesthood leaders continue in this pattern, the status quo lives on. LDS men and women share responsibility to even the playing field within the Church. In the future, I’ll address a woman’s responsibility, but today, men still have my attention. 

Continue reading “LDS Men, Power, and Gender Equality: A Continuing Discussion” →

LDS Men, No More Passes for Your Wrong-headed Obedience

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Abuse, authority, Children, ecclesiastical abuse, Mormon Feminism13 Comments

TODAY I DIRECT MY THOUGHTS primarily towards the men who hold the LDS priesthood because two recent events have garnered my attention, in part for the way each involves decisions made by LDS men. The first is the child sex abuse civil lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which was just dismissed by an Arizona judge, and the second is the sudden ending of a San Francisco Bay Area tradition that had Relief Society (RS) presidents sitting beside bishoprics during Sacrament meetings. The decisions I’d like to focus on are not those made by the men considered to have high authority in the Church (or their attorneys), but the decisions of the local leaders to obey them, even in situations where they know obeying them is not only wrong but could bring harm to others. 

Continue reading “LDS Men, No More Passes for Your Wrong-headed Obedience” →

Allyship is a Love Unworthy of Rebuke

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, Christ, Inclusion, LGBTQIA, revelation2 Comments

LAST SUNDAY, I CAUGHT another glimpse of what it might be like to sit as an LGBTQIA congregant in a chapel surrounded by people you love, while they are comforted by a sermon that depicts your greatest hope as evil. If you’re LDS, you’ve likely had a high councilor deliver a classic sermon like the one mine did last Sunday, one that used thinly veiled language to praise those who resist “the pressures of the world” which “call good, evil and evil, good” by “fully sustaining the prophet.” While this language may be used to encourage avoidance of various sins, in this instance, it was also clearly coded as a rebuke against those of us who don’t accept and promote current LDS doctrine and policy about LGBTQIA people as eternal truth, whether we be LGBTQIA ourselves or an outspoken ally. The assumption is that if we disagree with the fallible human who serves us in the priesthood office of prophet, we disagree with God. Today, I’m not going to run a convoy of reason through the gaping holes in that logic. Rather, I want to speak specifically as an ally who was subjected to a type of public rebuke.

Continue reading “Allyship is a Love Unworthy of Rebuke” →

LDS Sr. Leadership, the SEC, and my Sustaining Vote

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, Temple, Tithing15 Comments

PUBLIC CHATTER HAS largely abated regarding the February 21 SEC order and its incumbent fines of $1 million against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and $4 million against church-owned Ensign Peak Advisors. You can read the specifics in the order by clicking the colored link above (its surprisingly easy to understand), but the tldr; version is that, between 1998 and May, 2018, the First Presidencies and Presiding Bishoprics (identified as “senior leadership” in the order) created 13 shell (or unfunded) companies into which they pretended to transfer portions of the Church’s billions in order to hide it from the public, and then they knowingly falsified documents (F13 forms) to cover it up. This is a civil* crime. The realization that our senior leadership spent two decades willfully committing crime ought to shock members to their core. It does me. 

SEC orders are negotiated documents, which means the Church agreed with the accusations as stated in the Feb. 21 order. They did it. For 20 years, the First Presidencies and Presiding Bishoprics willingfully broke the law. The fact is, the following men, each of whom served in either a First Presidency or Presiding Bishopric sometime between 1998 and 2018, made hypocrites of themselves as they illegally hid the Church’s wealth from the SEC, the general public, and, most importantly, from its membership. They are:

Continue reading “LDS Sr. Leadership, the SEC, and my Sustaining Vote” →

Heavenly Mother Reportedly on the Outs with Priesthood Authorities

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, Heavenly Mother13 Comments

A FEW WEEKS BACK, I offered the closing prayer in my ward’s sacrament meeting and expressed gratitude for Heavenly Mother. It felt like a risk. I’ve never, in my 43 years in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, been present when She was mentioned in a public prayer. Afterwards, two women grabbed me and shared their gratitude for my prayer, giving me the sense it was because of Her mention. I could be wrong. What I’m not wrong about is the hunger so many LDS women have for a connection to the Divine Feminine. I recently learned, through the multiple witness of other LDS women, that Heavenly Mother is, once again, on the outs with the General Authorities. If I offered the same prayer this Sunday, it might earn me a sit-down with my local priesthood keyholder.

Continue reading “Heavenly Mother Reportedly on the Outs with Priesthood Authorities” →

On Elder Holland, the BYU Speech, and Error

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, ecclesiastical abuse, Holy Ghost, Inclusion, LGBTQIA5 Comments

ON THE SAME DAY THAT BYU announced the creation of an Office of Belonging, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland took the pulpit at BYU’s annual conference for faculty and staff and delivered an address in which he takes imprudent aim at gay students, student allies, and allies on the staff and faculty. He gaslights those present who have embraced the Church’s occasionally kinder, softer rhetoric on homosexuality and inclusion, accuses them of disloyalty to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and blames them (and BYU students within the LGBTQIA and ally community) for divisions in the Church. The new Office of Belonging would do well to build moving sidewalks throughout the campus to facilitate transporting the alienated employees and students from wherever they’re found directly to it’s door. After this talk, it’s going to take some hard labor to convince queer students they belong at BYU (or in the Church for that matter) or allies that there isn’t a target on their backs.

To recap in brief, Elder Holland made homosexuals (particularly in gay marriages) out to be enemies of the Church.  He called members to figuratively bear muskets against those who don’t see gay marriage as a disruptor of the plan of salvation. He blatantly misrepresented the facts surrounding Matt Easton’s 2019 valedictorian address, accusing the graduating senior of “commandeering”  the pulpit to come out when he had received university approval for every word he said. Thick was the indirect accusation that Easton’s coming out was an attack on Church doctrine. It wasn’t a good look for an apostle.

Continue reading “On Elder Holland, the BYU Speech, and Error” →

Energy Healing and the Update of the LDS General Handbook

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, Church Discipline, Church restriction, ecclesiastical abuse, Mormon Feminism8 Comments

Someday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will have to recognize how eager many of its women are to access all the spiritual gifts delineated in scripture and, thereby, realize their full spiritual potential. We saw this hunger most clearly during the apex of the Ordain Women movement, which was often unfairly labeled a misguided group of sisters who without the humility to understand their role as servants to and under the priesthood. What the Church does recognize, however, is its ability to deny women access to any spiritual gift it likes. All it takes is a few lines inserted into the Church Handbook of Instructions. This time, the power of official disdain is aimed at a much less vocal, seemingly less organized, set of LDS women–our energy healers.

Continue reading “Energy Healing and the Update of the LDS General Handbook” →

On LDS Abortion Exceptions and the Angel Mother

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, Children, General Conference, Politics, Polygamy Culture5 Comments

For most Latter-day Saints, the answer to the abortion question is a resounding no. Yet, the official Handbooks of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints clearly state that abortion is allowable when:

  1. Pregnancy resulted from forcible rape or incest.
  2. A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy.
  3. A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. (See 24.1.4)

In a recent Salt Lake Tribune article, Peggy Fletcher Stack demonstrates this stance on abortion suits the faithful of both political parties. The unanswered question, then, is how most practicing LDS came to their strident opposition to abortion. Continue reading “On LDS Abortion Exceptions and the Angel Mother” →

LDS Institutional Integrity and the Lesson of the Great and Abominable Church

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority12 Comments

On the day President Russell M. Nelson was given audience with Pope Francis in the Vatican, I encountered a Latter-day Saint pointing at the Catholic Church and accusing it of being “the great and abominable church” condemned by the Book of Mormon. This she called doctrine.

This coupling of the Catholic religion with the great and abominable church has rankled me throughout my forty years of adult membership. As a convert from Catholicism, I maintain respect for the good people and positive aspects of my former faith. But that’s not why. The claim is the ideological equivalent of a sickly inbred descendant. The amorous ancestors aren’t cousins, but Institutional Integrity and Sleight of Hand.  That’s harsh, I know, but I think fair. To demonstrate, it’s important to identify how wrong ideas have taken root in our religious culture. For this example, Step 1 must be a brief recap of the history of Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine. Continue reading “LDS Institutional Integrity and the Lesson of the Great and Abominable Church” →