Category: Inclusion

Advocating for the LDS Advocates Within

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Inclusion, Mormon Feminism, Temple4 Comments

ASPECTS OF THE LDS TEMPLE experience have, once again, been modified. The endowment ceremony now features prominent images of Jesus and the witness couple is reportedly eliminated. Most interesting to me, however, is the addition of an introductory film that identifies the covenants that supplicants will be asked to make, seemingly to address the lack of informed consent that LDS and former LDS have been advocating for. I’m not sure that learning of these covenants just before the ceremony reduces peer pressure or clarifies much about them, but this shift tells me the men in charge are recognizing that informed consent is something members must be able to make. They’ve been listening, just as they (eventually) listened to women who spoke up about the way the previous endowment script disconnected them from a direct relationship with God. Other changes in the last 50 years include the removal of blood atonement penalties from the endowment and shields in the initiatory. Each of these were aspects of the temple experience that advocates justifiably asked be modified. 

Advocacy from within the Church has helped bring many changes in recent history. Protect LDS Children and Ordain Women had members and leaders re-examining policy and perspective. I won’t enumerate the many positive changes each movement helped the Church achieve, but the impact of member advocacy is clearly seen in both movements and brought about celebration from the rank and file.  

Continue reading “Advocating for the LDS Advocates Within” →
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To LDS Mothers on Children Leaving the Fold

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Children, Epistles to the Saints, Inclusion, LGBTQIA, Mormon Feminism, Priesthood, Youth10 Comments

I’D LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE LDS MOTHERS who are watching young adults leave the LDS Church and are wondering if your own children will leave or if you’re doing enough to keep them in. Maybe you’re wondering what those other parents did wrong that caused their family schism. Maybe your child has already left, as all three of mine have. Maybe you’re blaming yourself. Please know you shouldn’t. 

My oldest removed his name from the records of the Church a decade ago and my other two stopped participating before the age of 20. I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on my motherly performance, to weigh what I taught my children against the reality of what the Church is. I taught my kids the good news of Jesus Christ, to love God and their neighbors, to possess a generosity of spirit. I did what you’re doing.

And then I brought them to church. There they were taught the same things I was teaching at home. But they were also taught the opposite. They were taught by example that women aren’t of the same value as men and our voices aren’t as important. They were taught God offers cishet people blessings He denies others. They were taught that love says one thing but does another. I know many of you will throw up walls against what I’ve just said. Those walls won’t make my message any less crucial to hear.

Continue reading “To LDS Mothers on Children Leaving the Fold” →

Ending the Objectification of Exalted Women: Joseph Smith’s Antidote to Literal Offspring Theology

On By lisatorcassodowningIn General Conference, Heavenly Mother, homosexuality, Inclusion, LGBTQIA, Mormon Feminism, Polygamy Culture8 Comments

MANY LDS WOMEN WERE DISHEARTENED by the rhetoric heard during the recent Women’s Session of General Conference because they were warned against their personal interest in knowing Heavenly Mother. This post will address that, but it is also different from my usual writing because I will be analyzing and challenging the current theology of eternal procreation. Many will disagree with me, some may be offended, but I’ve decided to finally bring forward a fuller rendition of my thoughts on the hereafter, specifically concerning the exalted female body. To be blunt, LDS women like me deserve a better theology than the one we’ve been allotted. Joseph Smith offers us that.

Continue reading “Ending the Objectification of Exalted Women: Joseph Smith’s Antidote to Literal Offspring Theology” →

On Elder Holland, the BYU Speech, and Error

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, ecclesiastical abuse, Holy Ghost, Inclusion, LGBTQIA4 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” →

From Error to Apology, or The Path to Grace in a Homophobic Faith

On By lisatorcassodowningIn homosexuality, Inclusion2 Comments


IN 1980, I BECAME A STUDENT at Brigham Young University, not long after the American Psychiatric Association reportedly removed “homosexuality” from its list of mental and behavioral disorders. To say the declassification had caused a stir on campus would be an understatement. Religious ire was up, and, throughout my years at BYU, both student and professor alike interpreted the change as “the world” normalizing sin and as Satan “winning over the hearts of men” in the last days. In my campus congregation, I was often reminded I’d been reserved for the spiritual battles to precede the second coming and to figuratively suit up.

So I girded up my loins just like my peers, full of devotion to God, even though I’d given the topic of homosexuality exactly as much thought as was held within the pages of Spencer W. Kimball’s The Miracle of Forgiveness.

Continue reading “From Error to Apology, or The Path to Grace in a Homophobic Faith” →

The Struggle for LDS Unity

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Epistles to the Saints, Excommunication, Feminism, homosexuality, Inclusion, Youth9 Comments

A recent Sacrament meeting in my ward focused on developing unity. Unity is a topic that often occupies my thoughts because, when I look around my ward, what I notice are the faces I no longer see. Unity isn’t what’s happening in today’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Division is increasing. The orthodox stay. The heterodox leave. As an openly heterodox member, I’m getting more and more lonely in the crowd. Continue reading “The Struggle for LDS Unity” →

Open Letter to Straight Latter-day Saints From a Straight Latter-day Saint

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Bridges, Epistles to the Saints, Inclusion, LGBT6 Comments

Dear Straight Latter-day Saints,

To be clear, I am one of you, both because I am heterosexual and a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When the reversal of the Policy of Exclusion (PoX) became public, I, like you, celebrated. My celebration, however, was cut off by the fierce growl of the wounded and weary LGBTQ Mormon and post-Mormon community as it carried across social media. The reversal, they said, didn’t make anything better for them. The PoX was gone, but the Theology of Exclusion remains. I’ve spent this week in reflection, reading as many LBGTQ voices as I could, hoping to understand them with clarity. Today, I’ll share some thoughts, from one straight person to another. To do this, I must indulge in a personal story, one that is unflattering to say the least. Continue reading “Open Letter to Straight Latter-day Saints From a Straight Latter-day Saint” →

The Problem with Uncoupling “Jesus Christ” and “Latter-day Saints”

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Inclusion8 Comments

I vividly remember apostle Russell M. Nelson’s April 1990 General Conference address in which he reminded members to use the proper, full name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I remember because I agreed, having never been fond of the nickname “Mormon” for either Church or member. Today, as president of the Church, Nelson is reiterating his sentiments by asking both members and non-members to drop “Mormon” entirely. In its stead, he’s sanctioned the use of “The Church of Jesus Christ” and the official Church website will soon become churchofJesusChrist.org, a move that a Salt Lake Tribune article indicates seems innocuous to some outside the Church and offensive to others. What the article doesn’t note is the feelings of Latter-day Saints about the removal of their identity from the URL. Continue reading “The Problem with Uncoupling “Jesus Christ” and “Latter-day Saints”” →

The Restoration of Hope

On By lisatorcassodowningIn InclusionLeave a comment

In less than a year and half, Russell M. Nelson, as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is managing to do something I hadn’t expected: he’s bringing hope back for many who had lost it, especially after the Policy of Exclusion became part of formal Church system. The hope I speak of isn’t perfect—and it’s far from full-grown—but the seed has taken root and the seedling seems to be pushing through the soil. Continue reading “The Restoration of Hope” →

On the Excommunication of Bill Reel, the Heterodox Testimony, and the Lessons of Alma

On By lisatorcassodowningIn ecclesiastical abuse, Excommunication, Inclusion, Knowledge, LGBT6 Comments

Another stoning has occurred in this week’s excommunication of Bill Reel, the creator of the Mormon Discussions podcast. The violence of his excommunication has me in mourning, not half so much because he’s lost something as because the Church I love has forfeited something—someone—of value. Brother Reel is a modern-day Mormon enigma, a human symbol of a Church in turmoil, and the action of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which will soon have the approval of the First Presidency) is evidence of its dysfunction. Continue reading “On the Excommunication of Bill Reel, the Heterodox Testimony, and the Lessons of Alma” →