Category: Mormon Feminism

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, 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. 

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Advocating for the LDS Advocates Within

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Inclusion, Mormon Feminism, Temple5 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.  

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If the Restoration Continues, So Must the Apostasy Within the LDS Church

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Mormon Feminism3 Comments

PRES. RUSSELL M. NELSON HAS CHEERFULLY stated, “The Restoration continues!” It’s a hopeful message that I hold to. But if the Restoration continues–if there are vital aspects of truth still to be revealed–then this must mean the Church remains, in part, in a state of apostasy. Mind blown, right?

To be clear, I’m not suggesting the church is in apostasy, as leaders of certain schismatic groups proclaim, but rather that the church must still be operating under the influence of philosophies prevalent during the apostasy. There’s a vast difference. One suggests that the LDS hierarchy has made a doctrinal U-turn, leaving aspects of restorationist theology behind, while the other acknowledges that “we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor 13:12). 

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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, Youth11 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.

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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” →

Will the LDS Church Ever Be Less Patriarchal?

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Mormon Feminism, The Things We say4 Comments

LAST SUNDAY NIGHT, a cute set of young male missionaries, along with a brother from our ward, visit-bombed us, primarily to meet my non-practicing 20 year old son who escaped the surprise experience mid-way through. Everything about this visit with the missionaries was pleasant and typical, including that moment at the end when it was time to ask someone to voice the closing prayer. The senior companion turned to my husband and began, “Since you’re the head of the househo…” 

This was the point at which my junior high school experience in drama finally paid off. Without missing a beat, I shriveled in my chair, groaning, as I performed my best impression of a speech-enabled slug suffering as salt pours over it. Lo and behold, the four men in the room immediately gave me their full–and puzzled–attention. 

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LDS Women [don’t really] Have Priesthood Authority

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Mormon Feminism, Priesthood8 Comments

As an active LDS woman of a mature age, I’ve participated in many lessons on the LDS concept of priesthood, even taught them. Several weeks ago, I participated in two lessons about priesthood, the first having been taught by my wonderful Relief Society president and the second by a male Sunday School teacher who I consider a friend. The lessons were excellent and the content similar. Yet, each was also vastly different from lessons taught ten, twenty, even forty years ago. In the past, priesthood lessons presented to women centered on ways women can support men in their priesthood calling. These days, the focus (at least regarding women) is the apostolic message taught by Dallin H. Oaks at Priesthood Session of the April 2014 General Conference which reasons that the power and authority women use in the exercise of our callings is priesthood derived through the priesthood key holder who presides over us. In both of the recent lessons, the teachers emphasized an identical question: “Sisters,” they asked, “do you understand that you have priesthood power and authority in the exercise of your callings?”

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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” →