The Church changes, then moves on — leaving wreckage behind
İskenderun, Türkiye, Feb. 6, 2023: Photo by Çağlar Oskay on Unsplash
Ongoing restoration means change. But even welcome changes in Church policies can nonetheless leave tremendous destruction behind. Let’s look at how Church changes have impacted three groups — LGBTQ folks, Black people, and working women. Then let’s talk about how to move forward.
LGBTQ FOLKS: When the Church quietly stopped encouraging gay men to marry straight women, this was a welcome change. But what did that change leave behind? Nathan Kitchen, author and former Affirmation president, said this in his memoir, The Boughs of Love: Navigating the Queer Latter-day Saint Experience During an Ongoing Restoration:
“We don’t think that way anymore” is the frustrating conclusion to theological tensions in a church that once dug its heels in over such conflict. Once a part of the theological tussle, the Church simply moves on without apology, as if nothing ever happened. But something did happen. I had been captured in a dominant narrative years before, giving prejudice so many years of my life, only to see the construct collapse as I watched the modern church move on, leaving me and my family sitting in its wreckage (emphasis added).
Nathan’s observations could apply to entering mixed-orientation marriage, as his entire generation of LGB folks were counseled to do, or the exclusion policy, or any number of changed Church positions with enormous implications for families. Another gay man who entered into a mixed-orientation marriage at the Church’s firm counsel was later lambasted by his adult children when the marriage dissolved, blaming the dad. The tearful dad said, “I just did what the Church told me to do.”
BLACK PEOPLE: Although the priesthood/temple ban for those of African descent was lifted in 1978, its legacy of racism persists. Mauli Bonner, Black LDS songwriter and filmmaker, said this in his Salt Lake Tribune op-ed about the new Q&A about race and the Church:
I absolutely love that the church acknowledged that overcoming racism is a long-term process, not a one-time realization. I would add that it’s a lifetime process. It’s a commitment to ourselves and to those around us that we will not be bystanders, but will continue to weed our garden and root out racism.
In these excerpts from his followup interview on Mormon Land, Mauli added:
There's a history of racism that hasn't been fully dealt with. So because there hasn't been that journey, we find ourselves [as African Americans] being hit with racism, intentionally and unintentionally. Because we have not untaught the history, people are filling in the blanks. We have to teach it. I love that [the justifications for the ban] are disavowed, . . . but without reteaching the history and acknowledging what was, we don't know who we were. Continue to take steps to build on this. Each step is going to be imperfect; accept that. But as they take steps, we're going to get better and better.
[Listen to the whole 31-minute interview, especially Mauli’s two specific stories of horrific racism he experienced at church that made interviewer Peggy Fletcher Stack gasp out loud.]
WORKING WOMEN:
Today, women of many generations know about the official bio of Camille N. Johnson, now Relief Society General President, who practiced law for nearly 30 years. On the other hand, a woman named Allison “heeded her faith leaders’ counsel to prioritize motherhood and was now paying a steep price for it,” according to an article by Tamarra Kemsley. “I did what I was supposed to do,” said others in the same article.
Trina Caudle set the context:
I was a freshman in high school when President Ezra Taft Benson gave his speech titled “To the Mothers in Zion.” The message was that motherhood was to be the number one – and only – priority for women. . . . Women pursuing careers were not only wrong to do so, but literally destroying their own families. I agreed with that talk. It was all I knew. . . .
I did marry at 31 and at long last, I was “doing the right thing.” But now I look back on those [interim] years with anger and regret at the waste of time. I am furious that I was never encouraged to develop my talents for their own sake. I regret that I did not take voice lessons or ask more questions or travel or explore anything. I did not even try, because I had only one path, those other things were NOT that path, they were WRONG, and I was waiting. What a despicable waste.
I now have teenage daughters, and they are being taught to learn, to pursue their interests, to have a plan for their future that they choose and control. They will not waste their time waiting.
(From Richard Ostler’s Listen, Learn, and Love: Building the Good Ship Zion)
Caroline is even more pointed in her article, “Camille Johnson and the Missing Parts of her Working Mother Story,” on the Exponent II blog, excerpted below:
Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s fantastic that President Johnson followed her own conscience and figured out a way to participate in her career while having kids. . . . But a huge part of her story as a working LDS mother in the 1980s and 90s is glaringly missing. What about all those authoritative messages that she heard loud and clear in her formative years that emphasized the evils of working motherhood? She would have been in her mid-twenties in 1987, pursuing her law education or career, when President Benson [gave that talk]. And as for the women living through that moment in 1987 when President Benson told mothers to come home from the workplace, well, we know the devastation that message incurred . . . [for] middle-aged or older LDS women whose marriages ended and who were left in terrifyingly vulnerable positions. Authoritative messages about the evils of mothers working had real impact on the lives of LDS women.
I share Caroline’s curiosity about what Pres. Johnson was thinking at that time. I also wonder what her priesthood leaders thought as they called her to presidencies in the Church, despite the fact that she was not “follow(ing) the prophet” who told women to stay home and not work?
For me, the most confusing part is this: while changes in policies for LGBTQ and Black folks were publicly announced, the Church's official stance on working women was not reversed publicly. President Johnson's calling to head the Relief Society worldwide as a working mom was time I officially realized that attitudes had changed, leaving many in the dust wondering what happened. That alone adds to the confusion: "Wait, what?"
FORGING AHEAD
In my mind, forging ahead involves looking backwards and forwards: both examining the past and making future choices. Both are essential.
MAKING SENSE OF PAST REALITY: Caroline continued in that Exponent II post:
As with many other topics pertaining to the church, it just doesn’t help to ignore past reality. Let’s acknowledge the difficulties, the contradictions, and the ways women [and everyone] have had to wrestle with God, conscience, desires, and authority in the face of negative rhetoric from church leaders. . . . Let’s acknowledge the fact that so many statements from church leaders in years past emerged in specific cultural contexts and were reflections of their time and people’s limited understandings in that time.
MAKING FUTURE CHOICES:
President Johnson herself gives us an essential key in her Facebook post of July 15, 2023:
Recently, at a speaking engagement, a woman approached me and told me that she had read my bio over and over again.
Puzzled, I asked, “Why?”
She told me that she had four young children at home and she felt guilt for being a working mother. Reading in my bio that I had worked outside the home gave her peace.
I looked her in the eyes and asked,
“Do you know how to receive personal revelation?”
“Yes,” she responded.
Then I told her, “Every time someone says something that is hurtful or makes you doubt what you’re doing, just remind yourself: I know how to receive personal revelation for myself and for my family.”
God knows you. He knows your situation. He knows your heart. Trust in the Lord, learn to hear His voice, and then go forward with confidence and relief. He needs you in His work. #JesusChristIsRelief (emphasis added)
PRESIDENT JOHNSON’S POINT IS CRITICAL. In a changing Church, remember that today’s heresy may be tomorrow’s orthodoxy. You can be guided by personal revelation to make the right choice for YOU today, while tomorrow’s revelation to the Church is coming, as the ongoing restoration continues.
In short, the Church changes and moves on. All of us — Church leaders included — are doing the best we can with the information we have at the moment. We can look backwards to make sense of past reality, and count on the Lord to guide us in our present and our future.
-Marci