Cwic Show- Women's History Month Interview- LDS Issues

adam & eve feminism motherhood the proclamation on the family women and the priesthood women in the scriptures Mar 18, 2021

The Proclamation On The Family, Women and the Priesthood, Eve, Women in Scripture, Feminism, Motherhood, Polygamy, Faith Crisis Website- https://www.cwicmedia.com Amanda Freebairn and Hanna Seariac talk about issues that face women today in the LDS Church. We talk about why so few women are mentioned in the scriptures and in church history, where things seem to be headed in the church in terms of bolstering women's stories as well as the all-important topic of Motherhood. We also delve into the tough to talk about issues of Feminism, Polygamy, and Faith Crisis.

Raw Transcript

thank you

[Music]

all right welcome to the quick show uh

today's guests are amanda freebarn

and hannah hanna syriac amanda you are a

student currently uh with studying

education is that correct okay at asu

you're an admin at the uplift community

of faith which is a facebook support

group for lds experiencing faith crisis

uh you're an editor at the lds women's

project formerly known as mormon women

project

women's project and you're married and

the mother of two

um hannah you are a student currently

getting your masters in comparative

studies at brigham young university with

an interest in the intersection of

greco-roman literature with biblical

literature i'm very jealous

uh she works in researching

fundamentalists latter-day saint sects

as well as on new testament new

testament commentary

and you host a podcast on fair as well

very excited to have both of you here

you had recently written an article

talking about uh well the title of it is

the witness of women

i found it in public square magazine is

where i where i saw that i often

oftentimes go there and you brought up a

few different

points that i'm very interested in

talking about i want to talk about women

in the church today

i want to talk about contempt you know

modern issues

that are affecting women in the church

um positive and negative really

where we're at with

uh with what i mean how women feel

in the church and um

touching on maybe a few different

sensitive uh

but important subjects of uh maybe

heavenly mother

um women in history in the church

uh polygamy and kind of how that's

affecting especially the younger

generation i would say

today so thank you for being here i i

really appreciate it

thanks for having us thank you for

having us all right

um in the article that you had written

you talked specifically

about women as witnesses and

as i went through the article i

kind of to me it's you're kind of giving

a voice to women

it sounds to me like you're saying okay

well

sometimes we don't always hear about all

of this we haven't focused a lot on it

sometimes

um but you wanted to offer a voice

for for women and and make sure that we

understand

kind of the the history of the church

and

it's interesting because we don't

there aren't many references that we get

everyday discussion about women in

history or even sometimes women in the

scriptures

yeah absolutely i mean i think that it

has to be an intentional

choice for us if we want to bring women

into

our sunday school classes lessons our

young women's lessons our

young men's lessons um our talks when

we're giving talks in sacrament meeting

um we we tend to kind of rely on the

same stories the same scriptural stories

the same church history stories

and um that's not actually all we have

particularly now

um with the increase in

access to women in church history

all the wonderful materials that the

church has been putting out we don't

necessarily need to rely on those same

old stories and we don't necessarily

need to have

you know emma smith be our one single

female reference

um when or um you know sometimes we

might get

zina young sometimes there are a few

others but but there are quite a few

more stories of women

um but we do have to do the best with

what we have and we have to again be

intentional about

making sure that we include those

stories i would like to

push back on the idea that there's not

as many women as we think that there are

because i think we often um

only read certain sections of the new

testament and only read certain sections

of the book of mormon i'll

admit there's five women in the book of

mormon that are named i think um

but in the in the bible i would like to

push back on that because

i think there's 93 women mentioned in

the bible

those are 93 different stories that we

could be telling that we could

be sharing but we don't share them

because honestly i don't think

latter-day saints read

the old testament nearly as much as

other denominations of christianity do

and if we were to read the old testament

i think we'd be very surprised

by miriam i think we'd be very surprised

by other women

you know in the in the old testament

that have these amazing stories that we

could be telling so

i do agree that there's you know

historical and cultural context

for what's included but i do also think

that we might have a

misunderstanding of how many women are

mentioned sometimes

i'm not denying that there's far more

men than there are women

in the scriptures um but i do think that

there's there's a lot more stories of

women than we are we care to

talk about on the daily and i think that

that's one of the central problems

is not not reading the old testament not

knowing the stories of women and just

not

paying attention to the way that luke

you know the gospel author luke

or whoever wrote luke um brings women to

the forefront

okay so do we need more of a focus of

that

in church curriculum and young women's

lessons

and you know we we have this idea which

i think is a proper idea

of we want to make sure we're listening

to and

adhering to the prophets right into to

those that wrote the books in the

scriptures and

obviously very important but do we need

focus on the stories of of

of women in the scriptures yes

um i believe we do need more focus on it

i think that that can be done

in a very faithful way i think it can be

done to support the teachings

of our prophets i mean we have examples

contemporary women of women in church

history of women in scripture

who are following the prophets who are

keeping the commandments of god who are

leading and serving so it doesn't

necessarily mean

you know that if we want to include more

women that we have to step away or that

we have to

minimize the teachings of the prophets

in the scriptures

in contemporary times we have examples

of women who are doing those things that

we can use to support

our lessons um i really like

um i i think in church curriculum

absolutely we can do a better job i

think church

curriculum is becoming much much better

on the saints books

are um include like 40

39 i think of the names mentioned are

women

which is a huge um improvement upon past

church curriculum

um i think also though it's up to

individual members

um there are a couple of book series

that i really liked i have two i have

two little girls

and there's a book series called

women who um let's see i think it's

women who follow god or women who

who believe god something like that um

and there's one

about old testament new testaments um

uh and there's one about church history

and the book of mormon so

um we can bring these wonderful books

and stories into our

into our lessons into our homes to try

to encourage

our daughters to know that that god

speaks to them too

and that they're important in the gospel

story as well

i think i think the church curriculum is

making a lot of positive changes

i'm a sunday school teacher i thumb

through the the

come follow me volume pretty frequently

and there are a lot of women mentioned

that aren't even mentioned

in the actual text of the doctor new

covenants there are some references

that explicitly mention women too so i

do think we're seeing church curriculum

improve in a very positive direction i

love come follow me i think it's

fantastic and i think the way that the

church is handling that is really well

really well done i would say that i

think the onus is more on individual

members than it is

on the church curriculum because when i

look at general conference talks

i see our prophets and apostles

reference stories of faithful women

all the time i i'd be curious to know if

they reference more stories of beautiful

women than faithful men because that's

kind of been my experience

in terms of what i've heard maybe that's

because i'm a woman so that's what i

resonate with more

but i see them talk about their wives

all the time

or some faithful woman who is a visiting

teacher

i'm thinking of um elder eyring's

talk try try try where he talks about

how sister eyring is as close to

perfection

as someone could get and talks about her

faithful example

so i do think what we need to do is not

necessarily

you know create mass institutional

change but what we need to do

is to recognize the stories that we do

have

to bring those to the forefront and to

be active as members

in you know sharing those stories

sharing the stories of women just like

we should share the stories of men

okay uh you you brought up um

just to kind of cap this this this topic

off you you

you brought i i don't i don't i don't

want to say her name wrong here

is it in new year melissa in a way

melissa anyway

listen anyway thank you yeah so she had

given a talk at fair mormon and she had

talked about

a quiz or a challenge that she gave i've

just named five women

in i think it was in the scriptures five

women in the scriptures in church

history

in church history okay five women in

church history and most people couldn't

do it

right that was in her family and and

more broadly

and they couldn't do it i think it gives

you a little bit of a

thermometer right on on you know because

i as soon as i saw that

in your article i started thinking okay

well how many can i name

and um you know i can name more than

five but not enough probably

i probably can't name enough but i you

know i really delve into the scriptures

a lot so i can

i can pull a lot of those 93 names in

the in the bible or

whatever you would sit down so i

it'd be nice to see if there was i i

know maybe not institutional

massive institutional change but you

know something where there's

uh a little bit of a kick to

making some stories that's it's all

stories right we know the story of nephi

we know the story of

who lemon and layman and lemuel are it'd

be nice to have a little bit more

of those stories that can be repeated

and

we we can reference more often is it

okay if i make a comment about that

please i think something that

has been helpful for me is remembering

that

we need more women who are willing to

compile those stories

who are willing to write about these

stories to translate them

to you know put them in a form for

younger girls

i think that that's one of the central

problems

because we gravitate towards who we are

and what we like

when we study different things um so for

me personally

at first when i was doing greek and

latin and hebrew

i had this idea in my head i was like

i'm not going to be that person

who writes about women in the priesthood

i don't want to be that woman who writes

about women in the priesthood

because i felt like every woman who who

does scholarship writes about women in

the priesthood

but then it kind of dawned on me where i

had this really spiritual experience

where god was like

hannah if not you then who and i think

that that's

a question that i that everyone could

ask themselves like if not you then who

when we're taking personal

responsibility for the stories that we

want told

by giving different mediums to telling

them by

creating artwork by sharing them with

the people in our talks by taking

that own responsibility to create the

change that we wish to see in the world

not to sound too

cheesy yeah i think that

um you know it can be very it can become

very easy to fall into the trap of

telling the same stories over and over

again especially in our church where we

have

so many people serving um you know

our sunday school teachers our young

women's leaders

our young men's leaders everybody we're

all volunteers we're all busy

we have careers and children and

all this other sorts of things that we

have to take care of and so when we're

prepping our lessons it becomes very

easy to kind of go back to the same like

okay this lesson is on this topic

this is the story that i know i'm just

gonna retell the story we're going to

have the

same discussion points we're going to

talk about the same examples

that's a very easy trap to fall into um

and i don't blame people for falling

into that trap because

we do do so much within our church we

serve

so much um the the lord expects a lot

from us

and so it is easy to fall into those

traps but i think that we can

um break out of that um i just wanted to

mention that

the series that i talked about earlier

it's called girl girls who choose god um

and it's by uh macarthur krishna

and um bethany spalding and they also

wrote a book called

um a girl's guide to heavenly mother

and it's a book it's a beautiful book um

for

for children and and adults alike that

has

um a lot of beautiful artwork depicting

heavenly father and heavenly mother

talking about

feminine divine using um scriptural

resources

using quotes um from general conference

not sort of doing a lot of speculation

or um uh just uh

theology according to my own personal

beliefs but

um really relying on the teachings of of

our prophets to talk about how you know

women are divine how we are um uh we are

modeled after

our our mother in heaven and how we have

access to our heavenly parents in the

same way that men do

appreciate that um

hannah you brought up women in the

priesthood

if you were if you were to put up a a

radar

right out there right now and and you

were bringing in all the radio signals

of the narrative of

of women in the priesthood where are we

today and

where should we be so i would say

culturally we're at this point where

there's this huge divide

i'd say on one side you have people who

are saying oh

women should be ordained to the same

priesthood that men have

and that's what we need for equality

then on the other

side and this is i'm talking about

extremes right you have

this poll that will say women have no

connection to the priesthood whatsoever

um and i think that this this cultural

disparity

both sides are wrong in my opinion and

i'm not a prophet

but i'll stick with the words of the

prophet but you're right

i think i think we need to reframe the

way that we talk about women in the

priesthood very significantly i look to

valerie hudson for this

in a lot of different ways she talks

about the priesthood and granted

we don't know that much about the

priesthood but i will say

there are a couple things that we do

know we can pay attention to the way

that women function in the temple

if that's not priesthood power then i

don't know what is priesthood power

um women have the opportunity to

basically give ordinances to other women

and it's done through the keys of the

temple president like you don't receive

keys so that's a key distinction um

but women do have great opportunities to

act with priesthood power and i think we

also just

don't have an expansive enough

definition of priesthood power and i

would love to see that

be more fleshed out in my in my view

priesthood power is any

power that comes from god and that's

taken from president oaks president oaks

has some fantastic talks about this

so if any power that comes from god is

in fact priesthood power or priesthood

power whatever you want to call it

then the opportunity to pray for others

in the name of christ and see miracles

work in their lives

that's priesthood power the opportunity

to pray for the healing

of someone and receive direction for

what you can do

that's priesthood power the opportunity

to minister right ministering

is something that i think we need to

talk more about in connection to women

in the priesthood

ministering is about helping someone

receive their next temple ordinance

if we look back to the old testament we

see that the words that we translate as

minister

are always temple related words they're

words that are cognate with words like

deacon

um so if we look at these words and we

remember how um i think it was bishop

waddell said ministering is being more

than a friend

um and talks about how ministering is

helping someone progress

towards christ we believe that

progression towards christ

is defined and shaped by covenants which

is defined and changed by ordinances

so the way that a woman ministers to

someone else

and helps them to receive their next

ordinance whether that be sacrament on

sunday whether that be baptism

or sealing even or endowment that is

a woman acting with the power of god to

help someone come

closer to christ so i would say we need

to kind of reject both poles we need to

reject both ideas

i'd say if women are going to have some

sort of ordination which i don't

personally believe that women are going

to have an ordination

that it would be to a priesthood i think

that's

pretty fair to say given temple language

that women will be priestesses i don't

think that's very controversial

um so i think we need to kind of reject

both polls in that sense but we also

need to be a lot more careful with what

we call priesthood power

what we consider to be the power of god

and look really back to the new

testament

and remember that christ said when you

do miracles in my name you're using my

power that's priesthood power

sure amanda where is your radar on that

um oh well i just would probably back up

exactly what hannah's saying i think

that

um we need to be cautious to um

you know one of the kind of cliches that

you'll hear is

um oh i i don't need the priesthood i've

got enough to do right that's what women

will say

um and and those are faithful women

right who are who are saying you know

i'm happy in my roles and

responsibilities

um and uh and that that is a good thing

to say you know what

god has called me to do certain things

and i'm going to be happy and i'm going

to do the best within my spirit but that

doesn't mean that that doesn't include

priesthood

your priesthood power is part of that

and i've just been really grateful

um for president nelson um in his short

tenure as

prophet for how much that he's really

talked about

the access that women do have in the

priesthood and i think that it's going

to take a while for that to kind of seep

down to the cultural level that's the

way that it always works where

we'll hear our leaders talking about

something but it'll kind of take

years before that's what the general

membership is doing so

like hannah says i think those those

polls exist but i think that they

might hopefully soften as more people

start to talk about the way that women

have priests uh priesthood power and how

they do exercise it

so how those are great points

that you've brought up what what would

you say to a young woman

who is a teenager who hears all these

things she's online

she she says well wait a minute what

about equality

what about you know why can't we have

the priesthood that seems oppressive or

whatever else or

or she's on the other end of the

spectrum and she's saying

um you know that we should have nothing

to do with the priesthood what

how would you help navigate her either

of you starting

you know on on that topic i've actually

had a few women email me this before

i get a lot of emails from people who

listen to the podcast

um who find out my age and they're like

what i want to talk to you

because they're younger women so they

have someone to connect with you know

um i i always start off by saying we're

all disciples of jesus christ

we're all called to to bring people

to the gospel we're all called to act in

his name to do miraculous things

and those miraculous things extend both

beyond motherhood and beyond fatherhood

in a sense

because we do need to have our first

priority to to be mothers and to be

wives

i totally agree with that um but i also

think that part of that

and adjacent to that i guess is being a

disciple of christ where

we act in his name where we minister to

others

where we show others god's love for them

so i would say to someone who struggles

with i guess the second part of what you

mentioned was saying oh like

you know priesthood isn't for me that

i agree that we don't need to be

ordained to the priesthood i totally

agree with you there

but i do think that we need to be very

careful

when we say that we have only a small

role in the work of god i think we have

a bigger role in the work of god

than we then we remember if we look

again back to the scriptural examples

these women were out there knitting for

everyone

they were out there you know sharing all

that they had

giving to the poor they were out there

trying to pioneer the vote

for for different for women um

so i'd say that the role of women is a

lot more expansive

than the cultural 1950s housewife

and i'm not saying that being a

stay-at-home mom is a bad thing i think

it's a good thing

but i but what i am saying is that we

are called

to bring people to christ nevertheless

um and to someone who's on the opposite

end that that's really the other end

that people talk to me about the most is

women who feel like it's oppressive

women who feel

like they're considered unequal and what

i typically have to say to them

is you know in in a system

where you only have a male deity you

only have

god the father then that would make

sense to me

that would make perfect sense to me that

that would feel oppressive but we have a

system where we have

both heavenly father and heavenly mother

and

for me seeing how heavenly mother is

connected to motherhood

seeing and remembering the words of

elder holland when he talked about how

women quite literally experienced the

atonement in

a lot of ways on a far smaller scale

with bearing

with other words like that that relate

to the words of motherhood

that that is an extension of both

priesthood power but also

an extension of heavenly mother so in

that sense

instead of wanting to be equal

because i want to define myself as equal

according to a man

that to me seems oppressive i don't want

to be equal because i am like a man

i don't think i need to do what a man

does in order for me to have value in it

that kind of becomes the idea though

doesn't it it does and it's inherently

patriarchal

like if we're talking about the you know

there's there's like

i mean the responses were patriarchal

even so yeah i think so

i i think i think that that's actually

patriarchal to think that you need to be

like a man to have value and to be equal

um and patriarchal in a negative sense

right like i'm not talking about

patriarchal in the sense that

a man is a prophet i think that's a very

different sense and i would like to call

that like

you know the order of the family

something like that um

but what i always say is that

i would rather define myself by

other faithful women that have gone

before me by what i have seen prophets

and apostles to find heavenly mother as

what i have experienced from faithful

women keeping their covenants

than define myself by by men because

that to me is a different form of

oppression

if i'm expected to do everything that a

man does

in order for me to be equal well what if

i don't want to do that and most of the

time honestly

there's some things that i don't want to

do there i i find more beauty in the

divine feminine than i do in the divine

masculine

um and i think that we have those two

things

not because we're in an oppressive

system but because

while exaggerated generals do have some

sort of

basis and reality but i do think we got

to be careful when we say that i don't

mean

in a very extreme sense i just mean that

there are certain

biological things that make men and

women different

and that i think that these are

reflected in divine parents

um so we tend to look at

so we have a doctrine of gender

complementarianism

we say that men and women are different

they work together

neither is more important than the other

now historically that idea of

complementarianism

um whether outside or inside the church

has been used in some cases on

individual levels and even you know it

like in within

countries governments to oppress women

to limit their access to things like

education careers that sort of thing and

so i think complementarianism especially

to people in our like younger generation

we we kind of like balk at that that's

you know that means that women don't

have

access um to certain opportunities

um but i think that when we look at like

a higher order complementarianism that's

not always going to be

the case just because the world doesn't

do it right hasn't ever done it right

doesn't mean that it can't be done well

and it can't be done right

i look at some of the things within the

institutional structure of the church

that are typically led by women i think

of something like lds charities that's

led by

sharon eubank um all these charities

like i can't imagine something

um i can't imagine women being

responsible for something

quite so extraordinary like the the fact

that women you know on the church level

and also on an individual level we are

often called

to to serve we are called to go out and

find the needy

to figure out what the needs are within

our words within our stakes and fulfill

those roles

um i don't think that um i think that

part of the problem

is that we tend to sort of downplay

those roles

um you know men serve as like ward

financial clerk or whatever that's not a

more important job

um the the jobs that women are doing are

important and i think that

um also with respects to motherhood um

this broader society at whole does

minimize

that and so it is easy to fall into the

trap of thinking you know

women are just mommies as if being just

a mommy is just like

no big deal and i can tell you for a

fact that it is an extraordinarily

challenging task

to be a mother to physically bear

children but also to care for them

and we know that you know within the

family proclamation to the world within

you know when we um switch to home

centered church supported education we

know that the prophet

asked mothers women to be responsible

for the education of the gospel within

the homes

those are hugely important tasks and so

we have to be careful also to not

minimize the roles that women

do traditionally play that doesn't mean

that because women

are mothers that they shouldn't you know

they can't go get

education that they can't have careers

um the women that we talked about in

church

history in our article you know these

are women who served as midwives who

were

delivering babies who were undoing all

kinds of

uh responsibilities career roles etc and

so that doesn't

limit our our abilities there it just

means that we can't minimize the role

that women do play

because our culture as a whole minimizes

those roles

it seems to me that all of these

conversations and even all these topics

that we're going over right now

come down to motherhood and whether it's

the the sprouting and development of

feminism

whether whether it's uh women not being

mentioned as much in the

in the uh in the scriptures whether it's

a a patriarchal history

of mankind i think to me

that linchpin in the middle there is is

all about motherhood because

we're biologically different we uh

um and and if there are no mothers

there's no

human kind right there that just doesn't

exist and and so

the as you said amanda i mean the the

you know lowering the profile of

a mother and what she does in our

society

is is is easy to do because it's not

outward facing

right it's not hey i've got this title

i've got this position

um in a public sphere look who i am and

look what i've accomplished and

you know all great things wonderful

things but

you know motherhood is internal right

it's it's

this these are the children that i'm

responsible for i brought them into the

world

and i teach them and i nurture them and

i'm trying to create

the most important possible thing you

can create which is a human being

and and and who they become but it seems

like all these things kind of

come out of that right it's it's it's

motherhood to me seems to be the the

central the central thing there i don't

know what you two think of it and

and and of course how does heavenly

mother the idea of a heavenly mother

play into that you've both brought that

up um

how divine is motherhood and and and why

is there s

why does there seem to be such an attack

on that

my favorite scripture um at least right

now this changes every day as you both

probably

get is just part of one verse and they

were taught by their mothers

and that to me is showing

how divine the feminine is that

these men these sons of theirs had such

great faith

they didn't doubt god because they were

taught by their mothers

and brigham young said if i had the

choice to educate

um if i had the choice between educating

a man or a woman

he would pick the woman because when you

educate a woman you educate a generation

the reason that i think motherhood is

under attack

is for these reasons it's for it's for

not having a strong culture of faith

i do think that research that research

suggests

that people aren't believing in god

substantially less nowadays which

i think is true especially given the

coven 19 pandemic during

during disasters we we typically see

religion

religiosity rise so i think that's true

but i think what else is true too is

that people

are going to church less and people are

redefining

what it means to believe in god i think

we're separating motherhood

out from the divine and we're separating

motherhood out from an acceptable choice

in culture

because we are not seeing how

women directly shape the future of

children in a lot of ways

i think we've kind of drifted away from

that idea

so for me i see the problem with the way

that culture treats motherhood

is devaluing it as not real work by

equating it

to things that it's just not i think

that motherhood is as much of a career

plus more as a nine to five job because

you're doing it all the time and you're

not getting paid it's a labor of love

you're doing it out of a sincere love

for your children

um i don't have children so i can't

really speak too much to that

but the women that i see who are

excellent mothers including my own

mother

are the women who spend every single

second worrying about their children my

mom

bless her heart i love her so much

worries about me every five seconds

and i live across the country so that

would be terrifying um

as a mother but just seeing how much of

her life

is devoted to me and my brother is

something that's really touching to me

and that speaks to the divine feminine

so regarding your question about

heavenly mother like how do i connect

the dots essentially

i think heavenly mother is a mother in

the same sense that

we're mothers i just think it's as

simple as that we believe that

our heavenly parents are are our parents

we believe that we're divine we believe

that we're

sons and daughters of a living god and

for me god is heavenly father and

heavenly mother in a lot of senses

because they they created us together

and we believe that we will have the

opportunity

and the next life to act in those same

roles so

when i think about the divine role of

motherhood which extends beyond

just having kids too because there are

some women who don't have an opportunity

to get married or who can't have kids

and they're still mothers mothering is a

very expansive where there's

some great talks on this as well but the

way that i see it is

having a divine care and concern for

those within your

sphere and if you're if you're a mother

with children

that means you have a divine caring

concern for your own children

if you're a mother without children that

means those around you are the ones that

you have that same divine caring concern

for

when you act charitably towards them and

i think amanda's example

of being in charge of lds charities is a

great one because women

are often tasked with helping the poor

helping the needy

clothing the naked feeding the hungry

those sort of tasks which are

christ-like

divine tasks that christ says himself

are the ones

that qualify someone for heaven more so

than pretty much anything else

that's to me what being a mother is is

being a disciple of christ

working in your sphere with care and

concern for those around you

and whether you look at uh that empathy

you know as a divine virtue or

as a stereotype it's still true

right women have more empathy generally

speaking

than men do it's just a truth um

amanda you're you're a mother you've got

a couple kids

um you know what where do you see

motherhood

as a role and and and

within the church versus with out of the

church maybe

yeah so i think that um

so i have like a very egalitarian

marriage with my husband he

um we do a lot of things together we

make decisions together

um he does you know he's involved in

housework he's involved in helping with

the children

so i i don't want to sort of make it

seem

like in order to um you know be

that motherhood means you know i am

exclusively

at home all the time doing all the

dishes and all the baby diapers and

everything

um like hannah said motherhood is that

that care and concern the responsibility

for

gospel education in the home um

and and that may look like being a

stay-at-home mom

and doing the majority of the domestic

work which you mentioned

melissa in a way she has a wonderful

book called crossings it's a memoir

and she talks about um you know she's a

professor she has a phd

and she talks about a realization that

she had that that domestic work is holy

that

when she went through a time in her life

when she was primarily a stay-at-home

mom

that she realized that you know domestic

work was holy what she was doing was

holy

and i believe that so if that's what

we're doing then then that is a

wonderful aspect in an important aspect

of motherhood if we have careers if

we're

you know in school um whatever that

whatever

we decide within our own individual

families is the best set up that

with the consultation of our heavenly

father that's wonderful

so motherhood isn't limiting but i i do

believe that

motherhood is the most important role i

have

um in this life um it's an aspect of

being a disciple of jesus christ

i guess that's my most important role

but being a mother is one aspect of that

and an important aspect of that um it's

it's being

taking care of my children raising my

children to be disciples of jesus christ

is more important um you know i i do

i am in a graduate program i i do have a

job i do

um have a lot of personal interests but

i do think that motherhood is the most

important

and i also you know it's kind of a

controversial thing to say but i don't

think that motherhood and fatherhood

are kind of the same i think that

fathers are just as important as mothers

but i think that they

aren't the same sort of role and um i

i think that um i i don't necessarily

have a problem with saying you know

men have priesthood ordinance men are

ordained to the priesthood and women

have motherhood um

i i'm not uncomfortable with that

because in my experience

um motherhood is a very expansive

responsibility

aren't we saying if we devalue

motherhood aren't we devaluing kids

we're devaluing women kids and men we

develop

when we do that it's just you know it's

not it becomes one of those things

you know publicly that is just i i don't

know i mean when you really delve into

you really talk about the importance of

it i i just

you devalue everybody you know it's it's

how important are the kids how you know

what is there anything more important

than that

i i don't know um

eve what role

do you see eve playing in our doctrine

and and in lds culture

eve is so cool i love eve so

if we think about the story of adam and

eve right

one of my favorite aspects of that story

is how eve has this natural care and

concern for children

we see that she wants she knows that she

needs to have kids

and she knows that that's going to to

take having some knowledge

um so she does transgress and i i do

think that

sometimes we can go a little bit too far

and not calling that a transgression um

i think adam and eve did actually

transgress um and if we don't consider

it a transgression then you can kind of

get into this idea that personal

authority

can trump god's law which i i'm not down

with

um but we see that she has this natural

care and concern for

others and that she's able to make

covenants

with adam um in an equal way

to god and that she is able to act in a

holy spirit and when we

think about her influence too as being

the first

mother we see that she has a voice in

scripture we see that she

is able to raise her her children um

some successfully some not as

successfully

um but that kind of provides you know a

space for empathy

for other women who have had children

who lose their faith who have had

children who thrive in the faith there's

she she's an expansive representation of

women in that sense

where she's had a lot of different

experiences that we can read about in

scripture and that we know through

modern revelation

that sort of posit her as this

as this figure as this person as this

woman who we can look up to in a lot of

senses who

was able to know what to do

and was able to then become holy for

doing it

it's really easy to look at our um our

doctrine and also our institutional

church setup

and and think that we um

are a church that is not empowering to

women but i think

as we er especially if you're somewhat

familiar with

other christian with christian doctrine

um within other church

sects you see that even just starting

with the story of

eve the way that we interpret it

compared to the way that other christian

denominations view that story that we do

have a gospel that is very empowering to

you

um i remember the first time that i

encountered a christian who

i didn't understand because i i grew up

you know with other latter-day saints

mostly

i didn't understand that you know there

are some there are some christians who

believe that it

if it weren't for eve that we'd just all

be living in eden

we'd all you know we all wouldn't

experience these bad things but

unfortunately he

made that bad choice and now we're all

damned

and that the idea that that the

understanding that

eve made this choice in order for us all

to progress is extremely empowering and

important

and i think it's important to not lose

sight of how important that story is

i think uh you know you brought up in

your article about witnessing you know

several different women one being the

mary

mary the mother of god one being mary

magdalene

um i to me i see the same thing there

that i see with even and that is

that women play the role

in in scripture of each step

in the plan of salvation they're the

icon

right so so whether it's it's birth

obviously right women are the icon of

birth

women are also the icon event of death

because you've got you know you've got

mary there obviously with her

her infant son jesus and then she's also

there at the cross

and then on the next step you've got

resurrection and who's there

it's mary magdalene right that's that's

there at that next step

so every step of the way they are the

witnesses

of those that are passing through right

to each step

and and that's how i see e that's why

she's there of course she's the first

one a particular fruit

because she's she's the one that's going

to bring both birth

and death into existence

right and so she would be responsible

for that as far as your transgression

goes just just

a quick little note on that on on on eve

i see it as

if if you look i think that the tree of

knowledge of good and evil if we look at

this as

a vision right you know moses was up on

sinai he had a vision while he was up

there and when he wrote this and then

abraham was looking through the urum and

thumb when he wrote the creation story

and um of course if we look at

further information that we get in the

temple

we can see that we can bring in a lot of

metaphor into this not that it's not

true or anything like that i'm not

saying that but if we look at this as a

vision we can see that these are symbols

just like with lehi's dream the tree of

life is a symbol of something

uh the great and spacious building is a

symbol of something but there's real

people in it

right and and so

if you look at the tree of knowledge of

good and evil as the law

as as the commandments

then you obviously understand that once

you partake of having that knowledge of

good and evil because you know the law

now you are now going to bring in a fall

because you've you've got people aren't

going to be able to be perfect they're

not going to be able they're going to

transgress then

at that point i do think though as you

were saying i do think she was

beguiled and and because she's um

she's told that she will be like the

gods which is true

but that she shall not surely die that's

the lie it's the truth and the lie she

shall not surely die and of course

she dies spiritually and the separation

from god and of course she's going to be

mortal and

and die at that point but i love the

story of eve

and adam and eve and i wish we used it

even more than we do

because i think it's such a core truth

um to follow and and and

being told you are adam and eve and if

we can more

put ourselves in their shoes as if hey

that's not just the story of

the first couple that's the story of us

we all partake of the fruit we all come

into mortality

we all participate to one degree or

another through the light of christ and

in the gospel with the law of god

and with eve you know she's the mother

all living you know so every woman is

being eve she every woman is the mother

of all living

that seems like a pretty important role

to me you know

that we have right right at the core

there anyway that's that's my two cents

i'll get off my soapbox there

amanda um feminism

very broad topic a lot of people have

different ideas of what this is what it

is and is this

how does this affect positively or

negatively how does it how does this

affect

young women or women generally in in the

church today

i mean i i think that femi like you said

feminism is so broad they're

you know in the academic study of

feminism there's so many branches of

feminism and waves of feminism

and um i kind of have although

you know if our basic definition of

feminism is advocating for women then

that is absolutely something that's a

core part of my identity um i think that

is really important

um for our young women and our young men

as we teach them to help them understand

that their

their identity their primary identity

should be

disciples of christ if we are disciples

of christ

of course we are going to want to

empower women

if we are disciples of christ of course

we are going to want to

um look for ways that we can reduce

inequality in the world that we can

support women

that we can support motherhood that we

can support

women getting access to education that

we can support

all of these different things they can

being a disciple of christ can be really

motivating in

the cause of progressing women helping

women in areas of the world where women

have really

limited access to education and

health access and that sort of thing um

in terms of feminism you know i i think

that there are

a lot of depending on what what feminism

you're talking about there are a lot of

overlaps with you know things that i

think women who are disciples of christ

would want for the world but i think

that if we um take our orientation away

from

you know uh away from

different kind of ideologies politics

that sort of thing and really try to

focus on

my identity as a disciple of christ what

can i do to make the world

better as a disciple of christ um i

think that that's going to guide us

better in terms of what we can

individually do

and not let us get carried away in um

kind of more worldly pursuits so

um i think that generally i've usually

identified myself as a feminist but i

think that um

that's become sort of less important to

i don't believe that there's anything

wrong with identifying as a feminist at

all but

um i do think that as i raise my

daughters i want to raise them very

empowered

to understand that they are disciples of

christ that they can do anything

um that they are important in in the

story of god

um in the the story of the world um

but uh they they can access their most

divine potential as they work as

disciples of jesus christ

it's interesting i just did a commentary

on um

you guys know who jordan peterson is

okay do you know who jonathan pageau is

oh okay okay so they they just had a

conversation like a week or two ago and

so i did a commentary on that and

and jonathan pagel brought up something

really interesting where where he was

talking about basically like like

peterson goes over a lot of values

hierarchy right

and um but he said look i mean

you can worship a good cause

right so he he brings up the cause of

the poor

you know you can worship a good a good

cause and run into

huge problems if that's if that's what

you're worshiping if that's at the top

of your your hierarchy

right um and he gives the example of

uh the woman that uh this is actually i

think a different story than what you

brought up hannah but but

in the new testament of the woman that

anoints christ or has the oil and

judas says no that's really expensive

oil

we we should sell that and and get some

money

and of course he was going to steal it

anyway he was stealing from the purse

constantly but

he he talks about how look this is this

is there there's

jesus says look you always have the poor

with you

i think he's in bethany at the time and

this is a probably a very poor village

maybe even

refugees and others that are there sick

etc

and and he's he says look i mean

you always have the poor here you only

have me here for a while and i think

that it's splitting that a little bit we

can we can

we can go for good when there's better

and

and so that that sounds a little bit

like what you're saying a man i mean a

cause for women absolutely i've got a

wife and two daughters

i want to advocate for them all day long

but

as you said i think i think the highest

cause there is

not um for womanhood or manhood or the

poor

or anything else that is a good cause

but the highest cause is christ

and that should be at the top they just

thought about that

as you brought that up so hannah

feminism

feminism yes how does it how does it

play today

with the church what does it cause

problems does it cause

uh unity um where are we at

that's a good question feminism is one

of those subjects that is very hard for

me to talk about

but i'll try my best so i sometimes

tongue-in-cheek say i'm not a feminist

because i'm feminine

and what i mean by that is that i do

think that feminism

has drifted away from supporting women

to become

the best women that they can be to

becoming women need to be like men in

order to be

great in order to be worthwhile in order

to be respected

i take a lot of issues with any sort of

feminism that

you know degrades women for being stay

stay-at-home moms and i know a lot of

committed feminists who will say no

we're totally down with that that's not

what we're going for

but i also know some other committed

feminists who will say that that's

internalized

sexism that you are just upon in the

patriarchal system and i completely

reject that idea

um as for feminism within the church

that is a pretty interesting

subject for a lot of reasons i think a

lot of younger women especially women my

age

um have bought into some cultural

assumptions

about motherhood not being as important

as having a job

and i think that that's been something

that has

negatively impacted our culture and i

also think that same assumption

comes from this idea that being a

disciple of christ is not

as important as a job i think that we're

seeing them

develop simultaneously i don't think

it's you know suddenly you have people

who are like oh i just want to

have a job and be a disciple of christ

because quite frankly i'm getting

trained

to have an academic job that's what i

that's what i'm going for

so i i don't really have much against

women having careers it tells me in my

future it will bless me to have a career

i'm gonna do that um but what i do take

issue with

is devaluing jesus christ as the center

of our lives which i think

includes um motherhood and i think we've

just kind of seen

this definition of feminism get changed

over time to mean something that

i i'm not convinced that i could say

that i support a lot of feminists will

also support the pro-choice movement

i'm not pro-choice i'm very pro-life um

and for me i think we're just seeing

feminism

become something that is not about

supporting women

but it's about making women more like

men so in that sense i would say that

feminism does deeply impact members of

the church in a negative way

feminism in that sense where a lot of

men and women have bought into these

cultural assumptions and they treat

women who are doing good work to be

stay-at-home moms who

are being excellent wives um

who are not having a career as less

equal on the flip side though

i do think that this idea of gender

essentialism is often taken too far

um in the other direction where then

you'll see actual sexism

and i'm defining actual sexism as you

know

being hateful to women for the sake of

being hateful to women

because of women like things i think

you're seeing on the flip side

people who will say that like if you're

not a stay-at-home mom

you're not as worthy you're not as good

and i think that that's also

not the rhetoric that's currently coming

out of the church um

and i think we have to be pretty

cognizant about that

and i think we have to be pretty careful

about judging people for

things like that and not being sexist in

that respect

so i'd say that feminism has kind of

created these two polls um on the one

hand women need to be

like men in order to be successful on

the other hand

um men and women are completely

different they cannot do anything that

is the same therefore women should stay

at home and never see the light of day

i think both are wrong and that we need

kind of reject this radical feminism but

also reject

radical gender essentialism to the point

where it's no longer

the gender the gender essentialism that

allows for being a disciple of christ

okay so recently there was uh

a manifesto put out called radical

orthodoxy

and um i've interviewed the guys that

have written it um

and talked to several people that have

signed on with it um and basically just

kind of is saying look stay away from

the extremes

right stay away from the two extremes

and and

look for truth but one of the what they

put up is their pillars which is kind of

interesting

i would not have thought of this but

what they put up is their pillars are

the proclamations right the living

christ and

and uh the proclamation on the family

proclamation on the family is getting

some heat

right now from a number of members um

where should a woman's point of view be

on this where we are seeing i mean we've

talked a lot about this already as far

as like gender roles and

motherhood and different things like

that but we're

where where should the

proclamation on the family be in terms

of ideals

and um a goal for

women to follow there's nothing

in the family proclamation that says

that a woman cannot get an education

there's nothing in the family

proclamation that says a woman

should never have a career there's

nothing in the family proclamation that

says

men and women are not equal there's

nothing in the family proclamation

that devalues men and women what it does

say in the family proclamation is that

women are primarily responsible for the

nurturing of children

in other words women are primarily

responsible to be mothers

i think part of the heat on the family

proclamation comes from

taking cultural assumptions

mingled with prophetic quotes to

impute this upon the family proclamation

and i think that that's

that's the issue i i won't deny that

there are prophetic quotes about how

being a stay-at-home mom is important

those do exist but i do think we've also

seen prophetic

quotes that have said circumstances

differ and other things like that so

when we when we look at the whole

i guess smorgasbord of prophetic quotes

on this matter

there's a there's some differing

perspectives and there's some differing

ideas there that

when harmonized will bring us to this

idea that we should

primarily value being mothers and what

shape

the lord wants that to take for us i

think

when we talk about the family

proclamation we need to

both not reject it because when people

say oh the family proclamation is not

canonical that's technically true the

family proclamation is not canonical

the family proclamation also comes from

canonical sources though in the sense

that you can very

clearly see that you know genesis is

evoked um paul's evoked other other

scriptural authors are evoked

so i i do think we have to be a bit

careful about discounting it

um i don't think we should discount it

at all it's it's signed well not signed

but it's it's endorsed by the quorum of

the twelve apostles in the first

presidency

um and i think that that sort of

raises the standard for us for the way

that we should consider it

um so i i don't advocate for ignoring it

we have to accept it i think to

to be as to to be a believing member

there there's stuff in there that does

come from the kid and coming from the

kid it means it's finding all the saints

on the flip side though i also don't

think we need to impute

cultural assumptions into it i i don't

think we need to weaponize prophetic

quotes of our var choosing that might

conflict with other prophetic

quotes of someone else's choosing in

order to dictate what men and women

should do with their lives

i think that there are guidelines in

there that are very clear

that we can read that we can understand

with scripture

modern revelation and with personal

revelation in order to determine how we

can best

primarily feel the role of nurturing

children and being mothers

amanda where does the family

proclamation fit in

um so i think one of the i think that

it's really easy to

uh like you said the family proclamation

has a lot of heat right now i think

particularly

um because of women's roles issues and

also because of lgbt issues

and it's easy to miss out in um the ways

that

uh the family proclamation is really

like radically positive when you look at

the state of the family

in the world that first of all um

in the second paragraph of the family

proclamation it says

all human beings male and female are

created in the image of god

each is a beloved spirit son or daughter

of heavenly parents

so we are all sons and daughters of

heavenly parents this was like before

that

you know now you listen to general

conference and people talk about

heavenly parents heavenly parents over

and over again

back in the 90s that wasn't so much this

was establishing

our first identity is we are children of

heavenly parents and that's such an

important thing for us to know and that

such a

amazing profoundly radical doctrine that

we have

um husbands and wives have equal

responsibility to their families they

have responsibility to each other

and to love and care for each other and

for their children um

i look at the family proclamation as

something that encourages

healthy and happy family relationships

centered around

um jesus christ and i just

i i think like hannah said

we've read so much into it you know when

we see that women

are primarily responsible for the

nurturing of children then that means

that women are somehow limited in

other capacities you know if we say that

men are are primarily responsible

um uh for for other things that that's

that's not limiting their capacity to um

to sort of be empowered and so

i think that um yeah we need to not

read so much culturally into this

document that

simply isn't there it isn't there to

limit us it's there to empower us

and so i find it really really positive

document and i'm really happy that we

have it as part of

um and you know that we have a hanging

in our home that we

we talk about it a lot because i think

that it is the

it does lay out the keys for help eat

healthy and happy family

so what about polygamy

where does polygamy fit in this um i

you know i i i've got female friends

and family members that

i mean this is a huge issue for them

right

it's it's like it's it's it's a big deal

and others who i'm close to that

it's not a big deal to them i mean we

don't live in those times right now

it's not close to us in a sense but

there's always that

that thought this is what i get from

family members that that well what about

in the next life or

you know that's part of our doctrine and

and

um and it's a part of our history

and our heritage as as as latter-day

saints

right what you know i don't know when

you when you were looking at the church

if that was one and i didn't bring that

up before if that was an issue or not

or it's obviously a hot button

and it's what a lot of people don't even

want to talk about men or women

but it's it's an issue

right it's it's an issue that that faces

young women and all women today

and and the thought of this and how do

you

each of you bring that together and and

reconcile

um your feelings toward it polygamy

is definitely very interesting part of

my research i have done research on

polygamy

um and it didn't bother me at first

i did have some level of awareness my my

dad

my dad's not a member my parents are

divorced my dad's not a member

but when i told him i was considered

joining the church

his reaction was wasn't joseph smith

that polygamist

and i hadn't had an idea of that at the

time i didn't really

know what polygamy was um just never

really

never really talked about it um but

i learned what polygamy was didn't

really bother me it didn't really bother

me until i got older um i'd say

started bothering me last year actually

um there was a period of time where

i was pretty shaken by the idea of

pulling me i think it's because i got

older and i

started you know dating more dating for

marriage where i

it became more of a reality for me um

before it was

this kind of distant idea and i didn't

have you know

two married parents in the home as a

child so i didn't really have that same

sort of

emphasis on marriage in my life in in a

direct way um that i think a lot of

people do

for me this is how i reconciled me i

don't want to downplay the negative

aspects of polygamy for some women

i think that that's really unfair to the

women who experience polygamy and who

just didn't like it but i do want to

talk about a few of the positive aspects

of polygamy

and i think that these are important one

if we read the

the actual feelings by women who were in

polygamous relationships

about their polygamous relationships a

lot of them were immensely grateful for

them and that was something that brought

me some cognitive dissonance

because i was sitting here in my my

comfy 21st century apartment

you know looking to marry just one man

and have him not marry anyone else

and there were these women who were

saying that it completely changed their

life it was one of the

the most spiritually refining

experiences that they had and i think

that

there are several reasons for this but

one of them is it gave women more

autonomy than we

think that it did it gave women autonomy

in a direct way because if you're

sharing

the responsibility of child bearing and

sharing the responsibility of child

rearing amongst a group of women as

opposed to one woman

then women have more time and if women

have more time they're able to create

more effective change in other places

and i think that's why we see a lot of

women in early church history who do

absolutely incredible things another

aspect of plug-me that i think

was really positive for a lot of women

was

this idea that

they were able to have marriage laws

change for them so divorce laws were

kind of a tricky subject

um because you know obviously in a

society where

uh virginity not just chastity but

virginity was highly

valued marriage laws were a lot stricter

but with polygamy we see that divorce

laws in utah

became the most progressive out of

pretty much

any other state because of polygamy and

i think that that's a really fascinating

point that this gave women more freedom

and a lot of aspects and that's not to

say that some women didn't like believe

because it's very clear

that someone who were in polygamous

relationships had a horrible time

and i do think we have to be honest

about the fact that women struggled

with polygamous relationships and also

to remember that

most women were not in polygamous

relationships when we're talking about

polygamy i think we

we have this sort of mental picture that

everyone who

was living in utah was a polygamist

that's just not true i think it's

somewhere about like 35 to 40 percent

of people were in polygamous

relationships so

it was something that god clearly you

know

said you need to do this but it wasn't

mandated

for everyone and when we talk about

polygamy

in the next life and polygamy as a

requirement um

brigham young in that same paragraph i

think it's brigham young right

in that same paragraph where he says

that there will be polygamy in heaven

says that you can also just be a

polygamist in your heart

i'm not really sure what it means to be

a politician

that doesn't sound good to me i don't

know i don't know

i don't know what yeah that that means

very good to me

yeah but i i think this is my own

gospel according to hannah

interpretation i think what that's just

saying

i think it's saying that if god gave you

a commandment you would fulfill it but

god isn't necessarily going to command

you to be

polygamist in the next life i think

that's just saying that you would have

to be

willing to do it if god was like hey you

really need to do this

um but that it's not going to be

mandatory for everyone and

i think again gospel according to hannah

i think most people

will be in a monogamous relationship

because as the lord says in jacob right

polygamy

is instituted for a time and it's

instituted

for specific purposes it's not it's not

instituted as god's general law of

marriage

that's been pretty consistent by

prophets and apostles too that

polygamy is an exception to the rule not

the rule so i know that doesn't

always resolve people's concerns about

pogamy but when people

tell me and i amanda's seen me tweet

this out a thousand times when people

tell me that they're concerned with plug

me i'm like okay

don't take my word for it read the

accounts of women who experience plug me

and read all of them don't just read the

ones that you know that are gonna have

negative things to say that are going to

feed your confirmation bias as a woman

i'm struggling with it too

because i i'll be honest i don't really

want to ever have my husband marry

someone else

like well and i don't i don't think that

the plan of god is is a tyrannical plan

exactly i just don't see uh forcing on

that so amanda

you know you've got different points of

view on this for reconciling things for

people that are faithful

as an example uh carolyn pearson a poet

lds

poet she reconciles it by saying it was

just a huge mistake

right it just should have never happened

and it was a huge mistake and

um people try to reconcile these things

in in in different ways

how should somebody look at that how

should a woman look at that in the

church

and and reconcile that with her her

potential her growth

and uh um you know being made in the

image of god

um well so okay first of all i want to

make sure that it's clear that for women

who don't have an issue with polygamy

there's nothing wrong with not having an

issue with

i know plenty of women who are just like

you know

whatever god wants you know i'll i guess

i'll just figure it out

and i i think that whether it bothers it

has

but whether it bothers us it has a lot

to do with our individual temperaments

and experiences

so there's nothing wrong with not being

or nothing like unfeminine

or unfeminist about not being bothered

by polygamy

but for those of us who are polygamy was

something that i always struggled with

um luckily i didn't have a lot of church

history struggles i

grew up in a situation where i knew a

lot of church history

all the icky stuff um you know when i

did live in utah we lived just down the

street from the mass

mountain meadows massacre um location

and so

polygamy really was the only one that

was consistently a challenge for me

i personally do not believe that it was

all a big mistake though i believe that

there were probably plenty of aspects

where it was not

implemented or lived appropriately where

there were husbands who did not treat

their

wives as they should have um when given

the responsibility to live in polygamous

marriages

um i i don't believe that it was a

mistake however

i don't know that you can come to that

belief

wholly through just reading history i

think that

what hannah's saying is key like you

need to read the stories of women

but i also don't think that you can't i

never reconciled it until

i gave it up to god and said i don't

know how much longer i can struggle with

this

and i personally received you know an

answer from god that

you know i don't talk about too much

because i don't think it's a good answer

for everybody i think that everybody's

got to get their own individual answer

um so i i think that's really important

that for some of these

really big issues we need to understand

the history we need to be well versed in

it and then we also need to be willing

to give it up to god and say please help

me with this um and be open to receiving

revelation

whatever that looks like um i

and and when i say that i don't want to

draw down on

revelation that anybody else has or

feels that they have received either i'm

not going to argue about with people

about their

pers perceptions about polygamy but i do

feel like that i've received

a spiritual answer and i think that's

the only was something so hard i think

for some people that may be the only way

to to receive

an answer um about such a difficult

topic

okay it also seems to me that that

polygamy has only been instituted in

times of

of a new era right so where you've had a

new dispensation

it's almost always where we see there's

a new dispensation even with king david

you're talking about a new era

and building up a state you know

different things like that but uh

um difficult topic and i know a lot of

people struggle with that so i

appreciate those words

um my last topic and of course if you

guys have anything you want to bring up

then by all means

do so but the last thing i want to talk

about was faith crisis

and all of these things i think kind of

play a role with that a lot of the

things that we've been talking about in

one way or the other

it's a it's you know today it's it's

very different from when i was young

where you've got access to all this

information you can go online you can

read negative things about the church

there usually some truth in there

but the approach and the agenda is is

sometimes

uh very cynical and um

you know not looking out for people's

best interests not even

sometimes looking out for the truth

itself

but there's all this information and new

ideologies and

and access that people have that that is

not

inside the home and that can be a very

positive empowering thing but it can

also be a destructive thing

and so we see a lot of people that are

going through um

a faith crisis today this is this is

from uh

i uh see if i've got this one right here

yeah this is from janna rice's book

i think it's called the next mormons um

i don't always agree with her approach

and a lot of her conclusions but but

what i did like about the book is

it brought in a lot of data a lot of

information on things and and

lds retention is not good among

millennials

and gen z right it's it's really reduced

in fact it's

based on her information here

and the polls i know she ran some of

these polls herself with her with uh

whoever co-authored the book but

uh she's got she's got lds retention

down in most cases based on

other other uh christian sects

down about 20 from even theirs

um so as they've dropped in retention

over the last 30 40 years

the lds retention has dropped even

further what are the struggles that that

young people are facing today and for a

young woman

you know who's going through a faith

crisis or a serious doubt

what's the best advice for her

i think one of the biggest struggles and

you kind of mentioned this is that

information that's available on the

internet um

that is often not portrayed correctly

i i do think it's really important to

read as much as you can i'm not going to

advocate

against people reading things i read a

lot of

the um i guess more hostile

um material towards the church

because i find it's helpful for me to

have an awareness of it

but i do think that we're seeing and i'm

not trying to sound snobby here at all

i think we're seeing issues of people

presenting history without being

historians

and i think you can be a historian

without necessarily getting a degree

um but i do think one thing that getting

a degree teaches you

is how to look at historical documents

how to determine veracity of historical

documents how to

know which ones are the the acceptable

ones for determining whether or not

something is true

and i'll use mormonism unveiled as a

good example so in mormonism

unveiled um there's a section in it that

talks about like a white lizard-like

thing that spoke to joseph smith and

that's where mark hoffman got the idea

for the salamander letter

the news now yeah yeah yeah if you look

at him he pulls out mormonism unveiled

and they have like this three-minute

weird thing of him pulling out a book

and i'm like yeah you people didn't

explain that nobody's gonna know what's

going on

um but anyways so you have mormonism

available that talks about this

and people will will parrot this sort of

narrative

in order to say something about joseph

smith but that's not a proper way to

look at history to quote hugh nibley

that's not history fawn brodie

um you have to that's one of my favorite

pamphlets

by hugh nugliello funibly but you have

to be able to

understand what sources um are closest

to the person

how to evaluate these sources and that's

how you determine history

it's not necessarily every source is an

equal source and can tell us an equal

amount of truth

that's not a proper way to look at

history so i do think what we're seeing

is a lot of um i like to call them

internet historians not

to mock the youtube channel i like the

youtube channel internet historians

but you're seeing a lot of internet

historians who

are people who don't know how to look at

history who don't know how to look at

documents who are just kind of

poll quoting documents as they pick and

choose

and are presenting it as this is the

narrative of the church that's actually

true with the narrative that you're told

in sunday school is false

i think that that's a big problem where

you're you're seeing

a lot of dissent on that matter and i'm

not necessarily saying every true

historian

will be a latter-day saint that's not

what i'm saying there are a lot of

secular historians who do work around

the joseph smith area

um that i have a lot of respect for

because they presented

and what i believe to be an honest and

authentic way

where they're able to you know say like

i don't think joseph smith is a prophet

but i don't think that he was a terrible

person who was completely deluded and

was a total fraud

they usually say that he was pious that

he believed that he had religious

experiences but that his religious

experiences were not true and that's a

very different argument so i think that

that's the first issue

and then the second issue is we're

seeing that

um there's a there's a differing idea of

what it means to be a christian

culturally than i think exists

scripturally

and what i'm saying by that is that i

think there's

there's a lot of emphasis on the sermon

on the mount that's what i see get

quoted all the time and i think that

that's fantastic

i do think a lot of conservatives will

kind of shy away from serving on the

mount language sometimes

that's also not great but we should we

should embrace the sermon on the mount

but that's not the extent of

christianity

the extent of christianity is not just

giving of your substance to the poor

that is one of the central aspects of

christianity but there are other

different aspects of christianity that

involve purity

that involve righteousness that i think

we sometimes are now downplaying

culturally

where we're seeing the sort of i hate

calling it cafeteria christianity but

that's

the best term for it we're seeing this

cafeteria christianity emerge culturally

where people are saying if you read the

bible jesus is really a radical

who was trying to uproot everything who

did not believe in any sort of purity

and i will agree with one thing jesus

was radical but jesus was radical

because he was advocating for

being as loving as possible while also

being as righteous as possible

and not taking your righteousness and

using it as a weapon towards other

people

that's the way that i think is best to

look at jesus in

scripture so i think what's also

happening is because you have these

cultural ideas

about christianity that are becoming so

pervasive

um that are stemming from a different

way to look at society

that's happening politically that's

that's stemming from the political

polarization and tension that we see

where i think individuals often think

that they can either be

you know those evil right-wing

christians

who don't give to charity or they they

can be these hippie

leftist christians who don't believe in

any sort of morality besides giving to

the poor

i think that those those ideas are

pressing against each other culturally

and the one that's winning out is the

one on the left

when in reality both are wrong right we

we don't believe either one of those

things

but i think that this cultural these

cultural ideas about christianity

are leading people out of the church

because they're not

reading the scriptures themselves

they're not

understanding the word of god themselves

and there's a shifting view

of prophetic authority because we're

also seeing in society that people are

rejecting

this idea that someone can have

authority over you as being something

negative

and there you do have a level of

personal autonomy and personal authority

definitely don't deny that you you do

have

stewardship over your own life but we're

seeing this sort of

radical deconstruction of

systems in a way that directly impacts

christianity because

christianity is built upon especially

our version of christianity

is built upon a system of prophets and

apostles

believing that they are the ones who can

direct the church and that we can direct

our own lives

um so i think all of these factors at

play are causing

people a lot of cognitive dissonance

because people quite frankly don't want

to be considered homophobic

they don't want to be considered racist

they don't want to be called bigots and

that's what we're seeing of a lot of

different religious people

but that's happening for them just

simply existing as religious people

there are some times where people

or religious do things that are

homophobic homophobic bigoted and racist

and that's a problem but there are some

instances where religious people are

existing

and getting keep for existing um so i

think in a lot of senses

this tension that's occurring causes

people faith crises because they want to

be able to function in society

and to have a healthy way of living and

being compassionate

and that's what i think the central

problem is is

we have redefined compassion culturally

in a way

that people think that they can only be

compassionate if they reject their

christianity

and they don't see their christianity as

what makes them

both radically compassionate and

radically righteous

so in terms of faith crises that's the

problem and honestly the solution

i think is very simple it's not easy but

it's very simple

i think the solution is being able to

accept jesus as your savior and once you

accept jesus as your savior

being able to approach scripture and

being okay with the things

that cause you tension instead of saying

oh this causes me tension this causes me

discomfort therefore it's not true i

think

sitting with all of it and trying to

harmonize it and trying to construct

an idea of jesus from the scriptures

from revelation

from a personal relationship with him

rather than taking

all of our assumptions that we all have

about

what it means to be loving what it means

to be compassionate compassionate and

imputing those on

to jesus i think we have to take a big

step back and ask ourselves

who is jesus and instead of asking

ourselves

who do i want jesus to be there's

definitely an

attack on hierarchy and and structure

and it it's

it's a it's a it's a never-ending thing

i think in in

cycle that there's always the idea of

flattening the hierarchy right you you

want to flatten the hierarchy

and there could be a natural disposition

toward uh

toward authority which is fine if it's

the wrong authority

right you don't want to be under a wrong

authority or

a bad authority but amanda

faith crisis what uh what do you see

some of the issues today that are

causing people to doubt or causing

people to even

leave the church i think hannah's right

in that

um as you know as we the church has

improved so much in terms of helping

kind of um distill more historical more

church history

um in more accessible ways and i think

we'll see fewer and fewer

people um having church history

on faith crises when all of a sudden

they realize all these things about like

they were never taught about things like

seer stones they didn't know joseph

smith practiced polygamy

different things like that so i think

that that kind of faith crisis is going

to continue to be less and less

um of a problem and i think that

problems of of ideology having to do

with

with gender specifically i think is

going to continue to be one that's hard

and there's not going to be an easy

solution for that

um our ideas about gender about marriage

um they're going to continue i think to

be at odds with the world i don't think

that there's going to be some sort of

like conservative resurgence of

um traditional marriage traditional

family traditional ideas about gender

um and so um i think that's

one of the most important things that we

can do i i think that this is gonna

really i think the parents just are

gonna play a really important role in

in um paying attention to what some of

these

issues are and really empowering their

kids empowering their

their kids to understand

understand you know what ideology

means understand that there are

different cultural assumptions and just

because culture as a whole has these

ideas

that doesn't mean that it's right and

raising their kids to understand that

they

are important and have value and that

god sees them

um with value i think that you know when

we talk about these issues about

sex or gender um that having him

be empowering particularly our young

women is so important

being a woman is awesome being a woman

is important

god needs his women just as much as he

needs his men

um heavenly mother and he who is also

god

needs her daughters and just as much as

she needs her sons

being a wife being a mother being an

academic

being a you know a person with a career

what whatever it is that you're going to

in your life um is is amazing

and being a woman is an important and

valuable part of that

um so i i think that helping our

children

have a healthy idea of gender sexuality

marriage you know one of the problems

with one of the problems with why

polygamy kind of icks us out so much

is that we have a very narrow view of

like what

marriage should look like not

necessarily in terms of monogamy like

that's pretty important

and pretty far-reaching in terms of

history but like the idea of kind of

romance just being able to go with your

feelings

marrying who you feel like you should

you know who you're the most

physically attracted to you have the

most sparks with

whatever um that that i think plays you

know

part of our discomfort with polygamy and

it's also part of our discomfort with

traditional um marriage traditional

family structures is that you know

cultural

assumptions about how we should be able

to just go with our feelings

and that's really kind of at odds with

what the gospel teaches us that we

should reject the natural man

um so so that's i think you know gender

sex and being able to empower our kids

to understand that

they can be valuable and important

within the confines of that that

doctrine

thank you so much for having us on thank

you both

you're great guests and i learned a lot

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