Dear Daughter, The Church is not for you (An Open Letter)

Written September 22nd, 2018

Dear daughter,

By now I’m sure you’ve noticed. When you walk into the chapel you will not see women sitting on the front stage. They will not lead the sacrament meeting. They will not consecrate the bread and water. They will not collect the tithing or govern church business. Women do not bless and name the babies. Stories about women will be few and far between in the scriptures. When they say men/man/mankind/son/sons you have to hope and assume women are included. You have been told you can become like your Father in Heaven, and that you must pray in church only to Him (not Her).

You know that when this imbalance of power, focus, and worth becomes too much you can come to me and I will acknowledge your pain. But be aware that if you open up to others about this you will inevitably hear that your feelings are unfounded, unwarranted, and unreal. Worse yet, they may tell you that to point out the patriarchy is to teeter towards apostasy.

I want to explain to you why people react this way.

Cognitive dissonance is, of course, a thing. A lot of people don’t want to hear observations that make them take a look at inequality. It’s uncomfortable for them for the following reasons divided by sex:

Men

1.      They are the beneficiaries of that inequality and don’t want that power threatened

2.      They are able to identify so strongly with God the Male that they will not tolerate the mere suggestion His church runs on sexism (though it literally does, see the dictionary entry)

Women

1.      They have internalized misogyny to the point of not being able to see what you see

2.      Their world would collapse if they tugged at this string and followed where it went

Both men and women will tell you to have gratitude, which I agree with in the right context. In the image above I am showing you two groups of women, A&B. Group A women (purple) are grateful to be able to speak in church, make covenants alongside men, and to teach classes because they marvel that women would be allowed to. Group B women (green) are grateful for what they have, of course, but faithfully inquire about a greater calling and destiny. Theirs is a larger vision for womanhood.

I can already tell that you and I are Group B, and that’s a bittersweet thing because it means our place in the Church will always bring revelations as well as heartache. Up until this point I was content to teach you a “grin and bear it” approach to church survival, but recently I’ve landed on another conclusion: I want you to know the Church is not for you.

No, I’m not saying you shouldn’t continue to make and keep sacred covenants. I’m not saying you should stop attending your Sunday meetings, either.

What I am saying is that by accepting that our Church was in fact built for men you can liberate yourself from the impossible task of excavating all divine womanhood from it. This freedom will allow you to put less stock in the often well-intended but indeed harmful platitudes offered to women to make them feel better about their secondary status and keep them there.

You still need the Church for its saving and exalting* ordinances, to serve as a literal meetinghouse for the gathering of saints with an eye towards unity. But daughter this cannot be your everything. Your keys work elsewhere.

Navigating a life that is patient and participatory with the Church while honing your spiritual skills mostly outside of it will not be easy. In another letter I will give you my insights about where female power lies. In this letter I wish to focus on the battlefield that awaits you as you continue to walk through the doors of your chapel, and how to avoid traps set to bring about your destruction. While the ways in which our fellow saints can dampen our godly aspirations are many, the four greatest threats are 1) So-called Temple Prep and 2) The Third Hour 3) Leadership worship 4) Family worship. 

“Temple Prep”

My daughter, church members think they are doing a service to women by telling them that the temple is “the great equalizer.” We tell them they will be endowed with power, but we skip that part about that power being unto the husband. And we definitely don’t prepare them to give themselves to their husband, and not expect him to do the same. Knowing that this is the setup ahead of time will not only give you the agency to decide if these are covenants you wish to make, I believe it will also help you to put the presentation of the endowment in its proper context. What you will see acted out in front of you is a world created for Adam without mention or depiction of Heavenly Mother, and a silent, submissive Eve after the Fall. In other words, you will see how true it is that the Church is not focused on women, at least not Type B ones.  I actually appreciate the temple’s honest depiction of things as they truly are currently. And while I’m able to pick up hints revealing feminine characters and virtues in the endowment, my point of sharing these insights is to spare you from the common practice of hanging all your worth on a ceremony that was retrofitted to include women.

The Third Hour

Hands down I think the third hour of Church has caused as much damage to women as polygamy. As you know, Relief Society was not established to be a one hour block of time once a week. It was meant to be much, much more. (I could go on, but I’ll spare you.) Not only is this a supreme loss, what we do in that third hour is an awkward dance of trying to pretend male and female roles in the church work in parallel, and our grasping at straws to produce 3rd hour lessons has produced pseudo-doctrines that will have negative effects on women for ages. While we’re telling the young men that they have power in the priesthood offices, we’re teaching young women their bodies are so powerful they need to cover them up. As we outlined priesthood duties for the elders, we dove into sociopolitical commentary to convince women that their equivalent pastime would be staying home and out of the workforce. Such lunacy. (Mark my words, if and when the third hour is done away with, the daughters of Eve will be freed to gather into their order of prayer and good works.)

Update October 6th, 2018: The parenthetical last line of the above paragraph was added after I wrestled in the spirit with God. I had concluded I would take a break from attending church and a chill came over me, followed by a wave of comfort and reassurance that the third hour would be done away with, and that I should hold on. Now, today, it has been announced in General Conference that we are down to 2hrs. As I understand it there will still be Relief Society rotating through the second block, but I’m optimistic we’re heading down the right path for the right reasons (unleashing female power).

Leadership Worship
I know you know this, but Church leaders are fallible. Joseph Smith even went out of his way to correct a line of scripture to teach that, yes, sometimes people called to prophethood do lead others astray. This was obviously an important lesson to teach. In contrast, when I see mothers laminating pictures of church leaders and quizzing their children on which bald bespectacled white male is in front of them it's hard for me to not let out an exasperated sigh. Only Jesus will never fail you. For anyone else please have respect for the office they hold, for the work that they do, but do not take their words for unquestionable truth. Do not look to them as superstars, worthy of such adulation. When you hear something out of Salt Lake that confuses you, it's your duty as a faithful Saint to wrestle with it. Whether or not you have to accept it is between you and the Holy Ghost. 

Traditional Family Worship
The Book of Mormon has so little to say about marriage and nothing to comment on homosexuality. And yet Church members seem to want to focus a majority of their lessons on these concepts. When clean homes are preferred to the dirty feet that come from ministering onto society's rejects we have a problem. 

Closing Words

Daughter, let me reemphasize: This letter isn’t meant to burst your bubble. Nor do I intend to keep you from having your own experiences and drawing your own conclusions. But if my years of trying to warp feminine impressions to fit male standards can spare you from the pain and frustration of doing the same, this is my attempt at that.

I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He established His Church on the earth, giving some apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers. And that, as far as we know, the leaders at the very top were all men. When His Church was Restored, men were again called to lead the way. They hold the keys to the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods today. I am very glad to be on the receiving end of those blessings! For the remaining 165 hours in the week I invite you to seek even more, and I know you will find it as you focus on the Gospel. Bring that back to your companion and children and all will be better for it. In this I have faith and leave you my blessing.

With love, your mother.

*technically speaking the Aaronic Priesthood can exist outside the Church through lineage