A Church for All of Us
Of Pain, Purpose, and Hope
Few subjects in church discourse are more fraught than the place of women in our faith. Anyone who follows these discussions can point to multiple major recent examples where a commenter or leader has made an observation about these questions and a torrent of comments has followed, many of them expressing pain and frustration. To be clear, many church members, including women, feel satisfied with the broad contours of our current state, but many others do not. The satisfaction of even very many church members does not change this fact: a great deal of pain exists in the body of Christ around these ideas.
And that’s precisely the thing about pain: when it appears, and when it continues consistently—as this pain in the Church has for decades—that means the body is trying to tell us something. After all, a thriving hand does not invalidate an infection in the foot; a hale and hearty liver does not make inconsequential a failing in the heart.
My own thinking on this subject was unalterably transformed by reading Women at Church, published in 2014 by Neylan McBaine. In the opening, McBaine explains how she felt both called and compelled to write the book. She talks of the act of authorship as being both a result of the love she has for her then young children and an outgrowth of her natural response after hearing the stories—and feeling the pain—of hundreds of church women whom she had interviewed. She tells us that, given those twin considerations, she arrived at a point where she could no longer be at peace without having written the book. Specifically, she writes:
Since August 2012, I have read and collected a range of personal accounts from women who have struggled with their female identity in the Church. I share them throughout this book. My purpose in doing so is not to depress any of us, although a little sobriety on this subject will hopefully translate to greater empathy. Neither is my intent to draw attention to the concerns of these, although understanding specific pain points will help us address needs more directly. We do hope with these stories that each of us can put ourselves in the shoes of these women, or perhaps in the shoes of the husbands and fathers and sons who love them.
And that is what constitutes the rest of the book, which effectively does three things. First, it shares stories, often in a straightforward and unadorned way. Second, it juxtaposes the stories and the themes they suggest against the substance of our theology. Third, the book carefully avoids demanding institutional or revelatory changes while nonetheless articulating specific and substantive ways, consistent with existing Church doctrine and policy, that the voices of women could be more greatly highlighted and heeded.
There are probably many reasons this book resonated with me so deeply. In part, the author succeeds in presenting a compelling case for her argument precisely because her tone is so even and matter-of-fact. It is difficult to argue with evidence presented so evenly and without defensiveness or hyperbole. Beyond that, the nature of the evidence is unavoidably compelling. Much of the book, after all, consists of stories from individual Church members who are quoted at length in their own words. From those words, an unmistakable portrait emerges.
The portrait is one of deep and abiding pain. And that pain matters. One purpose of pain is to arouse compassion in fellow beings. That is: if something bad happens to me, and pain results, and I inform those around me that I am hurting, then the pain is serving a positive social function in rallying others to my side. And certainly this matters.
But that’s not really pain’s most important function. Rather, pain matters because it calls our attention to a problem that needs addressing and, short of a terminal situation where the only thing that can be done is to quiet the pain because the underlying problem simply cannot be fixed (as in a patient with metastatic cancer that can no longer be effectively treated and whose resulting pain can only be palliated), the way to remove pain is by fixing the problem that is causing it.
Many who criticize women for expressing pain over their place in the LDS Church agree with my analysis of what pain is and why it matters, but with one important difference. Critics may hope to act as a doctor to the body of Christ by, in effect, diagnosing the source of the pain as being inside of the women themselves. That is, they often express a belief that the issue is one of pride or myopia or misunderstanding by the women in pain.
To some degree, the power of this argument is that it is, strictly speaking, empirically unfalsifiable. After all, who among us can really know the contents of any other person’s heart? However, I confess that this analysis strikes me as deeply unlikely for multiple reasons. The most powerful, I’ll admit, is simply that it doesn’t square with my personal experience with those directly experiencing that pain. Especially since reading McBain's book, I have made a concerted effort to listen more deeply to the women around me at church, and I hear similar painful strains coming from women I know who are deeply good—committed to justice, charity, and making the world a better place. If these people I know who often experience the pain are not truly Christians, I guess I’m not sure who is. But beyond that lies the fact that so many feel similarly. I look at the passionate responses that have come, one after another, over the past many months in response to comments from leaders, teachers, and online influences—these many voices, numbering in the thousands in aggregate, strike me as a chorus we cannot ignore.
Several years ago an exceptionally bright young woman who was also a dear friend came to me in no small amount of anguish, and, with graphs and charts in hand, asked: “If the prophet is asking women to raise their voices as Christian disciples then why doesn't the Church let women do just that with more time at General Conference?”
I remember this moment vividly for precisely this reason: I was flummoxed. I cast about inside my mind for a reason. I honor our Church leaders as inspired and called of God and so, I reasoned, there must be an explanation. But the harder I tried, the more baffled I became. Clearly, women speaking in conference was possible and doctrinally allowable because a couple of them were doing so every six months. Even if, as I initially reasoned, we needed to hear from all the apostles, seers, and revelators every six months, that would still leave plenty of spots that at the very least could be given to women at a rate representing the percentage of members who are female. Indeed, very much to the point, President Nelson had seemed to emphasize all of this:
My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstances, we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration. We need you to speak up and speak out in ward and stake councils. We need women who know how to access the power that God makes available to covenant keepers and who express their beliefs with confidence and charity.
Even after careful analysis and significant time, I simply had no logical answer for my friend.
My final words here are specifically to other men in the Church, because I can’t imagine I have anything helpful to say to the women in this space. Indeed, much of what I will say here will likely just be what women have already been saying for decades. Because we as men can sometimes be quick to talk and slow to listen, I put forward here a few concluding points—for the men who are reading specifically. In doing so, I want to emphasize: my intent here is not to sway the direction of the institutional church but, rather, to help those of us who are serving in our wards and stakes think better about how we can be helpful and hopeful in these endeavors. Indeed, in large part what I’m advocating for is how we can better live up to the spirit of what Elder M. Russell Ballard once taught when he said: “I don’t know how a bishop can be able to administer a ward and meet the needs of the members of his ward without the input of the sisters who are presiding over the relief society, the young women, and the primary. I’ve been an advocate all my time as a general authority that the priesthood leader ought to help call capable, good, smart women…and then they ought to be a full and participating part of ward council.”
The first involves what I will call the paradox of pain: while pain presents itself to our minds primarily as a feeling, in its most important articulation and presentation, pain is not a feeling at all, but a concrete sign that something needs to be done. I think this is particularly important to us as men because in much of Western culture, ignoring pain has become coded as a masculine virtue. That is, culture teaches us that we are “manlier” or “better” or “stronger” when we ignore the pain we feel. While there may be some truth to this during a weightlifting session, it’s a terrible way to practice medicine. And it is in the medical context that pain matters most. While we may assume that responding with compassion is an adequate response when women express pain over their roles in church, the ultimate answer here is actually about recognizing pain and responding effectively.
But of course that just begs the most important question: What does an effective response look like? In thinking about the answer to this question, I want to be careful in delineating what I can and cannot offer in response. To begin with, of course, I am not a woman and I have no interest in mansplaining an appropriate response here. That said, I do believe that the response men have to this issue matters —this is not something we can ignore or sweep aside. The sidelining of women in the church makes the church a poorer place and harms all of us.
While it is not our place to determine the revelatory direction the Church will take, it is our place to hope, and it is our place to make those hopes known—especially to our priesthood leaders. We can look forward to a day when women and men more completely and effectively partner in the work of salvation. Even without knowing precisely how we will arrive at this better place, I believe that longing, hoping, and praying for such a day—and being candid about those hopes, especially in consecrated conversations with our priesthood leaders—is a powerful way that those of us who serve “out in the periphery” of the body of Christ can hasten the day when women are more fully empowered to fully partner in bringing about the Lord’s vision of Zion.
Further, this hope can only come to us in sincerity when we recognize how much better our congregations could be if women partnered more fully with men in leading and serving our members. And this hope can only become meaningful when we look for opportunities to advance this vision as much as we can within the directions currently offered by church leaders. Many years ago, Elder Neal A. Maxwell gave a talk entitled “Content With the Things Allotted to Us.” The talk’s thesis is that there will be times in mortality when apparent injustice may call us to recognize and accept a state of affairs that greatly saddens or even handicaps us. But while this is the talk’s overall message, it is balanced against what I believe to be one of the most memorable and helpful phrases in our recent conference history. While contentment matters, Elder Maxwell says, it is also important that we find and use “whatever stretch there may be in any tethers.” Even if, for reasons church leaders have said have not been revealed, certain specific responsibilities in the priesthood are offered only to men, we can search for “the stretch in our tethers.” As Elder Renlund recently observed at a conference in Southern California, “we haven’t done as good of a job as I think we can within the bounds the Lord has set.” In this most recent apostolic recognition I hear echoes of that previous apostolic call to use whatever “stretch” we can find, especially because Elder Renlund then goes on to pledge “we are going to do better.”
The need for this improvement is fully consistent with counsel from priesthood leaders over many years. With the exception of the duties that are specifically assigned to men who hold priesthood keys, we can together recognize that in all other aspects of church governance and functioning, women’s voices should be equally elevated, their opinions should be equally valued, and their faces should be equally visible. We can ask questions like: Do we quote from women church leaders when we speak from the stand or teach lessons? Do we ensure women speak as often as men? Do we ensure women are involved in all decision-making councils and that their voices are equally listened-to and valued? Do we celebrate young women as much as young men? Do they fill roles of important responsibility in the ward (them serving as ward greeters is an important recent example of this)? Can we avoid comments that either place women on a pedestal or paint them as the “lovely” complement to men who are leading, thinking, and working out the substance of salvation? Do we fully honor the work of caring that has generally been left to women—both ensuring that men do their share and also recognizing and genuinely honoring what women do? Can we respond to the concerns of women who do not feel fully valued with respect, rigor, candor, and honesty?
Men, I propose that this should be our rallying cry as we think about how we can better partner with women in the work of salvation. Always and everywhere in church settings, we should be asking “Within the framework of the revealed word, how can we more fully partner with women?” Indeed, it should be no surprise that this constitutes much of the substance of McBain’s book: lists and lists and lists of concrete ways that women can more fully participate in local congregations without the necessity of any change to current institutional, revelatory, or administrative frameworks. The point is not any single particular item on a list—whether mine from above or hers from the book—but rather that what matters most is our desire and our action. It is the willingness we have to humble ourselves and see how far below our privileges we are currently living. What is needed is for us first to raise our sights and see how much better the church and kingdom would be if we would partner more fully with women in leading and serving and then to go to work and do what we can, wherever we live, to more fully embrace this ideal.
Tyler Johnson is a medical oncologist and associate editor at Wayfare. To receive each new Tyler Johnson column by email, first subscribe to Wayfare and then click here to manage your subscription and turn on notifications for On the Road to Jericho.
Art by Mikuláš Gandala.