The Elephants in My Room

Patriarchy and Other Pachyderms

Let’s tackle one of the big elephants in the room: the Church’s patriarchal, hierarchical structure. It’s an elephant, for sure.

In many developed societies around the world, patriarchal hierarchies are generally looked down upon as the unwelcome inheritance of history. Nowadays, equal opportunity for women to participate and lead within the structures of society is something we take for granted. Utahns proudly commemorate Seraph Young’s historic vote in a municipal election in 1870, which made Utah the first place in the United States in which women exercised the same suffrage rights as men. In Aotearoa New Zealand, Kiwis celebrate the world-leading vote for women’s suffrage in 1893 (the women’s suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution was not until 1920). We admire strong, capable women who lead nations, courts, and communities, and we want our daughters to hear over and over President Gordon B. Hinckley’s declaration, “The whole gamut of human endeavor is now open to women. There is not anything that you cannot do if you will set your mind to it.”

Within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, however, men and women do not have the same access to decision-making authority over community governance. The Church’s administrative order is structured as a patriarchal hierarchy. “Hierarchy” denotes different tiers of authority within the governing pyramid for the ecclesiastical and corporate organization. It’s not a “flat” egalitarian structure in which all members of the community have the same level of power to steer the organization as a whole (for obvious reasons, very few large communities can be run this way). From the point of view of group governance, “patriarchal” means that the highest tiers of authority are reserved for men only.

This term, patriarchy, describes the Church’s governing structure at the general level. The official chart listing the Church’s general-level leaders, “General Authorities and General Officers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” shows 121 men and 9 women. “Patriarchy” also characterizes the governance of the local unit of Church organization, the ward or branch, in which the bishop and two counselors, who are men, have authority over all within that unit, including women and organizations led by women. For example, the female Relief Society presidents may only make recommendations for who should be called to fill positions within Relief Society; the final decision of whom to call, act of extending the calling, and ability to remove someone from a calling are all the prerogative of the male bishop.

At general conference, the semiannual meeting where the Church community gathers worldwide to receive direction and inspiration from Church leaders, the ratio of talks by leaders who are male to talks by leaders who are female is approximately eight to one. In a given population, ratios of females to males are close to one to one, and the ratio of the Church membership probably skews toward more actively participating females than males. Therefore this situation of Church members at general conference listening to direction from men eight times more than listening to direction from women can be considered “patriarchal.”

“Patriarchal hierarchy” can also be seen in the conventions of respectful language Latter-day Saints use for their leaders. For example, in the eighth edition (2023) of the Church Style Guide for Editors and Writers, there are fifteen different entries on how to use proper respectful titles for Church leaders, eleven of which pertain to titles for male leaders only. These rules indicate that all members of the First Presidency, temple presidencies, mission presidencies, stake presidencies, and district presidencies are to be addressed as “President,” including not only the actual president but also the two counselors within the presidency. However, when women are members of presidencies at the general level, such as the Relief Society General Presidency or the Primary General Presidency, only the actual president is to be addressed with the respectful title of “President.” The two general-level counselors are to be addressed as “Sister.”

Historically speaking, this is a departure from the early decades of the Church, in which Emma Smith, Eliza R. Snow, and general and local organization presidents up through at least the World War II era were regularly addressed as “President” or “Presidentess” and counselors as “Counselor.” After this era, use of respectful titles for women became much more sporadic throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Only since the late 2010s, especially after the 2020 Style Guide revision, has there been an uptick in the use of the term “President” for female organization presidents in official media, and also in informal usage for local-level female presidents.

Of course, being a disciple of Christ does not depend on having an official institutional title. Almost none of these titles above are used in scripture in this way. But just as residents of Seattle have many words and expressions to describe types of rain, in our recent history Church culture has provided many more titles, phrases, and conventions for signaling male ecclesiastical authority without comparable conventions for signaling female ecclesiastical authority. This is another indicator of “patriarchal hierarchy.”

After reading these descriptions of aspects of patriarchal hierarchy within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the reader has possibly become very tense. There are a couple of possibilities for this discomfort. Some may feel that naming aspects of “patriarchal hierarchy” is a critical, negative approach. Why is she pointing out all of these differences between men and women? She’s just trying to make the Church look bad.

Others may be tearing their hair to hear multiple descriptions of the norm of male leadership within the Church’s governing structures, as if a church that only places men at the apex of decision-making hierarchies cannot possibly be led by God. How can she live with such gendered inequality? No church tainted by patriarchy can be inspired. In between these two positions there are many other potential responses.

To those in the first group, let me clarify that by describing the Church’s governing structure, I am not “trying to make the Church look bad.” This is simply how Church governance is structured. But I am trying to show how younger people, who grew up counting and noticing gendered differences, see the Church. Natural balance between women and men is important to them, and they get suspicious when they see what looks like a man-made quota system. To those in the second group, those who are accustomed to counting and noticing gendered differences, the rest of this essay is for you. Perhaps there are a few points all of us could consider:

1. Patriarchy is embedded in the civilizations and systems on which our current reality is built—both the good parts and the bad parts. We can’t just dismantle everything.

2. “The Lord is expanding the Saints’ understanding.” We’re not stuck with any system. Have you noticed ongoing expansions in women’s participation in the work of the Church? This is what it means to be part of a “true and living Church,” led by ongoing revelation.

3. An important part of feminism (taking women seriously as full human beings) is recognizing and validating women’s labor and activity wherever it can be found, including within patriarchally structured religious organizations. Observing how women are often missing from power structures traditionally dominated by men, while an accurate observation, is not the whole picture. We have to also recognize women’s engagement in other, less visible but perhaps equally influential systems.

4. Hierarchy isn’t always bad when people with more power have the responsibility to help people with less power. As a value, wholesale egalitarianism is pretty European, pretty individualistic, not necessarily a universal value. In most other human cultures, egalitarianism and individualism do not have such positive associations, and hierarchy and group-oriented values do not have such negative associations. Older people have valuable experience that they can transmit to younger generations. It’s not that patriarchs are horrible within a family or faith community. It’s that matriarchs are also wonderful!

Patriarchy: It’s How We Got Here

Patriarchal hierarchies have delivered the world in which we now live. Some might say, “This world is rotten! Burn it all down!” But alas, the earth is like a spaceship, traveling around the sun with a fixed allotment of air, water, food, and goodwill. A fire on the spaceship is bad for everyone. Obviously, the vast majority of governance structures in human history have been patriarchal. Patriarchal building blocks have created the foundations on which today’s civilizations stand. The era of the life spans of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is known as the Age of the Patriarchs. The first-century Jewish and Roman societies within which Jesus was raised were also patriarchal and hierarchical. The American Protestant Christianity within which Joseph Smith was raised was patriarchal and hierarchical. Clearly, patriarchal social and cultural structures from Middle Eastern civilization during the Iron Age, or the Roman Empire in the first century, or America before the Civil War, shaped a great deal of religious terminology and ecclesiastical structure that still affects contemporary Church terminology and structure today. In the time of Jesus’s ministry, for instance, both the Jewish and Roman religious and civil establishments prioritized male authority. Women had relatively little institutional religious authority. The leadership of Christ’s early Church in Jerusalem, as reported and preserved in the accounts and letters of the New Testament, generally reflects this first-century prioritization of male over female authority (along with other first-century values such as tolerance for the practice of allowing slavery).

But, just as clearly, patriarchal social and cultural hierarchies did not prevent Jesus or Joseph Smith or numerous other religious leaders from establishing thriving religious movements that attracted both men and women. As a matter of fact, both Jesus and Joseph Smith were religious leaders who, in their specific times and contexts, disrupted existing gender hierarchies and tended to offend conservative, establishment types. Jesus was unusually inclusive in allowing women, as well as men, to learn from Him in close proximity as His disciples. According to the Church’s Gospel Topics essay, Joseph Smith was unusually inclusive compared to most other religious leaders in nineteenth-century America in teaching Latter-day Saints about “the divine Mother” who was “side by side with the divine Father,” elevating female spiritual power to the highest possible cosmological echelon, that of Deity.

While the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis in the Hebrew Bible has been used as the basis for arguments about women’s inferiority to men for thousands of years, Joseph Smith’s inspired revelation in the book of Moses diverges significantly from the traditional story and provides a model for women and men working together in partnership. Moses 5:1-12 gives an account of how Adam and Eve work together as equal partners in their temporal, spiritual, and family life. They make their living together by tilling the earth (verse 1); they interact with God on the same terms, both removed from God’s presence, but mutually calling on and receiving commands from God (verse 4); and they teach their sons and daughters together (verse 12).

In addition to bringing forth the transformative, paradigm-exploding texts of the Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith introduced new organizational structures for Christian discipleship that set the relationship between women and men on a new track. On March 17, 1842, Joseph Smith and Emma Smith, noted in the minutes as President Smith and President Emma Smith, helped shape the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo. Working together, batting ideas and concerns back and forth, Presidents Smith and others in attendance at the first Relief Society meeting organized the society in a way that diverged from the structure of contemporary American women’s benevolent societies. Organized according to Joseph Smith’s instructions “after the pattern, or order, of the priesthood,” with a president and two counselors, the structure of the Relief Society claimed new significance and spiritual authority for women.

So, patriarchal hierarchies, ubiquitous throughout much—though not all—of the human experience, have given rise to religious movements and ideas that have helped people, including women, to thrive spiritually within their various eras and contexts. They can’t be total deal-breakers. Jesus was willing to work within an imperfect cultural and political system. His teachings were couched within parables about kings, masters, and servants, acknowledging the power structures that shaped everyday people’s lives. When He said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17), He was acknowledging the enforcement power and encompassing structure of the Roman Empire. Jesus, more than anyone, knew the wrongs and harms of that particular system of power. But He chose to work within it in order to reach the people around Him, connecting with their concerns and understanding. His teachings were transformative, and world-changing, but also worked with realities on the ground.

When Joseph Smith set out to “restore” the Church of Christ in 1830s America, he, too, was working with his own distinctive context of language, scripture, denomination, and socioeconomic circumstance peculiar to places like Palmyra, New York, and Quincy, Illinois. Through Joseph Smith’s revelations and life work, God did not produce a museum-like replica of Christ’s primitive Church in Jerusalem, but a bold expansion to meet the needs of seekers in a new time and place—on the volatile western frontier of the United States of America. The Prophet expounded, reworked, retranslated, and brought together Old and New Testament covenants and practices in a way that was unprecedented for centuries of Christian tradition. He introduced inspired new revelations, rituals, and sacred texts for our day.

In the paradigm of ongoing revelation that Joseph Smith established, there is always room for inspired innovation that meets the needs of the moment. For example, in the scriptural record of Jesus’s primitive Church, we find mention of “apostles,” but no “First Presidency.” “President” is a modern term that Joseph Smith began to use after an 1831 revelation. The term “First Presidency” to refer to Joseph and his counselors and “Assistant Presidents” began to be used among Church members in 1835. The terms “President,” “Presidency,” and “First Presidency” have since become key elements of modern Church organization from the top to the bottom, despite their lack of precedent in ancient scripture.

Here’s something else to think about: even after a day when Latter-day Saint women and men are working together as equal partners at all levels of the Church institution, we will not have achieved a perfect system. This does not mean our efforts to work together in equal partnership are in vain. Worthy work is always its own achievement. But anyone who studies history can tell you that squashing one -ism just leaves space for other -isms to arise. As long as human beings are involved, there will always be imbalances. New challenges will develop. The Restoration will continue to unfold.

Women and the Expanding Work of the Church

Because our Church is true and living (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30), there have been significant changes in how women have exercised spiritual and ecclesiastical authority over the course of nearly two centuries. Different eras have presented different opportunities and expectations for Latter-day Saint women. The brief discussion of respectful titles for women leaders above represents one example. To give some other examples of how norms and practices change over time, throughout the nineteenth century, Latter-day Saint women’s practice of visiting the sick to heal through prayer and the laying on of hands, without invoking Aaronic or Melchizedek Priesthood authority, was standard practice throughout the Church, and the Relief Society was an independent organization with its own budget, publications, and direction under female leaders. This active involvement of early Latter-day Saint women in charismatic (Spirit-filled) practice and leadership activities echoes the lives of women in the first-century Church of the Apostles. Within the primitive Church there were relatively less structured leadership arrangements, in which women went on missions, preached, prophesied, led worship services in house churches, and served as deacons.

Despite the relatively expansive charismatic authority Latter-day Saint women claimed, however, domestic relations between women and men in the nineteenth century were far from egalitarian. For instance, Brigham Young’s discourses on family life included teachings such as “Let the wives and the children say amen to what [the father] says, and be subject to his dictates.” An advice article in the October 1900 Young Women’s Journal gives us a glimpse into a young wife’s endless domestic chores (“mold bread and biscuit; set table . . . put bed to air, raise windows; empty slops . . . wash dishes . . . rub off stove with brush. make bed; empty waste and wipe out all chamber china . . . watch bread if in the oven. . . feed chickens; sweep and dust room; clean lamps; brush out back and front yard . . . prepare dinner . . . prepare supper . . . set bread; retire”). At the end of a long treatise on how to get everything done in time, the author predicted, wistfully, “I fully believe the day will come, and soon, when household work will be done more and more on a cooperative principle; but meanwhile we must go on in the old ways.”

In the twenty-first century in places such as the United States and western Europe, Latter-day Saints now approvingly rehearse the phrase “equal partners” to describe ideal relations between men and women, and housework and childrearing duties are more evenly divided. In these regions of the world, it’s common to see men sharing household chores and spending time caring for children. However, the space for female spiritual administration and leadership has become more circumscribed. Until as late as 1968, the section on “Care for the Sick” in the Relief Society manual included the text of a letter from Joseph F. Smith acknowledging that it was “permissible, under certain conditions,” for women to perform healing rituals. The Church’s current handbook directs that only Melchizedek Priesthood holders administer healing blessings to the sick. Female leaders of the Relief Society now generally serve for five-year terms instead of for life. Hence expectations for women’s responsibilities and men’s responsibilities have changed over time, and not always along a single trajectory.

Recent years have seen noticeable expansion in the ways in which women participate in the life of the Church as an institution. In October 2012, the age for women’s missionary service was lowered to nineteen, opening up this pathway to spiritual and personal growth and ministering experience to many more young women. In 2013, women began to be called upon to pray in general conference for the first time. As of October 2019, women and girls have been able to serve as witnesses to baptism and sealing rites, and the Young Women theme was changed to include the phrase “a beloved daughter of heavenly parents,” officially acknowledging Heavenly Mother. In a landmark talk in April 2022, Elder Dale G. Renlund spoke at length in general conference about the “distinctive” doctrine of a Mother in Heaven and referenced existing historical research in a Gospel Topics essay on the Church’s website.

President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has been teaching for nearly three decades about the need to include the voices of women in Church councils. “In these perilous times, we need the cooperative effort of men and women,” he said in October 1993. “When we act in a united effort, we create spiritual synergism which is increased effectiveness or achievement as a result of combined action or cooperation, the result of which is greater than the sum of the individual parts.” In November 2022, President Ballard taught, “Women are a vital voice,” and questioned how a bishop could effectively lead a ward without counseling with the women who lead the Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary organizations. “Priesthood leaders ought to help call capable, good, smart women ... and then they ought to be a full and participating part of a ward council,” he said. “Many, many times, the voice of women in a ward council is the most important voice that a bishop can hear.”

Here President Ballard argues that women’s participation in group decision-making is essential in order for the work of the Church to get done. This is an extremely important point: the practical work that is done within Church institutions such as organizing, teaching, and vacuuming, is separate from the sacerdotal (priestly, ordinance-oriented) work that is accomplished through Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood ordinances of baptism, confirmation, and blessing the sacrament. Most of the work within Church administration is just this sort of practical work, like organizing, teaching, and vacuuming, which both men and women can do.

We can see evidence of an expansion of women’s involvement in the practical work of the Church at the more general level also, through the inclusion of women leaders on some of the Church’s governing councils. These encouraging developments make for exciting times. I can hardly wait to find out what President Nelson meant when he said in April 2018 that “Jesus Christ will perform some of His mightiest works between now and when He comes again.” This is the opposite of a promise to always maintain the status quo. This dynamism leads me to believe that God sees the readiness and the desire of women as well as men to contribute more to the practical work of the Church, and so do the leaders God has called.

Microbiological Matriarchy

Hierarchical power, meaning vertical structures of authority, is not the only systematic power at work within a religious community. Just as it would be silly to insist that the only thing that mattered about human life was having a skeleton clothed with muscles and sinew, we must not narrow our understanding of religious power to administrative hierarchies alone. A dead body has a skeleton and muscles, but no vitality and therefore no power. Many of the body’s internal microbiological systems, invisible to the eye, play a critical role in physical health, although these processes are incredibly complex. For instance, mouth bacteria have recently been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, and gut flora may play a role in colon cancer occurrence. These systems are more difficult to see and understand than a stack of vertebrae, but just as important.

Thinking about the body of Christ not as an inert, upright chunk of meat, but as a living organism that travels through and interacts with its environment makes us wonder: What makes things alive? What sorts of opportunities and extensions does a religious life offer women, including women within patriarchal religious traditions? For instance, Caroline Kline’s recent book on Latter-day Saint women in Mexico, Botswana, and the United States finds that in a number of circumstances, women appreciate the Proclamation on the Family for teaching that “real men” are loyal husbands, caring Church leaders, and dedicated economic providers. This definition of masculinity contrasts sharply with other messages within the culture that define masculinity through activities such as womanizing, drinking, and gambling. Kline also finds that Latter-day Saint networks can be a resource for helping women achieve upward socioeconomic mobility.

One of the most common questions in studies of women and religion is, “Who controls the formal levers of administrative power?” But we could also ask other questions like, “Who plays a role in shaping the day-to-day experience of religion?” (a question of culture); “How do networks form within religious communities, how extensive are they, and what do people use them for?” (a question of networks and organization); and “How do members of this community perceive reality?” (a question of ontology, or the nature of reality). Here are examples of how Latter-day Saint women shape their religious community’s culture, networks, and ontology (beliefs about what is real):

Culture. In Primary, an organization heavily dominated by women, often the largest sub-unit of the congregation, a woman-led presidency shapes lessons’ doctrinal content and socializes children into the ways of being Latter-day Saints. All we ever needed to know about following Jesus, we learned in Primary, when we learned beautiful songs mostly composed and curated by women: “I feel my Savior’s love in all the world around me,” “I’m trying to be like Jesus,” “I want to be the best I can and live with God again,” “Jesus walked away from none. He gave his love to everyone. So I will! I will!” All we ever needed to know about being a Latter-day Saint, we learned in sitting together, singing together, listening to lessons, reading aloud from the scriptures, praying and speaking, and setting up and putting away chairs in Primary.

Organization. Studies of organizations show that strong interpersonal networks play a key role in strengthening religious movements. Studies of history show the drive and acumen of Latter-day Saint women who formed networks and organized to enact change in their own lives as well as in the public sphere. Renowned historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who happens to be a Latter-day Saint, has shown how the Lion House, where Brigham Young’s plural wives including Eliza R. Snow lived in close quarters, was both a family home and a hotbed for political organizing, including the movement for women’s suffrage. For many Latter-day Saint women today, their faith and Church membership are essential resources for living a life much larger than themselves and relying on the knowledge and help of others to extend their influence throughout the wider world. This has certainly been my experience. All I ever needed to know about changing the world, I learned from my Latter-day Saint sisters.

Ontology. Finally, one person having a visionary experience all alone does not create a thriving religious movement. In order for a religious movement to take on a life of its own, it needs many people who believe the founder’s teachings reflect the world as it really is, and that the religious movement’s shared practices are valid ways for engaging the divine. Since the earliest days of the Church to the present, Latter-day Saint women have played a major role in affirming Joseph Smith’s founding claims, divine calling, and community order. They have provided evidence for God’s presence within the Church in their hearts, their tongues, and in their bodies as they prayed, blessed in the name of Jesus, and experienced healing. They have gathered to Zion over and over again, sustained Church leadership and taught lessons, learned and transmitted skills for recognizing the presence of the Holy Spirit. Through holding on to beliefs about what is real, true, and good, religious women maintain not only a community’s weekly worship, but an entire worldview and, in this sense, an entire world.

Bow to Your Sensei

Dispensing with the question of whether men or women are in charge, and speaking just about “hierarchy,” people in individualistic, Westernized societies today do not always view “hierarchy” very positively. But from the Confucian point of view, which is probably the most significant moral philosophy in human history based on the number of people whose lives have been shaped by it, hierarchal relationships can enable human flourishing. Some dynamics in life are naturally hierarchical, such as a parent-child relationship, or a teacher-student relationship, based on the fact that people who have lived longer, or pursued more education, tend to accumulate valuable experience and understanding that gives them more power than people who are young or who have little education. When leveraged for good, and not abused, these power differentials facilitate the transfer of wisdom and skill from one generation to the next. In the best-case scenario, a place at the lower end of a hierarchical relationship fosters humility, receptivity, and openness to change. If I strive to put aside my urge to critically hyper-analyze every sentence, for instance, and focus humbly on my flaws and need to become better, listening to general conference can yield wonderful fruits, whether the speakers are male or female, American or non-American, close to or far away from my preferred place on the political spectrum.

In my extended Asian American family, as well, hierarchical relationships of care have been a blessing. At a particularly difficult time in my struggle with cancer, when I had been told I was close to “imminent demise” and felt crushing despair, my Uncle Charles wrote me an email and told me I would be fine. I have long respected and trusted Uncle Charles. At that time, I didn’t personally have the strength or fortitude to “keep having faith,” to hope for the impossible. But because he was my uncle, and the nature of our relationship was that he had power and influence over me, and he told me I would be okay, I listened. I took it to heart. When I couldn’t have faith myself, even with many friends encouraging and supporting me, Uncle Charles told me to have faith, and then, obediently, I could. That’s the power of hierarchical relationships.

I have received similar support from leaders in the Church’s ecclesiastical chains of authority who have been called to exercise stewardship over me, which is to say, have accepted a divine call to invest time and energy in my well-being. Though there is always potential for these power differentials to go sideways and devolve into abuse, and we must maintain responsible systems to guard against this potential, in many situations, when you give people power and influence over you, you are enabling many expansive opportunities for yourself. If I were to always insist that I am the only person I will allow to instruct and guide myself, my life would be incredibly impoverished. An abundance of experienced teachers, requiring us to leave our comfort zones and rise to high standards they set for us, is one of life’s great richnesses. We learn this as music students learning from virtuoso musicians, athletes training with exceptional coaches, martial arts disciples studying with renowned masters, and, very often, Latter-day Saints listening to men and women who have been called by God to serve and teach us.

I don’t hold a calling that gives me authority to direct the Church as a whole, and steering this global institution through the swirling currents of the twenty-first century is way above my pay grade, but perhaps you could just permit me to tell you about my dream of a Church culture I would love for my children to take for granted: What I long for is not a demotion of the Church’s patriarchs, who are men of great experience and perspective, but an increasing elevation of the Church’s matriarchs, who are women with similarly broad experience and wisdom gained through personal life, careers, Church service, cultural competence, and so on. Our Church is full of women of capacity, wisdom, exemplary integrity, and extraordinary spiritual power. Just as all humans benefit from being raised by mothers as well as fathers, all members of our community benefit from the guidance of inspired women leaders. Having women in natural proportions teaching and counseling on par with men in leadership and decision-making is one of the things I see when I envision Zion, the pure in heart, all things in common, no poor among us.

The Elephants in My Room

In the present, within the Church’s ecclesiastical and corporate hierarchy, men and women are not yet working in equal partnership. Like I said, it’s a big elephant.

But this is not the only elephant in my room. This phrase, “talk about the elephant in the room,” typically refers to addressing big things that are uncomfortable to talk about or confront. At this point I would like to take the liberty of adapting the original meaning of this saying. I would like to de-emphasize the decision to talk or not talk about the elephants, and instead emphasize the variety and number of elephants in the room. We tend to pay attention to one or two elephants more than others, as if the vanishing of those particular elephants would clear the room, while ignoring other extremely elephantine elements of our lives. I would like to redefine “elephants” as not only big things that are uncomfortable to talk about, but all the big things I live with “in my room”—including big things that are sources of joy, not discomfort. The reason why I want to include “joyful elephants” alongside “uncomfortable elephants” when I talk about the elephants in my room is that even the big, happy ones are taking up space, bumping up against other elephants, and in this way, generating tension. When all of the elephants are together, in the same room, it can be a bit tricky just because they’re elephants. It really can be hard to talk about all of them together. Here are just a few of the other elephants in my room. They’re massive, I can’t ignore them, and they’re not going away:

1. Patriarchy is not the most egregious imbalance I observe in my world. Many of these other forms of imbalance, like the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, or “modern conveniences” that despoil the natural environment, are forms of imbalance that get worse or better depending on daily choices I make.

2. On the global scale, as a person with a job, a house, health insurance, and food on the table every day, I am an incredibly wealthy, privileged, and powerful person in a world in which millions of people struggle just to feed their kids. In a world where children, including Latter-day Saint children, face death from malnutrition and childhood diseases that can be addressed in an individual child for a small amount of money, on many occasions I have spent about that same amount of money to take a friend to lunch or take my kids to the movies. I’m still not sure what to do about this, but I feel the responsibility to share more of my abundance.

3. Our societies are increasingly divided. The way to fix this is not to publish editorials in newspapers or pontificate on social media but to spend more time building relationships with people who are different from us. But interacting with individual people can be so time-consuming, inefficient, and frustrating. It’s much easier to write a long book than it is to be a good friend.

4. My upbringing within the Church gave me distinctive and precious gifts that have made me a more useful person not only within Latter-day Saint congregations but within my work as a scholar and as a citizen participating in civic life. Anytime I’ve wanted to do something in my community, like raise money for pandemic-era grants for schoolteachers, or organize a Hurricane Katrina relief fundraiser, I have always relied on Latter-day Saint networks, particularly networks of women. Talented fellow Saints have always generously given of their time and expertise and amplified the work I was trying to accomplish many times over.

5. My spiritual education in Primary, Young Women, seminary, and the Taiwan Kaohsiung Mission laid the foundation for my intellectual life.

6. Many of the smartest, least patriarchal, least prideful, most innovative and interesting people I know are Latter-day Saint women and men. They are changing the world for good, including tackling big problems like environmental degradation, the welfare of children, and political polarization.

7. My Latter-day Saint husband, the product of Latter-day Saint culture, is the best person I know, an ideal and egalitarian marriage partner, an amazing asset to the local community in his job as our local high school’s best math teacher, and the greatest blessing in my life.

8. My Latter-day Saint faith has literally saved my life, both in terms of the community that has come to offer practical aid, and the spiritual paradigms that have sustained me in the face of death.

So, yes, there are a lot of elephants in my room, which is to say, there are some big things in my life that regularly feel awkward together in the same space. They jostle and bump against me, and against each other, as I try to live my life. They’re not always bad or uncomfortable. They’re definitely big. They require sustained attention. It can be hard to talk about them.

But actions speak louder than words. When it comes to evaluating the value of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my own life and in the world, I’ve voted with my feet. I’m here.

I recognize, painfully, that Church communities aren’t always welcoming for everyone in our structures, policies, and culture. Some people participate in the work of Zion at a considerable personal cost—not just women, but also LGBTQ+ Saints, Saints who struggle to pay the bills, Saints who are racial or ethnic minorities within a given area or congregation, or Saints who live in societies where there is virulent anti-Mormon feeling, to name just a few examples. By contrast, many Latter-day Saints do not have to pay such high psychological, financial, social, or cultural costs to participate in the Church, and might not even be aware of the struggles of others who sacrifice so much. In particular, those who are elevated to the top of our pyramids of authority and deference sometimes struggle to understand the experiences of those of us who are directed to the bottom of these pyramids of authority and deference.

To those Latter-day Saints who sacrifice so much just to be here:

I’m here for you, too. So are many others.

To those Latter-day Saints who have always felt that the Church’s structure is the best of all possible worlds, and don’t understand why others complain, I offer you the Parable of the Road to Piha:

When my family lived in Auckland, New Zealand, we often drove to a nearby beach called Piha. The road to Piha winds through a volcanic rainforest. There are many tight, hairpin turns. Upon arriving at Piha, the driver often felt exhilarated because of the challenging, scenic terrain, but the passengers in the van’s back seat often felt queasy and miserable. How do we explain this discrepancy in the experience of the road to Piha based on one’s position in the same car? Being “in the driver’s seat” is the most comfortable position in the vehicle. You’re in control; you have the most visibility; you have a steering wheel to hold on to. Speeding along a curvy road can make you feel awesome, like a Grand Prix driver. But the people sitting in the back seat of the van are having a very different experience. With no capacity for controlling changes in direction, reduced visibility, no wheel to grip, and subject to amplified centrifugal forces, passengers riding in the back seat are much more likely than the driver to experience motion sickness.

So my humble request to the people who can’t understand why someone would say “being in this Church is so hard” is: Please seek out as many opportunities as possible to ride in the back seat. Don’t sit in the driver’s seat and ask the person in the passenger’s seat to give you reports. Do whatever you must to actually sit in an actual back seat, even when others press you toward the front. Insist that others drive. Rattle around with the others in the back and feel the centrifugal forces that cannot be felt in the front. Talk to people who usually sit in the back seat about how they feel. If others say they feel queasy, don’t take it as an insult to your driving ability or a threat to your spot in the car. Instead, take it as an expression of their rock-solid, self-sacrificing commitment to traveling with you, despite the discomfort they regularly experience. Do whatever you can to improve that experience.

Not for nothing did Jesus promise “the last shall be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16). In the midst of a much more hierarchical, patriarchal, unjust time and society, Christ called to some poor fishermen named Simon and Andrew, and said, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19). He spoke to a woman of Samaria at the well (see John 4:7–29). He rescued the woman found with a male partner in an adulterous relationship from an asymmetrical death sentence (see John 8:1-11). He taught Mary and Martha, His friends (see Luke 10:38-42). He healed the servant of the Roman centurion (see Matthew 8:5-13).

Jesus warned against the temptation of power. In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus told a parable about a servant bogged down by terrible debt who pleaded with the king for mercy. The servant knew what it meant to be powerless and vulnerable. But what did he do with that experience? After his debt was forgiven, the tables were turned. He was in the same system, but this time at the top, as the one who wielded power over another. Did he make sure to apply his memory of being powerless to his current role as the one who was power-full? His experience of powerlessness had the potential to make him an incredibly kind and generous man, a blessing in the lives of the needy around him. Instead, he squandered that opportunity in his eagerness to leap to the top of the hierarchy and wield the privileges now available to him there. The parable warns all readers against making this same mistake. As Christ taught us through His example, vulnerability and marginality bring their own kind of power, and authority and centrality bring their own serious liabilities. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you,” Christ said (John 14:27).

Christ’s gospel was, and is, so much more than a particular position within an administrative hierarchy. He waded into one sacred struggle after another, befriending the marginalized and the privileged alike, defying and deferring to religious law, speaking modestly in the halls of imperial power, speaking loudly through His actions on behalf of the diseased and destitute.

He did not wait for the world to be perfectly balanced before setting out to heal and to bless. He did not let the fact that parts of the Hebrew Bible completely contradicted His teachings stop Him from liberally quoting these texts to those who had learned from reading them to trust in God. He did not guarantee safety and status for His friends before calling them to follow Him.

He shunned efficient, rationalistic processes and modes, choosing instead the extremely slow and complication-ridden approach of leaving ninety-nine sheep behind and trudging off into the wilderness to find one (see Luke 15:4).

He said, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17).

I’m sure He would want us to take care of those elephants, too.

Excerpted from Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance, Deseret Book, 2023. A portion of this excerpt appeared in Wayfare issue 7.

Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye (1979–2024) was a historian specializing in modern Chinese history, Christianity in China, women and religion, and the history of global Christianity.

Art by Emily Christensen McPhie.

Find citations for this chapter in Melissa’s book, Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance, Deseret Book, 2023.