SquareTwo

If the center path—the straight and narrow one—is the true and safe path each LDS member is enjoined by the Savior to follow, then these other two paths, one slightly to the right and one slightly to the left of that central path, are the two apostasies of which I wish to speak. They are so close to that central path, abutting it on either side and seemingly parallel, that it is quite easy to slip into one of these other two paths almost without noticing. Indeed, once on one of these other two paths, it is easy to continue to think of oneself as a believing Latter-day Saint—until it’s clear you are not because a Church disciplinary council is excommunicating you.

After decades of studying LDS doctrine concerning women (and carefully distinguishing it from LDS cultural understandings and practices, which in quite a few cases contradict that doctrine), I have been liberated as a woman from the erroneous and harmful beliefs about women that haunt those raised in Abrahamic traditions. How remarkable and in some senses ironic it still seems to me to have experienced “women’s lib” by conversion to Mormonism! How utterly right it feels for this feminist to be a member of the LDS Church!

The thesis of the book is simple: Latter-day Saints have a unique interpretation of national security in this fallen world. A reference familiar to me relates to the material in the book. It is President Spencer W. Kimball’s article, “The False Gods We Worship,” in the June 1976 Ensign. He writes that we rely too much on weapons of stone and steel and have “become anti-enemy and not pro-kingdom of God.” This is true: Satan buys up armies, navies, and governments. We have a world that has experienced many wars throughout history that have taken millions of lives.

Priestesscraft includes, at a minimum, the selling of eggs and the selling of gestation. The Church strongly discourages both practices, and that is not because it just hasn’t “caught up with the times.” The Church strongly discourages both practices because you should not sell these sacred things for money; you should not practice priestesscraft. It is a betrayal of how God intended you to use your priestesshood power and authority, and it is a betrayal of the innocent children and children-to-be involved.

Shattering a Sacred Silence Through An Examination of What Church Leaders Have Taught About Her

In Mark Sullivan’s novel, Beneath A Scarlet Sky, he describes the difficulty of researching the Nazi occupation of Italy during WWII: “I was also hampered by a kind of collective amnesia concerning Italy and Italians after the war . . . No one talks about World War II in Italy so no one remembers.” [1] This same concept applies to Heavenly Mother: the less She is discussed, the less She is remembered until—in a haze of collective amnesia—nothing is said except the excuse, “We don’t talk about Heavenly Mother because we just don’t know much about Her.”

Did we women make it worth the loss here so that there might be a place of eternal sanctuary for women in the universe, a refuge where no man can enter who does not love, respect, and honor women? Where the keyword for a man’s entry is actually a woman’s name?

My sisters, are the pearly gates in reality the Gate to Women’s Country?

You can see how this book could haunt one’s thoughts for years . . . as it has mine

McArthur Krishna, Bethany Brady Spalding, with illustrations by Kathleen Peterson (2019) Girls Who Choose God: Stories of Extraordinary Women from Church History, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.

The Next Mormons: How Millennials are Changing the LDS Church. Riess, Jana. Oxford University Press, New York, New York, 2019. 312 pages. Reviewed by Ashley Alley and Kenneth Jeng.

My great-grandfather, Samuel Bateman, was born in Manchester, England in 1832, converted to the Church, and came to Utah in 1850. He met Marinda Allen, my great-grandmother, in 1853 as he ferried her across the Jordan River and married her the following year. He was 22 and she was 16. In later years he took a second wife, Harriett Egbert (who actually had been a baby when her parents came to Samuel and Marinda’s wedding dinner). Marinda gave birth to thirteen children and Harriet had eight. Marinda’s youngest child, Juliaetta, was my grandmother. She wrote a biography of Marinda, with much about the family and her own life, entitling it Little Gold Pieces. This article is about that book.

Motherhood is authorized Priestesshood.