Women in the Church

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here with the magnificent Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am here and feeling magnificent.

There we go. See, we keep trying to come up with all these exciting words, but the fact of the matter is, when you're magnificent, you just have to point out you're magnificent. So there you are. So this is, I think, going to be a very interesting topic, and I want to begin it in a sort of unorthodox way. I have a relative, and I'm not going to get too specific on this because they haven't given me permission to do So, but I have a relative who was a transgender woman, and when she chose to transition to being a woman, she chose a name for herself, and the name she chose was Junia. Does that name mean anything to you, Ian? Have you ever heard the name Junia before?

I heard the name Junia, yeah.

What do you know about Junia? Where the name comes from.

Okay, maybe I'm getting a little bit lost in the accent there. Just spell that for me.

J-U-N-I-A. Junia.

Junia. I don't— not that.

Okay.

Misheard. But go ahead. Okay.

So the name Junia appears in the book of Romans chapter 16, and Uh, it— chapter 16, verse 7 in the King James Version, which is the version that the church uses. And I'd like to see maybe the church not using that version, but that's another story altogether. Uh, Romans 16:7, salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. Now, if you go to the New International Version, that is a whole lot clearer than— it says, "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was." So most scholars who have read this and analyzed this have determined that the name Junia is a feminine name. Junia is a woman. And most scholars also agree that the language here indicates that not only was she a woman, she was an apostle. They are outstanding among the apostles, Andronicus and Junia. Now, obviously, this has caused some problems for a patriarchal church, and I'm not talking necessarily about our church. I'm talking about the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, which in the 13th century started to modify this text to change the name to Junias, to insist that obviously it couldn't have been a woman who was an apostle. So this is just a misspelling or something of a, of a feminine name, of a masculine name. And so beginning in the 13th century, Catholic scholars would refer to Junia as Junius. And most scholars, including Catholic scholars, now realize Junius isn't really a name and Junia is. There are many references to people named Junia around that same time frame. They are all women. It's very clearly a feminine name. So those who are trying to insist that women could never have been apostles have now sort of shifted their tactic to saying, okay, yeah, Junia was a woman, but Junia was not an apostle. She was just noteworthy among the apostles. She was a friend of the apostles, but she couldn't possibly have been an apostle. Whereas the plain reading of the text indicates that Junia was in fact an apostle, known to be an apostle, an outstanding apostle, and very clearly a woman. So this sort of throws a lot of stuff into, into stark relief here because We have a church where apostles cannot be women and where women cannot hold the priesthood. Bishops cannot be women. Uh, pretty much every leadership role in the church, uh, is filled by a man. Now you can go through like the Relief Society and women's organizations And there was, in fact, a time in the Church, probably over 100 years ago, where the Relief Society and other women's organizations really were somewhat autonomous. Women had real authority to run those things. And it was with J. Reuben Clark in the early part of the 20th century, like the '20s and '30s, decided, no, the Relief Society reports to the priesthood. So I remember talking to a, to a woman who counsels people who are in faith crisis, and she says there's a huge problem with women in the church because there is never a time where a woman can make a decision that cannot be overridden by a man. So even the General Relief Society president, uh, can't make a decision without having a man have the final say. So, and on a ward level, the Relief Society president can't make a decision without having the bishop being able to override it if he wants to. Now, most bishops, I think good bishops, allow the women in the ward to function in leadership roles, but they do so at the bishop's discretion. And bad bishops don't allow for that kind of thing. So here we are, we've got a church that essentially is built on the idea that men hold the priesthood and women do not. And that has become more and more problematic as the world embraces the reality that women and men are genuinely equal. And I remember talking to somebody else about the fact that— because the church will say, well, of course they're equal. Men and women are equal. And you can read the Family Proclamation, and it talks about how they're equal partners, but it's the man who presides. And it's like, well, if the man presides, then they're not equal because the man is in charge. And this guy I was talking to said, look, if you have to keep telling people that they are equal, then they are not equal. They know, they can sense it. Women can tell when they are actually equally valued and have equal authority in the church. So, so here we are. It's going to get, I think, more and more difficult to justify a church that is all male-led in a society that continues to give opportunities to women. And women, I think there are still all kinds of inequities in the workplace, all kinds of inequities in society. But pretty much everybody in the secular world agrees that equality, genuine equality, is the goal. And we don't seem to be agreeing with that in the church. And one of the things that I find problematic is that I can't find any scriptural justification for denying women the priesthood. When, when Black people were denied temple blessings and priesthood until 1978, people could point to different scriptural references to try to justify that, to references in the Pearl of Great Price about the lineage of Ham being denied the priesthood, and the Pharaoh who came from the lineage that did not have access to the priesthood. I don't remember the exact phrase. There's also, of course, the racist scriptures in 2 Nephi chapter 5, although those don't— those have never really been invoked to justify denying the priesthood. People would point to them to point out that, okay, sometimes the Lord uses race to discriminate against people. And we now, I think, disavow that, although I wish we'd go farther in disavowing that, but that's another story altogether. I can't find any parallel sort of example that says women can't have the priesthood. There are no scriptures that say women can't have the priesthood. There are no scriptures that even infer that women can't have the priest— well, I mean, guess I could— they talk about men you know, men who are ordained to this. I think in the Book of Mormon, particularly Alma chapter 13, talks about men, but it doesn't exclude women. And when you actually talk to scholars, to Latter-day Saint scholars about this, or you talk to church leaders about this, they will cite tradition. They will say, well, look, Jesus called 12 men to be his apostles. And so clearly the priesthood is limited to men. That's a really flimsy argument, I think, particularly when we now have an example. I mean, we've had an example all along of a woman in the New Testament who's very clearly identified as an apostle, and she's not one of the original apostles. But, you know, Matthias took Judas's place after Judas hanged himself. And so apostles were to be replaced. And the quorum— we've emphasized this in the Church, that a lot of other churches say, okay, yeah, Jesus called 12 apostles, and then when they were gone, so were all apostles. Whereas we point to, no, they were to be replaced, and there were to be new apostles when the old ones passed away. And so Junia was very clearly one of those. And yet, so we have a scriptural precedent saying, yeah, Jesus and the early church, they were open to the idea of women being apostles. And yet here we are in 2025. We don't allow women to hold the priesthood. We don't allow women to be apostles, and we don't have any good justification for it. Am I missing something? Are you aware of some justification that I don't know about?

I'm not. No, I can't think of any justification. As I listen, this is such an interesting topic and a very challenging one. Two guys here talking about the role of women, women in the right, women in authority. Right. And as I like all the conversations and actually every aspect of my life, when I have conversations in my work and in my personal life, often my brain works like a mind map. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking this behavior with the church, these cultures, the, you know, the culture, the traditions, the routine, the, the regiment, where does all that come from? And you have to look at the history of human nature. And in religious terms, that extends beyond the different evolutionary stages of human beings, even though the church doesn't actually believe that or there's no position of that. But it goes back to the very nature of God. If you look at how and why men think and operate in the church or in any organization, Where does that come from? That thinking, that mindset. And a part of it comes from that nature of man, comes from partly at least religious experiences, experiences over thousands of years. If we talk about the nature of God, if you look at the Mormon God who's got the Melchizedek Priesthood, Jesus Christ, Mormon God has multiple wives. Multiple kingdoms and in charge of these women. And we know very little about those women. There's almost nothing written about Heavenly Mother, her role. Does she have any authority? Are you from a different Heavenly Mother than I am from? Who's my Heavenly Mother? I mean, this gets—

Do you remember Elder Minor? From our mission.

I do, Elder M. L. Lemani.

I was on splits with him, and he just out of nowhere just said, do you think you and I have the same Heavenly Mother? And freaked me out. I was like, what, what are you talking about? It had not even occurred to me that, that, that would be a thing. And I think that's one of the reasons really why the church is so reticent to talk about Heavenly Mother is that there are a lot of statements from early church leaders that indicate that God not only has multiple wives, he has infinite wives, billions of wives, you know, so they just don't want to go there. And yeah, so that's a real problem. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

No, no, no, it's good. Yeah.

When you asked me that, I had a flashback to standing on a doorstep in Livingston, Scotland.

And that's a nice interruption. You know, when we think about, you know, we have these conversations about the Mormon Church, the context of the church, church leaders. But this issue goes beyond that. It goes to the very nature of man, the evolution of man and women. It goes to, in the Mormon context, the Mormon God. You know, what type of God is he? Is he a he? We know he's a he because that's what we got taught. We can say for certainty the Mormon Church teaches that God is a man. I think we can say 99.9%, if not 100%, the Mormon, uh, religious position on the nature of God is that God is a man. We know this from the First Vision with Joseph Smith, that God appeared to Joseph Smith and next to him was Jesus Christ, and they looked alike, and only the Holy Ghost could separate them.

We—

so there are two men there. We know that God is male. We know very little about Heavenly Mother. They made— the church has made a few references to Heavenly Mother, but we hardly know anything about her or any of our Heavenly Mothers. We know that the church still believes and practices polygamy in the next life. We've been taught repeatedly that God has multiple wives. So this is important part of the Mormon historical religious teaching position and experience and speaks to the nature of God. If you look at other religions, Church of England, Catholic Church, I think most religions or many religions have a man at the top of their organization historically. And presently. There'll be some exceptions. I'm not privy to those. And of course, if you look at the nature of man, man has this need to, from a human nature evolutionary, a need to lead. And that comes probably from hunter-gathering, the role of the man. If you go back and look at the distinct roles of men and women over the years, And I'm not a, an historian, but if you went back and looked at that, the, the man plays a typical role and the woman plays a certain role. And over the last few thousand years, for example, women's roles have changed a lot. You know, they've gone from, you know, those roles have gone from domestic, you know, reproductive roles. Of course, women can have babies, men can't have babies. And of course, bringing, you know, up to date, those rules have changed significantly with women in leadership positions in public, professional, you know, women prime ministers, women leaders. I'm thinking of Jacinda Ardern, who's a former Mormon of the church, who was the former prime minister of New Zealand. So now I think it's easier for women, and women listeners listening to this may disagree with this, but I think if you look at the progression and evolution of the role of women, I think it's getting easier. And of course, Alisa Zu, women are free to disagree with that. So I'm a man speaking about these topics relating to women. And so I have a limited perspective, but I do have a wife, I have a mother, I had a mother, and I have a daughter. And I have those individuals who are very important to me, who have educated me and informed me and taught me a great deal about their experience in the workplace and in the church, by the way. Also my mother-in-law. My own mum was an extraordinary leader, very intelligent, just a very, uh, intelligent when it comes to history. My mum was a history buff. She was a— she liked politics. She was incredibly smart and a natural-born leader. The way she spoke, conducted herself, just a wonderful, extraordinary, great leader. I've got other women in my life, as I mentioned earlier, who are also extraordinary leaders. I've worked extensively with women in the church. One of my best counselors was a woman. As a bishop. When I say a counselor, this individual was a Relief Society president. And I've had— and I saw the value and the benefit of working closely with my Relief Society presidents in a counseling-type arrangement. So it was kind of breaking the rules where I had bishopric meeting, and I would invite my Relief Society president— say my, our Relief Society president— into the meeting. And frankly, I would get often, not always, the best counsel from our Lucite presidents, not just one. And I learned to appreciate and value extraordinary gifts and talent and wisdom that would come from these just wonderful women. So I've, in my change, you know, in my life, my, you know, my, my appreciation and understanding of of women, the role of women in the workplace and the church has changed dramatically, certainly since leaving the church. And I've had the privilege and honor of working with extraordinary women, Jim, in the church, women who could, could easily be a bishop or a stake president, hands down. And frankly, I would have no problem. I think if when I was acting in the church, I, when I had that orthodox traditional mindset, I don't know how I would have responded. But now post-church. I would have no problem whatsoever going to a woman bishop or a woman stake president and following a woman. I had no problem with that whatsoever. Other men do and would have a problem with that. But this, this conversation is interesting because it speaks to the nature of God, speaks to the nature of Heavenly Mother, speaks to the nature of man and the role of man and how that's evolved and continues to evolve over the years. Speaks to the role of women, women's rights on everything, you know, from control over their body, decisions of their body, to the role in society, role in business, role in the church. And the men in the church are a product of centuries of evolution of, of man. Man's nature, which is interesting because we've made many references to the church's claim that it is the only true church upon the face of the earth and has insights that no other religion has into human nature, into God, Heavenly Mother, into the nature of man, nature of women, the role of man and women, an organization like no other. And understands these things like no other organization. And yet it's the, the men in the church still are controlled, their mindset still, um, uh, constrained to traditions, routine, how things have always been done over the centuries. Again, in business, in religion in general, man has got this um, need, requirement to control, often but always. I don't want to put men down, some wonderful men out there, but there is a nature, an element of man's nature in certain individuals. I'm gonna be clear about this, where certain men feel the need to control. And you get this in women as well, it's not just men, this is not just specific to men. But if you look at over the years, men have typically led typically been in charge. You mentioned earlier that a decision's not made unless a man's involved or a man approves it. And that, and women haven't had rights in the past. If you look at the right to vote, for example, uh, if you go back to, um, um, you know, some of the, uh, leaders, um, in, um, politics. And look at other individuals over the years. There's been women like the suffragettes. You know about that history, Jim Bennett?

Sure, sure. I mean, historically, yes, men have— I mean, I don't think you need to indict every man who's ever lived to say that historically men have run the show and everybody expected that, including women. I mean, I look at, for instance, the history of racism in the church, and people talk about, well, how could God have allowed it to endure for as long as it did? And my answer is, well, for a very long time, and I think probably for the majority of the time that the priesthood ban was in place, the expectation was that, you know, of course this is the way it is because this is the natural order of things. And of course, Black people are second class, and the fact that they're enslaved, you know, even if you look in the Bible, There are all kinds of provisions allowing for slavery in the Bible. You know, so when people say, well, how did your church stay— keep this racist thing going for so long? It's like, well, how did the New Testament church not come out against slavery, which they absolutely did not? How come there are things in the Old Testament where God essentially is invoked in terms of establishing the rules and guidelines by which another person can be enslaved. You know, so you have all of these kinds of— I mean, you talk about it in terms of culture, and I think that's the way to do it. I think for the vast majority of human history, the unquestioned assumption has been men are in charge, Women are the fairer sex, the weaker sex. Women support men. Men run the show. And as we as a species essentially have become more enlightened and we've come to recognize that women are not less intelligent than men, if anything, I would— I don't want to pedestalize women either. I mean, this is— this is the— you're right. This is the challenge. Of being a guy, two men who are sitting here talking about women. And, you know, one of the things that I find really— I know my wife finds really frustrating is, for instance, you go to a Mother's Day sacrament meeting. And do you know where I'm going with this when I talk about a Mother's Day sacrament meeting?

I think so.

Well, I mean, so what happens in a Mother's Day sacrament meeting very often is that men stand up and they start talking about, oh, how great women are, and oh, we couldn't do this without our mothers and without our women. And in fact, the reason why we have the priesthood is because we need that extra help to be able to catch up with the women, because the women are just so inherently righteous and so much better than we are. And every time my wife hears that, it just, it's like nails on a chalkboard and it's become nails on a chalkboard for me too, because that's not necessarily helping women at all. It's sort of justifying, okay, yeah, here's the best possible reason we can have for keeping you from holding any authority. And I think women would much rather have that authority. I mean, I— have you, have you ever seen this sort of pedestalization? This isn't just an American phenomenon.

No, no, it goes beyond that. And you're right. I, and I've been like that, but I behave like that myself. You know, I've said those things. I've— as a bishop, we've had, you know, those meetings and we penalized, um, women in that way. You know, men and women are— people are equal. Not just men and women, people are equal in, in my eyes, um, regardless of color, creed, you know, background, sexuality, male or female, tall or short, fat or slim, it doesn't matter. Everybody is equal in value, okay? We all have different skills, we're good at different things, you know. Some guys are better at this, some of the guys are better than this, right? Men and women are equal in value. They have, as an individual, they have different skills. Not because they're man or woman, but they, you know, as people, they have different skills. Biologically, they're different. The science is very clear, you know, biologically, a woman is a woman, biologically, a man is a man. We may get into that a little bit later. And again, I realize this is a very complex and challenging area of conversation. Because it's, we've seen some very interesting things happening there with changes to the law. And we may get into that, but basically, you know, again, just going back to what I was saying, if you look at the role of women over the last, you know, few thousand years, few hundred years, the changes in, you know, the early societies, domestic and reproductive roles, of course, women in the past have had limited public roles. Um, there's the emergence of a patriarchy, which you see over, you know, over the centuries, over thousands of years. There's been an emphasis on with women that their role is in the house, you know, in the home, the domestic responsibilities. That's their role. You know, I grew up in a neighborhood that was very, I think, quite misogynistic and male dominated in that community. In that kind of culture in the UK back then, you know, the, in a mining community, the man was this, this miner went down and the woman was at home cleaning and cooking and doing the ironing. And that was common. That's, that's what people did. And that was the tradition, the culture, that was the mindset, the psychology, you know, behind it. And so women have remained, um, domestic, You know, or men have kept them in those roles, et cetera, applauded them. You know, you've got some women who, you know, have been extraordinary game changers. You know, suffragettes, that was focused on the right of women to vote in those political elections. There's a, you know, the people that were involved in that. And I've got the name here. So Emmeline Pankhurst was a member of the Suffragettes and she did some extraordinary things back in the early 1918, 1928 in the UK and did a lot to help women in the UK get access to votes and get, get some equal rights or some rights. Equal rights sometimes, but just some rights for, you know, for women at that particular time. And so there's some extraordinary women out there who've shown extraordinary courage and leadership. Post me leaving the church now and not following the same behavior that so many leaders, male leaders in the church do to pedestalize women and talk about, talk up women without giving them authority and me being a part of that. I now, the best way I can talk about this, uh, issue, keeping in mind I'm a guy, is to share my thoughts and experiences on the women in my life who helped me me in a very personal way, and then, and professionally helped me in my workplace. And all I can say is that those women individuals in my life have brought extraordinary strength and gifts and happiness and success to my life. But I think that's the best way for me to talk about this. And I've learned a great deal from those women who have been part of my life. And so my perspective has changed. You know, I've talked about the nature of God, the nature of man. I've talked about— I expect the church to be different, to behave differently, because it's the true church. So why can't it be progressive? Why can't it stop thinking like man has always thought traditionally over thousands of years? And that's a tall task for sure, because we're talking about evolutionary behavior, you know, the psychology, that, that long role of men and women over the, you know, thousands of years. And you don't change that overnight, but it is changing. But I expect the church to be better, to do better. And to your very important point, not to talk women up just for the sake of doing that, to say, you know, how great women are, etc., because, you know, people are great in general, uh, you know, most people are pretty awesome. Uh, whoever they are, uh, but to provide equal opportunity to women, both in business, which is happening more and more, I believe, even though there's a, a gender pay gap and there's a lot of inequality still in the industries and professions. It's still a long way to go for sure, but progress. Um, some of the women in my life have experienced some progress in their professions, which is great. Again, still a long way to go, Jim Bennett. But in the church, as somebody who's got these deep insights into human nature and the nature of God, why can't the church take the lead and simply extend the invitation for a woman to be called first into the non-ecclesiastical positions like Stakesholders School and other callings where you don't need the priesthood authority. But why don't they be courageous and just understand and accept that a woman is equally as good as a man and can easily perform the role of a bishop or stake president? And why can't we have women General Authorities? What, what reason on earth can we not have? And why can't we have a woman prophet? You've got women that run for prime minister and presidents. In some of the countries. By the way, there's a lot of cultures out there that if you look at the cultures and some of the religions, it's like going back 1,000 years where the woman is completely suppressed. In some countries, Afghanistan and other places, women aren't even allowed to have an education. Some countries are not even allowed to drive. Every aspect of their life is controlled and dictated by a man. We're living in Western society, a different society. We could argue it's a better society for women. And why can't we, as the only true church upon the face of the earth that has this very unique understanding of the nature of man and God and Heavenly Mother, why can't we just be brave and courageous and go the whole way and extend these leadership and other priesthood authority offices and callings, responsibilities to a woman. Why not? Why can't a woman do the same thing as a man? As I listen to myself, I'm astonished at how far I've come since navigating my faith and leaving the church. I've come a long way because I didn't used to think like this. I was like many of the men in the church that women— well, that you're a woman, that's your role, that's what you do, these are your callings. This is your responsibility. And that's what was taught to me and dictated to me by, you know, the prophets and by the leaders of the church. And that's, that's embedded into the teachings. A lot of this comes from the doctrine, the scriptures, the doctrine, the policies, the principles, the teachings is all there to remind people what their position is. That this is— you're a woman, this is what you do. This is your role. Don't step outside of it. This is your area of responsibility. Each, each of those responsibilities, by the way, you have to report to a man in at some time, in some form. I think it's archaic. I think it's backward thinking. I think it's man-made. I think it's further evidence that the church is a I'll be gracious here, partly man-made organization. That's me being gracious. But why can't we be bigger, better, smarter, and accept, uh, and recognize the value of women in any role, whether it's in the workplace or in the church? So my— I've evolved. I have evolved faster than the church. So I've, without the inspiration of the church, without the guidance of the church, and actually considered by the church as being, I think by some, as an apostate. So here you have an apostate who's left the church, who has, I think, a progressive or at least a better way of thinking and a better progressive way of thinking in regards to these different roles. I'm not saying I have all the answers by any means, but I have left the church, yet I'm way ahead of the church in terms of this kind of thinking, in my opinion. And so why doesn't the prophet who speaks with God, why are they not more progressive than me, the apostate? Right? So, you know, I'm kind of, you know, a little bit of tongue-in-cheek there. A little bit of sarcasm, but I hope— I think the church will continue to change in this direction. I think we'll see more speakers. I think the church will extend these other callings, albeit non-ecclesiastical, to women. But it's going to take a long time, Jim Bennett, before women will get the priesthood. It's just so embedded. Do you see a time where women will ever receive the priesthood?

I don't know. I genuinely don't know. I think it is possible, but you asked a number of questions that you're saying you're being tongue-in-cheek, but I don't think they're rhetorical questions because I think there are answers to them. I think the stumbling block You know, why can't women be called as a prophet? Why can't women be given the priesthood? I think the stumbling block is Heavenly Mother. Is— I mean, when we say there's not a lot written about Heavenly Mother, we're being generous. There is nothing written about Heavenly Mother other than the fact that she exists. In fact, the only canonized It's not even canonized, but the closest thing we have to canon being the hymn book. The only— you sing "Oh My Father" by Eliza R. Snow, hymn 292. In the heavens our parents single know, the thought makes reason stare. Truth is reason, truth eternal tells me I've a mother there. That is the only clear reference to Heavenly Mother in anything that's official from the Church. There's nothing in the Doctrine and Covenants about it, nothing in the Pearl of Great Price about it, certainly nothing in the Book of Mormon or the Bible about it. And so, we don't know anything. And I think the skittishness, the reason why I say Heavenly Mother is the obstacle, is because the Church has not fully confronted all of the implications of polygamy. And one of the most glaring and jarring implications of how polygamy was taught and practiced by early church leaders is the idea that Elder Minor brought up with me on the doorstep in Livingston, Scotland. Do you think you and I have different spiritual mothers? The idea was very rampant in the early church that God has— I mean, I don't know if it's infinite, but the number of wives, it's more than polygamists on earth had. And the biggest polygamists in the church, you know, Brigham Young had— I don't know, what did he have? 50-some-odd wives. I mean, but we're talking about about a model of eternity where women vastly outnumber men, and yet men still are in charge. Men are running the show. And it— to be able to incorporate women into the church on an equal footing with men, you would have to find some way to reconcile that with the lopsided messiness of the implications of polygamy. And I think the only way you can reconcile that is to choose one or the other. And I very much want to choose— the fact that we have not repudiated polygamy beyond saying, okay, we won't practice it in this life, is such an open wound, particularly for women. I mean, I don't think men enjoy— I don't relish the prospect of polygamy, but I can't even imagine the amount of pain and suffering that a woman being told, okay, well, you know, you're going to have to share your husband in eternity, right? And women, you know, I very much recommend the book The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy by Carolyn Pearson. Because she goes through all of the scenarios of just women who are terrified that if they were to die, that their husbands would remarry. You know, I know President Oaks made a comment in conference about 5 years ago where somebody who had lost her— no, somebody who had married a man who was a widower. So this is a man who was sealed to another woman. And she had said, "Oh, do we have to live in the same house in eternity?" And President Oaks essentially framed it as a joke. He opened his talk with it and he says, "I think you should just trust the Lord and not worry about it." And it got kind of a laugh. I was in the conference center when that happened. I was singing in the choir. And I just remember thinking, this is not something you should be joking about, because this is a raw, open wound for so many women in the church. It's also— I mean, it's also women who lose their husbands, and they're sealed to their husbands, are not allowed to be sealed to another man because of this sort of polygamous framework that we still operate under. And so they essentially live the rest of their lives in solitude because men in the church at least don't want to marry them because they can't be sealed to them. I mean, there are so many issues with this. So in order to extend the priesthood to women and to say, okay, women, you are in fact on equal footing with men. You have exactly the same sort of authority. You have exactly the same sort of relationship with God that men have. And we've moved in that direction. The temple has moved in that direction very clearly. But in order to fully embrace it, we have to come to terms with the inequality of an eternity that is polygamous. Right. Because there is no way to square that circle. There is no way to say that that is equal. And there are so many women in the church who say essentially, look, Mormon heaven doesn't sound appealing at all. The idea that— and they look at the model of how we teach. It's like, okay, well, if I'm going to be a goddess, how am I a goddess if none of my children are even allowed to acknowledge my existence in any significant way. You know, the Heavenly Mother, I mean, yes, we say that there is one. We don't know anything about her and we're not allowed to pray to her. We know that. And we're really not allowed to talk about her at all beyond acknowledging her existence in passing. How would you like to be a woman and be told, okay, that's your eternal destiny. Yes, you're going to have children, you're going to have these spirit children, and none of them are going to be able to acknowledge you. None of them are going to be able to even recognize that you exist beyond the most cursory ways of doing it. So I think there is a real fundamental theological problem here. Now, I think it's also possible. So, now see, if I were president of the Church, which seems unlikely to me, but let's just humor me for a minute. If I were president of the Church, I would get up in conference and I would say, "Look, I don't see any reason why I can't ordain a woman to the priesthood. I can't find any scripture telling me I can't." And so barring a revelation from heaven telling me I can't do this, I'm going to start ordaining women to the priesthood. And maybe I get struck down by lightning because that's terrible, but the church could do it right now. There is no scriptural prohibition against ordaining women. The church could do it right now. And I think The reticence to do it comes from the reticence to reconcile all of the messiness of our theology that we have not disavowed, that we still practice, and that is still a source of great pain and frustration to women throughout the church. I mean, is that too conspiratorial for you?

No, not at all. It's extraordinary. I'm listening intently to what you're saying and You say some things that I already knew, but you said something that just, I had an epiphany. I knew it, but I just didn't really realize until you were saying it. You said earlier, we're not even allowed to pray to Heavenly Mother, right? And I'm listening to all the things that you're saying, and I kind of picked up on that. And I thought, do you remember getting taught that we don't, this is what I was taught, we don't talk about Heavenly Mother because it's a sign of respect. And because God's name is Ad for good and evil, and his name is trounced and spoken irreverently, God loves Heavenly Mother so much, didn't tell us anything about her out of respect. Now, I was taught that specifically, repeatedly, growing up at 16, going forward in the church and after the mission, but certainly before my mission. Were you taught that, Jim Bennett?

Yeah, I was, but not like— I mean, that, that was a cultural assumption. I've certainly never heard any of that from the pulpit in conference.

Yeah.

I mean, it's one of the folk— I was also taught that Black people were, you know, fence sitters.

Less valiant.

Less valiant. Yeah, actually, I was taught that more officially than I was taught, right, that we just have so much respect for her. But yes, I was absolutely taught that.

Yeah, we talked more about the priesthood situation, you know, with blacks in the priesthood. And when it did come up with Heavenly Mother, it was, and we can't talk about it because it's so sacred. And then you said something that we're not even allowed to pray to her. And I'm thinking, holy cow, you know, there's so little information that we know about. We know nothing, to your point. Why is that? Why would the church, so-called true Church of Jesus Christ, like they say, you know, the only church on the earth, etc., want to not talk about that or suppress that? Why don't we know about her? Why can't we speak, know about her, but speak with reverence about her, right? The women in my life are important to me because I know so much about them and I've learned from them and I know them so well. And they've blessed my life endlessly. So why can't I know about Heavenly Mother? Why can't I pray to her? And I'm thinking, where the hell does this come from? It comes from this man-controlling thing, doesn't it? This nature of man. And if we give the woman, you know, too much control over something, and we put— we pray to a woman, for heaven's sake. Sorry, that was a play on words there, not deliberate. But we pray to a woman, maybe for heaven's sake, who knows. We can't have that because, oh my goodness, a woman's in charge. And if a woman think women in charge, then we're not needed and we're not valued and we're not in charge and we're not in control. It's a controlling thing. It's a controlling thing. We see that in the church. And so I picked up on that when you were speaking. Earlier. And as I was listening to the other points you were making, I was thinking about what you said about inequality. And I've kind of made a bit of a list here of some of the areas of inequality. I'll zip through them real quick here. So these are the areas where I think women— I can't speak for women, I'm a guy, right? And there's women out there, ladies out there, sisters out there who want to jump in and correct me, improve me, educate me, that's okay. Or say I got something right. Maybe I did, and that's okay, or you want to come on and talk about these things, you know, we'd certainly open to that. But here's the areas of inequality from my perspective at least is, you know, obviously the one is around the priesthood, ordination, leadership. You know, women have no priesthood authority, therefore can't control any key decisions, you know, in the church. You've got your women primary, Relief Society, they make decisions within their sphere, but they all report to a man. At some level, right? Temple ordinances and the language in the temple. Well, yeah, there's been some changes with the temple language, but historically, and you and I text about this, text this back and forward before this conversation, I think pre-1990 and just a little bit after 1990, didn't Eve covenant with God as Adam covenants with God? That she was, she reported to Adam, So a line of reporting, like a line manager, I guess. She reported with Adam. She covenanted with Adam as Adam covenanted with God. I'm 99.9% sure that's exactly what was going on there.

No, it— well, so prior to 1990, the covenant was that Eve was covenanting to obey Adam's law Yeah. And hearken unto his counsel as he hearkens unto the Father.

That's it.

In 1990, the language was changed to I covenant to obey the law of the Lord and hearken unto your counsel as you hearken unto Father. And that was seen as a step forward. And it is a little bit, but it really is the same thing because the way they justified the previous languages, they said, well, you only have to hearken to your husband if he's obeying the law of the Lord. And so he— anyway, in the most recent changes, Eve's covenant is direct with— I mean, Eve interacts directly with the Father and the Son in the same way Adam does and makes the same covenant that Adam does. And that's seen as a huge step forward, and I think it is. But then people have also pointed out that the sealing covenant has been changed, and preside has been slipped into the sealing covenant where it was not there before. So a lot of people are saying this is a bit of a shell game, in that the Church is not really changing anything, but it is, you know, it is just sort of shifting where the patriarchy is in the covenants in a way that makes it more palatable but doesn't repudiate the fact that the man is in charge.

Right, right. And language in the church, in the temple, with any religion, within the temple, because it's such a sacred place and covenants and you make promises, so important because in there I got a note here where it says that the wife gives herself to the husband. And both receive each other, but the wife gives herself to the husband. Uh, presumably that's relating to, you know, the husband, um, again, being in charge, being in control. Language is so important here to understand, you know, the, the psychology and the meaning behind this. And there's those kind of references that still remind us of the role of men and women. But other areas of inequality include lack of representation in the church. You know, we don't get that many speakers. We had 3 women speakers at General Conference. I counted them. Was it 3?

I think it was 3. This last one, yeah, it was 3. It's been— there have been conferences that have had more, and there have been many, many conferences that have had less.

Okay. And I hear that the church is under pressure to have more women represented in conference, but it's mostly male, right? And you don't have women in those talks making decisions or announcing stuff, do you? Right? All that's done by the prophet and the brethren, they're the ones that announce all the temples and the decisions. You don't get women doing that. Other, other things are cultural expectations, like, you know, traditional cultural expectations in the church emphasize women's roles as wives and mothers. We've talked a few times on the podcast that historically the prophets have wanted women to be in the home. Don't go after a career. That's not righteous. Let you know your role. Man goes out to provide, your role is in the home, don't get an education. Again, it's very dinosaur thinking. The church has come a long way, I think, in respect to that. But still, I think mostly, and push back on this, I think still expects women to be in the home, um, or at least play the bigger part in the home, in the house. That's the impression I get. Um, And again, jump in if you disagree.

Authority— I don't necessarily disagree, but I think there has been considerably less emphasis on that, almost to the point of— I mean, it's the way the church disavows everything. They do it through silence. They do it through just allowing it to sort of fade into the background. And hope that people just kind of don't remember. It's the— we talked about this on the podcast. What's the name of the woman who was made the general— I think she was made the General Relief Society president, or she was in the Relief Society presidency. And she was a lawyer throughout her entire marriage and raised— she worked out of the home. Out of her entire marriage, and she's of an age where when she did that, the church was counseling actively, proactively, that women need to stay in the home. And she defied that counsel and now is serving as in leadership of the whole church and has been, and President Oaks even went out of his way to praise her for her decisions. So, so I think what you're seeing is, yeah, we have not disavowed any of the language that was being shouted from the rooftops 40, 50 years ago. But in culture and in practice, we have quietly let it fade. And I think there is a hope that it will fade into oblivion and that people will just not remember that. And I just— I don't think that's a good strategy for any of it, for anything. Anyway, sorry.

No, no, no, it's just good, good comment there. And but privately, I believe, or I perceive that the leaders of the church see the role of the woman being mostly in the home, right? Privately. You know, the proclamation to the, on the family is a very important doctrinal statement, teaches that fathers are to, quote, preside over the families. They've not, they've not changed that. That's still, um, in, in effect is that very significant document that's framed on members' homes, right?

Yep.

Limited voice at higher levels. Uh, other examples are auxiliary organizations. They're in charge of auxiliary organizations, can make decisions within those spheres. But each one reports to a man. I mean, this affects spiritual, psychological, service, you know, a whole range of different activities and experiences for women, you know, which ultimately reported to a man. Missionary work, all under the male priesthood authority structure, right? You know, can't give, you know, the male priesthood can't give blessings. The very, women are very restricted. And you would argue, if women are restricted with authority, Are they restricted on receiving blessings? I think so. In the church, they would say, well, hang on, you haven't got the priesthood, but you have access to the blessings of the priesthood. But that's not the same as giving someone a blessing. A woman giving someone else a blessing or healing them or enaming a blessing or performing some ceremony where the woman is the voice in speaking and instructing and directing through those experiences. That's not that experience, that blessing is not the same as being a, like a proxy individual where you are receiving blessing from the priesthood indirectly through your husband, right? It's not the same. Not in my books, it's not. Other areas are, you know, temple service. Again, loads of restrictions in the temple. Women can only perform certain functions in the temple. Restrictions all goes to the, the temple presidency. Teaching and nurturing, you know, women recognized In the church, we talk about the inherent gifts in teaching, nurturing, and strengthening families and communities. Spiritual insights, contributions valid at local congregations. Again, that's reinforcing that, um, that stereotype of where men, women, or where men expect, or society expects women to, to play roles. Other restrictions are areas of inequality, councils, you know, women who serve on, um, ward or state councils, they, they provide credible value perspective, and I talked about that just now. Um, however, on my experience, I've, um, worked equally side by side with women, really, and valued their counsel, uh, equal to anyone, you know, in my counselors, and followed the counsel of the Relief Society president. I don't know how How many? I'm not saying I'm a game changer, nothing like that, but how many bishops do that? I probably suspect many of them do, but many of them don't. They don't see the religious site as a wonderful resource and who cannot make decisions and yeah, that's a better decision than what I was thinking and let's go with that one. That's great. And acknowledging that, right? But again, even in those situations, Jim, they have no authority. The religious site's president has no authority. 'Cause the bishop can override the decision, right? Speaking opportunities, church's stance on equality, saying that everyone's equal in the eyes of God. You know, neither is the man without the woman or the woman without the man. Teaches that in Corinthians. But in reality, it's not the same. Men and women are not equal in the church. And so there's a whole list of, areas of inequality in the church, which, you know, the church would do well to, you know, change and progress. There's a famous quote by Emilian Pankhurst, which I quite like. I want to share it with you, and I know we're coming up to the end here. She says here, as she was trying to implement these changes in the UK back in the um, change of the century in 1918, I think, to 1928, uh, from her notes. She talked about, uh, deeds, not words, when things were not progressing as fast as she would like. She says that we are here not because we are lawbreakers, we are here in our efforts to become lawmakers. And then she says, I would rather be a rebel than a slave. And she goes on to say, you have to make more noise than anybody else. You have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else. And you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else. In fact, you have to be there all the time and see what they do not show you under if you are really going to get your reform realized. And so this is, um, uh, uh, Emilian Pankhurst's quotes and comments from that time. Quite an extraordinary individual. And so I think, and I hope that the church will continue to change. I think it is changing in this area. I don't think it's changing fast enough. As I said earlier, I think it would be wonderful and bold if the church would make a significant change and extend the invitation to lead in these different callings. But when it comes to the priesthood authority, women in decision-making positions, I think it goes beyond church leadership thinking to the very nature of man, the very nature of God. And the— I believe now the deliberate lack of interest in having a conversation about Heavenly Mother. I think in the church, in the Mormon Church, a lot— to your point, a lot of this stems back to Heavenly Mother. We don't know much, anything about her. And that's deliberate. That's strategic on the part of the male leaders. So, and the church doesn't want to talk about Evelyn Miller, do they? So there are my few final thoughts and comments, and I would love to have a sister come onto the podcast and share their insights and knowledge and maybe talk about some of these points that we've talked about, you know, because this is, as we said at the beginning, this is two guys' perspective And we, we see it from our perspective, but it's not the same. It can't be the same. Joseph Smith said there's no substitute for experience. How do we know what a woman or a sister experiences in the church? We can't know. We just can't know. We can learn some of it, but we can never really fully understand, right?

No, I agree with that. I have a couple of things to say in parting, because I think this is the beginning of a discussion. I don't think this is the final word by any means. This is a discussion that is ongoing and that is going to continue whether we want it to or whether the brethren want it to or not. The idea that this is just going, this is a phase or that, you know, This is just the worldliness. My father once told the story of listening to Bruce R. McConkie when my father was serving as a missionary. So this would be in the 1950s. And I don't think Bruce R. McConkie was an apostle at that point. But he apparently was speaking at some place where my father I don't know any of the specifics, so this may be sketchy, but I will always remember what my father said is that somebody asked Elder McConkie about why women are allowed to serve missions. Because isn't a mission a priesthood calling? And he said, well, they are allowed to serve missions because the world has taught us that women should have leadership roles. And so in an accommodate— in an accommodation to worldliness, we allow it in the church as well.

Wow.

And Dad was like, it was even then, you know, in the 1950s, it was very jarring to hear it put, put so starkly like that. But I think that very much was the thinking. So, two things. One, I honor, respect, and revere the priesthood. I respect my own priesthood. The fact that I hold the priesthood has been a tremendous blessing in my life. I think I have tried to use it to bless my family and to bless those around me. But just holding the priesthood has been a blessing in my life. And it would be— and so part of the motivation here is that I don't understand why that blessing, the connection to God I feel when I exercise my priesthood, it makes me sad that that's denied to half the members or more than half if you— I think there are more women than men in the church, but essentially to 50% plus of the church, they're denied that. They don't have that same opportunity to connect to God by using the priesthood to bless the lives of others. And again, historically, we did better at this to some degree. In Nauvoo, women would perform healing blessings, and there was a time where that was acceptable, and then that went away. Why did it go away? It doesn't have to go away. We can go back to that. I am not One of the things I said in a previous episode too is that this is not a call for the church to do anything. This is not— I am not going to leave the church. I am not threatening the church. I am not, you know, this is the church as I found it. This is the church where I have been called to participate, and this is the church that I am not going to leave. And I sustain my priesthood leaders and recognize that they have the authority, not me, to make these decisions. And I would hope, and the fact that I want them to make different decisions does not mean that they will, and I will continue to sustain them even if they don't. But one of the things a woman once said to me that really resonated with me, and I'm not even sure it was even in a discussion about the church, But she said the only way for women to get power in a misogynistic society is for men to give it up. And I had never thought of it in those terms before. But every time, you know, every time women have gotten rights, like in the United States, the right to suffrage, it's barely over a century since women were allowed to vote. It wasn't until 1920. That women got the right to vote in the United States. But every time that happens, it's a man who has to make the decision to give up that power, at least to some degree. And I would hope that the men who have been called to the highest offices, the sacred offices of apostleship, and to hold those prophetic callings— we sustain 15 men as prophets, seers, and revelators every conference. I would hope that they would have the humility to at least consider the possibility of giving up power, because that's what it will take. It will take them giving up power and saying, women can share this power, women can have this power, because once they do that, the cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the bottle. You can't give women the priesthood and then take it back, because then women will have the priesthood and will, and will not accept that. So every time a woman— every time women gain power in a misogynistic society, it's because men give it up. And I wouldn't call the church misogynistic, but I would call it patriarchal. And I think the same principle applies in a patriarchal society. In order for a patriarchy— for women to gain power in a patriarchy, the patriarchy has to give it up. And so I, I would hope that they would consider doing that. And I want to see this discussion continue because the only way it will continue— I remember President Hinckley talking on Larry King and being asked about this, and he said, well, our women are content, our women are happy with how they are. So we don't really need to see any changes because the women are happy with it. And I think to some degree he was right. And I think to some degree he's still right. And so I don't see a huge groundswell among women in the church rising up against President Nelson, against the patriarchy. But I do see a great deal of pain and a great deal of unease with the reality that we know that the way it's structured now, is not equal. That women and men really, as much as we try to find ways to pretend that they're equal, as long as men are the only ones who can make the final decision, that's just by definition, that's not equal. And I, I think we are moving closer in that direction. Uh, I think we will continue to move in that direction. Where the final ending is, I don't know. I'm not going to predict it. I'm not going to demand it, but I recognize where we are is not where we're going to end up. So that's my summation. Do you have any summation beyond my summation?

I think your summation is excellent, very insightful. I would say that old quote, isn't there, behind every great man is a A great woman.

A great woman telling him that he's wrong.

Well, the key word being behind every great man, but there's that other response quote to that is behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So I think your comments and your insights are really extraordinary. I would say to the church, be bold, be big, be brave, extend these privileges you know, rights, powers, privileges, authorities to women, and you will see the church transform. There's an extraordinary resource that the church is— it's not just the leadership, you know, and the qualities that women will bring to these different roles, responsibilities, equally to any man in any role in the church. The church itself, the organization, would be transformed. The church is doing a disservice to all of its members by not accessing the extraordinary talent and leadership that women have to offer in equal measure. That will be my parting, my final parting.

Well, thank you for that, and thank you to all of you listening. Thank you particularly to the women who are listening who have to suffer through two men trying to discuss something that we don't fully understand and can never fully understand. Yes, but there is so much goodness in this church. And, and that's one of the reasons why I, I have confidence that things get better and that we're going to move in the right direction. But there's so much goodness in the people who listen to this podcast and respond to us in this podcast. And we are very grateful for you. We're grateful that you've spent this time with us to discuss this. And we look forward to discussing something else with you next week in our next episode of Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.