salem-with-trials-color
Picture of April Young-Bennett
April Young-Bennett
April Young-Bennett is the author of the Ask a Suffragist book series and host of the Religious Feminism Podcast. Learn more about April at aprilyoungb.com.

Church Disciplinary Councils: Scriptural, But Not Revelatory

When you read Doctrine & Covenants section 102 as part of your Come Follow Me readings this week, take a moment and pause at the first word. No, I’m not talking about the word This, which is the first word of verse one. I am talking about the first word of the introduction: Minutes.

Compare that word, Minutes, to the first word of the section that follows: Revelation. Or the first word of the section that precedes it, which is also Revelation. Section 102 is one of a minority of sections in the Doctrine and Covenants that makes no pretense at being a revelation. It is just the minutes of a meeting where a group of men came together to decide on some policies and voted on them; majority rules. (No women were invited.) This distinction matters because D&C 102 is often cited as the scriptural mandate for the punitive (and often traumatizing) practice of holding church disciplinary councils within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon). These church courts continue within the LDS Church decades after most other churches have abandoned church courts in favor of more uplifting pastoral care approaches.

In February 2020, the Church Handbook gave church discipline a facelift, renaming Disciplinary Councils as Membership Councils, and their most severe outcome, Excommunication, as Withdrawal of Membership. However, most of the processes and penalties associated with the practice remain the same. They may not call it excommunication anymore, but withdrawal of membership continues to involve the same shunning-style punishments. Just like excommunication, withdrawal of membership renders null ordinances that are requisite to eternal salvation according to LDS theology.

The good news is that more meaningful policy changes did come alongside these superficial name changes, bringing long overdue correction to some of the most blatantly sexist aspects of prior church discipline policy. Until 2020, bishops were allowed to excommunicate women but not men, who could only be excommunicated by higher-level stake presidents. Three times as many volunteer staff were required to terminate a man’s membership compared to a woman’s.  While the removal of these sexist clauses is an important and welcome step, church discipline policy is not yet even close to treating women fairly. Current policy still allows women to be punished by disciplinary—ahem—membership councils, but does not allow women to call councils, staff them, or judge their outcomes.

Church Disciplinary Councils: Scriptural, But Not Revelatory
Salem Witch Trials Engraving, artist unknown

The meeting minutes that would become D&C 102 were written in 1834, at a time when punishing women in courts staffed entirely by men was the norm in America. In 1867, Elizabeth Cady Stanton described the attitude of the male-only American government of her time this way: “We [men] will be judges, jurors, sheriffs; and give woman the right to be hung on the gallows.” (The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, pg. 83) In fact, the year 1834 was closer in history to the years of the Salem Witch Trials than to our modern time. It is unsurprising that the group of men who participated in that meeting decided on a system that was less than progressive.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for a revelation to overrule a policy a group of men voted on about two centuries ago, even if it happens to have a section number in Doctrine and Covenants. Call another meeting. Vote for a more compassionate, less punitive, more egalitarian approach.

Oh, and don’t forget to invite women to the meeting this time.

April Young-Bennett is the author of the Ask a Suffragist book series and host of the Religious Feminism Podcast. Learn more about April at aprilyoungb.com.

8 Responses

  1. Hear, hear, invite the women to make the rules that effect women? Why would they do that, these men like their power over women, it helps keep women quiet and toeing the party line.

  2. Such an important issue. Any woman who has come up against abuse from a priesthood leader and has watched how men are able to protect themselves and their friends over the victim(s) understands how broken this system is. Men aren’t accountable to the women they harm.

  3. I have always wondered where the whole idea of excommunicating someone came from. It just doesn’t resonate with me as something the Savior would have done.

  4. As far as I’m concerned, church courts are the creepy-basement of Mormonism.

    I had a stake held court against me when I was a teenager.

    I can’t think of any other situation in society where it would not be considered anything-but-horrific for 10 middle-aged men to take confront a teenage girl with intense sexual questioning, behind closed doors.

    There was no other women in the room. I was not asked to invite a relief society president, friend, or even a parent (I had just barely turned 18 —but was still very much a kid.)

    On top of everything, I felt very wrongfully accused because the event that lead to the disciplinary court was NOT consensual. They mistook my insistence that it was my not fault for my refusal to repent.

    This should not have even been legal. I had no idea what a church court even was—yet alone had the opportunity to put up a boundary to deflect sexual questioning of strangers.

    Looking back, I see the dangers of a structure where women have no real voice to speak. I know the process has been tweaked a bit since my horrific experience —but it still has no place in any church

    This memory, even 20 years later, makes me want to go to the church office building and start turning over tables.

      1. Thank you, I really appreciate that. Thanks for shining lights on a topic that cuts deep for many people, but never gets discussed, because it’s uncomfortable.

        I have to think that if more members knew of the hurt caused by these painful church disciplinary councils, something would change.

        Unfortunately, this church court process is so shaming and embarrassing that those impacted will rarely speak up.

        I think my only hope is that the priesthood leaders involved can listen to their conscience, feel the discomfort, and make a change.

  5. Amen. This practice of church courts is troubling, and especially so when only men sit in judgement of women. Time to throw out the practice entirely. But if it’s retained, at least get the RS president and other women leaders in there as full partners with men to decide the outcome.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Our Comment Policy

  • No ads or plugs.
  • No four-letter words that wouldn’t be allowed on television.
  • No mudslinging: Stating disagreement is fine — even strong disagreement, but no personal attacks or name calling. No personal insults.
  • Try to stick with your personal experiences, ideas, and interpretations. This is not the place to question another’s personal righteousness, to call people to repentance, or to disrespectfully refute people’s personal religious beliefs.
  • No sockpuppetry. You may not post a variety of comments under different monikers.

Note: Comments that include hyperlinks will be held in the moderation queue for approval (to filter out obvious spam). Comments with email addresses may also be held in the moderation queue.

Write for Us

We want to hear your perspective! Write for Exponent II Blog by submitting a post here.

Support Mormon Feminism

Our blog content is always free, but our hosting fees are not. Please support us.

related Blog posts

Managers of the LDS Church are consciously well-intentioned and convinced of their moral uprightness. Yet they suffer from distorted thinking about women’s spiritual autonomy that is comparable to that of the clergy hundreds of years ago. Hundreds of years from now, will Latter-day Saints look back at patriarchal rhetoric as irrational, anxiety-driven and oppressive? Will feminists be exonerated like Joan of Arc, who was canonized in 1920? Or, will the Saints still be convinced of the divinity of misogynistic thinking for centuries to come and dwindle in numbers? All I know is that there is a lot of cautionary content for our Church in the European history of witch trials.

Never miss A blog post

Sign up and be the first to be alerted when new blog posts go live!

Loading

* We will never sell your email address, and you can unsubscribe at any time (not that you’ll want to).​