(Main image: This is me with Bishop Phyllis Speigel of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah. I’ve blogged about her before and I finally got to meet her this week! She has the same calling in Utah that Bishop Mariann Budde has in Washington DC, whose inaugural sermon Candice Wendt blogged about recently as an inspiration for Mormon feminists. (By the way – bishops in the Episcopal church are significantly higher in rank, responsibility and education than a bishop in an LDS ward – hence being invited to do things like participate in presidential inaugurations.)
When LDS people say it doesn’t bother them that women aren’t ordained, I know there’s a 99% chance they’ve never even attended a church that ordains women. Visiting other churches where women and girls are equal changed me forever. I can never go back.
During the Ordain Women movement of 2013/2014, the response from members of the LDS church was incredibly negative. The idea was so absurd that many of them actually found it offensive. Only men and boys could have the priesthood, they said. A woman couldn’t be a bishop. That would be like saying men could get pregnant and breastfeed babies!
At the time, I visited St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Provo – a church that’s been ordaining women since before I was born. It’s held a special place in my heart ever since.
There I spoke to women who explained attending an LDS baptism and how shocked they were to see all of the women on the sidelines while the men ran the entire show. Their biggest shock was when men who barely knew the child were invited to join the blessing circle while the mother, grandmothers, aunts and all women were completely excluded.
They said it felt like stepping back in time. Upon explaining the experience to another member of their church, that woman slapped her hand on the table and asked incredulously, “And Mormon women just put up with all of that?!”
Additionally, one week per month at St Mary’s the children participated in giving the sacrament to the congregation. A mother of two girls said it was their favorite week and they both couldn’t wait until they were old enough to do it. She told me she couldn’t imagine telling her girls, “Oh, I’m sorry – only the boys get to do that.” She asked if the girls at my church complained a lot about being left out.
I told her honestly that (at least for me) it had never occurred to me to be jealous because I’d associated passing the sacrament so much with maleness that my brain had never even considered it an option.
Being around Episcopalian women always makes my identity as a Mormon feminist feel so much less radical. Instead of being seen as a power hungry maniac, I’m just an admirable champion of basic women’s rights.
(That’s me in the middle of Mother Dani Lee (the priest at St. Mary’s) and Bishop Speigel!)
The pictures in this post are all from a screening this week of the new documentary “The Philadelphia Eleven“, about the first eleven women ordained into the Episcopal Church in the 1970s.
The film caught up with some of these now older women (this happened 50 years ago, the same year AND month Exponent II was formed – July 1974!) and told their story through both archived and new footage.
The women were hilarious and brave, and the men back then who vehemently opposed ordaining women (“They’re taking our authority from us!” they insisted, sounding a bit like angry children) made the film laugh out loud funny at times.
Here are some of my favorite lines from the film (which won’t be totally accurate, but as close as I can get from my memory):
About needing extra security at the church the day the women were ordained: “We had a bunch of Black Panthers and lesbians come give us extra protection!”
Describing being ordained despite so much anger and pushback: “I knew what we were doing was unequivocally right. It was dangerous, but the right thing to do.’
One woman watching herself on a show from the 70s with a particularly rude male priest said: “We had to learn how to have these conversations, you know… without socking people…”
Another female priest: “We were called man-hating dykes. Sister X was the first of us, when called a lesbian in public, to say, “Thank you!”, because she was in fact gay. Instead of “Oh, I’m straight, but I support my gay sisters”. No – just “thank you!” They didn’t know how to respond to that.”
Barbara Harris, the first female bishop, after being told she’d been voted as bishop: “I said, ‘I humbly accept’. And then I thought to myself, Oh crap! That’s not what you’re supposed to say. You’re supposed to say I’ll pray about it and get back to you.”
After the women were ordained by willing male bishops, people were enraged. One woman priest said, “It was as if we’d pricked an abscess, and now all of the pus and poison was running out freely.”
The church put the male bishops who had ordained the female priests on trial, but not the women – because that would have recognized their ordinations as valid. One woman said, “It’s not the bishop on trial right now, it’s the sexism of the church that’s on trial!” She concluded it was all male ego.
As they reunited at the funeral for one of the women who’d passed away during filming, one said to another: “I was hoping you’d come in the purple high tops you used to wear under your robes.” In response: “They don’t fit anymore. I have bunions now.”
And finally, I want to share a quote from a man attending the screening in the audience. He was formerly LDS, and (if I heard correctly), had served as both a bishop and a stake president.
He said, “I didn’t know what I was missing until I had female clergy in my life.”
I AGREE.
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To any local Utah people who’d enjoy a field trip to a Sunday service led by the phenomenal Dani Lee, check it out at: https://stmarysprovo.org/
They have two service times (9 am and 11 am), and Easter would be a really fun time to visit! Hang out afterwards to meet the women during their fellowship hour, then join my St. Mary’s Fan Club because you’ll know personally how amazing it is to see ordained women in action.
22 Responses
I’ve been hearing in the LDS church my entire 30 years of being a member that women are more spiritual and connected than men. My wife is way more in tune with spiritual matters than I am yet only I could be called as a bishop in this church cause I’m a dude.. At a minimum, women ought to at least be considered as counselors to the bishop.
I think at minimum women and girls should be eligible for EVERYTHING men and boys do. Not just counselors. (Think bigger, Brian!)
And yes, it’s weird to be told constantly what a more spiritual and more righteous half of the church we are – and to then be rewarded by putting the crappier half (according to the church – not me) in charge of us.
Abby, yes I do agree about women having equal access to all the leadership things. My brain was stuck on the Bishop leadership role with regard to my comment. But yes, I get your point and agree.
Not sure if this will reply in the right order to your last comment – sorry if this it out of order, but…
You’re good! I know you agree that women should be equals. I’m too radical of a feminist to want to do things slowly (like start with letting women be counselors). I want to uproot the whole system and start over with a better one!
St. Mary’s is my congregation and we are SO blessed to have the leadership of Rev. Dani and Bishop Phyllis!! They are knowledgeable, kind, compassionate and full of the Spirit!! I learn SO much from them!!
I see you’re already in my St. Mary’s Fan Club! 🎉 Thanks for being in it with me. ❤️
I really love this post. In Montreal, we have some very wonderful female religious leaders who have really opened up my eyes to how much female clergy/priests/faith leaders can bless people around them. One of my favorites is Rabbi Lisa Grushcow. She’s gay, leads the Reform synagogue in town, is married to a woman and is raising teens. She’s a very eloquent and inspired speaker and really shows up for the whole community. I also love Rev. Susan Brasier from the Presbyterian church, who is very knowledgeable of feminist readings of the Bible and gives sermons about this.
Also, I meant to say, I just adore these photos of you together! They are delightful. And I love the anecdotes here about how weird it is that women and girls are pushed out of religious rituals and rites of passage that seem natural for everyone to help with and enjoy if you think about it.
I got an ache in my heart reading this. I would love to have female clergy. Last week the wife of the bishop in my ward spoke; I felt an ache then too because she would make an amazing bishop as well and it would feed my soul to see her on the stand every week. Going to find a congregation with female clergy near me.
It’s such a good experience for anyone raised in the LDS church to get a glimpse of what it could be like if women were equals. (Not just told we have more power and authority – to actually see women with power and authority in action. It’s life changing for those of us who haven’t experienced it before.) (But then going back to a stand full of only men looking down at you feels almost unbearable – so just a warning!)
We began attending our local Episcopal church when the LDS church stopped working for our family and our faith. Our first Sunday it was so jarring to see women in the altar party! There were more women than men officiating! It is an immensely moving experience for me to see my queer teen daughter participate as an altar party member and to take communion from her hands. It feels right. Plus Bishop Philyss is our bishop! She’s amazing!
I understand the feeling! I hope other churches (where it’s the most normal thing on earth to have men and women working as equals) are patient with all of us attending a run of the mill Sunday service, then crying in the pews and coffee hour afterwards because we didn’t realize how much we’d spent our entire lives missing out on.
It seems to me that when the “restoration of all things” is completed, we may have some unhappy LDS members on both sides of the aisle, so to speak. There were strong, righteous women in the New Testament whose church titles we don’t know. It’s entirely possible any evidence of titles or ordination was deliberately edited out by those early male scribes., especially given the number of even the known translations. Who knows?
The early apostles (especially Peter) were said to be jealous of Mary Magdalene and disbelieved female disciples in general, so they may not have bothered to record the full church status of other women, such as Lois. and Eunice, etc. Plenty of materials are available for research if someone wants to dig into it. Personally, given my advancing age, any LDS change in policy won’t happen while I’m on earth. but even our General Officers (in RS, for example) probably get overridden just like female ward and stake leaders do. Say two words that a priesthood holder doesn’t like and Bam! It’s quite ridiculous.
I wholeheartedly support Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde and her courage in standing up to the danger that our nation is now in. I’m sure her Episcopal peers stand with her, including those in Utah.
Bishop Speigel talked about Bishop Mariann Budde, and how fate had led it to be her who was in the position to give that sermon at that moment to that president – and how she said what needed to be said, but still her voice was shaking as she did it. (Except Bishop Speigel said it better than me.) If the Episcopalian church hadn’t ordained women in the seventies for the first time, Bishop Budde wouldn’t have existed in her position at all to have said those words where she did. Women in power in churches changes the world!
(We had a couple male leaders attend the inauguration. I already forgot who they were. Apostles, I assume? Anyway, they did not have anywhere near the impact that Bishop Budde had. They just showed up and watched the event and then went home.)
It was Gong and Stevenson! The Church News has a couple pictures of them and couldn’t even spin it on a way to sound like they were interesting or influential on any level.
“Being in Washington, D.C., at such a time as this is an honor,” Elder Stevenson said. “The enduring principles that have been the foundation of our nation are important guides for our personal lives, families and communities.”
Very much yawn (and lacking in moral leadership). They say a little more, like, “The Apostles’ attendance continues the Church’s tradition of supporting and celebrating freedom and civility and upholding the principles of the Constitution.”
You can see the story here:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/two-apostles-president-trump-second-inauguration
I’ve been a fan of St. Mary’s since my first service. I have been attending for about two years now. Rev. Dani is pure dynamite, and the most loving, compassionate, insightful person. She does untold good for her congregation. Her Bible-based sermons are never boring or trite. Today in church she was pleased to mention the LDS who attended the screening of Philadelphia Eleven, giving a shout out to this very blog post on Exponent II! It is so marvelous to receive the bread and wine from the hands of a woman. The church was packed today, especially with younger women; Abby, I wonder if your post brought them in?
I would err on the side of caution and assume that’s just a happy coincidence. (But hey, I can also pretend I have influence and somebody went for the first time because of me!)
I know Mother Dani is originally from Eastern Europe and heard a little bit of her story, but If love to know more about her! I can see the appeal of her giving you a Sundat sermon each week! We’ve met just twice now in person. I’m glad you love her, too. It’s a small world!
The vitriol that comes to the fore in situations like these, where women enter historically men’s spaces, is so telling. It’s particularly upsetting in a religious context, where these male leaders have been preaching all the while that we are God’s children, God loves everyone, etc. And then when women try to show their devotion to God by becoming a pastor, priest, etc., the same men who have preachef love for their neighbor rage against these women and hate them. Men who oppose women’s ordination are not Christian. They really need to take a hard look in mirror and ask, if women can be ordained, does God love men less? If women can be ordained, does it feel like something special is being taken away from me? And why do I feel like this? Men who get angry at female ordination do not truly believe women are children of God. They do not view women as sisters in the gospel. They view life in hierarchical terms, and they don’t want their place in a man-made hierarchy threatened. It is one of the most un-Christian mindsets there is. Jesus said, in my Father’s home, there are many mansions. Are the same men who hoard their priesthood power hoping God only lets a minority of his Children into heaven? Are they secretly hoping that Jesus only forgives their sins and not others?
Watching the men (and women) in this documentary from the 1970s who were so angry and upset at the mere thought of women in their church being ordained came off as very petty (and funny for being so petty) in this documentary – and they sounded exactly like modern members of the LDS church who have also vehemently oppose the idea. History repeats itself! (And dang it, when you ended up in the church that’s behind schedule.)
It comes across incredibly poorly (and remarkably un- Christlike) when LDS members say, “You women who want to be ordained too are so dumb and weird, and you’re probably all lesbians who hate men… and you’re ugly, too!” Because this is what I’ve been told by active Mormon men, and I sure hope there’s a lot of that stuff recorded somewhere for the Mormon version of this documentary in 40 more years. I won’t feel bad laughing in a crowded theater at them either, considering how much time I spent crying because of them in the past. It’ll be karma. 😅
I work at an Episcopal church, and when all the finalists for the next bishop here were women, I knew I was going to do whatever I had to do in order to attend the ordination and consecration of the new bishop, no matter what. It was as good as I’d hoped. I’d love for all LDS women to have that experience.
When we decided to step away from Mormonism, my wife and I began attending a local Lutheran church based in large part on its weekly “all comers” dinner which serves the homeless, the food insecure, the elderly and anyone else who wants a delicious meal served with a smile and absolutely no strings attached. Volunteering to serve at that meal changed my life. Our first pastor was female and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with her until she retired. Two interim pastors — one male and one female — filled in until a permanent replacement was found — a male. We have enjoyed all four pastors. Like everyone, they have their respective strengths and weaknesses. Each of them has helped us in our journey. I have watched closely and can discern no difference in spiritual authority based on their gender. The church council controls the local congregation and it has had both male and female leaders. The current leader is female and one of my favorites. I must confess to being offended with how many of the congregation dressed for Sunday services. I would watch and judge them while they stood in line to receive communion. “Gee, is that best you can do? Is a sweatshirt really appropriate for Sunday? Flip flops…are you serious?” And them it hit me: this is how God sees us — not as we appear to be on Sunday dressed in our finest but as we actually are. I still get teary-eyed every time I hear the invitation: “This is the Lord’s table. All are welcome to participate.” So different from the Mormon concept of worthiness. Is anyone every really worth to receive the sacrament? Best of all, as we drive home each week I get to turn to my sweetheart of nearly 50 years who had the courage to step away from the only faith she had every known and tell her I’m so grateful to go home from a church service and not be angry. Thank you God for gently showing us a better way. Love, not blind, rigid obedience, is the answer.
What a lovely experience for you! And your additional comments are spot on, too!