Review of Jennifer Reeder and Kate Holbrook, At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women (Church Historian Press, 2017)
(my thanks to the Church History Department for the free review copy)
In recent years, there has been a number of volumes published in the area of "women studies" within a Mormon context (one other recent example would be *The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History*). *At the Pulpit: 185 years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women* adds to this growing field by reproducing discourses offered by a number of Latter-day Saint women (e.g., Emma Smith; Eliza R. Snow; Sheri Dew) from General Conferences and other important ecclesiastical meetings on a wide range of topics, with a brief biographical background for each speaker as well as endnotes for each of the 54 talks contained therein. Examples include:
Where is our confidence in God?--Lucy Mack Smith
Adam-ondi-Aham-Elizabeth Ann Whitney
The Prayer of Faith—Drusilla D. Hendricks
Every Sister Should Come Forward—Eliza R. Snow
Our Sixth Sens, or the Sense of Spiritual Understanding—Sarah M. Kimball
The Value of Faith—Amy Brown Lyman
Gaining Knowledge and Intelligence—Marianne C. Sharp
As one trained in theology, I did enjoy some of the talks on theological issues, including my personal favourite from this collection on pp. 214-31 by Francine R. Bennion, "A Latter-day Saint theology of Suffering" (in theology, we would call this "theodicy"). Here are some fine comments by Bennion:
One function of any religion is to explain such a world as this, to provide a theology that makes sense of love and joy and miracles but also of suffering and struggle and lack of miracles. Good theology makes sense of what is possible but also of what is presently real and probable. In this twentieth century, it is not enough that a theology of suffering explain my experience; it must also explain the child lying in a gutter in India, the woman crawling across the Ethiopian desert to find a weed to eat, and the fighting and misery of many humans because of pride, greed, or fear in a powerful few. Satisfying theology must explain the child sexually abused or scarred for life, or the astronaut who is blown up and leaves a family motherless or fatherless. Good theology of suffering explains all human suffering, not just the suffering of those who feel they know God's word and are his chosen people.
It is not enough that theology must be either rational or faith promoting. It must be both. It is not enough that satisfying theology be mastered by a few expert scholars, teachers, and leaders. It must be comfortably carried by ordinary people. It is not enough that theology help me to understand God. It must also help me to understand myself and my world (pp. 216-17)
There are times we must say, "I don't know." if we think we know everything, it is a sure sign we do not. But we are capable of learning much about this world and considering what difference LDS doctrines can make to how we put together our experience, our diverse scriptures, our traditions and well-supported but contradictory theological explanations. The better we understand what is at the core of LDS doctrine, the better we can distinguish what it is not. We need not shroud ourselves helplessly in a crazy quilt stitched haphazardly from Old Testament theology, like Jephthah, with a few patches of utopian thought and LDS doctrine embroidered on top. We can extend our understanding of LDS principles and use them as the core for a framework with which to make sense of contradictory fragments. (p. 222)
The traditional views are that we are alive because God put us here, or because Eva and Adam fell from innocence and trouble-free paradise through disobedience. These views are expressed in scripture. The Latter-day Saints believe, however, that these traditional views are fragmentary because they leave out several important things—for example, that we have existed without beginning and that we are here because we chose to come. We are here not just because God decided it would be a good idea and made it happen, not just because Adam and Eve fell and we automatically followed, but because we chose to come. However essential what Adam or Eve or Adam did to make it possible, we believe the decision to be born was our own. Our very brief accounts of life before this earth suggest that we chose as Eve chose, and we defended that choice in whatever kind of war can take place among spirits. (p. 223)
In her talk, “Gaining Knowledge and Intelligence” (pp. 156-59), Sharp has some interesting insights, too, which one appreciates, especially the (positive) relationship between faith and reason:
Since, then, knowledge and intelligence are the doorway into eternal life, how zealous we here today should be as Relief Society officers to see that we are ever gaining knowledge and intelligence. Probably a devotion of all our free time to such a pursuit would not give us toe advantage in the world to come without diligent study. Then, how careful we should be that we’d not fritter away our time in unfruitful pursuits, but that we take our time in giving it to a devotion of studying knowledge and intelligence, thereby to gain it. (p. 157)
These are just some of the “neat” theological insights offered by Bennion and others whose talks are reproduced in this handy volume, as well as showing the important contribution Latter-day Saint women have played in the Church, all within a faithful, informed context.
(my thanks to the Church History Department for the free review copy)
In recent years, there has been a number of volumes published in the area of "women studies" within a Mormon context (one other recent example would be *The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History*). *At the Pulpit: 185 years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women* adds to this growing field by reproducing discourses offered by a number of Latter-day Saint women (e.g., Emma Smith; Eliza R. Snow; Sheri Dew) from General Conferences and other important ecclesiastical meetings on a wide range of topics, with a brief biographical background for each speaker as well as endnotes for each of the 54 talks contained therein. Examples include:
Where is our confidence in God?--Lucy Mack Smith
Adam-ondi-Aham-Elizabeth Ann Whitney
The Prayer of Faith—Drusilla D. Hendricks
Every Sister Should Come Forward—Eliza R. Snow
Our Sixth Sens, or the Sense of Spiritual Understanding—Sarah M. Kimball
The Value of Faith—Amy Brown Lyman
Gaining Knowledge and Intelligence—Marianne C. Sharp
As one trained in theology, I did enjoy some of the talks on theological issues, including my personal favourite from this collection on pp. 214-31 by Francine R. Bennion, "A Latter-day Saint theology of Suffering" (in theology, we would call this "theodicy"). Here are some fine comments by Bennion:
One function of any religion is to explain such a world as this, to provide a theology that makes sense of love and joy and miracles but also of suffering and struggle and lack of miracles. Good theology makes sense of what is possible but also of what is presently real and probable. In this twentieth century, it is not enough that a theology of suffering explain my experience; it must also explain the child lying in a gutter in India, the woman crawling across the Ethiopian desert to find a weed to eat, and the fighting and misery of many humans because of pride, greed, or fear in a powerful few. Satisfying theology must explain the child sexually abused or scarred for life, or the astronaut who is blown up and leaves a family motherless or fatherless. Good theology of suffering explains all human suffering, not just the suffering of those who feel they know God's word and are his chosen people.
It is not enough that theology must be either rational or faith promoting. It must be both. It is not enough that satisfying theology be mastered by a few expert scholars, teachers, and leaders. It must be comfortably carried by ordinary people. It is not enough that theology help me to understand God. It must also help me to understand myself and my world (pp. 216-17)
There are times we must say, "I don't know." if we think we know everything, it is a sure sign we do not. But we are capable of learning much about this world and considering what difference LDS doctrines can make to how we put together our experience, our diverse scriptures, our traditions and well-supported but contradictory theological explanations. The better we understand what is at the core of LDS doctrine, the better we can distinguish what it is not. We need not shroud ourselves helplessly in a crazy quilt stitched haphazardly from Old Testament theology, like Jephthah, with a few patches of utopian thought and LDS doctrine embroidered on top. We can extend our understanding of LDS principles and use them as the core for a framework with which to make sense of contradictory fragments. (p. 222)
The traditional views are that we are alive because God put us here, or because Eva and Adam fell from innocence and trouble-free paradise through disobedience. These views are expressed in scripture. The Latter-day Saints believe, however, that these traditional views are fragmentary because they leave out several important things—for example, that we have existed without beginning and that we are here because we chose to come. We are here not just because God decided it would be a good idea and made it happen, not just because Adam and Eve fell and we automatically followed, but because we chose to come. However essential what Adam or Eve or Adam did to make it possible, we believe the decision to be born was our own. Our very brief accounts of life before this earth suggest that we chose as Eve chose, and we defended that choice in whatever kind of war can take place among spirits. (p. 223)
In her talk, “Gaining Knowledge and Intelligence” (pp. 156-59), Sharp has some interesting insights, too, which one appreciates, especially the (positive) relationship between faith and reason:
Since, then, knowledge and intelligence are the doorway into eternal life, how zealous we here today should be as Relief Society officers to see that we are ever gaining knowledge and intelligence. Probably a devotion of all our free time to such a pursuit would not give us toe advantage in the world to come without diligent study. Then, how careful we should be that we’d not fritter away our time in unfruitful pursuits, but that we take our time in giving it to a devotion of studying knowledge and intelligence, thereby to gain it. (p. 157)
These are just some of the “neat” theological insights offered by Bennion and others whose talks are reproduced in this handy volume, as well as showing the important contribution Latter-day Saint women have played in the Church, all within a faithful, informed context.
