Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 671

John Dehlin [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3. Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org. hello, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is November 7, 2016. It is the day before we elect our first female president of the United States, Hillary Clinton. Not to offend any of the Donald Trump supporters out there, I'm just sort of stating what seems to be objectively true. We'll find out if that is true in about, I don't know, 22. No, 20, 32 hours. But anyway, without any further ado, I'm super excited to introduce my. My special guest for this interview. Her name is Amy McPhee. All the best, Amy. Welcome to Mormon Stories.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:01:15] Thanks. Happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:01:18] So a little background on why I'm interviewing Amy. A few days or weeks ago, I was on Facebook, as I often am, and I stumbled across an article that lots of people were linking to and posting and forwarding. And Amy, tell us what the name of that article was.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:01:36] It was called Dear Mormon Man. Tell me what you would do.

John Dehlin [00:01:40] Yes, and I read through it and it was a really cool article, basically exploring, I would just say, a feminist perspective throughout the lifespan of a woman and who was a feminist, who was raised Mormon. And we'll talk more about that article in depth. But I kind of Facebook stalked Amy a tiny bit and learned a bit about her and thought she would be a really interesting person to bring on to discuss. Sort of in 2016, a mother of four, married, active in the church post sort of Kate Kelly and ordained women how someone, you know today, a female feminist in the church, is sort of navigating feminism again, trying their best to remain faithful and active. So. And I just think I have the instinct that Amy's going to be really interesting to talk to, not to put any pressure on you.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:02:44] Yeah, no pressure.

John Dehlin [00:02:45] So, Amy, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:02:47] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:02:48] Yeah, so I do have to give one quick shout out. Some of you will know that I'm really into chess. As soon as I finished my dissertation, I downloaded an app from Chess.com and started learning chess. And almost immediately, the owner of Chess.com named Eric reached out to me and said, hey, I know you. You're John Dehlin. And he gave me like a platinum or A titanium membership to chess.com as sort of like a thank you for my work with Mormon stories. And I have played literally thousands of games of chess since that time on the Chess.com app. And that's Amy's husband.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:03:29] That is my husband.

John Dehlin [00:03:29] So this is a shout out to Eric. Erichess.com is awesome. And if any of you like chess, join it and friend me and we'll play some chess.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:03:39] Awesome.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] But that's just my quick shout out. But that's how I first got to know the all the best family, we'll say, and then learn about you. Okay, Amy, so without any further ado, we're going to be talking about a lot today, but we're basically going to be going through your life and the framing is sort of your early years in the church. Let's just say you're feminist awakening. If there was ever like a moment where you started to have an awakening versus it, sort of always trailing with you. And then we'll talk about how that advanced through your adolescent years into your time at Stanford where you did your undergraduate work. Is that right?

Growing Up in the Mormon Church

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:04:20] No, I'm in grad school now.

John Dehlin [00:04:21] You're in grad school now at Stanford now?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:04:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:23] Where'd you go do your undergrad?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:04:24] Byu.

John Dehlin [00:04:24] Okay. Byu?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:04:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:27] Served a mission?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:04:28] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:04:28] Okay, Mary. In the temple. We'll talk about how the temple plays into that and as you advanced into motherhood, kind of what happened there and then now as you're in grad school at Stanford studying humanities, it's a liberal arts master's humanities. And kind of as you've also probably experienced some faith struggles both with yourself and with your husband and as you've kind of tried to make sense of patriarchy and where that leaves you as a committed member of the church. Is that all right?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:05:01] Yeah. Great.

John Dehlin [00:05:02] Okay. So let's dive in, talk about your early years in the church to what extent anything you want to highlight sort of will tie into this narrative and then. And then start bringing in kind of the feminist awakenings as they're happening.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:05:19] Sure, yeah. So I was born in Salt Lake here in Utah. My parents are from Salt Lake. Great family. I'm the oldest of five kids and we moved from Salt Lake to Seattle when I was 4 and then to Denver when I was 8 and grew up in Denver the rest of my growing up years. I was always really proud of my pioneer ancestry and a really proud Mormon girl. I wore my BYU sweatshirt and I remember just talking about my Mormonism a lot as a kid. Felt really proud of it and a big part of my identity. I remember, like, moments that stick out to me. I was a really earnest little kid, and I remember having, like, you know, the Book of Mormon for children, like the big rectangle ones with the Liahona on the binding and, like, having this special lace pillowcase and folding it in there, and I'd read it by myself and pray. I took things just really, really seriously and felt that was, you know, the core of my identity, for sure, growing up. And, yeah, great family. We had challenges, like every family does, but really, really loving parents. And my siblings are my best friends still. We live kind of across the country, and we're very, very close. So I'm the oldest, and the next two siblings are active in the church, and then my two youngest sisters are not. They left the church a few years

Guest [00:07:03] ago,

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:07:06] and that was a test for our family. But I was so impressed with how my parents handled my. That transition in my sister's lives. And we've stayed really strong and close. So it's a bit about my family.

John Dehlin [00:07:21] Beautiful. Okay, so talk a bit about how you're sort of raised in a. In a healthy, functional, traditional LDS family. Talk about how or when sort of your feelings and thoughts about feminism and patriarchy sort of started to emerge.

Youth, Courtship, and Early Beliefs

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:07:42] Yeah. So I think this was probably common for our generation and maybe still is, but I was told a lot. I feel like, in youth group meetings that we were the chosen generation. Right. And I didn't feel any distinction between me and the boys. I don't think growing up at all. I wasn't aware of that as a child, and I felt really important. I felt like I had a role to play in the church. I was excited about it. I wanted to be a part of it. I went to byu. Yeah. Excited and feeling very equal and up to the task and ready to roll up my sleeves for Zion and play my part. And I met my husband and first week at BYU freshman year, and we felt just really. We kind of sparred a lot at the beginning, kind of intellectually, and just felt really well matched. And that was just my paradigm, which was different, I think, from the generation before me. I noticed a lot more, and I think I was aware of it then, even though I don't know that I even would have articulated it to myself. I knew that I wanted something different for my marriage than what I saw in the generation above me, which was maybe a little more of a. Like a taking care of the woman where the man would, you know, buy her things and then she would I knew I did not want that. And my husband and I were. You know, he never paid for me on dates. I wanted to open my own door. So I think even without being conscious of it, I was already a feminist, though I didn't. I didn't hear that word much growing up. I would later learn that that's because I think feminism and Mormonism had kind of gone underground. I got to BYU after the September 6th work, excommunicated. I was in the English department, but never heard about it. I did not know it happened.

John Dehlin [00:09:54] So you went through four years of English at BYU without really talking about feminism or just without hearing about the 1993 Joanna Brooks kind of stuff?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:10:08] I never heard about it, and I don't think I ever heard. I mean, I'm sure I knew the word feminism. It had no negative connotation to me. And I think I probably would have thought, well, that just means that it means the women's rights movement, which of course, everyone would agree with. It wasn't a part of my experience at byu for good or bad. I think I had. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:31] So was there like even a feminist class or feminist theory or anything?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:10:35] I learned about feminist theory as one of the, you know, critical theory, you know, one of the critiques for literary criticism as an English major, along with, you know, Marxist theory and, you know, historical. Just your different points of view in reading a text. But they didn't mention how that related to Mormonism at all. So it wasn't really. I know my husband was, I think feminism was a bad word in his family a little bit. And that was new to me. My parents didn't mention it one way or the other. And, yeah, like I said, it wasn't a presence for my life at byu. So because I had such a healthy relationship with my then boyfriend that was so egalitarian from the very beginning. And because I somehow, even though there were problems which I would later identify, I still came out quite empowered and with a lot of self confidence. Yeah, somehow, despite some of those other factors, which I'm grateful for. But I think that set me up for a big shock. I think as I got older.

John Dehlin [00:11:49] Let me just ask really quick. So sometimes you hear about Mormon girls growing up saying, why, Mommy, Daddy, why can't women have the priesthood? Or mommy, Daddy, why do the boys get big campouts and we don't get one? Or why are the boys doing adventures and Boy Scouts and we're knitting or whatever. It is just sort of this brooding, brimming sense of inequality in childhood and adolescence. And it sounds like that stuff didn't ever really occur to you.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:12:17] It didn't. Not until I was an adult and I looked back on young women's lessons, and then I identified like that. That didn't feel right. There were certainly moments that I heard things that didn't feel right. But I came out. No, it was not. At least in my conscious mind. It wasn't an issue for me until later. I do remember one moment, and I did write about this in the article. I remember the bishop, one of the bishops I had growing up. Wonderful man. But him teaching the youth about morality in terms of that boys will grow up. And when a man gets married, it's like, you know, what if you had this great sandwich and you took a bite of the sandwich and then you learned somebody else had licked your sandwich? And I remember that that felt so horrible to me, but I didn't know why until later. I didn't have words to describe it, you know, that I felt objectified, like I'm a sandwich, and that I'm ruined. I didn't have a framework for it. So later I would go back and go, like, that wasn't right. And I knew it in my gut. But no, it wasn't a conscious thing for me until later.

John Dehlin [00:13:32] Cool. Yeah, but. But somehow you felt empowered and equal and you felt good. So. So you. You get engaged to Eric. Is that the next.

Mission, Marriage, and Early Married Life

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:13:40] Well, no, not yet. He left on a mission. We were just kids, right. We were friends.

John Dehlin [00:13:44] But you were boyfriend, girlfriend. Before the mission.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:13:46] We were, but we weren't engaged.

John Dehlin [00:13:48] Okay.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:13:49] Yeah. We were super in love.

Guest [00:13:53] Yeah.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:13:53] Oh, I knew. I knew he was the one for me. And he. And this was neat, too. His mom served a mission. And before he left, I was, you know, looking around at all the boys and going, I want to. I want to do that, and I can do that. And my grandpa sealed the deal because he said, you're. All the girls say that. And then they go to BYU and they get married. You're not going to go on a mission. And he might as well just sign my papers right then. Oh, yes, I will. And Eric's. Yeah, Eric's mom had served a mission. He was really excited for me to go, which meant we were apart for three years instead of two. And we wrote and. Yeah, that was great.

John Dehlin [00:14:29] Where did he serve? And where did you serve?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:14:31] Argentina. He served in Argentina. I served in Chile.

John Dehlin [00:14:34] Both Spanish speaking.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:14:35] Both Spanish speaking right across the Andes from each other. We could write in the pouch, and it got there quicker than if I Had been in the States. I went to Israel before he left for Argentina. And then I went to Israel and did the study abroad in Jerusalem, came home and then I was just set to go on my mission. But then the big, the big kabam was the temple prior to the mission, that was for sure. When the first I kind of describe it like that there were two tectonic plates inside of me that had been, maybe because I live in the Bay Area, I think in terms of earthquakes. Right. But these two plates that were pressed up and creating a lot of tension that I was not aware of. I didn't know I was straddling a fault line until the temple. And suddenly it just went. I just felt it in physically, like very viscerally. I mean, it felt like an eruption. Just so much heat in my chest where I went like, whoa. There are two things that have been coexisting inside of me. My autonomy and my sense of where I stood before God and this word called patriarchy. And what I'm hearing in the temple and the things that I kind of felt in the Doctrine and Covenants or when I'd read the Garden of Eden, certain passages of the Bible which I could kind of dismiss because I thought we didn't do that anymore. And the temple, they just grated right against each other kind of for the first time in language that my conscious mind went, that's a problem.

Temple Experience and Its Impact

John Dehlin [00:16:14] Are you able to talk about what parts kind of really hit you?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:16:17] I mean, you can probably guess, right? I mean, it's just the really explicit language I do remember. Yeah. I'm always trying. I try to be careful how I talk.

John Dehlin [00:16:26] I'll help you out. So there's the part about hearkening that often bugs me. And you wrote about this in your essay.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:16:31] I did, I did.

John Dehlin [00:16:31] There's a part about hearkening. There's the part of. There's the veil.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:16:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:36] There's Eve, and she's the temptation. But I don't want you to say anything you're not comfortable with. But also talking about that experience can sometimes help people relate or understand better what you struggled with.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:16:48] I can talk around it. Certainly. The hearkening part was so. Was surprising and really upsetting to me. I had gone into the temple really truly, kind of like I, when I was a little girl, so earnest, having just been in Israel, I studied Hugh Nibley and all of his temple stuff. I had fasted and prayed. I was so excited. I was so excited for my endowment and came into it just expecting to feel empowered. And because there's kind of like that secret element to it, I thought I did kind of think, like, maybe it's more about Heavenly Mother. I was kind of hoping that without even articulating it, but I was disappointed. So I knew that part of me was hoping that. But, yes, I definitely had expectations. And then hearing the hearkening model, I just thought, like, did I hear that wrong? Right. It's your first time, and you're taking in so much new. And then the veil, I did not understand. But the worst part for me was the part that talks about kings and priests. And for me, I mean, especially, again, I had been studying these. The priesthood in Israel, and I'd been taking my religion classes at byu. Super into it. And priests, you know, officiate in ordinances of worship. Right. I mean, that's what a priest does. And so I heard that phrase that the men will be kings and priests to God. Right. And of course. And that was so exciting and then to hear, and women will be queens and priestesses. And I knew what was coming to God. Of course. That's what I was prepared for. That's what I'd been raised to do to my beloved Heavenly Father, that I would worship him forever. And so what was the object of that sentence? That it was a parallel phrase. And I was expecting. I was expecting this, that I would worship God and my husband would worship God and we would be, you know, kings and priests and queens and priestesses. And it just felt going like that.

John Dehlin [00:19:01] Wait, what part made it feel askew?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:19:03] Because we're promised that if we're righteous and faithful, we'll become queens and priestesses to our husbands.

John Dehlin [00:19:10] No, I didn't realize that. Is that what it says?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:19:13] Are you joking?

Guest [00:19:14] No.

John Dehlin [00:19:14] I'm sorry. I'm not the world's best feminist, and I'm. I'm willing to admit it because I want to learn, and I don't want men or women to be ashamed for what they don't know. So I suck at feminism sometimes, so I didn't know this.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:19:29] Interestingly, there again, there's a lot to hear in the temple. That reaction is why I wrote my article, because I talked to. I have talked about this. Well, I didn't talk about it because we're not allowed to talk about it. So I cried about it and wrestled with God about it, but my husband didn't notice that it said that until. Until I told him. And. And as I've gone to, like, talk, I've talked to a temple president about it. Like, help me Understand that. He kind of goes, I never heard that.

John Dehlin [00:20:00] What's the actual language? You will be a queen and a priestess to your husband. Oh, no.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:20:05] Yeah. Most people. Well, you don't know. You don't notice it if you're not a woman because you already heard your promise. That applies to you.

John Dehlin [00:20:14] I'm so ashamed that I kind of just tuned out the other part.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:20:18] Oh, I'm sorry. Most people do. I just talked about it with my bishop a few weeks ago. He is the dearest. He's an intelligent, open, humble man. The best man. And he had never thought of it either. So don't feel bad.

John Dehlin [00:20:34] So don't feel super bad.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:20:35] Don't feel bad. Most men don't notice it.

John Dehlin [00:20:36] Margi's saying hi. Say hi really quick. So nice to meet you.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:20:40] Oh, it's so nice to meet you. I'm Amy. All the best. Yeah, so good to meet you, too.

John Dehlin [00:20:44] Love you, sweetie.

Guest [00:20:45] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:20:46] Yep. Thanks for the visit.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:20:48] Yeah, thanks for stopping in.

John Dehlin [00:20:50] Love you. Thanks for stopping by. That was my wife Margi, saying hi to Amy. Yeah, she's gone. Okay.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:20:55] Nice to meet her. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:56] So I'm. I'm so. I'm embarrassed, but that's.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:20:59] No, no, it's right. I mean, you listen to the part that applies to you. Most people. Most men don't notice. Good. Good men.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] So what'd you do? What did you do when you heard those? Were there any other parts first? And then we'll talk about how you. How you dealt afterwards. But were those the main parts that really grated on you?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:21:19] Those were the big ones. Yeah. The hearkening, the king, that parallel phrase of king, priest to God, queen, priestess to husband, that was the biggest one. The veil in the. Even in the initiatory, there's a hearken to your husband. And because my boyfriend then was on a mission already when I went through the temple, I didn't get to talk to him until we were both home and engaged and stuff. But that's when I asked him, like, do you have to hearken to your wife? Did they ever mention that you need to listen to your wife? And he said no, because I don't know what goes on in his initiatory. He didn't know either. So we compared notes, you know, in the celestial room. We've always tried to be very respectful and appropriate in the way we talk about it, but just like that's fine with. I do hearken to my. And, you know, now that I'm married, and I. And I thought that then, too, he's my best friend, and I value his advice and his opinions, and I hearken to meaning, like, I pay attention. Right. And take it seriously all the time. But it was important to me. Like, you do that for me.

John Dehlin [00:22:23] Right?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:22:24] Like, equally. He's like, I didn't know it said that in yours. I'm so sorry. So. So no. All of those things were a big shock to me. And I do remember looking around at the other women I was sitting with my mother, I'm the oldest, so none of my siblings had been through the temple. And I was the first of. I think one of the first of my friends to go on a mission. So I didn't have anybody older than me that I could talk to my mom as I don't think these things ever bothered my mom. So I didn't talk to her about it. But I just felt, like I said, like, a very intense heat inside of, like, I can't have understood that. Right. That can't be what it said. And then I just went on to trying to pay attention to the rest of the ordinance of the, you know, the endowment and went home and hoped it would be better next time and that, like, I'd figure it out and, like, that I'm missing something. And so I just kept going. Then went into the MTC and hoped it would get better, and it never did. So it just got worse. How it got worse? Because it didn't get. Because that is what it says. I was hoping that I had misheard it or misunderstood it. And the more I thought about it, the more I just thought that's what God wants. That's not what I thought he wanted for me, and that's not what I thought he thought of me. And then also not being able to talk about it just made it worse and worse. It made it fester. And eventually now we're kind of skipping ahead, and we can backtrack if you want.

Gender Dynamics on Her Mission

John Dehlin [00:24:14] Did your mission experience, now that that's stuck in your BR with the APs and the zonies and the sister missionaries having kind of secondary status. Did that, like, add fuel to the fire for you at all?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:24:26] Certainly. It certainly did. And, I mean, even as early as my MTC companions, I remember women asking each other about it, like, what did you think of that part? And everybody knows what you're talking about when you ask that to another woman, like, what do you think of the. You know, you kind of test the water, like. And some women, I'm not saying all women. Some women, like, I love the temple and it's the best. And I feel so peaceful there. But you can tell sometimes somebody who might. And you say, what do you think of that, the temple? And they say, oh, I don't know. And then you start whispering because you think you're not allowed to talk about it. And no sisters on my mission totally talked about it. And I remember one of the sisters came. We were visiting the temple in Santiago, which we did every few months, maybe once a quarter or something. And one of the sisters coming and saying, I found this verse in the Book of Mormon. I don't remember the reference now, but she said that it talks about our spirits going to, you know, what happens after we die. And it says that we'll meet the God that gave us life. And it says, and he employeth no servant there. And she said, there's no man pulling us through the veil. He employeth no servant there. We get to look face to face at God. There's nobody in between us. So I do remember that really well. The other sisters, because the temple was new to us, were struggling too, and kind of looking, of course, to the scriptures for how can I make this grating feeling inside? How can I make it, you know, lubricated a little bit to not hurt and to not cause that? I didn't know the term cognitive dissonance then, but that's what we were all feeling. Not all. That's what many of us were feeling at the time. And then, yes, the structure of the mission was tricky. I loved there were such good people on my mission, but it still, it didn't feel right to me to be in such a form. I guess it was my first time in such a formal hierarchy of reporting and to call my, you know how it works, of course, district leader who would report to the zone leader. And that I was always the bottom rung of that felt weird. And also that there was a lot of pressure coming from. My mission was the highest baptizing mission in the world at the time, the Santiago west mission. And there was a lot of pressure to baptize. And I felt a lot of pressure from the elders that we called to sometimes to baptize investigators that my companion and I didn't feel were ready. And I mean, that tension happened with elders, too, reporting to leaders that were pressuring them. So it wasn't a man, woman thing. But the difference is when you're a man, if you're an elder or a man, you know that you might have a turn being a ZL and you'll do things maybe A little differently then. And there's just an awareness that I'll never get to do, that I won't have a say in how things go. I'm always going to be here. That was tricky. There's a lot of sexism, like, overt sexism on my mission, too. That again, like, just gave me the yuckiest feeling, but I didn't put my finger on it, that our mission president sang that a reward for the elders working really hard on their missions is that their wives would get more and more beautiful the harder they worked. And it was called La Esposa. That'd be. Is that a thing in your mission?

John Dehlin [00:28:10] I didn't hear that. Oh, maybe I did.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:28:13] It was not awesome. It was not awesome. It was not great. Like, to. Again, like, I didn't. I didn't have language for, Like, I feel objectified. Like, I Wait, am I just a reward for Eric serving a good mission? That completely would negate anything I was doing as a human being. Right. I'm just. I'm a reward for his hard work. And it's also my physical beauty, which I have no control over. That's what I am. I felt like an object, like a reward. And even some elders, like, had, like, beer girl T shirts made with La Esposa on it. Pretty yucky. So that was. I had a wonderful mission, wonderful experiences, powerful spiritual experiences. But that element of it for sure informed how I was starting to feel as it was kind of dawning on me, like, oh, adulthood is maybe a little different than what I thought it was going to be in the church.

John Dehlin [00:29:17] So this is going to derail us a tiny bit, but I have to ask.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:29:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:21] One of my favorite Mormon stories episodes is when I interviewed Ted Lyon, who is a professor of mine at byu, but who eventually became, I think, the president of the MTC in Chile and then eventually the temple president in the MTC in Chile. And he was there when elder Holland spent three years in Chile closing, as I understand it, like, 30 stakes because of all those sort of low quality baptisms that led to abhorrent activity rates in Chile. Were you. Were you aware of. Were you before Ted Lyon, before Elder Holland? Were you aware of all those stakes closing and the way that Chile was collapsing because of these sort of super low quality baptisms?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:30:05] I was. Before that, I was in Chile. Chile. Yeah, it sounds wrong. No matter what which way you say it, right? I was there. I was there before all of that. I knew. So I was there on a transition from one mission president to the next. And there was a big change. My first mission president was really numbers oriented, and I would arrive in zones sometimes where we would have people in our teaching pool who had gotten baptized and not confirmed because they never wanted to come back, like soccer team children getting baptized. So I stepped into the kind of the end of that, and the next mission president that came in was already starting to shift things, and I felt much more comfortable with that element of my mission. And luckily, I was with him the majority of the time. Elder Holland was a few years after I had gotten home. But we had. I mean, stacks, pages, and pages already of inactive people that we were trying to track down that had gotten baptized within the past several years there. So I was kind of, like, in the transition mode when they were realizing what was going on.

John Dehlin [00:31:19] Would you see wards with, like, 20 people or 30, like, wards that were really depleted?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:31:24] No, no, they were still. Yeah, you'd see what you'd see. At least where I was is a full sacrament meeting and 800 inactive people on the list. So it's kind of deceptive to go to the sacrament meeting. You'd feel like it was really thriving, and it was for a core group. And then, I'm not kidding, I think there were 800 in one of my wards that we would just go around, like, knocking on doors, like, do you ever want to see us again? Nope. Got it. Like, would, you know, move along.

John Dehlin [00:31:52] So it's like 1100 ward members but only 300 active kind of thing.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:31:56] Yeah. Or small. I mean, small. Yes. Similar to that. That ratio. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:00] Okay, sorry. Sorry to derail, but I have to ask about that. So. Okay, so you get off your mission. Is that next?

Post-Mission Life and Emerging Feminist Questions

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:32:07] Yeah. Yep. Got off my mission. Eric was home already. We got married. He's just the best guy. He's just the best guy. So that I feel so lucky, really, really lucky that that's been my experience as a married person. I. I've seen so much heartache and struggle. We have struggles. Of course, we have a normal marriage. But. Yeah, I'm trying to think of the next relevant thing. I would say maybe the next relevant thing as far as my formation of kind of an identity as a feminist within the church would be our early wards. We were in one ward where I was in the Relief Society presidency, and it was. The president was amazing. It was such a great ward. But that was when it dawned on me that I remember just anecdotally, one Relief Society lesson where it was the nature of the Godhead was being taught, and it got a little deep Doctriny, I guess. And the teacher got a little flustered. And I was over education. I was an education counselor. So I was kind of feeling out, like, do you want me to get involved? I wasn't sure. And one of the women in the back of the room just raises her hand and goes, forget it. Just everybody go home and ask your husbands about it. This is too confusing. And that is seared into my mind is like, I kind of thought it was a joke, and it wasn't a joke. Like, turning around and just looking at other women and thinking, like, really? Like, we don't understand it. So we're going to go home and ask our husbands and visiting other women then who had abusive marriages, at least what in my mind would have been abusive abuses of power, even if they weren't physically abusive abuses of power that I felt were hiding within the structure of patriarchy, that these men could hide behind the temple covenants and just say, like, it's kind of my way or the highway. And I received revelation, for example, you know, that our family should move and the wife didn't want to, and she had kind of no power to negotiate things like that. As I just got to know more married people and to be in that role in the Relief Society presidency and kind of see that other women did not feel empowered in their marriages or that they were super depressed and had tons of anxiety and they didn't know why. And then to meet more people, too, that would say, like, do you want to talk about the temple, or do you want to talk about these difficult things? And seeing everybody felt scared to talk about it and didn't know how. Didn't know how to talk about it. So that was.

John Dehlin [00:35:11] There's a. There's another dynamic that you alluded to earlier, which is that most women actually don't even notice or care about these dynamics. Like, I. Around the time of ordained women, when it was happening, I remember some survey of, like, what percentage of active Mormon women actually want the priesthood.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:35:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:32] And it was actually less women wanted the priesthood. Less active Mormon women wanted the priesthood than men, you know, wanted the priesthood for their wives.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:35:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:46] Was that ever bugging you?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:35:47] Yeah. I mean, I hadn't even thought about ordaining women to priesthood at that point, but definitely it really bothered me to see women. Yeah. Accept that paradigm without questioning it. And to your point about ordained women, too, I remember that study also, and I looked it up. I thought, I wonder if there was something similar during the women's suffrage movement. And there was. And I saw all of these, you

John Dehlin [00:36:12] know, like, more men wanted women to get the vote than women wanted the vote.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:36:16] I don't know if there were more men than women. I don't remember exactly the percentage, but I read, like, pamphlet after pamphlet of women excusing why women shouldn't have the vote, why they didn't, and why it went against God's order for women to be voting. And that if you had a good husband, there's so many parallels, right? If you have a good husband, it's not a problem because your husband will represent you the way you want to be represented. And if he doesn't, then he's just not a good husband. And so really apologists for women's lack of voting rights. I thought was. It was. There was an interesting parallel there. That. And that's the thing. I think if you're born into something, everybody is this way, right? We're born into a culture. We see our parents and our grandparents and everyone we admire and love accepting something. It's hard to see it. It's hard to see. It's like the giver. Do you remember the book the Giver, where Jonas, the main character, he sees a flash, like someone's tossing an apple in the air. And then for a second, he sees the apple take on a new dimension, and he doesn't know what it is. And then he realizes later, and you realize as a reader, they're seeing in black and white, and he just saw color, and he didn't know what it was. And so he starts asking around, like, do you ever see that? And people don't. That's what it felt like to me a little bit. It felt like as I would be talking to these women, and then as it would, like, this really yucky, scary part of Mormonism, and then it would sync up with the Doctrine and Covenants, and then it kind of synced up with what I heard in the temple, and I started seeing, like, a little flash of color. Like, I think something's wrong. I think something's wrong with the system that I was born into and that I love. And that's terrifying.

Awakening to Patriarchy in the Church

John Dehlin [00:38:12] So you seen the movie Pleasantville?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:38:14] No, should I? Sounds like I should.

John Dehlin [00:38:17] Starts out in black and white, and then over time, people discover color.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:38:22] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:38:23] It's probably based on that.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:38:24] Okay, I'm gonna see it now.

John Dehlin [00:38:26] Check it out.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:38:26] I will. I will.

John Dehlin [00:38:28] And it does have feminist themes.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:38:29] Okay, interesting.

John Dehlin [00:38:31] Okay, so you start. So your lived experience in Relief Society leadership and getting to know lots of women starts to then just kind of pile on you mentioned an interview with the temple president.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:38:46] Yeah, that's next, for sure. Well, actually, I would say kind of the climax of these feelings that I was having. And I mentioned this briefly as one of the pieces in my article. I call it the trackside panic attack. And I actually didn't even know what a panic attack was, but I was just out running and just thinking about it and thinking about the temple and just wrestling, directing my thoughts to God, actually kind of in a prayer. And suddenly I just had this vision of, like, oh, it all makes sense that God is, you know, a father and heavenly mother is absent. And I had heard, actually people say, too, that there was, you know, there's polygamy in heaven. My first mission president would teach that, too, that there's polygamy in heaven, that heavenly mother is one of many heavenly mothers. Polygamy is eternal. People say that it's true and that we are subservient to men. And I just saw heaven as this big hierarchy where the women were enslaved just for their procreative power. And as I'm talking to God, my father, I suddenly thought, this isn't just. And I can't trust you. And I had to stop running. I started just, like, breathing. I couldn't catch my breath and had to, like, pull over to the side and sit down and put. I felt like I was going to pass out. And I just had this, because it felt to me like I had to choose justice or God. And to think that I couldn't trust my heavenly father anymore was so terrifying. And I pictured myself then rebelling against that system and, like, painting my face blue like I was in Braveheart, you know, like, being the rebel for justice and for freedom. Right. And. But then to realize, like, I'm fighting against God, doesn't that mean, like, I'm like Laman and Lemuel, I'm on the wrong side? But then how come this feels. Oh, it's horrible. So that sent me into a spiral of despair. Just, I couldn't talk to God. I was so scared and so furious and then scared that I was furious at God. And it's probably not a unique experience for women.

John Dehlin [00:41:13] I'm going to jump in for a second.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:41:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:15] So this is totally sidetracking, but I think I feel like I really want to tell the story, so forgive me. I think you'll relate. So when I was working at mit, I became friends with a woman, super brilliant, who decided that she wanted to take out her endowment as a graduate student. So she takes out her endowment and she has the exact same experience as you. She hears the stuff about patriarchy, about hearkening and everything, and she's just destroyed because she had done everything she could to learn. And she was an academic in the humanities, where she studied ancient, you know, texts and literature, and she thought she was super prepared. So she goes to the temple, experiences the stuff you did. She comes home and she told me at a pizza joint with tears just streaming down her face, how as soon as she went to the temple, she, like, tried one more time. She only went, like, twice. And then she told me this moment of how she remembers picking up her garments, folding them, putting them in her drawer, and never wearing them again and never going back to the temple. And she mentions sort of this dilemma of either there's no God and the church is wrong, and to her mind, the only other option was there is a God, in her words, but he's an asshole. And I don't mean to be offensive, but these are her words. But she had an unshakable testimony of God. So for her, the tragic conclusion was, there is a God and he's an asshole. And that's what she. And it put her in this super dark place. Can you relate to that?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:43:13] Yep. Yep. Yeah, exactly. That's how it felt. Because I knew there was a God and I knew the church was true. And if the church was true, then the Scriptures were true. And it's in the Doctrine and Covenants, and it's in the. And the temple is the pinnacle of our spiritual experience, so it trumps anything else. Because it's confusing, too, right? Because you hear, at least my generation, we heard. I heard, literally, President Hinckley say the words from the pulpit. God loves his daughters is the. Much as he loves his sons. And you hear, like, you know, President Kimball in the foreword to Miracle of Forgiveness, dedicated to Camilla, equal partner, right? You hear those words. But if it's ensconced safely away in the temple, where no one can talk about it, no one can question it, and that is the pinnacle of our experience, then that's what trumps. At least that was my paradigm. That's kind of what I had been taught, and you can't even ask about it. That's exactly how it felt. Is there is a God, the church is true. That means all of this stuff is true. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And that's why I started to panic, because I felt like I would be enslaved and. And. And that was horrible. So I went and talked to the mission, not the mission president, the temple president. I talked to my bishop and my stake president because I was still trying to go through the proper channels. Right. Didn't know what else to do. I talked to my sister.

John Dehlin [00:44:38] Wait, did the. Did the bishop or stake president. What'd they give you?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:44:42] They were so nice, but I don't think they knew what to do with me.

John Dehlin [00:44:46] Did they give you answers?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:44:47] No, no. But at least they. You know, I'm glad they didn't give me answers, because that would have been so patronizing, I feel like. Because they didn't know. And so I actually was really grateful that they didn't try to know. I actually. I don't remember any of their words. All I remember is how I felt, and that was that they were respectful and that they said, maybe you should talk to the temple president. And that's why I did. So I went and talked to the temple president. That did not go well.

John Dehlin [00:45:14] How'd that go? Talk about it.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:45:15] He just wouldn't.

Guest [00:45:16] He.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:45:17] He did try to give me answers, basically. And the answer was, of course, that's not what it means. Of course it's not saying that men are above women. And I. And I remember I just was, like, crying silently, just, like, tears dripping. I didn't want to, like, have my voice be shaky. I wanted to, you know, be strong and have him take me seriously.

John Dehlin [00:45:42] The tears were coming down totally.

Guest [00:45:44] Yeah.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:45:44] I was just, like, weeping silently. But I just said. I said so. I want to believe that. But there's. There's, like, this parallel phrase, like there's parallel language. And he goes, I know what parallel language is. So I was like, so how do you make sense of that? If you're telling me that it's not sexist and that I shouldn't be afraid and that my husband and I are equal partners, like I thought I was going to be, then how come it says it like this in the temple? And he just was very flustered. Again, he didn't know what to do with me, but he's quite condescending. And. And I. You know what? He was doing his best. He wasn't trained as a counselor. He didn't probably know about validating the person and being a good. He didn't know how to be a good listener, and he didn't have answers, and he wanted to help me. I really think he. I think he would have wanted to help me. And so because he got flustered and told me that, you know, I've. I've never heard this before. You're see, he Said, you're seeing things that aren't there. I have smart daughters who've gone to Harvard, and they've never said anything like this to me. And I said, I'm so happy for your daughters because I wouldn't wish this feeling on anyone as I'm, like, sobbing, like, I didn't ask to feel this way. In fact, I.

John Dehlin [00:47:00] You know what that's called?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:47:01] Tone shaming or something. Tone policing.

John Dehlin [00:47:04] Gaslighting Came to my mind.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:47:05] Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. I guess tone shaming would. Other conversations. No, no, I don't.

John Dehlin [00:47:14] But, like, this isn't a problem.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:47:16] That's exactly what it was. Yes, that is exactly what it was.

John Dehlin [00:47:19] You're the problem.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:47:20] I was the problem, which is already how I was feeling. So I do remember coming home and Eric going, how did it go? And me just, like, just crying my eyes out like a little kid because I just was so scared. And so I felt so betrayed by God. And there wasn't any deeper that could have felt that. There's no deeper betrayal, I guess. And Eric told me later that he was really scared at that point, like, oh, is she gonna stay in the church? And, like, what's gonna happen? And that was a big deal. So, yeah, that was a big turning point. After that, we moved. So Eric ended up going to Stanford for his graduate school. First he did an mba, so we moved to Palo Alto, moved onto campus, and I would say the relevant things from that period. Then we were having more children. We had two children. I loved being a mother, but was also super depressed. I didn't work at all when I had children, hadn't prepared to. And I had expected to feel totally fulfilled by motherhood. And. And for the part that I was actually mothering my children, I did. But then there was all of this time during the day that I didn't. Wasn't doing anything meaningful. So that, you know, that's a common experience, too, but that was part of it, too. Eric was going off to Stanford, and he was meeting all these amazing people and progressing so much. And I helped him write his. This is so, like, such a symbol maybe, too, that I literally. We were both English majors. He's a great writer, too, but I loved being involved in the process, so I helped him write his essays. I helped, like, did all the applications I had laid out on the floor. And then I remember the moment when I was like, I'm not going to grad school. I felt like I was, because I was doing the whole process. And I realized, like, oh, only he gets to go, that stinks. But it was okay. I had my kids and I loved them and I loved going to that environment was so rich and lots more like minded people and really great, I would say. I mean, I can think of something. I don't know if you want to go in a different direction, but I'm just thinking of. I had definitely a feeling there that I was starting to feel the plates shift again and maybe even drift apart. Sometimes they would be producing lava and magma inside and sometimes they would drift apart. And I felt like I was kind of doing the splits. One leg was solidly within the church. And I felt like the good girl Sue Monk Kidd talks about Ariadne and the Greek myth of the good daughter, the good daughter of patriarchy. And in my Stanford, in our Stanford ward when we was, when we were there, like, I had a friend that took the discussions in my house and I brought her to church and she ended up joining the church, which I truly, authentically loved that experience. And I got to. I was invited to be this speaker at a huge stake conference for the Menlo park stake at Christmas time. And I wrote the whole script. Kim McCall asked me to do that.

Heavenly Mother and Spiritual Searching

John Dehlin [00:50:51] I don't know if, you know, I know Kim.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:50:53] He's awesome. I was so honored that he thought of me. He had me write the script and I delivered it and it was, you know, broadcast on Stanford tv. And I felt so, so solidly in the church in one part of me. And then I also have this memory of like it was within weeks of that memory of me being at the pulpit and delivering this big thing and feeling like I was so. I was fulfilling my, you know, the measure of my creation as a Mormon woman. And then a couple of weeks later, I remember sitting with Eric and with our, you know, with my baby at the time and like saying, I don't know if I can do this. Like, I don't know if I can do this. And again, not to the extent of like a panic attack, but sobbing at church and feeling like I needed to bolt, like I needed to run. And so that was confusing. And again, I just felt like, what's happening to my foundation? I was going two different directions at the same time. And I didn't quite know why. I didn't know what it was, but it would always come back to. It's. It's that dang temple. It's that fear that is just the undercurrent always then for me, there was just this undercurrent of fear that this is My home. But it's going somewhere I don't agree with and that I don't want for my daughters. I'd just given birth to our third daughter and looking at them, and I remember praying and saying, I'll deal with it, whatever it is. Like, I'm okay, even if it means I don't go to the celestial kingdom, even though that's what I want. Because I want to be godly and I want to do the right thing. So be it. But not my girls. I don't want this for my girls. So I think that's also why it was coming to a head and I felt that tension so much more is maybe if I had had boys, I don't know, who knows? But that's what it was for me. Looking at their little faces and going, I'm not sure what I. What I want for them.

John Dehlin [00:53:04] Sometimes Mormons are able to deal with dissonance by just saying, I have faith that Heavenly Father will work everything out fairly in the end. Did that. Did that ever occur to you? Did anyone ever say that to you? And what kept that from ameliorating your concerns?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:53:21] I don't know. Because that works for a lot of people. And it does work to some extent for me, because all along the way, I definitely have doubts still. I always have, even about the existence of God when certain things come up. But I do believe. And so at some point, I do still believe that. And I had to arrive at that. I would say, at this point in my life, I had two. I was so separated. There was such a perforation in my mind of the good Mormon girl who loved Heavenly Father and then the girl who was, like, terrified of him and angry. So, so angry. And when I would go here, I would make that leap. I would make that leap by saying, I know that God is good, and so I'm missing something. I know I'm the one who's missing something, but God is good, and so it will work out okay in the end. And some people make that leap and then they don't ever go back and they don't have to keep making the leaps back and forth. And I don't know why I'm wired the way I am, except that maybe I'm just. My brain likes to dig into things and it still kept going back and saying, this isn't right. This isn't right. This feels yucky. And I also, I'm a language person, so I take language.

John Dehlin [00:54:45] Words matter.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:54:46] Yes, words matter a lot to me. All the scriptures. And I kept Going to the temple often, because I kept thinking, like, I'm making this work. It has to work. I bet my whole life on this. It has to work. So I couldn't just ignore it. I. I couldn't. I couldn't. And for my girls, too. I thought, like, I know God is good. I will continue to have faith, even if I'm just clinging by my fingernails. But something's not right. And so that means I have to keep wrestling with it.

John Dehlin [00:55:19] So that's why my impression is that one of the problems with the God is good is that it puts the problem back on you as the individual. And eventually you're just like, either I'm broken or I don't understand God. But. But to say God is good and to just let it go, then you have that dissonance and then you're internalizing it as being you, as being the broken person. And that's what makes it unsustainable and good for the people that can't just sit with that. Because that can lead, I think, to depression, all sorts of dark things when you just start self loathing. LGBT people deal with this too. It's like, well, God loves me, so I must need to fix this. But then they can't fix it, and then the self loathing happens. Do you relate to that?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:56:04] I can. I for sure can relate to that, yeah. To having it go that. That anger and sadness, not knowing what to do with it. And you can't put it on God. And so you do just go, well, what do I do with it then? And then it goes internal instead. The other problem with it that I see, and everybody has a different calling in life and things they're drawn to, but the, the other problem I see with that is that nothing gets better. Because, you know, I've read accounts of. Even in Uncle Tom's Cabin, I'm remembering, and like accounts of slaves that believed because that's what they were taught and if they were born into it, that that was the system that God had set up and that if Christ didn't approve of slavery, he would have spoken about it explicitly in the New Testament. That was a main idea, you know, that. That excused slavery. And if there hadn't been people that just kept wrestling with it and saying, this is not right, it might not have ever changed. And same with any of the social justice movements. Right. It takes certain personalities that just go, yes, God is good, but I think he expects us to improve things. If we see injustice in the world, then I feel the spirit when I You know, when I moved to improve things for my fellow human beings. And I was starting to feel that a little bit at that point too, that maybe I. It felt like a radical notion at the time and very scary, but starting to think, well, how have things in the church changed in the past? And there were. This is old news to you, but. Right. But that. Who were the first people who were, you know, how did the priesthood ban get lifted? I wonder how that happened. I don't think the prophet, you know, starting to think this has probably happened even in our own faith tradition in the past, that God says you change it. Right. So that's kind of the direction that gave me a little bit of hope during that time.

John Dehlin [00:58:06] So in our notes prior to filming, you also talked about having a conversation with a friend about Heavenly Mother. Have you already talked about that?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:58:17] No, I haven't. And yeah, that's another big one. That was several years later. And I, yeah, I was. We were sitting by the pool. There was a bunch, you know, a bunch of couples together and my husband's friend was sitting with me. And I don't remember exactly how we got on this time topic, but he said, basically, kind of like, I don't get the big deal about Heavenly Mother. Like, we have a Heavenly Father and we know about him and, you know, he's our father. I don't get why women are so, you know, upset about Heavenly Mother. And I didn't. I hadn't thought much about Heavenly Mother. I only knew that I kind of had a resistance. I didn't like when people talked about her. And I heard myself say, without ever having had the thought prior to this, I heard myself say, I think you take it for granted that when you're a little boy, you can look at your dad and you know what you're going to look like when you grow up. And then you get to look at your Heavenly Father and you know what you're going to look like when you spiritually grow up. And I have no idea what's going to happen to me. I don't have a role model. I'm never going to have a beard. I am never going to be like, if I achieve Godhood, what does that look like for me? I don't know. And I had never thought it before. And it came out. And he just went, I've never thought of that before. And I kind of said I hadn't either until it just came out. And that conversation got me thinking more about Heavenly Mother and realizing that I did not not like people Talking about her because I was mad, because I felt abandoned. Because the two options that I could see were that either. So I knew that she existed. And we basically know two things about her. She exists and you can't talk to her. And, you know, in a church that has so much emphasis, places so much emphasis on families, eternal families. And that everything here is a type and shadow of the spiritual realm. Right. And that God theology is so amazing because God is a human being that makes him relatable and it's so important. Like, he has a physical body and that Christ atoned and he knows what it feels like. He's human. That is powerful. But then that works perfectly if you're a boy. Perfectly. And then there's. If you're a girl, you're just left with this vast void of like. Like I said, what does that mean for me? And so you have two options. Either heavenly Mother can talk to me, and she wants me to talk to her, but she's not allowed to. And that played into that other terrifying narrative of, like, the abusive, patriarchal, misogynistic God. She's like this cowering woman up in heaven. Like, I miss my children, but I'm not allowed to talk to them.

Guest [01:01:20] I'm sorry.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:01:21] Right. And then I'm like, well, then I'm furious with my father. Or she's choosing not to, and she could. And she's like, what, Too busy for me? Or I don't know. I mean. And I only have human. I know that sounds so human and maybe silly to be talking about it in such childish terms, but they are parents. And so I kind of felt emotionally like a child. And like, why don't you want me to talk to you? Or is dad not letting you know what's going on here? Why are you gone? And that's. So those kind of thoughts started bubbling up. And that was maybe only five years ago or so. So that's not a comforting doctrine to me. It would be if it were fleshed out and if I could talk to her, that'd be awesome. But the way it is just feels like I was in the basket on an orphanage doorstep.

John Dehlin [01:02:21] From your essay, I kind of got the impression maybe you even said it, that I'd rather not know she exists than know she's there, but she can't talk to me or won't talk to

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:02:31] me and that I can't talk to her. Not allowed to.

John Dehlin [01:02:33] That it's not comforting.

Guest [01:02:34] No.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:02:36] Yeah. I'd rather just not just have there

John Dehlin [01:02:38] be a guy up there.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:02:39] Yeah.

Guest [01:02:39] Yeah.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:02:40] Yeah, I would, but I just talked to my sister the other night about this, and she was saying, I, you know, it is comforting for her. And she kind of applied the same thing. It's faith. Right where she said there's not an evil heavenly mother. Like, if she exists, she's good. And there's a good reason why it's all happened this way. And that works for a lot of women. And I don't want to stay here in my scared and angry child phase. I don't know quite how to progress past it, but it makes me happy, and I do want to work toward that. What I do now is that I just have to pray to God so that it's ambiguous so that I can talk to her if she, like, if you're listening. And I'll say that, too, sometimes, if you're listening, I'd love to talk with you.

John Dehlin [01:03:31] And do you say Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother, Heavenly Parents? Do you just say God?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:03:34] I say God because for me, the ambiguity is comforting that I don't have to. And I pray to heaven. I pray traditionally to Heavenly. And I actually love Heavenly Father. I do. Just because things are incomplete to me doesn't mean that I don't love my dad. Just because I'm still figuring things out with my mom. And I guess that's a different story, because I was scared and angry for a long time, and then I was able to eventually rescue kind of salvage that relationship with God by just kind of panning out from, like, this narrow definition of what I thought was the Mormon God. I had to let go of that or I would have, I think, stayed in Angerland forever. More fear, I think. And then once I just. I just say God of the universe, who created all things and is the source of goodness, and that encompasses everything. And so I say Heavenly Father when I'm in a church setting. And actually with my children, it's just like the language of my childhood and my faith tradition. So I'm happy to use that language, but when I'm praying by myself, I kind of

John Dehlin [01:04:49] expand it.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:04:49] Expand it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:04:51] Okay. Talk about how Spain played into this transition.

Family Life in Spain and Transition Away from Mormonism

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:04:59] Yeah. So my family. So because we both speak Spanish and we had put my kids in. We would put our kids in Spanish immersion schools. We. And my husband can work from anywhere because, like we said, he works. His company is online, so if he has a laptop, we can be anywhere, which is awesome. And we decided to go to Spain. And I had a friend who had lived in France for periodically, kind of a few different Times. And she said, I'm curious if you'll be jealous of Catholics because they get to pray to a mother. And I thought, I wonder if I will. That's interesting. And I had actually, and I mentioned this in the essay, too. When I was a senior in high school, one of my best friends was Catholic and went to Notre Dame. And I got to know Catholicism really deeply through him. And there was a time that I didn't actually pray to Heavenly Mother, but I prayed to Mary. Just kind of as an experiment, because I was there. I'd visited at Notre Dame and was standing in front of this Mary statue and just had this welling up inside of me of, like, looking at this woman. And so I started to pray to Mary. Then I was like, ah, this is heathen. Like, this is, ah, this isn't. This isn't okay. And I never did it again. And I just couldn't bring myself to do that. But I did. We did go to Spain, and we ended up. We would sometimes go to Mormon Church, but sometimes we'd be out of town and would go to Catholic church. I love all churches, especially old churches. I love comparative religions. And I had learned a lot about Catholicism before. Learned about it a lot more there. And I was so jealous. Is too strong, I think. But I just saw, like, what. I just imagined what that would feel like to have not only mary, but, like, St. Anne and St. Margaret and like, to have a woman that you could talk to. I think it's St Margaret who's the patron saint of childbirth. Should be matron Saint, probably right. Not patron if it's a woman. But to think about what that would have felt like to me, to be in childbirth, in my physical body, which is a woman's body, and to have been able to commune with, like, a heavenly woman. That got it. I just thought, like, oh, there's just that richness there that I had been lacking. And I wondered. I think I had the seed of wondering. Could I. Is there a way that I could be Mormon but create that for myself? I did not know what that would look like, but it just felt like, again, like I said in Mormonism, I felt like, I love my dad. I love Heavenly Father, I love Jesus Christ. I actually really love, like, President Hinckley. Like, I felt like. I mean, I loved those men, but then I felt like there was just this giant void on the other side. And so Catholicism had this big, beautiful, rich, balancing, yin and yang kind of whole that I thought, my religion does have that. And that would have helped me. So that's kind of how Spain showed me that it's possible in a Catholic tradition. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:30] Some people rebel by, like, you know, drinking alcohol or smoking or doing drugs. Others rebel by praying to Mary. Yeah, but it's good. It's good. You only did it once.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:08:40] Yeah, yeah, right. Exactly. It could have been a total fight. No, I didn't. That's exactly right.

John Dehlin [01:08:45] That's right.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:08:46] Could have been my downfall. Oh, man.

Guest [01:08:50] All right.

John Dehlin [01:08:50] Well, we've been about an hour, and I think it's good for us to wrap up this first part of the interview. It's been really fascinating. So thank you, Amy, and I'll just give people a preview. What we're going to talk about next is sort of she's going to talk about a conversation she had with Claudia Bushman. She's going to talk about a letter that she wrote to Elder Holland the apostle, and we're going to talk about sort of her most recent time grappling with feminism. Also, probably we'll talk about some faith crisis stuff because at the end of your letter, you address some of that sort of polygamy stuff and polyandry stuff and that whole deal, I'm sure to the extent that you want to, we can talk about whatever your husband grappled with and whether that bled a bit into what you struggled with. And then we'll talk about kind of where you are now and how you're grappling with it now, writing the essay, if there was any aftermath or blowback from that, and then ideas you have for faithful Mormon feminists going forward. How does that sound?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:09:56] Perfect.

End of Part One

John Dehlin [01:09:57] All right, so thank you for joining us for this first part of Mormon Stories. It's been fun to have you. Please post your Comments up on MormonStories.org and join us for part two coming up next.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:10:09] Thanks.

John Dehlin [01:10:09] All right, thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out@sabre rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Guest [01:10:28] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better find far for us to strive our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jo your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well. Why should we mo Lord, I think our lot is hard t not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now

John Dehlin [01:11:50] shoot you good up your love.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 672

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org. hello, and welcome back to part two of my interview with Amy McPhee. All the best. In part one, we had a really fun discussion. Interesting, fascinating, touching, moving about her growing up in the church and feeling empowered and equal. But then as she went to the temple, served a mission, got married in the temple, how sort of her concerns about patriarchy and about feminism and about equality all started emerging and really starting to weigh her down and cause her to struggle. And it was a great. It was a great discussion. I kind of mentioned to you, Amy, that this isn't a discussion I've really had on Mormon stories. We're 668 episodes in, and I've never just interviewed sort of just like a female member of the church to talk about their journey with patriarchy. We've done Margaret Toscano, we've done Claudia Bushman, we've done, you know, Nyla McBain or Fiona Givens, but never just sort of a woman's experience developmentally in the church. So for me, this is sort of. Wow. It's something that I should have done a long time ago, but I'm loving it. But now we're going to jump into. So how many years ago did you speak with Claudia? How long ago was that?

Writing the Dear Mormon Man Article

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:01:58] So that was. It was when we. After we got back from Spain, we moved to Southern California, and it was just an email.

John Dehlin [00:02:04] How long ago was that?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:02:05] And that was four years ago.

John Dehlin [00:02:08] Okay, so this episode is going to be focusing on kind of your more recent sort of grappling with patriarchy and feminism in the church, sort of in the intellectual realm as it relates to church policy, doctrine, the role inside or outside activism, that sort of thing.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:02:26] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:02:26] Okay, so anything you want to talk about before we talk about Claudia?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:02:30] No.

John Dehlin [00:02:30] Or should we start there?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:02:31] Yeah, that's a great place to start.

John Dehlin [00:02:32] Okay, go for it.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:02:33] Yeah. Well, my conversation with Claudia Bushman also was kind of corresponded with this letter that I wrote to Elder Holland.

John Dehlin [00:02:43] You want to talk about that first, then or at the same time?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:02:46] They're the same experience, basically, I had because, as I talked about before, I struggled mostly with the temple and because I had felt so much a part of Zion and making things better in kind of that, I still had kind of an innocence about that. And I thought, well, the brethren probably just don't know because, like. Like we talked about before, sometimes men just don't notice because they're paying attention to what the men's part is, and they might not even notice how it sounds to women. So I thought, if someone just tells them, then I'll be okay, and they'll say, thank you for letting me know. So I wrote this letter to Elder Holland because I felt a special bond to Elder Holland because he had gone to Chile, and because he's a word person, too. He's so literate, and I just admire his intellect, and he's such a tender man. And so I wrote him this letter about the temple and how I had felt and just, like, poured my heart out and worked on it for a long time, sent it to him and got a letter back from just the church secretary. Just kind of a form letter, probably. And that was pretty disheartening for me because, I mean, I guess I knew that they can't answer every letter. I knew that. But I just thought, well, how are they going to hear the voices of women then? And how is my voice ever going to be heard? Because I'd already tried. I mean, I can talk about it with my sisters and my friends, and I can even talk about it with the temple president. But nothing was getting better. And in fact, I was feeling worse and worse all the time. And so then I thought, like, well, you're not going to hear us. How can you ever hear us if we can't talk to you? Anyway, I was feeling really discouraged, and I was praying one night. I remember this pouring my heart out to God and saying. I said the phrase, should I even bother speaking out? Should I even bother trying to make my voice heard? And I felt, like, empty. Finished my prayer. But I felt kind of like Eric. And I call it my husband, and I call it the river, where you feel something almost like kind of pushing you in a direction. And you. I don't know, it's kind of this mystery. And I felt like I was just picking up my feet and letting a current carry me. And I thought, I want to look at. You know, what I want to look at is Eugene England. I want to read something by him. And that quickly linked me. I read something by him. It was great. It quickly linked me to a speech that Claudia Bushman had given. And the title was Should Mormon Women Speak Out? And that was literally the phrase that I had just said in my prayer. And I felt like it was serendipity again. It felt like, whoa, that's what I. It was like moments before that, I had prayed that to God. And then somehow up on my screen was, Claudia Bushman, should warm and women speak out. And the answer, the long and short of it, was, yes, yes, we need to. And that led me to. Then it kind of just triggered this, you know, train of memories that I. That I thought, oh, yeah, Claudia Bushman. I had heard her on Mormon Stories, and I remembered that she had started Exponent 2, and. And I had always meant to look into Exponent 2 and never had. And I brought up the Exponent 2 homepage, and the call for articles was, tell us what you feel about the temple. So in a matter of moments, I had Claudia Bushman speaking to me, answering the question I just asked. I had this discouraging response about the temple and thinking, no one's ever going to hear what I have to say about the temple. And there's this call for articles about the temple. So I sent my letter to Elder Holland. I made it just an open letter. I took his name out and made it an open letter, a letter to an apostle, and I submitted it to Exponent, and that's the first time I'd ever been published. And it got published in Exponent. And that was so gratifying for me to just see. To have it be heard, to have somebody read it. You know, I mean, just on a human level, right? Just the comfort that it gives you to have a conversation and have somebody say, I hear you. That hadn't happened yet, except with my sister. But to do it on a broader level, like, what are we going to do? This is hard for us was really satisfying. So that was great. That led also for me to feel like Claudia Bushman was someone I had always admired and respected. And we have some mutual friends. And so I emailed a mutual friend and said, I'm having a really hard time because I was at that point also being uprooted from my ward in the Bay Area, where we had been for a long time. We had gone to Spain, had moved to Southern California, and I was really alone. And it was quite a different political environment, atmosphere down there than the Bay Area is. And I felt like an alien. And in my ward to the wards were just. They felt very much more conservative. And I was, you know, a redwood tree in a desert down there and just drying up and like, ah. So I. I reached out to Claudia, thinking that would be, like, a source of water for me. And it was. And that was a critical. That whole experience with the letter and exponent and Claudia was huge for me because I felt. And also I was listening to a lot of Mormon Stories podcasts at that time, too, and hearing Fiona Givens and Richard and Claudia Bushman and a lot of other people that I felt a sense of community and hope. And then in my email, I said, okay, here's what I did. You know, I wrote to Elder Holland, and I can see her just like, probably on the other hand, like, this naive girl thought that she could write to Elder Holland and make a difference, but she was so nice to me. And. But one thing she said was, the thing that she said that really set me on this course was she said, don't bother trying to change the church. You're wasting your time trying to change the church. There's no escaping Genesis. And she said, do your work laterally with other women, but you're wasting your time trying to change the church from top down. And I was every. She said lots of other stuff that was nourishing and helpful and validating and brilliant and insightful, but that one, I was like, what? First of all, there's no escaping Genesis. Don't tell me I can't do something, because then I. I will be determined to do it. And I thought, of course there's escaping Genesis. I just wrote an article about this on Medium the other day, but that stuck in my mind like a rock in my shoe. Just kind of like, what does she mean? Like, there's no escaping this. Like, we can't make a difference. And it kind of set up these two options of how, if we do want to make our voices heard in the church, there's the approach of doing it from the top down, which is what I very naively tried to do with that letter. Or there's what Claudia Bushman really has done, I believe kind of her whole career, her whole life as a Mormon feminist is strengthening other women, listening to their stories, publishing their stories, starting the exponent, and perhaps I hope I'm understanding her correctly, but that that will rise organically is the hope, I think, and change things from the grass roots up. So I fought against that for a while and doctrinally fought against it. And it led me to one of my next steps was we moved back to the Bay Area and I started taking classes, night classes at Stanford. My kids were in school and in. Is this okay if I go this direction now? It kind of dovetails with some other things, but chronologically what happened was I enrolled in these classes, I thought, I want to go back to grad school. I hadn't been working, so I needed to kind of, like, get my feet wet gradually. And so I started taking night classes that anybody can take at Stanford. And my first class was on Catholicism and Protestantism. So it was a European history course. And I was taking it for a grade because I wanted to eventually, like, you know, go back to grad school. So I did this big research paper called Escaping Genesis, and I went back to European history. And I thought, how have Catholics dealt with this all the way through? I actually started with Old Testament with, you know, ancient Hebrew culture, and looked at the misogyny of that culture and. And then Christ's message, which was actually really empowering for women. And then what I looked at was that Catholic women had, like I talked about in Spain, one major thing they had going for them was this private, intimate relationship, spiritual relationship with women. And they also had an option out of marriage in that they could go into, you know, a cloister, they could become a nun. And that was the way a lot of women obtained an education in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Even like Galileo's daughter, you know, Galileo is one of the famous examples of. He was an educated man. He valued learning, so he did not want his daughter getting married and then just being a baby factory, he put her in a nunnery, basically, so that she could get an education. So Catholics had these two great things going for them. Education, option for education, and this spiritual relationship. But the problem was that they also had a very similar patriarchal priestly hierarchy, from the Pope down to, you know, the bishops and the cardinals and all, all the way down, very organized. And that made it hard to change things for women privately. They could individually get an education. They could individually have a relationship with God the Father and Mother God, but they weren't able to advance women's liberation very much for the broader culture, is what my assessment was in this paper. And that's kind of a broad, sweeping statement. But I did notice that trend. And then as I thought about it, I thought, well, with Protestants, if you look at. I just chose one metric, and that was looking at women's suffrage. Which countries allowed women to vote first? They were all Protestant countries before they were Catholic countries. The first one was Sweden. Then it was British territories, and it spread throughout the Protestant countries in Europe and then America in 1920. It wasn't until the 1930s that Catholic countries like Spain and France and Portugal allowed women to have the right to vote. And I Thought, there's something here. What did the Protestants have that enabled broader cultural change for women? And what I found was Claudia Bushman's advice. I saw that kind of enacted through the Protestant church accidentally, I think, because if you remember, like, Martin Luther was the one who started the, you know, the reformation in, like, 1517, I think, is when he nailed his theses to the. The door of the church. And one of his main points was, two main points actually, was that man should have a relationship with God directly, not mediated by priests. Right. That was a big problem he had with the Catholic Church. And the other one was that the Mass was, again, it was mediated by priests in Latin, and that common people couldn't even read the Bible. No one was educated.

John Dehlin [00:15:24] And.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:15:25] And so then, of course, the invention of the printing press. And Martin Luther, even though he was totally sexist and said some terrible. His paradigm about women was just as bad as everybody else's, but he thought women should be educated. And in that way, then women started learning to read. And once they could read, they started thinking critically, and they started noticing the world around them and having a framework of language for what they were experiencing.

Guest [00:15:54] And.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:15:55] And very slowly then you start seeing, like a. Mary Wollstonecraft, for example, in England in the 1700s. And her argument still for the education of women was, yes, women are inferior in intellect to men, but it's only because we're not allowed to be educated. And if we're educated, then we will be equals. But her argument was also, and then, you know, educated mothers will have more educated sons. And so that was. It still wasn't to the point of that women should be educated for their own sake because they're human beings, but they'll educate their children better. But that was a good step. Right. A step in the right direction. And eventually Protestant women turned out, you know, Protestantism turned out people like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. And I think that just that there is that historical case to be made for the grassroots approach, that it is a long process. It can be a really long process from misogyny to chivalry, where women are, like, put on a pedestal and kind of coddled, and they're weak and fragile, so be careful with them. That's a step up from, like, abusing women. The next step. The secular world has already moved on to the next step, which is egalitarianism, I think. But that's come through largely Protestant means, at least in Western civilization, and that's come through the education of everybody. So that was a Big epiphany that I had where I thought, you know, I think there's a place for both. I'm having more thoughts. Maybe you have a certain direction you want to go with this.

John Dehlin [00:17:44] Perfect.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:17:44] Okay. It made me think of another conversation I had years ago with Camille Frank Olson. She's a professor at byu. I was in her office having, like, can we please talk to me? I was, I guess, kind of a basket case for a lot of years, searching and trying to talk to people like, who can help me? And so I visited her. And the thing that I remember that she said, I said, what can we do? And she said, listen, I'm the only woman in my meetings all the time. I'm the only woman there. And she said, men. The men in this church are good men. They don't see women's points of view because they're men. The same way that I don't think with a man's brain because I'm not a man, and I don't think with a tall person's brain because I'm a short person. It's not for lack of caring or trying. Usually, maybe. Sometimes it is. Usually it's not. And she said the same thing, I guess, that Claudia Bushman said, which was, tell them. Tell them how you feel. Make your voice heard. Speak up in the meeting, because maybe they won't listen to you that time, but maybe somebody else is listening. But speak up. Don't just sit there timidly. Don't wait for permission, and don't wait for it to be comfortable, but make your voice hurt. And so that just kind of ties in with. And with what other women are doing, too. Nylan McBain with the Mormon Women's Project. I think these are all similar projects and ways to help women feel empowered everyday. Women who are just going about their lives, it's that furtherance of Martin Luther's emphasis on education and that. That will raise us all up eventually.

John Dehlin [00:19:35] So where. So. So what happens next?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:19:42] What next? What happens next? In the church?

John Dehlin [00:19:44] No, in your story or for me.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:19:46] Oh, so you.

John Dehlin [00:19:46] So, for example, you talked about a conversation with your husband in the car.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:19:50] Oh, yeah. Okay. Yes. Right. Yeah. That was around the. So I wrote that paper, had the big epiphany. And I just have to say, too, that learning about history has been key for me to see things in that broader historical context. But we can come back to that. But around the same time. Yeah, I had a conversation with my husband in the car, and I was just saying how few women are in the Scriptures and just saying, just imagine if it were, you know, if the. If the percentage were reversed. I think it's something like 1% in the Bible of verses have to do with women at all. I said, just think of it. If it were that way with men, if it were 99% by women, about women, for women, interpreted by women. And then even like the gospel doctrine and seminary manuals were written by women, like, so many layers deep were all about women. He's like, oh, wow, you know? And then we said, yeah, and what if the prophet was a woman and what if the apostles were women? And then it just started going out from there. And we kind of got on this, like, ranty brainstorm together about what that would look like. And I think that was the first seed in my mind of, like, of the article that I would eventually write. And I started writing it, actually. I thought, I wonder if this would be. I thought, I want to write this. And I didn't know if it would be best written, like, as a novel, kind of like the Giver. I was saying, like maybe a young adult novel where you kind of go along with the characters and suddenly you're like, oh, my gosh, it's patriarchy, but reversed at, like, this big moment at the end. I didn't know, but it just lived in my word docs as, like, this thing I was working on for a few years. But I would go to work on it and it just. I would get bogged down, and then I'd have other papers I needed to write. And so I didn't write it for a while. I'd just write down ideas. And I searched. I was thinking, has someone done this already? This was maybe three years ago. And I thought, I wonder if someone's done this already. So. And I found I just was Googling everything I could think of to try to find an article. And I found Eloise Bell, I think the Meeting, right, which is shorter and more kind of funny, more a comment on culture, I think. And I thought, yeah, I thought it was awesome, but I wanted to do something more expansive and maybe more serious in tone. And I found that there's also A Walk in the Pink Moccasins by Carolyn Pearson. But I didn't find that until after I had already written my article. And my sister and a friend both emailed me and said, have you read this? And I hadn't, but I had already written my article. But that was the seed that was kind of, I want to write this, but I didn't write it for A while.

Sue Monk Kidd and the Dance of the Dissident Daughter

John Dehlin [00:23:05] How did Sue Monk kid come into play?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:23:08] Okay, that's a big one. I think so. I have a mission companion who had been going through something very similar as far as a feminist awakening and a faith crisis. And we didn't know that for years. And then we connected and discovered that we had been experiencing and she had been a dear friend of mine on my mission. And so we've been in touch. And I think she's the one who recommended this book to me. It's called Dance of the Dissident Daughter. And Sue Monk Kidd wrote the Secret Life of Bees, which I had heard about forever and never read. And I read the Dance of the Dissident Daughter first and that I'm still grappling with it. So she used to be a writer, a Christian writer. She would write inspirational stories. She's an amazing intellectual writer. It wasn't like cheap, like, feel good Christian writing. She's a smart woman, but she would write Christian. She was a Southern Baptist. And she had an experience that was similar to mine. You know, she likened it to an awakening where she was asleep or. And kind of started feeling that movement of like, oh, this isn't right. And she completely left. At least that was my understanding from her memoir, is that she left the Christian faith once she realized the extent of patriarchy. And it just goes through her whole awakening. And I guess reading that book, along with taking these classes that I was taking, gave me a much bigger, like, I panned out from Earth kind of like, and saw the chronology way bigger than I had seen it before from, you know, hunter gatherers through, like, I guess hunter gatherers were largely egalitarian societies, which I hadn't known, and that there were matriarchal societies way, way, way before, you know, ancient Greece. And that then once things started to change, that patriarchy started to take hold. And another book that kind of dovetails with this, that was really influential was John Stuart Mill, the Subjection of Women, which was written in the 1800s. But he said these stories, these. Even the creation myths and these frameworks that we have in our societies weren't delivered to us out of whole cloth from God. People observed the world around them and then created stories that fit what they saw. And we all do this, right? We all create stories to fit our experience and what we see. And because women and I need to learn more about this. I mean, we could have an anthropologist on here who would know much more about this. I'm still researching it because I think it's fascinating. But what makes Sense to me is that women are smaller and women are tethered to their infants by, you know, pregnancy and then nursing and these beautiful things that we do for humanity, taking care of children. But that. That puts us in a really vulnerable position. And through years, I mean, thousands of years, right. Of ancient history, that patriarchy developed. And then people started making up stories to that fit in with that, with what was already happening. And once I started kind of. John Stuart Mill said that, and then I started. Studied Aristotle and thought like, oh, that totally fits with the. You see the universal first, and then you start looking at the particulars, which totally gives you confirmation bias for what you expect to see is what you'll start to see and think, well, then, you know, what Aristotle said about just as man is the Lord and has dominion over the animals, man has dominion over women. And that's because that's what they saw. And that blew everything apart. It blew everything apart. For me and Sue Monk Kidd, to bring her back into the picture, was this one woman whose journey I could really relate to in a patriarchal Christian religion that she loved, that meant everything to her. And then once she kind of realized, and then through her pages, I'm reading about her experience going, oh, crap, Like, I had only gone back as far as, like, you know, Joseph Smith, and then I went back even to the 1500s to Martin Luther, and I went back to the Old Testament. But I hadn't gone as far back as to see, like, oh, I think. I think patriarchy is made up. I think people made it up. Men are bigger and they have a lot more testosterone. And it's. I mean, you see it in the animal kingdom that people pick on the next thing that are smaller than them and that. I mean, you see it across all cultures, in ancient, you know, all cultures and all times almost, with very few exceptions. And that was both liberating for me because I had been trying to jam this square peg into the round hole that God and the church is true. And so patriarchy is God's order. It's the way God wants it to be. And once I thought, no, I think that people made it up, that was both liberating. And then, well, now what do I do? And that's still the question, I think. Yeah, but Sumon Kidd is, like, great to read if you're ready for it. In fact, when my mission companion recommended it, she said, like, clear out a few days, because I didn't come out of my room. I just cried for a long time is what I remember her Saying that

John Dehlin [00:29:27] doesn't sound very fun.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:29:28] No, it's not. It's not fun. But then finally, then you can go, oh, that's why it didn't feel right. Because it's not. Because it's not right.

John Dehlin [00:29:43] Isn't it powerful to feel like you finally see the world clearly and you understand why things are the way they are?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:29:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, a quote from. From her book from Su Monk Kidd is she said, the truth will set you free, but it will destroy the safe, sweet way you live. Right. Do you know that quote? But first, it will destroy the safe, sweet way you live. And so you feel liberated, but you have to cry it out for a while. Right?

Historical Women, Statues, and Ordained Women Movement

John Dehlin [00:30:14] Talk about the women's statue in Boston real quick.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:30:17] Oh, yeah. Okay. So. So our family went to Boston for the summer. Just kind of like, why we went to Spain. We just like to go places, and I make my kids read lots of books there and do history classes, and we just soak up everything we can from that place. And Boston was calling to me. And right by where we live, we lived right on Beacon street, kind of by the public garden. And there is that long walk of all of the statues. I just read George Washington's biography, too, by Ron Chernow, which is amazing. And as a side note to that, too, like reading about George Washington, this man that I admire so do still admire so much, but his blind spot regarding slavery just made me feel tender for humans and how we fumble and make huge, horrible, devastating mistakes, but are still trying our best. Anyway, his statue. And then there's, like, Hamilton, lots of big figures in American history, and a ways down the street is the statue of the women. And up till this point, I had published that article in Exponent years before. And then by that point, when we were in Boston, I'd been accepted into a grad program, and so I'd been writing papers a lot, but I hadn't really written anything. I hadn't published anything about Mormon feminism. I talked to people a lot about it, and I would write things but not publish them. And so I was trying to figure out what I wanted, but it won't leave me alone, right? Like, it just keeps coming back to me, and I just compulsively write about it, but then I just never submit it anywhere, really. I submitted an article to Exponent that summer we were in Boston. But I was thinking, do I want to have. Do I want to be more public in my feelings about what my experience has been? And I found myself going to that statue. There's like a triangle of three statues. There's Lucy Stone and Abigail Adams and Phillis Wheatley. And I just found myself there a lot. And the statues of the women and then like a plaque of the things that they had written. And I just felt what I think is the spirit of God to me, to my spirit resonating. And I thought, you know, I'm here on earth for such a short time. And the people that I admire the most are people who speak their truth. They're people who lead with love. They're people who search for truth and fact. And they're also people who are humble enough to know that they don't have all the answers. But I looked at these three women and saw what a difference they made for their culture. And that I'm the beneficiary and my daughters are the beneficiary of these women's work. And I just felt so much admiration for them because it's always so hard to be the first one. And those women were the first ones in many ways. And I felt like in my little way, even if it was just tiny, and maybe only the people in the room would hear what I had to say, that that's fine, but that I was gonna say what I needed to say, and that if there was a paper that needed to get written, I would write it and maybe I would publish it. And that I knew that when I'm on my deathbed someday, that if I didn't, I would look back with regret. And I just looked at those faces of those statues of women, and I wanted to be counted among them. And that was just this past summer, that was in July. And so I had sent my article off to Exponent, and that was about temple preparation for young women, which is it's now in this month's or this quarter's exponent. And that was great. I felt good about that. But then that kind of led into now where we are up to the current moment. So should I keep talking about that or was there something.

John Dehlin [00:34:56] Let's jump back if it's okay, for just a second. So one thing we skipped is sort of the whole Kate Kelly, ordained women.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:35:04] Oh, sure, sure.

John Dehlin [00:35:05] So let's rewind just for a bit.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:35:07] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:35:09] Talk about how you experienced that, whether it mattered, whether it impacted you, connected you, whether you were turned off by it. And talk about sort of the response to that, both by the church and by. By, like, the Natalie McBain's of the world, and how they responded with sort of this middle ground of like, let's push for what we can push for. Talk about how all that affected you and how you experienced it.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:35:37] Okay, so I would say how I experienced it was with so many mixed emotions. Just everything you said, I would just say, yes, yes, yes. All of those conflicting emotions and impressions. I would say that ordain women. I mean, this just kind of what we talked about earlier, right, Was like the top down approach to say, like, ordain women is like the imperative form of the verb, right? Like please ordain women. And I remember Valerie Hudson Kassler's response to that, right? Like, that's the most unfeminist thing I've ever heard of to ask a patriarchal institution for permission to ordain you. And her whole thing was, we already have power, we already have priesthood, right? And to ask a patriarchy for permission is just unfeminist. And I think she even said like, she laughed out loud. And I in her article, you remember this? Ruby slippers, I think on her feet or something about how we already have power. And I agreed with parts of lots of different people that I heard to Valerie Hudson Castler, I felt like, I agree we already have power. And part of what I would love to see for women is that more Catholic individual relationship with giving ourselves permission, right? Like to have a relationship with a mother in heaven if we want to doing that on our own. But again, like the Catholics, if you rely on, and I say like the Catholics, I'm being so broad. But what I studied from 1500 Catholic women that I read, they're, you know, the little that was written about them. The problem with that is you can believe that you have the priesthood and you can believe that you are empowered and you can pray to Heavenly Mother on your own if you want. But for example, you can baptize your child as a woman if you want, but their name's not going on the records of the church if you do that. And so I like Valerie Hudson Castler's optimism about like, we already do have power, but if you're in patriarchy, it doesn't count for much. Like, that's a junky priesthood. If I already have what I'm gonna have, it's not the same. It's not the same. It doesn't function the same. And so Kate Kelly's approach, ordained women's approach, I found, I thought it was great because it got a conversation going. I thought, there's a place for that. And I don't know her. It might be the Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, prompting her to Play her part. Just like I described feeling at my Boston statue, going, this is what you were born to do. Do it. And some people have a role to play, and they don't see the fruits of it for a long time, and everybody hates them for a while, and then you look back and they're vindicated by history. I don't know. I tend to be turned off by aggressive rhetoric, but I also have compassion. And I feel like, you know, if I know the feeling of saying, like, I have something to say and not being heard and going, I have something to say. And if you're not heard, you start shouting sometimes and you're frustrated. So I had a lot of sympathy at the time. I did not feel like ordaining women was what I would choose if I were in charge at the time, but I had. I cried when she was excommunicated. And I. I listened to the debate between, you know, the panel, the discussion that was on Mormon Stories podcast, and I was so happy the conversation was happening. And I identified very much with both sides and thought, if you're not invited into the meeting, you don't have say in what happens in the church and in the current conditions. If you don't have the priesthood, you're not invited to the meeting. I identified with that. But I also thought. But maybe I do think, like, you know, men and women are different and they have their different roles. I didn't know, but I loved that the conversation was happening, and I was sad when I saw it go into meanness and pettiness and attacks. I hate that. I never appreciate or condone that at all.

Mormon Feminist Perspectives on Reform and History

John Dehlin [00:40:32] Recently, I interviewed Greg Prince again for Mormon Stories, and he made this comment that was really alarming to a lot of my listeners and especially to my friend Kate Kelly, where he basically said that ordained women set Mormon feminism back 20, 30 years. Whatever he said, I didn't respond at the time, partly because I don't like to be adversarial to my guests, but also because I was running out of time in that interview and had some of the things I really wanted to talk about. But it wasn't because I agreed with it. I'm just curious, as you've seen the church's changes since then, do you see it differently than kind of what Greg said? How would you see. Have you seen a positive impact come from ordained women or at least associated with ordained women? What would you even know?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:41:34] In a lot of ways, I wouldn't know. To be honest, I don't know that I saw the church dig Their heels in pretty hard. I saw. I saw people around me. I mean, I would say. And I live in a fairly liberal pocket of Mormons and progressive women. And I think ordained women was seen as quite radical. So I can understand Greg Prince having that point of view. I don't see that it's set Mormon feminism back. I can. What I think. I don't know. I don't know what he was saying. I think it's unfortunate that. I thought it was unfortunate that the church dug its heels in. I think it's unfortunate that when women speak that that way, that. That there is such, like, be careful with your tone. Don't yell. Don't be shrill. Don't be too demanding. I think it's really unfortunate. I think it's the world we live in. And so I think she was pretty out there for a lot of people. And so for a lot of people, that's a deal breaker and they'll shut you off. And I think that's unfortunate and that that might be what happened. I definitely don't think she set feminism, Mormon feminism back. I think those discussions are really important. And I think it did get people's attention that it. That wouldn't have been listening otherwise, because they'll only listen when the kid starts to yell, you know, so that's what

John Dehlin [00:43:13] Margaret Toscano talked about, about sitting in the back seat of the car and yelling and being hot and the parents not listening, Right?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:43:21] Yes, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:43:23] And you raise your voice louder and louder, right?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:43:25] That's right. And if you're not heard, like, what are you supposed to do? I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:43:30] When you think about the historical figures like those Boston statues that you really connected with, how were they perceived at the time they were by the public as they were advocating for the things

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:43:41] they were advocating for, I think certainly so. Abigail Adams was interesting to me because she was brilliant. She had such a sharp mind.

Guest [00:43:50] And

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:43:54] the excerpt that was part of the statue that was on the plaque of her statue was a letter that she wrote to her husband, John Adams, when he had just become president. And she said, I wish I could remember it word for word, but she said, I hope that you will be more. That your policies will be more favorable to the ladies than your ancestors have been. And so she recognized that he was in a position of power and she wasn't, but that she had his ear back at home and she would use her influence that way. But she wrote a lot. I think she was actually very well respected and regarded. Phillis Wheatley was an African American slave. So she was the first. I believe she was the first African American to publish literature, I think. Does that sound right? Of either gender. And it was a woman and she was a poet, and I know George Washington regarded her poetry beautifully and I think she influenced. I think she was well regarded too. Maybe these were anomalies because I think typically they're not right. They're seen as harsh. Lucy Stone was one of the. Was a contemporary of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. And they for sure were way ahead of their time and were just the heads that were bashing against the, you know, the drawbridge, trying to get it to come down. They got bashed pretty badly, I think, those 18, those 19th century suffragists. I think there's a place for them. I do. I think.

John Dehlin [00:45:29] How about they're essential.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:45:31] They're essential. Totally. Totally. It wouldn't happen otherwise. Totally. That's right.

John Dehlin [00:45:38] I mean, I'm not trying to lead you, but I mean, I think about just what have we seen in the past few years? Women are praying in General Conference now. Women are no longer sort of off to the side of General Conference. They've sort of been brought more front and center now. We have like quasi leadership for women missionaries. The missionary aides for women have all come down, you can wear pants to church. And I'm sure I'm missing a thousand things, but that's what I wish I would have said to Greg Prince is those are like really big changes all happening coincidentally, like in the past. Even the Women's Conference now being sort of lumped in together with General Conference and streaming the Women's Conference or streaming the priesthood, like, it just feels like there's been massive change. But I am now injecting myself into your story.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:46:34] That's okay. No, no, I think that's great. And I do think that those changes have. Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is I see ordained women as being a part of that, of what was happening with feminist Mormon housewives and with, you know, by common consent, all the, all the blogs, all of the feminists that in this third wave have happened and have correlated just as a blessing to me with my own kind of feminist awakening. And I kind of was on the sidelines just as a, you know, as a receptor of all of that and benefiting from it hugely and just grateful again for each voice, each voice speaking and saying, here's what I think. I think that combination of voices has been what has moved things along. And like I said, I think that people Like Joan of Arc, right? You just go into a forest and say God and God within me, right? Like whatever divine spirit, spirit is out there and inside of me. What should I do during this brief time I have in my life? And hopefully that moves things forward.

John Dehlin [00:47:46] So I remember the Natalie McBain sort of response to Kate Kelly and ordained women, which I would articulate as priesthood is a bridge too far. But what can we ask for that's reasonable? It's like, let the women handle the money. Let the women hold the baby when the blessing happens. You know, lower the missionary age. And I think maybe part of what Greg was saying was that there were other forces that were influential, not just Kate's kind of the Martin Luther King vs. Malcolm X Kind of dichotomy, that Nylan was the good feminist and Kate was the bad feminist. And of course, my reading of history is that the more strident voices create the space and the attention and the interest in the softer voices. That Malcolm X in some ways gave Martin Luther King more power and that maybe K. Kelly gave Nyla more, I don't know. And all the other people that you mentioned, that kind of factored in because we're talking about decades of Mormon feminism, not just like the past four or five or 10 years. But did you have. And do you have a reaction to Niland's sort of approach? Was that important to you? Do you. Is that kind of where you are? Or how did you experience and how do you experience that approach?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:49:08] My reaction to it was, again, I think there's. I think we benefit when lots of different voices are speaking from their authentic point of view. And I really respected Nylan McBain's. I love that she uses data. I love that she does research. I love that she. I do feel like she has a lot of love and charity, and I really respect her. I think she's so articulate too, I think. And so it, like, to me, I think, like, do I agree with everything she says? Probably not. But I do think, like, she would be more comparable to, like. Well, I don't know. I was gonna say, like, that it's one step along the path that will eventually lead to egalitarianism. Right now, that is what I would say feels right to me, that that low hanging fruit, the kind of easier things that don't require doctrinal changes like the ones you listed are a great step to me in the right direction. They're an important step. And that is all a lot of people are ready for right now. So I think that has a really important place. It's not threatening. It's less threatening. I guess it's less threatening to people as far. I mean, and if I don't know what the end game is, and I think any woman or a man, I mean, right. All of us in the church might have a different vision of what it would be. And some people think it's perfect just the way it is right now. And some people thought it was perfect the way it was, I guess, 50 years ago or 100 years ago. I don't think it's perfect the way it is right now, but I don't know. I don't know. But I appreciate everybody contributing to the conversation.

John Dehlin [00:51:15] So before you wrote an article about what now, what was it called?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:51:20] The Dear Mormon man article after that,

John Dehlin [00:51:24] Something about women and what do we do now?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:51:26] Oh, right. My follow up to what was it called? It was called Dear Mormon Woman. What do we do Now?

John Dehlin [00:51:31] Yeah, what do we do now?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:51:32] Exactly.

Husband's Faith Journey and Polygamy Questions

John Dehlin [00:51:32] So before we jump there, I don't know a ton about Eric, your husband. I don't know a ton about kind of where he is or his concerns. But what I do know is that stereotypically the men's issues tend to be more historical and truth claim stuff and generalizing, women tend to care more about kind of social issues and practical issues and the lived experience. But I read enough of. I mean, I read your essays, but I could tell from the Dear Mormon man essay that you've confronted the truth claims and the historical stuff, kind of the stuff that would be found in many Mormon stories, episodes, the stuff that would be in CES Letter about polyandry. And I'm sure you've read about Book of Mormon historicity and Book of Abraham stuff. And so before we talk to kind of what now and what you would like to see and where you would like to see things go and your future in the church. Did truth claim stuff factor in at all to your journey? Has it impacted how you view things now? Did you ever even consider, like, this is all garbage and throw it all away and I'm just leaving this steaming pile of junk? Or did you, you know, and if you did work through all that stuff, how did you work through it?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:53:00] Mm, yeah, it did. It did. Definitely. Yes, I did read all of it.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] Talk us through it.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:53:05] Yeah, talk us through that a little at a time. And I think. I think it's typical. Again, not every woman feels this way, but I think it's fairly typical for Mormon women to have some amount of anxiety about. About polygamy. From the time they learn it, that there's always a little bit of fear that it's going to be practiced in the afterlife. And we'll ask each other, like, would you do that? You know, maybe men do it too. Like, it's like the test of faith that you kind of like, would you go with the prophet or would you, you know, would you. And there's anxiety there a lot. And like I mentioned before, that played into this feeling of like, that the afterlife might not be a heaven that I was interested in and that God was not fair and not just and not loving. So learning that Joseph Smith learning the circumstances of his. Of the polyandry that went on was like a lot of these other things where the truth sets you free, but it's both liberating and devastating at the same time. And I did have that experience for sure, learning about that, I thought, oh, again, what I believe and what felt right to me was it's felt wrong all these years because it is wrong, morally wrong. What happened. And that was a relief.

John Dehlin [00:54:34] Polygamy or polyandry or both?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:54:36] Both.

John Dehlin [00:54:37] Polygamy is so132. Yeah, DNC132 is a no for you.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:54:41] It's a no. It's a no, John. Sorry. No. No. It's a no. It feels, you know how I mean? And then to quote a part of the Doctrine and Covenants, that does feel right to me, which I totally cherry pick. Just like how I read the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita, I go, wow, that feels true. That resonates with me. That does not. That's kind of how I read my Mormon Scriptures now too. Because DNC also says, well, it says you'll know in your heart and your mind. Right? God communicates with you through your heart and your mind. And polygamy felt so polyandry, what? All of that felt wrong in my heart. But I thought that I had to accept it in my mind because it went along with the keystone and it all has to be true, right? But I knew, I felt in my heart that it was not right, that it insulted my soul as a woman. And then so then once I learned in my mind that at least my interpretation and some people know the very same facts and interpret them differently and say God did call Joseph Smith to have those relationships just the way they happened. And I don't feel that way. And so once I found that out, it was a huge relief because that helped me salvage my relationship with God knowing he didn't do that. And you know, the thing that bugs me so much too about the discussions that happen about the polyandry is that so infrequently is it people always talk about was that right or wrong for Joseph to do? And people don't even talk about who was Fanny Alger, the 6 teen year old, I think at the time, or who were these women and how that impacted their lives. And it always felt to me like God cared more about, more about Joseph and whether it was right or wrong for him. And the people analyzing it cared more about whether it was right or wrong for Joseph to do that than they did about was it right or wrong for that woman to have that happen to her, to have that happen in her life. The whole thing felt wrong always. And so then when I learned how it had all happened, I thought God was not behind that. Phew, then I can trust God because he wouldn't do that. So it was a relief. And then to know that he lied about it also. And that was again like totally crushing, crushing for me and then also liberating because I thought, okay, like those things that have felt wrong, then I got to align myself back up with my head and my heart to God and say, like, if something feels wrong in your heart and it doesn't make sense in your mind, and it doesn't matter which human is telling you that it's divine, that I have the right to trust my own heart and mind. And if something feels wrong and if I'm wrong too, I've tried to stay humble about that too. Where I'll meet my maker after this life and there will be lots of things I will have been wrong about and that's fine with me. But all I have to go on is my own conscience. All I have to go on is my own perception and what I perceive to be God talking to me. I have to be true to that. And it can be even a prophet or even a temple president, even anybody, a human being, I'm sorry, but I trust my own judgment on that. So I've been able to discard the stuff that doesn't feel right to me. And that's helped me, like I said, keep my relationship with God and my self respect, which is helpful also.

John Dehlin [00:58:44] So you. So I love the fact that God becomes salvaged for you because that's important to you.

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:58:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:55] And so what you're doing is you're sort of saying, well, Joseph lied or made it all up or he was in error. And sections of now not only Mormon scripture, but of a huge chunk of our history, you're now sort of just saying wrong, you know, rejecting that. Then when you add to that what you probably know about Book of Mormon historicity and Book of Abraham, how do you. How have you salvaged Joseph Smith in your mind? How have you salvaged the church, prophetic authority, priesthood? If all of a sudden major things are problematic, how have you salvaged the rest of it?

Amy McPhie Allebest [00:59:39] Yeah. So hard. It's a daily process for me. And Eric, yes, has been on a similar journey. And just as you described, his triggers that were more problematic for him, that he had to wrestle through more, were the truth claims and the history stuff, though he was really, really sympathetic to the feminist issues and, And. And vice versa. So we, We've gone through our faith transitions kind of like this, sometimes syncing up and sometimes not. But. But to answer your other question, how do you sell. What do you salvage if you choose to? Right? Like, once every. I did, I did feel a lot come crashing down at different points. You know, a different pillar would fall and I'd go, oh, I didn't know. You know, you didn't even know until you feel it fall and you cry for a while. Where I am now is that. I guess I kind of said that there is so much goodness. There's so much goodness in most faith traditions. And like I said, I love comparative religions. And so I take goodness wherever I can find it, and I discard error wherever I find it. And giving myself permission to do that has made it so I can still put on my dress or my pants and go to church on Sunday, knowing that I've shifted that authority from outside of me to myself, that we call it, like Eric and I will say, like, you put on your own backpack and you decide what you pick up and put in your backpack, and you look at everything and you say, not that one, but that one, you know, So I guess that's how I still can read the Book of Mormon and find amazing, beautiful passages that, for example, like the passages on charity, have been effective in my life in helping me forgive people who have hurt me. And I'll take that from anywhere I can get it. And so I don't care as much. I went through a period because I cared so much that it. That it was true, you know, and then I had to go through a period of, like, what? And now I. Now I just think I don't care that much whether it was historically true. If it's good, if it helps me be a better person, then I'll apply it in my Lived daily life, but I don't care much about, like, did this thing happen on this date in this particular way? When people lie, though I do believe in God and I believe that we each meet him face to face and we'll all answer. If we lied about stuff, you're in, you know, if you lied about stuff, you're in trouble. But I'm not getting taken for a ride anymore. I guess on people's having to accept something that I don't believe is true. I don't do that anymore.

Wrestling with Truth Claims and Church History

John Dehlin [01:02:55] But it sounds like you've. I mean, where a lot of people go is like, it's all a fraud and Joseph was a fraud and the church isn't true. And how is it for you if you weren't going to embrace that narrative? What was Joseph and what is the church to you? And how do you avoid kind of that fraud mentality towards the church and towards Joseph?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:03:24] I just. I just am okay today. Sometimes I'm not okay. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I'm so angry, so angry that I want, like, I can't wait for the afterlife. And I have choice words for him because I feel like he lied to me. Because I based a lot of my life and I went to. I suffered a lot because of those things.

John Dehlin [01:03:58] And so who lied to you?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:04:00] Joseph Smith? Yes.

Guest [01:04:02] So

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:04:05] many people have suffered. So many women. So many women have not been able to achieve their potential in their life and they believed things that turned out to be not true. Yeah, it makes me. It's upsetting to me. And then I just think, again, I'm going to let that be his. He's just a person and I'm going to let that be his deal with God. What am I left with? I'm left with this church that in many ways feels like just like the relationship that I have with individual human beings, like my own family or with any other human being, where there's a bunch of flaws, some of them hard to deal with, and then there's a bunch of good. And for me, for me right now, I feel like the church gave me so much good and continues to. And part of that is I think the ward that I live in right now, particularly is so accepting and so loving and the most godly people that I've ever met. And that makes it easier for me for sure, to live out my spiritual life in the context of that community and in the context of the religion of my family and of my ancestors. And that was precious to me as a little girl. Folding my Book of Mormon in My lace pillowcase and saying, I'm a Mormon. And a lot of that is so positive to me that I don't want to walk away from it. And I care about it so much that I want to help make it better. I do. That's still where I am now. That's how I salvage it, is I just go. I am not going to worry about individuals and whether they lied and whether it was wrong or right. I just. I guess what I'm choosing is the working laterally with other women working in my ward now, where the kind of. Where the. Where those plates still bump up against each other are certain decisions. Like, I had my temple recommend interview a couple months ago. Do I want a temple recommend? Do I ever want to physically walk my body into that temple and sit through that again? No. And so am I. Do I choose to be honest with my bishop and say, and I totally was. Those are the choices, like, on a daily basis or.

John Dehlin [01:06:43] And my guess is, because you're in a progressive stake, that there are stake presidents and bishops that are like, you can still have a temple recommend. You don't need to literally believe.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:06:52] No, no, no. But that's okay.

John Dehlin [01:06:56] Meaning you weren't allowed. Like, you tried, but denied.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:06:59] No. Well, what I said, I think it actually happened. I feel so great about the way things happened because I. I could have just not. I knew my recommend expired the last time I went to the temple was a horrible experience for me, personal, personally, because I. I said yes. I try. I thought, I'm gonna try this again. I'm gonna fat. This is, like, only a couple years ago. I fasted and prayed, and I'm like, if this is the way youy want it, God, I will accept it, even if I don't know how. Right. Or even if I don't know the answer. Right. I was trying to be Abrahamic about it, and I completely. I. You know, I bowed my head and I said yes to a part that my. That violated my integrity. Saying yes to something that I tried to be an open vessel. I really did. I tried to open myself back up and said, if you want me to say yes to this, I will say yes. I tried again, John. I tried and I got that same. Like, it's wrong. And for me, I'm just saying what I experienced. I know that some people don't feel that way. That's what I felt. And I thought, I can never do that again. That violates my integrity. And maybe I wrote about. I think I wrote about this in a different essay, but I prayed about it a lot afterwards, and I felt, God, just say, don't ever. Don't you ever say yes to something that you know to say no to again. I felt. And I just felt like we're good. And I felt like we're good. So I. For now, I've forgotten the. Oh, yeah. So I told that to the bishop and to my bishop, and I cried and cried. Nothing makes me fall apart, like, again. It just kind of reduces me to, like, the hopes that I had when I was a kid of what it was all going to mean. And I just didn't want it to be this way. And it makes me so sad. But I decided to be honest. And he just listened. And he said the most beautiful thing, which was he said, you know, I think that anything that I would say right now would dishonor your authenticity and your willingness to be vulnerable. I don't even want to say anything. I just want to tell you thank you for being so honest and open with me. Can you think of a more beautiful. I mean, he. He was a great listener, and he said, let me see if I can get you a recommend. Because I said, I personally am still keeping all the. All the rules. I. I'm not interested in, you know, any of those Mormon rules. I'm not interested in breaking any of them. Me personally. And I said, and I want. I'm doing the best I can, and I'm good with God. So do I feel worthy to go to the temple? Totally. Because I'm doing my best. Will I accept? Will I ever do that again? No. And. And garments are another thing that's, like, psychologically traumatizing for me. I did it for a long time, and it would make me, like, cry and just was so hard for me. And so that's another thing that I was like, I don't know if I can do it. And he asked, I think asked the STAKE president and said, if, you know, can I issue a recommend if this is the circumstance? And he came back and he said, I'm so sorry, but I can't. And I said, that's fine. I'm actually. It just felt so good, to be honest, actually, that I was happy about that because I know I'm good with God and because I'm doing my best and because I was honest and because he was such a great listener, I felt like the whole experience was just lovely, actually. So that's fine.

John Dehlin [01:10:55] I love that story, and I love that you're willing to talk about it. So thank you. It's now like bringing back all my stuff from a couple years ago. And one of the big things for me, sort of where I drew the line was I refuse to be a second class citizen in my church. And I think this comes to the forefront maybe more immediately for men than women in the church. I don't know. But like all of a sudden you can't baptize your kid all of a sudden, and it's a public shaming because everyone's asking why aren't you baptizing? Or you can't ordain your kid to the priesthood, your son, or you don't feel like you want to or that it's ethical or like your nephew goes to the temple to get married and you are sitting outside all of a sudden. And so the ordinances were the first trigger for me. But then the temple stuff came later and for me I felt like I wanted to draw that line in the sand and just say I will stay but I will not be a second class citizen because it's so publicly shaming and because I don't want to be a second class citizen. So has that occurred to you? Have you had to sit outside the temple? Has your husband not been able to perform some of the ordinances? Or have you just not faced that yet? Because for us that was a really big deal.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:12:32] I bet. Yeah, it is different. That's true. Women are able to slide under the radar longer, you're right. Because we don't have those public benchmarks that people would see. That's an interesting point I've never thought of before. We have not. My husband baptized my son because he's. It was more about worthiness, I think, whether that's for good or bad. I mean, whether that's even a legitimate way to judge worthiness for them in the Mormon world. He too. Like we just both, we personally are just great. Being, you know, those squeaky clean Mormons is fine for us. And so that did make it a little easier. And yes, it totally occurs. I feel like I am being. Yeah, as a woman, I do know what it feels like to be a second class citizen.

John Dehlin [01:13:25] I do. Of course you do.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:13:27] I do.

John Dehlin [01:13:29] That's like all 40 of your years or whatever, correct?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:13:34] Yes, I do. Yeah, I do.

John Dehlin [01:13:40] I knew that, but I had to ask.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:13:41] No, I know. No, I do. I feel sometimes like I'm right on the fulcrum of the teeter totter. Right. It swings like I can't do it. I mean, that was my article, right. I'm not doing this anymore. I really didn't know if I'd ever go back in the building. I thought, I can't. And I've got these three daughters. Like, I don't like them being in the subtle ways that sometimes they're not subtle, but like the temple, I don't think is subtle at all. But even in our ward, in the ways that we. That it is apparent that we. It's not an egalitarian system. It's not. It is a patriarchy where the men have the power to tell the women how it's going to be. And I don't agree with it. And it's really hard to keep going. And I have to just. Right now what I'm doing is just connecting with God and saying, I know I'm not a second class citizen. And I also know that everybody in here, again, speaking of my own church community and the family and really the church community in which I was raised too, I just see so many people trying so hard. My dad was just made a bishop in his ward and I was with him yesterday and I was so touched by his humility. And he just wants to do the right thing. He wants to help people. He wants, he was talking about like that he wants to be a good listener and how can I help people the most? I just think I love supporting good people. So it's super hard. But I'm still in it for those reasons. I would say I want to help. I want to help it. I want to support people. And my bishop's been so lovely too about saying, you know, about certain things that I, that I've brought up, I'd never thought about before. Thank you for saying that because it's been a bit of a blind spot for him. And he has a daughter who's a feminist in college now and he's going, she's asking me questions that I'd never really thought about before. And while he might not be aligned with my viewpoint, it helps him go like, okay, now I know a little bit more about what she might be experiencing. I just still feel like I want to be there to offer my voice because the people that I'm around are telling me that they still love me and even if they don't agree with me and some of them might be listening to this. So I am feeling a little anxiety, like I'm being so honest. Right. But they've told me that they love me and I believe them. And I am learning so much from them too. That's the thing too. I'm not like, I'm Learning much more from them, too, than they're learning from me. I feel humbled to be with such wonderful people.

Raising Daughters Under Patriarchy

John Dehlin [01:16:29] So how have you, like, you spoke with a lot of emotion about your daughters, not wanting them to be subjected to the patriarchy. And, I mean, if you look at your Dear Mormon man article, they're living that still, none of that's really changed. How have you become okay raising your daughters in the patriarchy?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:16:57] Yeah. For one thing, like, I've talked about today a little bit, just observing the arc of history and seeing, like, each phase from way back all the way through, you know, European history. And then our little spot, you know, Mormonism starting. Mormonism starting. Interestingly, like, right around the Saints arrived in Salt Lake, like right around the same time as the Seneca Falls convention in New York. Right. Like, just seeing our spot in it. I already can see things have moved forward from the time I was little, in the 70s, that, I mean, we are still behind the rest of the country, but they have moved forward. That's one thing that gives me hope. The other thing is I have not talked to my daughters about feminism on purpose, for good or bad. I just didn't because I was trying to figure it out, and I didn't want to hand them burdens at a young age that would weigh their childhood down.

John Dehlin [01:17:59] How old's your oldest?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:18:00] 15. Turning 16 soon.

Guest [01:18:01] Wow.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:18:02] Yeah. But they've picked up on it either from me that it was more in my conversation than I realized, or just who they are. The lovely thing that is reassuring to me is that, like I described at the very beginning, I was picking up messages but didn't know it. And only in hindsight could I see all of those messages and could write about it. They know from the very beginning they're carrying their own backpack. My daughters will sit in the meeting and look at me like, uh, you know, they'll hear things and be like, no way. That I would never have questioned. I just was a sponge. I totally absorbed everything. And it was very black and white. It was. It's all true or it's not. They are such more nuanced thinkers and critical thinkers than I was at their age. I think because Eric and I have given them those tools from a young age just to question things. No matter what the source is at school, what you read, be thinking about it. Weigh it in your heart. Anyway, they're much better equipped. And they're already, you know, they're much better equipped. They call themselves feminists without me even. I didn't know they knew what that was. And Lindsay, my oldest, chose, like, in sixth grade, she had to do a research project, and she did the project on the Seneca Falls Women's Convention. And I was like, how do you really. You're. She's like, mom, yeah. Like, I'm a feminist. Of course I am. And I thought, oh, I was really trying to not. I didn't want to push anything on them because I've tried to be humble enough to think, like, maybe it's just

John Dehlin [01:19:47] me, it's still you.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:19:48] I don't know.

Guest [01:19:49] Maybe.

John Dehlin [01:19:50] I guess.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:19:51] But it makes me happy that they've come to that on their own and that I don't.

Guest [01:19:55] Yeah.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:19:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:56] I really don't think that you don't make your agenda. Your kids age.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:19:59] I didn't want to do that. Right. But they've grown up really empowered and with their eyes much more open. And it helps that the church is much more open. And we also do damage control if we're in a sacrament meeting where stuff is said, or even hymns, right? Like hymns that are sung and I'll just elbow them. Our family doesn't sing that verse. And they're like, great. Like, we just. We have to be true to ourselves. Our family doesn't sing. Sing praise to the man. Our family doesn't sing the last verse of We Thank Thee, O God, for a prophet. And stuff like that, where I'm like, that violates my integrity. We don't do that. We don't do that. Got it.

John Dehlin [01:20:35] We don't go to the temple.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:20:37] That's a tricky one. I have not. Yeah, that's a tricky one.

Envisioning the Church's Future for Women

John Dehlin [01:20:43] So what if. Well, I could think of two scenarios. What if they decide to get married, serve a mission, get married at the temple, or what if they leave the church?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:20:55] Yeah. Tell me what I should do, John. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. No, I trust. I mean, what if so many things in this world. That's one of the many what if so many things. It's going to be a mixed bag. We have really tried to teach our kids again to know what their own conscience feels like, to know that yucky feeling inside that you know when you tell a lie or when you are unkind to someone, you give in to temptation to say something mean and you gossip. And you know what that feels like. Feels. That's wrong. And then you know what hard feels like, but it's right. And there's that different kind of resistance where you're like, this is hard. I don't want to do this, but I can do that. I'm just trying to give them the tools, and then it will be their life and their decision. And so if I have children that go, I love Mormonism, and I love everything about it, and I will be telling my kids what to expect in the temple before they go, because that's one of my big problems with the temple is that you make a covenant that no one tells you beforehand. We don't do that with baptism. We don't do that with any other covenants. Why do we do that? In the temple, you're not allowed to know what you're promising because it's a

John Dehlin [01:22:14] Masonic ritual, I guess.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:22:17] That's why. Right? Yeah, that's right. It is. So they'll know. They'll know. I'll walk them through it and say, here's what you're going to say. If you want to marry this boy who's a Mormon boy, their daddy's a Mormon boy. All the men in their life that they love are Mormon men. And that would be wonderful if they married a Mormon man in the temple. And I've had a great life. So if they choose that, I'll be thrilled. That's great. They'll know, though. And what I will tell them is, here's what they're going to say. If you think that's wrong and I think it's wrong, and you say no, you can just. You don't have to make a scene about it. But don't you ever violate your integrity. You just say no. And when you hear the part, pass that, like, here's your promise, men, and here's your promise, women. You can just go.

John Dehlin [01:23:11] You write that. Bow your head and say no. Right.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:23:16] So they'll be able to do that. Nobody told me that. And I think I would have saved, like, 10 good years of, like, anguish. I would not have had that if someone had just said, just say no.

John Dehlin [01:23:25] Just bow your head and say no. Just say no.

Guest [01:23:27] Just.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:23:28] It never occurred to me that I could just say, like, no, that.

John Dehlin [01:23:31] Yeah, nobody's listening to hear how you answer, right?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:23:34] Only God. That's all who can. You know, that's the only person who

John Dehlin [01:23:38] can bow your head and say no.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:23:40] Yeah, they can. They should. We teach them that in every other way, right? Like, if someone tempts you to do something else or like, defames, you know, if someone is talking, you know, saying something racist or something, you say, stand up. You do not just sit there and go along with something you know is wrong. It applies across everything. So I'll be okay and if they get married in the temple and I can't go, they'll get. I don't know, we'll work it out or if they leave the church, I will understand. If they stay in the church, I will understand. All I hope is that they have integrity and that they are moral people and they know how to work hard and they know how to respect and love everybody and that they know that everything is going to be nuanced and messy and complicated. And if they go to a different faith community looking for perfection and ease and, you know, they might find a better fit, that would be fine. But I'm just saying nothing's. Nothing's perfect. And no community is going to be tailor made to the way you want it. Because everybody makes concessions in a community. Everybody does. You can go live on a rock by yourself, but I wouldn't want that for them. I don't know. It's a tricky balancing act and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it too. But I just think you can get good and give good almost anywhere.

John Dehlin [01:25:14] I keep wanting to say one more question and then more come up, but can you envision a scenario where the formula shifts? Like, let's say Eric comes to you at some point and says, I just can't do it anymore. I just can't go.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:25:28] Or I do to him. Which is.

John Dehlin [01:25:31] Yeah, I mean, is that something that's even like the. It could end differently and maybe at some point you guys say, we just can't do it anymore. Is that even in your realm of possibility? I'm not trying to prime you for that.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:25:46] It's okay. No, I don't feel primed for it. That's a legitimate question. And totally it's in the realm of possibility. It's so painful for me sometimes. And that's why I wrote the whole. That's why I wrote the article is because there was just a series of things that had happened that became. The pain became so acute that the last. It was literally. It was like a featherweight of a straw. One straw is very light. And that last thing that happened was not a big deal. So it was weird to observe my own reaction, like, whoa, that wasn't a big deal. Why are you having a full out fit about it? So I know what that feels like to get really close to that and just think, I can't. It hurts too much. And it's too. And the dissonance. And I'm so tired. I get fatigued of hearing so many things that I don't believe or feel are wrong or. Yeah, I can see that happening. Or I can see myself also, you know, on my deathbed going like, I don't know. I did what I thought was best each day at a time. I hope this was okay. Either way, I think that's what I'll say.

John Dehlin [01:27:07] One, as I kind of took some multicultural classes, some diversity classes in my PhD, I learned about this idea of privilege. And, you know, there's so much privilege that maybe you and I have in the sense that. That we're white so we don't have to worry about all that. Well, we can worry about the racism stuff, but I mean, it doesn't. It's not gonna penetrate us as directly as it would a person of color. And we're cisgendered and we're straight and I'm assuming things about you.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:27:43] Yeah, no, that's right.

John Dehlin [01:27:44] But straight, cisgendered, upper middle class, educated. Now, you're a female, so you do fit one major and an intellectual. So there are a couple minority groups, or in the case of female majority group, that are highly problematic. But there's a lot of privilege that comes with your profile. But then you add to that you're freaking in Stanford, like Palo Alto. My guess is that if you were in Draper or Sandy or Logan, you might have had a very different bishop and a very different stake president and a very different experience with your ward. Not to mention the fact that maybe you'll have a gay or lesbian kid at some point. And so to what extent have you thought about how much privilege is a factor in allowing you to stay right now? And the idea that. Are you comfortable staying knowing that privilege is a big part of what enables that? Does that make sense?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:28:58] Totally. Yes. Because the policy change last year hit me really hard, too. And we were in California for Prop 8. No, those were total pain points for us, too, of deciding whether we could have our names associated with the church because. Yeah. In solidarity with brothers and sisters that we want to be supportive of and we don't want to be complicit in something that harms someone else, even if we aren't part of their group. Totally. That's on our minds a lot. And that was a hard thing. That was a hard thing. It's still a hard thing whenever I think about it. Yeah. For the reasons I just said. I still have.

John Dehlin [01:29:45] It's still the formula in the balance right now still tips. I don't mean to finish your sentence, but the balance tips towards staying for now. And it could change.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:29:55] That's right. That's right. And that's the, you know, you mentioned the election and we have said if Trump wins, we're moving to Canada since the beginning. Right. And my little 8 year old a couple months ago said like, came into the kitchen, he was like, so are we really moving to Canada if he WINS? And my 15 year old was in the kitchen and she, this was a few months ago and I hadn't thought this yet and I was so humbled and proud of her. And she said, she said, stone, if Trump wins, it's all the more important for us to stay because there are people here. It won't affect us because we're privileged because of where we live and who we are, but it will impact so we live. My kids went to a Spanish immersion school where the majority are Spanish speaking immigrant families that we are friends with because my kids go to school with them and it's a neighboring ward. To us, those people are our friends and our people. And she said, then we stay to help them. They're going to need people to stay and fight alongside them because they don't have the privilege. And I was so proud of her. And that's not to diminish by using that analogy. I have two sisters who've left the church. I have many friends who've left the church. And I don't know how the scale will be for me right now. The choice that feels right to me is I think if I can, I'd like to help the church be less painful. Even if that just means that I, you know, sit by the gay member of my ward and say, if you want to be here, I will sit with you. And then it gives me meaning and purpose to show up still. But you're right, you're right about the privilege. You're right about living in the Bay Area. We have firesides. Like, do you know about Jeff Wise and the firesides that he's doing? Bob Reese is in the area too, and he's come down and given firesides on, you know, Gay Straight alliance and awareness and being aware of our brothers and sisters who are feeling marginalized. It does make it easier.

John Dehlin [01:32:08] It's a very liberal, friendly. It is Warden Stake.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:32:12] It is, it is. And that you're right. I don't know what it would be like if I. Well, yeah, I do because I have lived other places and what did feel lonely and it was very hard.

John Dehlin [01:32:23] Yeah. Well, enjoy it while you could do it.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:32:25] Right.

John Dehlin [01:32:25] And maybe it'll last.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:32:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good things are happening there. That's Also, maybe why I may be more hopeful than someone else that you might talk to, because I do see those good things happening. And, yeah, so I do feel a lot of hope. And they accept. That's the thing too, is, like, they accept me for all of my, like, flaws and ways that I'm wrong and different views, because my stake is more conservative than even the stake to the north of me. And I have big frustrations, and even some of my best friends don't share my frustrations. They don't share my points of view. But it does function really beautifully. Kind of like a. A Christian community, the way you would hope it would.

Current Faith Practice and Ongoing Involvement

John Dehlin [01:33:16] Are you comfortable, Just really briefly, you've talked about garments and temple attendance. Are you comfortable talking about how tithing fits into your backpack?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:33:25] Maybe not. Okay, well, yes, I will. I don't earn money right now, and I don't pay tithing. I will say, because I don't earn money. We really believe in tithing as a principle. I love the concept of not getting attached to material things by. It comes in, it goes out. It's really good for character as far as what institutions you choose to give that money to. As it goes out, I'll just answer for myself. And because I don't make money, I don't. I can just not go there. That's maybe Eric's to answer, and I don't want to answer for him. But we do. We really, really do like to help as we can. And I do love it as a theory, as a principle. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:17] Cool.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:34:18] But that's another sticking point of deciding what to do for sure. For people.

Reactions to the Article and Hopes for Women

John Dehlin [01:34:23] So last question. I think maybe second to last question, but. So what now? Well, what was the reaction to the article you published? Was there a reaction both in your ward with family and then, you know, how did people respond to the article? And then what about going forward for you and for feminism in the church? What are your thoughts on all that?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:34:51] Yeah, the article.

Guest [01:34:58] Was.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:35:00] Yeah, I joined, actually.

John Dehlin [01:35:03] Describe the article really quickly.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:35:04] Sure. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:35:05] Just. Yeah. What it tries to do.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:35:07] Yeah. So I had started writing this article a couple of years prior when I had, you know, kind of brainstormed with my husband and thought about. I just. I love literature and the power of reading something from a different point of view, engendering empathy in a way that you wouldn't get from your lived experience. If you have never met a person from a particular place, you wouldn't have the opportunity to develop empathy for them because it's outside your experience. And what I kept observing Even among friends of mine, like the conversation by the pool with my friend, it's like, I've never thought of that. Or what I kept seeing in men was that they'd never thought really too hard about it. The perspective of a woman. And sometimes even really great men that I love were kind of dismissive about, like, women's issues, kind of like, with an eye roll. And so that was why I wanted to. I thought I could use. If I could use a good literary device effectively, I would love to be able to help them see what I've experienced. And so when that idea came to me, like, ooh, I could flip it and invite a man to inhabit the. You know, the experience of a little boy in a. In a parallel universe where it's just. Everything's flipped. And so then when, you know, this thing happened in my ward and with my calling, which, again, was not a big enough deal to be a big deal, but it was the last straw for me. I couldn't stop it from being written, whereas I had tried it before and gotten bogged down several times. I had a paper due for my. For a class in school, and I couldn't write that paper. I had to write this other article. It just came pouring out of me. I worked on it for a couple of weeks, and, yeah, I tried to. What I really tried to do is just. I tried not to insert too much of my feelings or opinions. Honestly. I know I did sometimes, but in the majority, I really tried to just flip it. And sometimes it felt like, I'm exaggerating. This can't be what it is. And I'd flip it back and be like, no, I'm not. That's actually exactly the wording. Or that's actually exactly what happens.

Guest [01:37:31] So

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:37:33] I published it on medium and didn't think anyone would read it.

John Dehlin [01:37:37] So basically it's to a man growing up a boy retelling the Mormon Church experience, but with all the main characters, instead of being men being women. So God's a female. Primary God's a female. The priesthood goes to women. The Book of Mormon and Bible prophets are primarily women. You even change the names. Nephi s or whatever.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:38:03] Nephena or something cheesy like that.

John Dehlin [01:38:05] Right? Josephina Smith.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:38:07] Yes, Josephina.

John Dehlin [01:38:08] And so it just. But it's exhaustive. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna disclose something here that I think you're gonna love, but it's gonna embarrass me. But I do that all the time on Mormon stories. When I first started reading, I'm like, oh, this is interesting. Okay. Yeah, I've thought of this before. And then I read a little bit more and I'm like, no, she's really, she's really going into depth here. Like, this is really, like taking it to another level. But then I'm like, okay, I get it. Like, you know, I'm midway, 3/4 way through it, I'm like, I get it. Like, you've made your point. And then I thought, if I'm sick of this three quarters of the way through, reading an essay, what's it like to live it for 40 years? Do you like that?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:38:53] Yeah, I do like that. Very validating. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, actually.

John Dehlin [01:39:01] So read it. Read it all the way through.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:39:03] Push yourself through to the end. That's right. Oh, it got so long. That was the thing too. It's really long. It's really long. And on medium you can see, like, how many minutes it'll take you to read. And I thought so many people will just pull it up and go, no, thanks. 17 minute read Too long. And there's no. But that's the thing is Eric's like, what's the tldr, right? Tldr. Too long, didn't read. Like, what's the condensed version? Not that he needed it. He would listen and has listened for years of this. But like, for a person who just wants the nutshell. And I was. And precisely to your point, I said, that's the point. There isn't. You have to. I want to take you through. I don't want there to be a short. And actually that was the short version, the 17 minute. I thought of so many things afterwards that I forgot to put in. Or my friend called me actually and said, like, how did you leave out knowing that, like, well, the flipped version would be like the little boy. The boy finding out that men used to be able to give priesthood blessings and that was revoked.

John Dehlin [01:40:11] A gift given, a gift taken away.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:40:12] Exactly, exactly. And I forgot to put that in there and couldn't believe I had forgotten that. So that was one of the big ones that I left out. So there could be a longer version. Yeah, so that's a good summary of it was just flip the gender, same universe and just flip it. And it was eye opening for me to write it too, as it just kept coming and kept coming. And it was really therapeutic, actually, to think, like, well, no wonder I was. No wonder it felt difficult and, and dissonant and hard. It's hard. And that's the point. That was my point, was I don't know the answers. I don't know. The main point I wanted to make is, dear Mormon man, to my dad, to my brother, to my brothers in law, to my dear bishop, mostly to these good Mormon men. And most of the Mormon men in my life have been so dear and so good and such good intentions. It's hard. It's hard being a woman in patriarchy. It's hard. So be patient when somebody starts to yell from the back of the car. Be patient if someone's crying. Be patient if someone's screaming about it. Be patient. You know, some people are so, you know, dismissive of, like the women wearing pants. What are they doing? I just wanted to invite men into the world and take a minute to consider that. It's not easy. So I don't. I don't really have answers. It was just hopefully a thought experiment that would provoke a little more empathy. And that was the most gratifying part of it. When it did become pretty well read the most gratifying comments to me, there was one, especially from a guy that I grew up with who was a few years older than me, and he wrote, he just messaged on or no, it was actually on his Facebook page that said, thanks, I'm listening. And that just meant the world to me. Like, thank you for showing me this. I'm listening to you. I think that's so helpful as the most important first step whenever anybody is struggling. And he said it helped him understand his wife better and it helped him see his sisters and it helped him. So that was really rewarding for me to think that it did kind of open men's eyes because those that wanted to were able to in a different way. I hope that was what my hope was.

John Dehlin [01:43:04] Any negative blowback at all?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:43:06] Not from anyone I know personally. Like, that was my first experience. I'm not active on social media really, because I don't like, again, like, antigon. Antagonistic energy really turns me off. And so getting comments like, I don't know if you read the comments section after the essay, but lots of people commented. And that was my first time getting, like, having people who don't know me at all make pretty harsh judgments about me and misunderstand me completely. And it was hard. But then I just thought, well, if I do want to be a writer, which I do, I love to write and I do want to enter this realm a little bit more, I have to have thick skin. Everybody I admire has thick skin. Those women, the statues, everybody who does anything in the world and puts Themselves out there. My sister was so great. From Brene Brown. She said, you're daring greatly. You're in the ring. And so I've had really great supportive friends and family, again, who don't necessarily agree with me, but have said you're doing your thing and you're speaking your truth. And yeah, people are going to be mean to you, so be tough. And that's helped. So, yeah, it's been great.

John Dehlin [01:44:28] We either get thick skin or we cry in private.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:44:31] Or both, right? Or probably both. Yeah, you can cry and still have thick skin. If you go back to it, it means you're tough, right? You cry, but then you go back to it.

John Dehlin [01:44:43] Or a masochist or that.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:44:48] I've only done this a little while. I'm not as seasoned as you are

John Dehlin [01:44:52] at this, but, oh, I'm clueless. So what about going forward? Like for you, is what you hope for women getting the priesthood and full equality, egalitarianism. Are you even working towards that? Is that your aim? Do you have an aim? What's in the future for you and for feminism? What do you want from the church? If you could paint the Martin Luther King, sort of like I have a dream, I've seen the future. And do you even have a vision that you would want, that you're comfortable articulating?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:45:33] I wish I did. And maybe I will. Maybe I will. For today, I would say. I would say that my hopes for women in the church are that we first of all honor our own authority, that we honor our conscience, that we honor our voices, that we speak out. That's the first thing that I would like to see is for little girls to be raised that way and that it persists into adulthood, that it doesn't disappear once you get married. That women can feel comfortable and give themselves permission and not wait for permission from the patriarchy too. If you feel moved to communicate with your heavenly mother or if you. All the goodness, if you feel goodness leading you, that you can do it and you don't need permission from a man. I feel like patriarchy keeps women in the role of children. Too often that we, boys and girls experience this equally, I think as like having the parents over them and then boys move past it and girls don't get to because they still have. In many marriages, their husband is. Presides over them and they accept that. And there are just layers of men that preside. I think even if. Even if you. Even if we stay in a. In a church where men are offered the priest are the only ones who have the priesthood. I think in marriages you can. I'd like to see that change in marriages that women say no, it might stall things. It's slower. It's slower to have an egalitarian marriage because it would be easier for say like the darker haired one gets to pick. That speeds things up, but it's not fair. So I'd like to see women take that first, like in marriages. That's my big hope. And then at church to speak up for ourselves. The other thing I would like to see is boys being raised to boys being raised with the expectation of an egalitarian marriage. Because what I also see sometimes is men who want to be the knight in shining armor and then they have a very empowered wife and then they don't quite know what to do with themselves. And someone that I love very much was really defending patriarchy and defending the temple and the whole model, the one that I do not like at all, defending it vehemently and said, I find that men feel lost and they don't know what to do and they feel scared if they're not in charge. And I said, I think that if a man wants to be an alpha, he should get a dog, but not a wife. Like you don't get to be the alpha of your wife. Play a sport where you can pound on people, get a dog, be a CEO. But there are plenty of ways to do that. But I think little boys also, if they're raised and we see this in the secular world already you see it where it's becoming. At least where I live, maybe not here as much, but it's becoming more acceptable in the secular world outside the church for a dad to be a stay home dad or to take turns with childcare. And there isn't just the expectation that the dad's going to feel good about himself because he brings home the money and takes care of the wife and the wife will feel good about herself because she cooks and does the housework. That traditional model is. It's going the way of all the earth outside the church. And I'd like it to for boys to feel empowered too as they work side by side. That's what I'd like to see. Those are some of the things I'd like to see.

John Dehlin [01:49:48] So in terms of like working towards changing the text in the temple ceremony or women getting the priesthood for you, that's just too. That's kind of like that's not going to be your area of concern.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:50:01] I don't think it can be. I mean I wrote my One little line.

John Dehlin [01:50:04] You agree with what Claudia said, right? Don't try and change. It sounds like you have internalized what Claudia said. Don't try and change the church.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:50:11] I think that I will do what feels authentic to me at the time. And right now, what I feel like is everybody should do what feels authentic to you. Don't hide your light under a bushel and. And say what you want to say. And if. If someone. If someone feels their life calling is to try to change the church from the top down and get the temple script changed. I tried with my one little letter to Elder Holland and kind of went like, I don't want to do that again. And it just didn't seem to make any difference. But maybe someone wants to hammer on that they want their head to be the one trying to knock down the, you know, the. The door. To use that analogy again, that's not for me right now. I feel more hope and more. It fits into my life better also. And I just feel my heart saying, raise this next generation this way. Talk to other women, write, keep writing. And maybe this new generation will age into positions within the church, not only empowered women, but also boys who have been raised going. You know, maybe some boy will have one of the red chairs in general conference and be one of those elders that will say, what's up with the temple thing? And be in a position to change it because society has moved them forward and they'll age into those positions. So that's what's feeling more inspiring to me at this moment, is the lateral work rising a little at a time. But that's not to say that that's somebody else's calling. And I don't know what's in the future for me, but that's how I feel now.

Closing Testimony and Final Thoughts

John Dehlin [01:51:59] All right, so we always like to end. This has been wonderful. We always like to end with you sharing final thoughts or testimony or belief. I think you've been doing that all along. So if you feel like you've said everything you want to say, that's fine. Do you have any closing testimony or values or sentiments that you want to leave with us to close?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:52:24] Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think I have said mostly everything, but just to summarize. Yeah, I do. I very strongly believe in love and goodness and. And that's. And I believe there's a source of it. And I would just say from my own experience and to anyone who's struggling, that whatever we have to do to just to keep our hearts open and turned toward love and turned toward goodness, I Think of the primary song, have Faith. That part of the. He sent his son. Have faith, have hope, live like. Live like his son. And whether you believe, you know, that Jesus Christ was literally the son of God or not. To live a life of love and service and peace, have faith, have hope, live like his son, and help others on their way. And that's what I believe in. And what I. What I'm trying to do. I. I do believe in those things. And. And, yeah, and I would say to have integrity. I believe in that, too. And. And trusting our conscience and our. And like Galileo said, I don't believe that the God who endowed us with. With reason wants us to forego its use. Right. We have brains to think critically, and I think God wants us to do that, too. That's part of us being divine creatures to think and feel and help other people. That's what I'm trying to do.

John Dehlin [01:54:09] And in some alternative universe, live like her daughter.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:13] Yeah. Wouldn't that be interesting? Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:16] Maybe your next project can be rewriting the primary song.

Guest [01:54:19] Oh, gosh.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:20] From a female point of view. What do you think?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:23] That'd be interesting.

John Dehlin [01:54:24] All right. Some enterprising listener out there.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:28] Rewrite some primary songs from the female point of view.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:31] Yeah. Fill it in. Fill in the other side. I'm actually fine with it. With a male savior and a heavenly father. I guess, like I said before, just. There's that big empty void. Yeah. Fill it in. Fill it in.

John Dehlin [01:54:45] Savior. S. Did you say. Did you. Did you have a female version?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:49] I didn't. It's still. I didn't.

John Dehlin [01:54:51] Too sacred.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:52] It is. It is to me.

John Dehlin [01:54:54] I don't mean to be disrespectful.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:55] It's okay. No, I don't. I'm not offended.

John Dehlin [01:54:56] And you went there.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:54:58] No, I totally did. Some of the things I wrote even scandalized myself. Like, I don't know if I can write this. I didn't go there because, again, like, I didn't want it to feel like I was disrespecting what is. I just wanted to point out the lack on the other side, but I didn't want to diminish the beauty that is there. I don't know. It's complicated, but, yeah, there's goodness. There's goodness. Claudia and Carolyn Pearson said the Mormon heart is a good heart. And I appreciate you still doing Mormon stories because I think everybody's story is important, and we kind of. No matter if we're in or out, we're all connected by this, and it is a good heart. And I love everybody's, you know, following their own path and supporting, helping each other on their way. It's good stuff.

John Dehlin [01:55:47] All right, well, Amy McPhee, all the good.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:55:53] All the best.

John Dehlin [01:55:54] All the best.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:55:55] Not just good.

John Dehlin [01:55:55] All good. All the best.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:55:56] All the best.

John Dehlin [01:55:57] I'm horrible with names. Thank you for joining us. This been, it's. I had. I always have high expectations. I have a really high bar that's exceeded my expectations for me, too.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:56:08] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:56:08] So delightful. Say hi to Eric for me. Eric, let's hang out sometime. Check out Chess.com?

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:56:17] i'll pay you after for the plug.

John Dehlin [01:56:19] The advertising doesn't need my plug. It's got 20 billion members. But thank you and listeners. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for your support. Please join us@mormonstories.org you can ask Amy questions, provide your constructive feedback, and we just appreciate your support. Obviously, I'm able to do this. The Open Stories foundation is able to do this because of your donations. So if you want to see this kind of stuff continue, please consider being a monthly subscriber donor. You can do that@mormonstories.org or at any of the podcasts we support at Helpful Faith, Mormon Matters, Mormon Transitions, Gay Mormon Stories. Please provide us with your support if you're comfortable, and that's what lets us do it. So thank you and Amy, again, all the best. Thank you so much for coming and good luck.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:57:19] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:57:19] And we'll follow your budding writing career.

Amy McPhie Allebest [01:57:21] Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. It's been awesome.

John Dehlin [01:57:24] All right, take care. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out@sabre-rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Closing Song

Guest [01:57:44] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy when you're away, though hard to you this journey may appear. Grace shall be as your day. Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to the San Joel, your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well. Why should we mourn? I think our light is high. Tis not so, all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fire?

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.