When Conference is Painful
General conference is full of goodness. For many, it can also be a source of pain.
General Conference in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a conference held twice a year for the entire church membership. It is held in Salt Lake City, where members can attend in person (if they choose to and get a ticket), and is broadcasted on television and online for members around the world to watch. Church leaders, including the current church president and prophet, his first presidency, and others speak to share messages and teachings coherent with the faith.
While I had a pretty good experience with this last conference (April 2023), I was feeling apprehensive beforehand because that isn’t always the case — for several reasons.
For years, I loved General Conference. As a teenager, I would eagerly post up in front of the TV with a fuzzy blanket, snacks, and journal to listen to the uplifting messages from these called men (and on occasion women) of God. I couldn’t write down fast enough all the powerful messages of God, words of comfort, and things I needed to start doing ASAP to bring myself closer to Him and make my life better.
Conference gave me air to breathe. It brought me comfort and peace. And because I was so dang good at being a Mormon, it even gave me warm fuzzies when it validated that I was already doing things correctly.
Resurrection and eternal life
It was especially powerful one April session, when I was 18 years old. I was a senior in high school and it was the beginning of spring break. Two days earlier, I had finished lacrosse practice and said bye to my friends, eager to start my break from school. As I walked to my car and pulled my phone out, I saw I had messages from my dad. I quickly found out, right off the practice field, that my Aunt Liz had died in a car wreck.
My world spun. Not only because I loved my aunt and couldn't fathom her not being alive, but because this was the third death in the family in two years. My grandma had died about two years before that, and my cousin had also tragically died since then.
It was unreal. It was unfair.
So there I was two days later, at my grandpa's home. I had promised to help go through old family photos to help select some of Liz for the funeral. Conference was on in the background. When the prophet at the time, Thomas S. Monson, stood to speak I decided to take a break from the photos and listen.
I didn't have a notebook this time. It was just me on the floor in front of the TV, listening to the prophet. Family members were in the room both listening and in conversation.
The prophet spoke about Easter, about Jesus Christ, and about resurrection. He taught that because Jesus was resurrected, we would all after death be resurrected and live again with loved ones.
Death was not forever. We would see loved ones again.
This message pierced me to my core. I was a puddle of tears right there on the floor. I hurt, but I also felt comfort and relief. I felt seen by God.
This experience only strengthened my resolve to absorb as much as I could from conference — like a sponge. I was further convinced that these men (and once and a while, women) were speaking for God. The messages were important. The messages were for me. I needed them.
The messages were right. They were true. They were correct. They had to be.
LGBTQ+ issues
Until a year later, when I was at college. One of the apostles during general conference spoke against homosexuality.
I had a cousin who was gay. When he had recently told me he was gay, I was surprised and confused at first. Then I accepted it. Because I accepted him. And I loved him. And this was who he was.
So I felt very conflicted and confused about that talk. My boyfriend at the time, who was preparing for a church mission, asked me, “do you believe he is an apostle of God?” I answered yes. “Well, that’s what it comes down to then.” I placed this concern of mine on the shelf and continued my devotion to the gospel and general conference.
Since then, I have heard countless talks about the immorality of acting on same-sex attraction and about how marriage, as God ordains it, is only designed to be between a man and a woman.
The problem with this isn’t only that I disagree with it. I can handle disagreeing. The problem with this is the angst and self-hatred it causes LGBTQ+ members of the church. Especially the youth.
The problem is the extremely high suicide rate of LGBTQ+ youth. The problem is that even though the church no longer teaches that being gay is a choice, the only option within the church for LGBTQ+ members to stay in good standing is to live a life of celibacy, never having a chance of starting their own family.
To-do lists
Once I had kids, it was really overwhelming for me to come away from conference with a long list of things I had to do more of and do better. I had a strong desire to be close to God and live a life dedicated to Him, but I can see now that the neverending list didn’t benefit me overall and caused a lot of anxiety for me.
I came to realize that what I was really hungry for, in any church meeting, was messages about Jesus Christ. Conference is full of beautiful teachings and messages about Jesus Christ.
Sometimes though, it feels like a rollercoaster of really inspiring talks about Jesus followed by talking about tasks you need to do to just show your obedience. A lot of the tasks and choices the members are charged with are (in my opinion) good things. Some of them are (in my opinion) pretty trivial.
What I don’t like about this is that it’s very prescriptive. I don’t like how it puts our relationship with God on a transactional track.
The message seems to go like this — If you really love Christ, you have to prove it. If you want to be close to God, you have to do these specific things first.
As a parent, I never want my kids to think they only have access to me if they’re checking certain boxes. I have a hard time thinking God would work that way with us either.
Lack of women speakers
As a young mother, I continued loving conference. I would always print out coloring pages for my kids, have snacks ready, and have games available like conference BINGO.
But there was something slowly eating at me each conference. Something I was bugged by and dissatisfied with until those feelings grew into disappointment and anger.
In eight hours of conference, you would hear from maybe two women speakers. Compare that to around 30 men during that same allotted time.
When I first became aware of and started caring about this discrepancy, it came with some optimism and hope that I was going to be lucky enough to see this get better. Surely, in this day and age when women are allowed similar opportunities as men in western society, we would start seeing more women speakers.
With this thought in my mind and hope in my heart, I spent conference after conference disappointed by the continued lack of women speakers.
This isn’t slightly unequal. This isn’t inequality that you have to look hard for. You don’t have to tally up the speakers or track the speaking time of both the women and men to see. It is so blatantly unequal. Watch one session with this in mind and it is so glaringly obvious.
For example though, in 2018 out of 33 talks given in five sessions of general conference (about 10 hours), only four talks were given by women. That’s only 12.1%.
Those numbers include talks given in the general women’s session, which is a session that was specifically given for women.
The women’s session included three of those four women speakers. They were then followed by three male speakers — the whole first presidency of the church (although, it seems this wasn’t typical. It seems that usually, only one male speaker would speak to conclude the women’s session).
The women speakers lasted a total of about 33 minutes, and the male speakers in that meeting were around 43 minutes. Men spoke more than women, even in the women’s session.
Men spoke more than women, even in the women’s session.
For further context, women never speak in the priesthood (male only) sessions.
That same conference, only one woman spoke during the general sessions (outside of the women’s session).
So, if you don’t count the women’s session and only look at the sessions targeted to the whole church, one woman spoke out of 27 speakers. That was 3.7% of the general sessions.
A common explanation for this is that there are only 9 women general auxiliary leaders who are available to speak in general conference. There are well over 100 male leaders who can speak. So, we actually hear from an equal or higher percentage of women leaders than of men.
But if you look at the first presidency alone (15 male leaders), instead of the whole pool of eligible male leaders, that isn’t the case. 100% of the first presidency speaks each conference.
Plus, doesn’t that just point to a larger systemic problem: the embarrassingly small number of general women leaders?
In addition to having significantly less speaking time at conference, it’s been found that women leaders, to bring authority to what they are teaching, tend to spend a significant amount of their speaking time quoting the prophets and apostles — who are men.
It’s really difficult for me to amp up conference to my kids — especially my three girls — then sit down and watch hours of males speaking with one or two women here or there. What implicit message could that be giving them?
This isn’t a pain point attributed to conference only. This is how the church is organized and how it runs. Conference is just one way (maybe the easiest way) to see this glaring inequality.
Where is Heavenly Mother?
Once I started thinking about Heavenly Mother in my adult years, it became increasingly hard to hear God only spoken about in the male sense. “Heavenly Father” is the most commonly used title for God in the church, accompanied by male pronouns.
You’ll very occasionally hear forward thinking members and leaders mention “Heavenly Parents” and it’s always a treat.
How often do you hear Heavenly Mother referred to? Almost never.
For most of my life, that way of speaking about God was just normal. Because God, as I was taught my whole life, was Heavenly Father. But once I started considering Heavenly Mother, His counterpart, it became difficult to only hear Him spoken about.
I feel this at regular Sunday church meetings, and I feel this during general conference.
In 2021, it was announced that there would no longer be the gender-specific Saturday evening sessions of general conference, which at the time rotated between women’s sessions and priesthood sessions. But then, in 2022, it was announced that there would be a women’s session for the April conference.
The rumors going around were that the leaders were going to talk about Heavenly Mother. At the time, there were (and still are) many church members, specifically women, who were putting their focus on Heavenly Mother.
Elder Renlund spoke at that women’s session about Heavenly Mother. He said there isn’t much we know about Her, not to pray to Her or speculate about Her, and then proceeded to talk about Heavenly Father’s love for us and plan for us.
As someone who feels like they spiritually need Heavenly Mother, this hurt. As a mother myself, this hurt. For a man to say this at the women’s session of conference, it really hurt.
Follow the prophet
A common drum that is beat at general conference, and at church meetings in general, is to follow the prophet. The prophet (and other apostles — all male) are chosen by God to lead the church and to lead each of us individually. They are mouthpieces for God.
This is all fine and dandy (the apostles do give a lot of great advice and share inspired and inspirational teachings), until you realize that prophets are not synonymous with God. They are humans with human lives and human brains and human biases leading a huge church organization.
So, what about when the apostles recently decided to enact a policy that children of gay parents couldn’t be baptized? Many members felt upset and disturbed by this policy, which was overturned only a few years later. So, were the prophets wrong?
What about the past leaders who taught racist rhetoric over the pulpit? Who enacted a priesthood ban on all members of African descent? They were clearly wrong. (To anyone who wants to argue that the leaders weren’t wrong, but God was holding back these blessings for a mysterious purpose, please read the church’s essay about it here. This essay openly admits that the ban was based on racist ideologies of that time).
When it’s clear that prophets can and do make mistakes, it’s hard to repeatedly hear messages that they can’t lead the church astray; messages saying that prophets are essential for your salvation. I’m troubled by these constant messages because it leaves no nuance for the prophets to be imperfect. I also worry that for some, it causes them to undermine their own personal authority.
A common reason for many members’ faith crises and deconstruction is learning details about church history that are awful. Discovering hard aspects of church history and the bad things that early church prophets and leaders did often leads to a lot of feelings of disillusionment and conflict around those leaders.
Conference (and the church, in general) usually revere these early leaders, putting them high on a pedestal. If the controversial parts of our past are ever brought up, it’s usually accompanied by the message to “have more faith”.
Good and painful
I no longer sit down and try to soak up every second of General Conference. It got to the point where it caused too much angst, confusion, and conflict inside of me. I haven’t completely written it off, though — I still see a lot of goodness and value in it.
Beautiful messages, like the one I heard right after my aunt died, are still abundant in conference. The hard stuff is all in there too, though. For my mental health, I have to take a different, more casual approach.
Beautiful messages, like the one I heard right after my aunt died, are still abundant in conference. The hard stuff is all in there too, though.
If I have time, I might curl up on the couch for a session or two. But I’m no longer going to halt my life for it or build my weekend around it. I’m going to go out and do fun things with my family.
I’m going to let my kids play and make noise with it on in the background. I’m going to work on whatever tasks need to be done. I’ll stop and listen with intent when Jesus is talked about.
What I might miss when I’m not listening is admonitions to do more and be better, more messages that can forevermore be weaponized against the LGBTQ+ community, platitudes about women being great without actually hearing much of their voices, and shade subtly thrown at anyone who really wants to know the truth about past prophets and church history.
But what I’m pretty sure I’m also missing — which I hope I can still catch at the time or later — are sincere testimonies of Jesus Christ, lessons about love, and heartwarming stories about service and friendship. In fact, I really enjoyed this conference (April 2023) because out of what I listened to, many talks were about the Savior and His ministry.
I guess what I’m here to say, is that I know there is a lot of good in general conference. I also know there is a lot of pain for many people. I have experience with both. I think that once you experience a faith deconstruction, whether you stay in the church or leave the church or something in between, there will be probably always be both.
Sources
Monsen, Thomas S. 2010. He Is Risen. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2010/04/he-is-risen?lang=eng
Renlund, Dale G. 2022. Your Divine Nature and Eternal Destiny. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/04/36renlund?lang=eng
ElleK. 2018. Something’s Missing in General Conference: Where Are the Women? Exponent II. https://exponentii.org/blog/somethings-missing-in-general-conference-where-are-the-women/
Wells, Eliza. 2022 Quoted at the Pulpit: Male Rhetoric and Female Authority in Fifty Years of General Conference. Dialogue Journal. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/quoted-at-the-pulpit-male-rhetoric-and-female-authority-in-fifty-years-of-general-conference/
