Conversations about the religious and spiritual life on the other side of fundamentalism
 
252:  ‘It wasn’t God’s Will’:  Reflections on the 4th Anniversary of Kate Kelly’s Excommunication

252: ‘It wasn’t God’s Will’: Reflections on the 4th Anniversary of Kate Kelly’s Excommunication

Credit: ‘Free’ by Alice Popkorn cc.

In June 2014 Kate Kelly, the vocal spokesperson for Ordain Women was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for apostasy.

Kate Kelly had led a high profile campaign including two actions on Temple Square in order to ask the President of the LDS Church to pray about whether or not women should be ordained.   This public petition that eventually included hundreds of women from around the world was met by a resounding silence and denial by the LDS leadership.  But it was Kate’s excommunication that either catapulted women out of the church or aroused a new awareness in the faithful that the church they had thought of as benevolent had, in this case, acted vindictively and egregiously to support the supremacy of the patriarchy.

Katie Langston, Nancy Ross and Brittany Mangleson, women who arrived at an impasse after the excommunication and chose to pursue ordination in other faith traditions join me to discuss the impact of Ordain Women on them and the Mormon feminist community.

7 Comments

  1. Marion Fust Sæternes

    This brought tears to my eyes. Again, after four years. Imagine that.
    Thank you Gina for this podcast and thank you to Katie, Nancy and Brittany.
    And thank you Kate for having been willing to give “the OW-struggle” a face. You set many things in motion.

    There will be a sea-change eventually I believe within the LDS-church, but in the meantime it can be a very unhospitable place for people that see the importance of-, and speak / work for equality. Bending that arc of our moral universe sure is d**n hard-, and often ungrateful work. I hope that a decade hence something will have budged in a good way.

    <3 /Marion

  2. Mark

    This is the first podcast I listened to from your site. Shame on you for your false advertising; starting with the title, “A Thoughtful Faith”. I thought I was going to listen to active members within the church and instead the speakers are outside; the majority by their own choice.

    1. Gina Colvin

      Shame on you for imagining that only active members within the church are capable of a faithful perspective. These are women who are ordained or in training for ordination. Their level of faith isn’t the determination of the LDS church or you, that’s the determination of God and unless I’m wrong, you aren’t God.

      1. David

        In fairness to Mark your podcast does say that it seeks to highlight and model thoughtful faith “within” Mormonism.

        You may want change that to “within & without” Mormonism.

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