194 - How are Women Connected to the Priesthood? | Church History Matters I Women & Priesthood Series

Summary

Church History Matters | Episode 194: “How are Women Connected to the Priesthood?”

March 3, 2026

Hosts: Scott & Casey
Guest/Co-Host: Lisa Olson Tate, Church Historian

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Episode Overview

This episode launches a new series exploring the relationship of women to the priesthood in Latter-day Saint (LDS) history. Recognizing the complexity and sensitivity of this subject, the hosts, Scott and Casey, are joined by historian Lisa Olson Tate. Together, they set out to examine how women have participated in, been affected by, and shaped priesthood practices, authority, and discourse, both historically and in the modern church. The episode introduces the historical context, key questions, and sources—especially the Gospel Topics essay “Joseph Smith’s Teachings About Priesthood, Temple, and Women”—that will underpin the series.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Framing the Series: Scope, Fear (& Tangents)

• The topic of women and priesthood is acknowledged as “one of, in my opinion, the most complicated subjects in the history of the church…” (Scott, 01:12).
• The hosts explicitly strive to avoid “mansplaining” (Scott, 01:43), bringing Lisa Olson Tate on as a co-host for expertise and corrective perspective.
• The series intends a focused, historical approach, avoiding general discussions about women in the Church or contemporary doctrinal debates (“We are talking about what’s happened in the past… as historians,” Lisa, 09:02).
• There is candid acknowledgment that strong feelings exist on all sides, and the goal is to lower the temperature by focusing on context and history, not by resolving theology or engaging in polemics.

2. Lisa Olson Tate’s Credentials & Perspective

• Lisa introduces her extensive experience in Church History (editor on the “Saints” series, “Gospel Topics Essays,” chief historian for the Young Women’s organization, and ongoing research on Susa Young Gates—a pivotal LDS women’s leader: 03:11–04:35).
• She clarifies the importance of historical “spadework” and the value of examining unplowed ground—the nuanced, often overlooked dimensions of women’s experiences.

3. Key Questions Driving the Series

• Why are only men ordained to priesthood offices in today’s church, and not women?
• What kinds of asymmetries—practical or theological—arise from this structure?
• How has the question of women’s authority in the Church shifted over time?
• What does it mean to say women “exercise priesthood authority” without holding offices? (see discussion starting at 10:13–12:18)

4. Historical & Cultural Assumptions: Male Headship

• The assumption of "male headship" underpins much of the 19th and early 20th-century church context (42:25+).
• Scott notes, “Women in the church would not even ask the question of whether or not women could be ordained to the priesthood…That’s a ridiculous question because of the way that we understand the universe is ordered” (45:02).
• Lisa expands: “The unspoken has power because it’s not spoken, because it’s assumed, it’s not confronted, it’s not unpacked… It’s encoded in the law, it’s encoded in religion, it’s encoded in social practice,” (45:30–46:00).

5. Defining Priesthood: Historical Shifts

• Modern and historic definitions of “priesthood” differ significantly:
  • In the early church, “priesthood” meant the office or status of being a priest—it was tightly tied to specific offices and rituals (25:25, quoting the Gospel Topics essay).
  • In later LDS vernacular, it shifts toward the idea of “God’s power and authority”—a definition still evolving.
  • Quotes from the Gospel Topics essay illustrate these shifts (22:34–23:39). Lisa and the hosts stress the importance of not speaking past each other by imposing modern definitions on historical sources.

6. Women Organized “in the Order of the Priesthood”

• The Relief Society’s founding in 1842 is discussed as a pivotal moment:
  • Women were organized “in the order of the priesthood, after the pattern of the church” (24:19, Lisa).
  • Joseph Smith authorized women to have “presidencies” and “officers” mirroring priesthood quorums, and used priesthood-inflected language for their authority—even though women were not ordained to male priesthood offices.
  • Lisa: “The Relief Society is part of the church. It’s organized by priesthood authority, and it is not something separate. And it’s organized according to the pattern.” (25:37; see also 28:00–30:00).

7. Temple Theology: Priesthood Partnership

• A major theme is the enduring significance of temple covenants and the concept of men and women as “priests and priestesses…That was…hard to overstate how big of a departure that was and then how it created this beautiful model that we have of men and women in partnership, working together…” (Lisa, 30:00)
• “Neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord … [They] invoked that scripture all the time in the 19th century…” (Scott & Lisa, 31:11–31:19).
• The idea that both men and women act with priesthood authority in the temple persists as a bedrock of LDS understanding, even amid practical and hierarchical distinctions.

8. Modern Shifts: Language & Women’s Priesthood Authority

• Today, the conversation recognizes women in the Church “exercise priesthood authority even though they’re not ordained to priesthood office. Such service and leadership would require ordination in many other traditions…” (32:15, Casey reading from the Gospel Topics essay)
• There remains an “ambiguity” or “sidestepping” of the blunt question “do women hold the priesthood?” (32:15–34:46, Casey and Lisa’s exchange). Lisa: “There is…a distinction there between men and women and their relationship to priesthood. And we are not as comfortable saying that out loud as we used to be, but it is still true.” (34:46)

9. Terminology, Power, and Authority

• Priesthood as “God’s power” is a later understanding; early saints distinguished between power, gifts of the Spirit, and offices or channels of authority (40:41–41:40).
• The hosts note confusion arises from changing meanings of “ordination,” “authority,” “quorums,” etc.

10. Historical Recovery: Why Women’s History Matters

• Lisa stresses the historical neglect of women’s stories and the ongoing need for “recovery work” (56:45–58:00).
• “Women’s history is one of our fundamental pillars … to find the voices and experiences of women that are often hard to find and that are buried and then to integrate those into the way that we tell our history and think about our history.” (58:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Avoiding “mansplaining”:
  “We acknowledge that we are both men and we would like to avoid the very appearance of mansplaining the history of women in the church.”
  — Scott (01:43)

• On Historical Approach:
  “We are not predicting. We are not doing theology and doctrine…We are talking about what’s happened in the past. We’re trying to understand things in historical context.”
  — Lisa (09:02)

• On Male Headship:
  “Christ is the head of man, man is the head of woman, and it creates this gendered hierarchy.”
  — Lisa (42:51)

• On Changing Definitions:
  “…the word priesthood itself has gone through such a transition and meaning since the early days of the church. That’s not even a phrase they would use. In Joseph Smith’s day, they wouldn’t talk about men holding the priesthood, let alone women. Now we talk about it as a matter of course, right?”
  — Scott (33:17)

• On Relief Society’s Creation:
  “It’s not just women forming a club or a social group…It’s organized by priesthood authority, and it is not something separate. And it’s organized according to the pattern.”
  — Lisa (25:37)

• On the Temple Model:
  “…it was a radical departure to say women would be priests and queens. And part of this fundamental relationship that we understand of exaltation, that it requires men and women together.”
  — Lisa (30:00)

• On Why This Series Matters:
  “Women’s history is one of our fundamental pillars of what we do because we consider it that important to do what’s called recovery work, to find the voices and experiences of women that are often hard to find and that are buried, and then to integrate those into the way that we tell our history and think about our history.”
  — Lisa (58:00)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–02:25: Series introduction; why the topic is challenging and important.
• 02:55–04:35: Lisa Olson Tate’s bio and her church history projects.
• 05:29–06:47: On the precise language—“priesthood” vs. “the priesthood.”
• 10:13–12:18: Initial tough questions—ordination, asymmetry, changing language around women’s authority.
• 17:41–20:24: Gospel Topics essay background and context.
• 22:34–23:39: How early Saints and Americans defined “priesthood.”
• 24:19–25:26: Relief Society organized “after the pattern of the priesthood.”
• 30:00–31:19: Priesthood partnership, temple blessings, men and women “in the order of the priesthood.”
• 32:15–34:46: Modern ecclesiastical language and ambiguity about “holding the priesthood.”
• 40:41–41:40: The distinction between priesthood power and spiritual gifts.
• 42:25–47:30: Male headship, its historical silence, and the slow evolution of roles and expectations.
• 56:45–58:00: Why women’s history is necessary and still underway in LDS historiography.

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Upcoming Topics in the Series

• Tracing the history of the discourse around women and priesthood, especially the Relief Society and spiritual gifts (healing, prophecy).
• Shifts in organizational roles and vocabulary.
• Women's experiences in the temple from the early to the modern era.

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Tone & Style Highlights

• The hosts’ style remains candid, self-deprecating, and careful; Lisa Olson Tate brings scholarly rigor and clarity, often redirecting to the historical context and cautioning against presentism.
• They embrace uncertainty and complexity, modeling respectful inquiry and “lowering the temperature” for difficult discussions.
• Humor is used to ease tension (e.g., the running “tangents” and pockets-in-dresses jokes, 07:06–09:02), but always circles back to focus on substance.

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Conclusion

This kickoff episode sets the foundation for a thorough, nuanced exploration of women’s historical relationship to priesthood in LDS history. It foregrounds the importance of language, context, and cultural assumptions; lays out the distinctiveness of 19th-century beliefs; and calls for “recovery work” in women’s history as fundamental to understanding the Latter-day Saint tradition. The series promises deep dives into foundational sources, shifting terminology, and the ongoing evolution of women’s ecclesiastical and spiritual roles.

Transcript

[Scott]

This is a story of priests and

[Casey]

priestesses, Latter Day Saint women and men go forward with priesthood power and authority. It's just making the assumption, who is

[Lisa Olson Tate]

they and what is is the unfairness, the fundamental inequality and so forth that can be found in the church based on gender.

[Scott]

Women in the church would not even ask. The question of whether or not women could be ordained to the priesthood is because of this fundamental assumption about male headship. That's a ridiculous question.

[Casey]

The past is a foreign country and this is part of the cult.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Over time, this question of male headship comes under fire. Women are starting to agitate. Women are starting to be aware of their disadvantaged status in society, and that's going to extend to religion. Christ is the head of man, man is the head of woman, and it creates this gendered hierarchy.

[Casey]

Are we sure they aren't ordained a priesthood office or they don't have priesthood authority? Hello, Scott.

[Scott]

Hello, Casey.

[Casey]

We are back. And we're not only back, we're starting a new series today, one that brings us a little fear and trembling.

[Scott]

To be honest, this does bring us some fear and trembling because, Casey, this is one of, in my opinion, the most complicated subjects in the history of the church, and that is the relationship of women and the priesthood.

[Casey]

Yeah, yeah. And it's scary for a couple reasons. I'm going to point out the obvious. Studies have shown that 50% of people are women, and so we don't want to offend half of the human population or even half of the people that listen to this podcast. So it's a little scary.

[Scott]

Yeah, yeah. And on a related note, we acknowledge that we are both men and we would like to avoid the very appearance of mansplaining the history of women in the church.

[Casey]

Yeah, true, true. And we're both big fans of women, and we have both been married to women for many, many years. But we felt like this series probably called for maybe a little extra help, maybe a different approach. So we've invited a wonderful female scholar of church history to join us, not just as guest, but as co host for this series. And that's our friend, Lisa Olson Tate. So, Lisa, say hi to everybody.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Hello, everybody. Glad to be here.

[Scott]

Yes. And you might recall that just a few months ago, Lisa was actually our guest when we were talking about the Relief Society in Come Follow Me for last year. And we actually got a lot of positive feedback from our audience about what a great job she did handling that subject. So we thought that Lisa would just be a great guide to walk us through the history of Women in the Church.

[Casey]

Lisa, we shared your bio when you were on a couple months ago, but tell us some of the projects that you've been working on. I know, for instance, you played a big role in the history of the Young Women's organization that was published last year. Great book. Go get a copy. But tell us some other things that you've worked on.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Well, Casey, you and I got acquainted when I was teaching Doctrine and covenants classes at BYU for a few years after I finished my PhD and then in 2013 I went to the Church History department and there I have. Oh gosh. I worked on the Gospel Topics essays. I worked on Revelations in Context. We started work on Carry on the History of young women in 2015. So I worked on that for pretty close to 10 years. It was a massive project. Super fun, really interesting. But all spade work, as we say as historians, where it was an unplowed field that we had to go in and start turning over the earth. So that was really fun. In the meantime, I also worked on the Saints series. I was a general editor and historical advisor for the volumes in Saints. That was really fun. In my personal work, my kind of my life's work projects center around Susie Young Gates, who I first became acquainted with in my master's program at BYU 30 years ago and have just kept working on her over the years. I've published a number of articles. I am working on a book about her and we'll have occasion to talk about Susa as we go along in this series.

[Casey]

And that's a name that I wish more people knew. I wish more people knew about Susy Young Gates because she was called the 13th Apostle with real fondness.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Well, there's a story behind that. I think she called herself that. But anyway, we can talk about that another time.

[Casey]

That's even better. That's even better. In the midst of all these wonderful publications, I want to point out that Lisa also wrote a really excellent article. It was published by BYU Studies a few years ago and it's entitled what is Women's Relationship to the Priesthood? And again, great article. You can download a copy of it for free. We're going to use it as our guide as we go through this subject. So we're really basing the next couple episodes off your research and we'll post a link where you can get that PDF in the show notes as well.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah, I mean, I think we're going to have fun going along here and talking about this subject. I'm going to point out really quickly just a Little tiny point that seems tiny. The article is actually called what Is Women's Relationship to Priesthood? And I often will avoid saying the priesthood as if it's one thing that we totally understand and know what it is. It's a complex subject. And so maybe that's just a little point, but I prefer to talk about priesthood instead of the priesthood, for what that's worth.

[Scott]

Okay, I like that.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

And I won't correct you. You can say whatever you want as we go along here. But, like, obviously, there is so much we could talk about in the history of women in the Church, and we're going to touch on a lot of it and some of it at a higher level than others. We think what's really important is to try to understand the history of this subject in context that the discussions, the practices, the changes have grown out of. And so we'll kind of focus on that and take a mostly chronological approach to look at how this has unfolded over time.

[Scott]

And we also want to pledge our best efforts to maintain a tight focus on the history of women in priesthood in the church and not pursue any tangents, as sometimes we love to do and often do. But in this case, we're gonna try to stay disciplined.

[Casey]

Yes, I like tangents.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Tangents are the fun part.

[Casey]

Yeah. But just to illustrate how tangential this can become, a few weeks ago, I was on a long car ride with my wife, and I have three daughters and one son, And I decided to turn the car ride into a brainstorming session about issues they'd wanna talk about as faithful Latter Day Saint women. And I said, you know, this is a brainstorming session. No ideas are off limits. And before you know it, we weren't just talking about the priesthood. We were going into Eve and the Fall and Women in American Society. I think the MeToo movement got mixed in there a little bit and a lot of other things. And we even got to the crucial question of, you know, why don't dresses have pockets? Which my wife has discoursed on extensively and also researched to a great degree. Now, all of these topics are important, and we should probably one day pursue a series on the availability of pockets in men's clothing and women's clothing. But we're pledging to keep a tight focus over the next couple episodes. So if we don't cover that one particular issue you wanted us to talk about, we apologize in advance. We're trying to maintain a tight focus so we don't go off on all the many tangents that we could possibly go off on.

[Scott]

Yeah, it's not women in the church. It's women and priesthood.

[Casey]

Women and priesthood. Yeah.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Well, but those two are really closely related, and so we'll be Fair.

[Scott]

Fair.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

We will definitely be into that. And, Casey, I was just going to go off for 10 minutes about the history of women in pants, which I can speak to for, like, I've actually done research on that so we could talk about that, too.

[Casey]

Seriously.

[Scott]

So many tempting, tangential.

[Casey]

I know my. I know my wife would be glued to. To the screen if we did a podcast on women in pants and why the pocket sizes are the way that they are. Like, she just. This is. This is her thing and it bothers her.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, women's clothing has always been implicated in discussions about women's rights, women's status, women's bodies and physical presence in the world. So I'm not kidding. We could do a lot with that, but we won't right now. And, you know, like we've been saying, I think. I think we want to acknowledge that we're going to keep a pretty narrow focus here and that we are speaking as historians. We are talking about what's happened in the past. We're trying to understand things in historical context. We are not predicting. We are not doing theology and doctrine. We are not trying to go outside of that wheelhouse of our expertise as historians, which is to really look at how things were understood at the time and then how where we're at now has grown out of an understandable thread that traces all the way back to Joseph Smith in the earliest days of the church. So that's what we're going to do.

[Scott]

So in the spirit of trying to be helpful, that means we're going to need to ask some. Some big, hard questions and to explore what meaningful answers we can find to those questions in the historical record. So just a couple to begin with, we'll just kind of throw out there. We want to talk about, for instance, why are only men ordained to priesthood office in the church today? There are women officers in the church now, but not priesthood officers. Why not?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

That is kind of the crux of the question, Scott. And one of the reasons that it's a question is because culturally, in general and also in practice and church culture and church, the way that things have evolved in the church, the context for asking these questions has changed. And for it to even be a question is a relatively recent development. And so that's why this historical approach is so important. Is it fair for men to be ordained a priesthood office and women not to be, what kind of asymmetries does that introduce into the church? These are some of the questions that we'll. We're just kind of previewing right now, but we'll hit on some of these as we go along.

[Casey]

Yeah. Because, I mean, some of the discourse in the church, even in the last 10 years, has been, are we sure they aren't ordained a priesthood office or they don't have priesthood authority? You know, we've seen things like a General Relief Society president saying, I'm here using my priesthood authority to carry out the work of the church or things like that. So, I mean, even we'd have to back up to the question and say, women can't be ordained a priesthood office. Is that how we understand it now? And like you said, Lisa, is that how they framed it even a few years ago? It seems like the discourse on this has shifted in the last couple years.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Casey]

And let me bring up another question here, too. A lot of time when we start our answers to these questions, we say things like, well, they just don't get

[Scott]

it

[Casey]

or they don't understand how it works in the church. And one aspect of the question, too, would be, who are they? And why do some people struggle with these questions while others don't? It seems like some people just are okay with how the church works and it's not really bothersome. And other people do have genuine questions. For instance, in my ward, we used to have a deacon that would sit on the stand, and they were kind of like the bishoprics little messenger. We'd send him on errands and things like that. And as we talked about it, we decided we wanted to have a young woman do that, too. We felt like there's no priesthood office associated with that. So we went and asked the young women, would one of you want to sit on the stand and be our gopher? And they said, no, they didn't want to sit on the stand and they didn't want to be our gopher. And we were like, we're offering you this tremendous opportunity. And it seemed like they felt fine where they were and didn't have much desire to have that kind of visibility.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

And, Casey, depending on the ward, you would probably get a different answer.

[Casey]

Yeah.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

From the young women. I know, as we've, you know, the guidance has been given now to have young women serve as ushers in sacrament meeting.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

And I've been observing that, and it's been kind of uneven in terms of how excited the young women are about that or not. Yeah. What I've noticed in these discussions, and I've been, you know, really immersed in these discussions for a long time, and what I see is that people are often talking past each other when we talk about women's status, women in priesthood, women in the church and so forth. And you'll see some form of this comment that you just made, Casey, of they just don't get it. And the question is, who is they and what is it? Because from one perspective, they are the people who are perfectly happy with the things, the way things are, and it is the unfairness, the fundamental inequality and so forth that, that, that are can be found in the church based on gender. For another group, the. They are the people who are not satisfied with the way things are, who do see problems and inequalities and so forth, and they just don't get it. And what is it there? So I, I don't think, again, this is why we're taking a historical approach to this subject. We are not trying to be responsible for people's feelings about this subject over time and to try to defend or, or massage where we're at now or anything like that. We just hope that understanding the history will help all of us understand where we're at better and also understand why people have the concerns that they have in one direction or another.

[Scott]

Like I said, we're trying to be helpful not to, not to stir the pot, not to foment any sort of feelings of dissatisfaction. But hopefully this can be an exercise in different groups of they understanding different. It's. And seeing different perspectives as we walk through the history and try to unpack this important story.

[Casey]

Yeah, and there's, There's a real tendency to get defensive about this. You know, sometimes people feel like they're being attacked when just a simple question is raised. So we're going to try to lower the temperature surrounding these discussions. And one way to do that is to just understand the history of the church. So, I mean, it's such a vast, complicated subject. The question could be asked of where do we even begin this discussion? So I'll start with saying this. Most of our series on church history matters, with a few exceptions, we've arranged them surrounding the Gospel Topics essays that the church began publishing back in 2013. And this wasn't one of the original essays, but the church has since published an essay that you can find on that gospel topic.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

It was always one of these that we were working on.

[Casey]

Oh, okay.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah, yeah. It just was one of the last ones to actually be published. So we started publishing in the fall of 2013, and then we rolled them out over the next two years.

[Casey]

Okay. Okay. So it's been rolled out, and the essay is titled Joseph Smith's Teachings About Priesthood, Temples, and Women. And the essay, as the title suggests, covers a lot of ground, but also keeps it mostly to Joseph Smith and his time. So it doesn't cover all the history of women in the church, but it is kind of a good starting place for conversations on this. And, Lisa, since you were there, part of the team, give us a little bit of background of what was going on when this essay was produced.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

As I said, I joined the department in 2013, and this essay was written at a time when there was a lot of controversy and there were a lot of discussions going on. And this was the point where what had been what was called the blogosphere, where the online communities were centered in blogs, was shifting towards social media, which allowed things to just take off in a whole new way. And so there was a lot of ferment, a lot of discussion going on about these issues about women in the church, women in priesthood, and so forth. And what we noticed is that a lot of those discussions were proceeding on the basis of claims about history, what Joseph Smith did, what Joseph Smith said, what Joseph Smith intended, what what would have happened or could have happened and so forth. And that was actually like, a really good sign in some ways, because what it was reflecting was how sources had become so much more available over the last generation. And we found ourselves at a place where, you know, the Joseph Smith papers was in full swing, and we had a much better understanding of this history and the context than was true even, you know, 30 years ago at the time when a lot of these sources were first starting to come out. We talked about this a little bit in our episode about the Relief Society and Joseph Smith's sermons to the Relief Society and how he uses priesthood language to talk to and about women. And so when those sources first started to really come to light, and it wasn't that they had been, like, hidden, you know, surreptitiously or anything, it's just that there's a lot of sources. And we were in the process of really understanding what we had and making them available. And so we recognized that there was a need to contextualize, to understand this language, these teachings, the discussions, the practices, and so forth in context. And so that's where we landed with this essay on priesthood, temple and women, to really tackle head on these very rich and important foundational sources from Joseph Smith and to Place them in context and better understand what we know and what we don't know. Like, you know, what's clear and what's not clear.

[Casey]

Yeah.

[Scott]

So let's start by just providing a brief summary of some of the key points found in the Gospel Topics essay. We won't try to be exhaustive today, but let's just go through a couple of the key ideas and then maybe we can outline where we want to go from here. So one crucial element that the essay points out is how differently priesthood was defined in the early church compared to how we tend to talk about it in the modern church. And we're going to spend a lot more time on this in another episode. But I think this actually matters a lot because I found that in our modern assumptions about priesthood just being the power and authority of God can actually interfere with our ability to understand the historical uses of priesthood early on in the church and then how women factor in their relationship to those early understandings of priesthood rather than maybe the modern uses of that term today. And so here's a quote from the essay, for instance, just as a teaser. Again, we'll dive into this more in a future episode. But quote. In the 1830s America, the word priesthood was defined as the office or character of a priest and the order of men set apart for sacred offices, identifying priesthood with religious office, and the men who held such offices. Early Latter Day Saints likewise thought of priesthood primarily in terms of ordination to ecclesiastical office, which authorized them to preach and perform religious rites. And that's going to track in the revelations of Joseph Smith. And again, we'll do a deep dive later, but just starting with that, I think that was really valuable that the, the essay points out that definitions have shifted as we talk about priesthood. And so let's just keep that in mind as we have this conversation throughout this series, that we want to make sure we're not speaking past each other. When I say priesthood and you think I mean priesthood, but I'm actually talking about priesthood. And when I'm reading this, they're saying priesthood, but they actually mean this other priest. I found that just becomes frustrating in the historical record. And so let's just kind of keep a pulse on that. But a valuable edition of the essay. What else should we highlight?

[Casey]

Yeah, well, another thing that the essay does is, like you said, Lisa tries to contextualize what were we like compared to other religious denominations. For instance, one line from the essay reads, as in most other Christian denominations during this era, Latter Day Saint men alone held priesthood offices, served formal proselyting missions and performed ordinances like baptism and blessing the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. So again, the general feel, and this time was that men performed priestly functions and with a few exceptions, Ann Lee and so on and so forth, women didn't. But this starts to change in 1842 with the organization of the Relief Society and we began to have female officers of the church. Three women are called to the presidency of the Relief Society, and then they're given authority to call other female officers who are authorized to do certain elements of the Lord's work. So now both men and women were authorized and empowered to engage in God's work within the church as it progresses.

[Scott]

Yeah, it seems like as though the women were being organized into what almost appears to be like a priesthood type group, a presidency with female member officers authorized to do elements of the Lord's work. Is that fair?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Scott, you can use the word quorum. Eliza R. Snow did she talked about priesthood as a quorum. And that is a very real question in understanding these early developments.

[Scott]

Say more about that, Liza.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Oh, let's say more about that in a future episode. This is our, this is our teaser that we're going to talk more about that.

[Scott]

Yeah, okay, excellent.

[Casey]

But that's a great example of a word quorum that was probably used in different connotations back then than it is today. In fact, one of the major questions in the historical discussions is what was the Relief Society? For instance, one source says that when Joseph Smith organized the Relief Society, he said he was organizing the women. This is the wording in one source in the order of the priesthood after the pattern of the church. So the Relief Society was organized under priesthood authority, but integrating women's leadership directly into the church rather than it being set apart from priesthood structures. And he used priesthood related language to describe women's authority in the Relief Society, reflecting maybe the broader definitions of 19th century terms, words like ordination and keys. While he never seems to have ordained women to priesthood office. So women were authorized to preside and lead and act officially within the church organization, exercising delegated priesthood authority. Is that accurate? Am I getting it right here?

[Scott]

And Lisa, I want to know, how do you make sense of the phrase that women were organized in the order of the priesthood after the pattern of the church. Riff on that a little bit, would you?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah, and we did talk about this in our previous episode, so I'd encourage people to go back and listen to that as well. But that quote is from Sarah Granger Kimball, who, as I hope people are aware, kind of instituted the organization of the Relief Society. She was kind of the impetus, she and her friend, seamstress. And it's a late recollection, as we say, so it dates to the 1880s, that particular quote. And so even there, it's a little bit complicated to disentangle what the understanding was in 1842 versus how Sarah Kimball is now expressing that understanding in the 1880s. But fundamentally, I think it is a valid way to think about what Joseph Smith was doing. So under the priesthood, through the channels of priesthood authority that Joseph Smith held the keys and the priesthood authority that he held. The women are organized. So this is not just women forming a club or a social group or as in some churches, what they called. In some churches, they called them auxiliaries. Right. But they were separate. They were not part of the structure. And then after the pattern of the church would refer to, as you talked about, the presidency, that there's a president, there are counselors, that the leadership structure for women looks very similar to what it does in the priesthood quorums. And Joseph specifically says, if you need officers, you have the authority to appoint officers. So I think those two elements are fundamental and have persisted over time. The Relief Society is part of the church. It's organized by priesthood authority, and it is not something separate. And it's organized according to the pattern. And this is very clear to us now, right. We have presidencies and counselors and things for all kinds of things in the church. And this was kind of the first precedent for taking that pattern beyond explicitly the priesthood quorums. So the crux of the essay, another really key point, is the partnership between men and women in the priesthood through the temple. And again, we talked about this before, we're going to talk about it a lot more as we go along. But the idea that the celestial kingdom is made up of kings and queens, priests and priestesses, and that this is where that originates. And it was a radical departure, even if somewhat limited. We'll again talk about that. But it was a radical departure to say women would be priests and queens. And part of this, you know, this fundamental relationship that we understand of exaltation, that it requires men and women together. And. But I'll just. On a personal note, I'll just say that, as I thought a lot, I mean, it took a couple of years to work on this essay and write about it. And as we thought about it more, the thing that really emerged for me as just very fundamental, and it's in the, I think the very last paragraph of the essay is talking about how this partnership of men and women, the interdependence of men and women in achieving exaltation, temple ordinances and temple work and so forth, has just. It's really remarkable how that has been such a fundamental understanding and practice that we've had since the 1840s. It's just a bedrock for us, and maybe something that we don't fully always appreciate and understand. But to me, I think it's really beautiful, and I think it's something that. That it was just remarkable to me how persistent and stable that understanding had been over time. In some ways, from.

[Scott]

From the time of the organization of the Relief Society forward. Is that what you're saying?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah, from the 1840s, the implementation of temple ordinances, which of course had to include women. And again, we talked about that before. We'll go into more detail about it. But yeah, I mean, it was for Joseph smith in the 1840s to say, well, as Newell K. Whitney relates it, it takes all to restore the priesthood. Women are essential to this work. Like that was. That was. It's hard to overstate how big of a departure that was and then how it created this beautiful model that we have of men and women in partnership, working together for. In the work of salvation and exaltation.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Even though as we're going to explore, there's still a lot of questions and asymmetries in how that works out on the ground and ecclesiastically and so forth over time. But that fundamental temple understanding, I think, is really sacred and really beautiful.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Casey]

That interdependence, that's one of my favorite things that the church teaches, is that both are essential. We need each other.

[Scott]

Neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord and in the work of the Lord and the work of salvation. Yeah.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

And they invoked that scripture all the time in the 19th century. All the time.

[Scott]

Beautiful. Beautiful. I love it. And then you mentioned the end of the essay, Lisa, and I love how it lands, too. It concludes by highlighting that today women lead major church organizations. They teach, they preach, they serve missions, they participate in councils, and they even officiate in temple ordinances. They're very active as church officers today. They're fully authorized, empowered and engaged in accomplishing the Lord's work. So from the founding of the Relief Society onward, men and women have been co workers, working interdependently under the direction of priesthood keys to accomplish God's work and receive eternal blessings. And so that's where we're going to watch this whole story go.

[Casey]

Yeah. One of the things I found most interesting about the essay is that it really doesn't even answer the question that most people ask, which is, do women hold the priesthood? It just says, and I'm going to share two direct quotes here. Women exercise priesthood authority even though they're not ordained to priesthood office. Such service and leadership would require ordination in many other religious traditions. And then another direct quote. Priesthood defines, empowers, ennobles, and creates order in ecclesiastical callings, temple ordinances, family relationships, and quiet individual ministry. Latter Day Saint women and men go forward with priesthood power and authority. So it sort of sidesteps. I don't want to say it sidesteps the question. It just sounds like it's just making the assumption that women hold priesthood. In fact, if I were to ask both of you to answer that question of do women hold priesthood in your church, what would you say based on your understanding?

[Scott]

I'll take a quick swing at it and then Lisa will give a better answer. But I think there's a lot to digest in those two sentences. Like we said, the word priesthood itself has gone through such a transition and meaning since the early days of the church. That. That's not even a. That's not even a phrase they would use. In Joseph Smith's day, they wouldn't talk about men holding the priesthood, let alone women. Now we talk about it as a matter of course, right. And so I wrestle. I go back and forth between Joseph's day and our modern day, and I sometimes feel like we're having two different conversations about this. Sometimes the issue in the early church was belonging to the priesthood. You belong to a sacred order, a holy order of priesthood. And when Joseph says that he's setting up the Relief Society in parallel with the priesthood under the direction of priesthood Keys. After the pattern of the priesthood, it seems like he's carving out what Eliza R. Snow calls a holy order for women. It's a holy order organized after the pattern of the priesthood. And then when women are incorporated into the temple liturgy and they're actually doing temple ordinances as like, it looks like what priests do, like priestesses in the temple doing priesthood ordinances. I think that just complicates the question in wonderful ways. But again, the lexicon, because it shifts, it's hard to answer today, do women hold priesthood? Because I kind of challenge the very premise of that question. But, Lisa, what would you say?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Totally agree. Totally agree. I haven't done enough granular research to be able to pinpoint when did we start saying when men hold the priesthood, but that is itself a historical development. Again, we'll talk about this more next time. But as you said in talking about the definitions of priest and priesthood in the 19th century, priesthood is the status of being a priest. It's like, what's motherhood, what's fatherhood? It's the state of being a mother or a father. And it's the same thing with priesthood. It's the state of being a priest. And so it was a development over time to kind of separate priesthood as a more abstract entity from the people who were priests. There's no question, at least in my mind, that Joseph Smith and those early saints understood the temple as the ultimate realization of priesthood. And in that sense, priesthood becomes synonymous with the celestial kingdom, with exaltation, with eternal families and so forth. So there's just a lot going on with that term and there's no question that women are going to be part of that. So as far as, like, where are we today with women in priesthood? As Casey said, we've seen some shifts in the last decade or so in how we talk about women's relationship to priesthood. And that's something that we'll talk about in more detail and explore more fully. It's interesting, but fundamentally, I think the answer is still no. Women are not ordained to priesthood offices. There is something different. There is a distinction there between men and women and their relationship to priesthood. And we are not as comfortable saying that out loud as we used to be, but it is still true.

[Casey]

That was a plot twist because I thought both of you were giving long college professor answers to the question, but I thought the answer was going to be yes, depending on how we define Christ.

[Scott]

Did we disappoint? Did we disappoint?

[Casey]

Well, kinda. I mean, in the early church, if priesthood is defined as like holding the role of priest, I would look at the sources and say, yes, women were part of the priesthood, they belong to the priesthood. And I don't think anything's changed from then till now, except the way we talk about priesthood is a little bit different. So if we're using the early church terminology of priesthood, I'd say, yes, women are part of the priesthood. They belong to the priesthood. If we're using the modern definition, I

[Scott]

like the word belong, belong to the priesthood. That changes things for me.

[Casey]

So it's better if we. So if I say, do women belong to the priesthood? And you can't give a 30 minute answer, either of you this time. You just have to do this in under 10 seconds. Do women belong to the priesthood? What would you say? Go, Lisa. Go, Scott.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Well, I would say. Are you talking about temple priesthood or ecclesiastical priesthood?

[Casey]

Because you broke my rules. Yeah, yeah.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

No, because I'm under. 30 seconds.

[Casey]

All right, all right.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

These are some of the distinctions we're going to want to tease out as we go along here.

[Scott]

Yeah. Are our women initiated onto the path that leads them into the celestial holy order of kings and queens and priests and priestesses? Yeah. Where does that start? In the temple. Initiated, they're clothed in the garment of the holy priesthood. They're endowed. They enter into an order of the priesthood with their husbands when they're married. There's definitely a belonging of priesthood. I think if you have to pinpoint it, it starts with their temple initiatory ordinances, the washing and anointing. That begins the whole process. In my mind.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

I agree with that.

[Casey]

Okay. And I'm sorry I got a little pushy there, but simple minds require simple answers.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

We can push back.

[Casey]

Casey, I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of the whole elevator pitch. It was something my doctoral advisor pressed into me, was that you should be able to answer something in the span of an elevator ride. But I also recognize the beauty and complexity and that this is a. A really complicated subject. For instance, we're talking about terminology here, right? If we say priesthood is authority. If we say priesthood is power, for instance, if we define priesthood as power and then ask if women can exercise godly power, the answer is yes. In my mind, a big yes. The Scriptures are filled with stories of faithful women who exercised their power, the power of God, to bring about the purposes of God. And I don't think anybody's arguing against that. But there are a few ways of defining the terms that are shifted over time that sometimes cause confusion. For instance, doctrine and covenants 25. 7. Emma Smith is told she's going to be ordained under the hands of Joseph Smith. In fact, it reads, thou shalt be ordained under his hand to expound scriptures and to exhort the church according, as it shall be given thee by my spirit. That's a different terminology than we'd probably use today, but it is in the Doctrine and Covenants. So we got to do a little work to understand what that is meaning.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah. That revelation to Emma is really important, and I think we should maybe start there next week when we talk about the history of discussions about women in priesthood.

[Casey]

Okay.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

One really quick distinction that I would make that we can just kind of ruminate on until we talk about it in more detail is the idea that priesthood is God's power. That is a later definition. That's a later way of talking about priesthood than we have in the 1840s. And so I, my question would be, if all power is priesthood, then what is the Holy Ghost and what is the gifts of the Spirit and the power of the Spirit? Because I think the early saints would have understood priesthood as a channel for authorizing and unlocking the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. And so when we start talking about priesthood power as if it's any kind of spiritual manifestation, I think we're at the very least not understanding historically the way that it was talked about.

[Casey]

That's a good point. For instance, a person that speaks in tongues in the early church wouldn't necessarily have to be an officer of the church or even have authority. Church. We don't.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah, absolutely. And speaking in tongues was a big purview of women for much of the 19th century. It wasn't that they were the only ones who did it, but there were, there was kind of a special niche for, for women speaking in tongues.

[Scott]

And Lisa, you, you mentioned there's a term you, you've used in conversations we've had off. Off camera here. The term is male. Do you want to say anything about male headship at this point? Anything you want to tease there that will maybe develop later?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah. Again, if we're going to talk about historical understanding and historical context, we need to understand this idea of what's been called male headship. It's not something that you hear talked about very much anymore, especially not in the Latter Day Saint tradition. I think in, you know, evangelical Christians and so forth. I think there's more discussion using this term. But for the early saints, this was how the world, the universe, the church, the heavens, everything was structured. Christ is the head of man, man is the head of woman, and it creates this gendered hierarchy. And so that is an ever present context and understanding. When we go back and look at the discussions, practices and how things unfolded, the idea that men are always going to be in charge of women, that men are going to be the head. And what does that mean? Well, for one thing, it means that everybody knows priesthood is men, everybody knows that priests are men. And so there are certain questions that in the context of that understanding, don't even have to be asked because we just know that this is the way it works. And we are not very comfortable anymore in the church especially, but in society at large. We've Kind of discarded this discourse, at least about male headship. And yet we still have some vestiges of practice and that were based on that. And when we go back to the historical sources, it's super important. Important to recognize that concept and where it's playing into what happens.

[Scott]

So this is just a fundamental assumption that's going to be unspoken, but underneath all discourse on priesthood, at least in the 19th century and 20th century, most. Yeah, for most of it, I'd say yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Casey]

It's a big part of the conversation and something that we, like you said, aren't very comfortable talking about today. And maybe we caused some discomfort just now by bringing it up, but it's the past is a foreign country. Right. And this is part of the cultural setup that the early Latter Day Saints and really until probably more recently than we think about, we're working with. And it's a cultural framework that we've got to recognize.

[Scott]

Yep. So, Lisa, I don't want to get too far ahead here, but would you say, like, a short answer as to why people in the 19th century, like women in the church, would not even ask the question of whether or not women could be ordained to the priesthood is because of this fundamental assumption about male headship that's like that. That's a ridiculous question because of the way that we understand the universe is ordered. Is that kind of. Is that fair? Am I overstating it?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Yeah, I think it's a fundamental understanding. The fact. I mean, gosh, we could go. We could do a whole series on the history of women in Christianity. Right. And how have we talked about women over time? The fact. So I, I believe what I have found is that the unspoken has power because it's not spoken, because it's assumed, it's not confronted, it's not unpacked. I don't want to overstate it. I mean, by the 1840s, women are starting to agitate, women are starting to be aware of their disadvantaged status in society, and that's going to extend to religion. But fundamentally, I think you're right that this is just a structuring principle. It's encoded in the law, it's encoded in religion, it's encoded in social practice. And the idea that a woman has to be connected to a man to even have any legal or social standing in the world. And there's just a lot of ways that that carries over into religious practice. And some, some of it gets enshrined. You know, I guess we could say doctrinally or theologically, and then Some of it is just kind of unquestioningly adopted. And this is the. The base that we work from. And then, of course, over time, this question of male headship comes under fire, comes under pressure, gets challenged. And so then what was unspoken and assumed before, we have to start unpacking and working that out and figuring out, you know, what. What are we keeping. What's the baby. What's the bathwater from Historical discourse and practice. I don't. I would argue that. I don't think we've ever fully done that in the church. I don't think we've ever fully confronted this male headship paradigm. So that's one of the things that the history can help us to think about.

[Casey]

Wow.

[Scott]

I love it. Okay, we'll look. We'll look forward to diving deeper into that, because that is juicy. That is juicy territory.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

I hate the word ju. Lucy? Yeah.

[Scott]

Oh, sorry.

[Casey]

I don't. I don't like the words. That is like, the words male headship. Like, I'm. I'm already getting a little nervous saying, do we dare say that? But, I mean, I guess we're talking as historians.

[Scott]

We're not historically speaking. That's right.

[Casey]

But it does exist, and it is there. It's like the elephant in the room, really.

[Scott]

It kind of reminds me, Casey, when we talked about race and the priesthood in the church, how there's just this fundamental. I think the. The phrase used in the Gospel topics essay is that race. Racial distinctions were customary. Like, it was just like, you would be. You would be the odd person out if you didn't think that there was a hierarchy of races back in the. In the 19th century. Seems like the same thing is happening here with male headship. As uncomfortable as racism is, you know, I don't want to draw too strong comparisons, but the customary nature of racial distinction and seems to have a parallel here with male headship. Maybe I'm going too far.

[Casey]

Yeah. And again, I keep repeating in my mind, the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. At the same time, too, my own discomfort with it kind of is showing through here because I wasn't raised that way. And maybe that speaks to changes in the church that I was just brought up to not believe that.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Well, and I think that there were ways that we quit talking about it overtly, but we didn't necessarily dismantle the structures that were based on it. And so it's something that has become like, it's part of the water we swim in. So we're fish. We don't know what water is because it's just the atmosphere, the environment that we're in. And I think it is true that it's uncomfortable. And it's uncomfortable for us now, again, because like I said earlier of the way discussions and consciousness about gender and gender equality and so forth, about how that has shifted really, in the last, you know, the last 50 years. But it's been an ongoing process really, since the 1840s for that, for that grand shift. And I think you're right. I think it's uncomfortable. But I think when something is uncomfortable, that's a signal to us to maybe confront and unpack and probe at, well, where's the discomfort and why is it uncomfortable and what assumptions are being challenged? So I think it's an important conversation to have. And like you say, the fact that it's not part of the way we talk about things anymore, that means we have to do some work in order to be able to have the conversation.

[Casey]

Yeah. And I will say my life has become a lot less comfortable since I've started hanging out with Scott. Like, Scott just always brings up uncomfortable questions. And I'm kind of the, I want everybody to get along and feel and feel good. And Scott is always just like, hey, have you thought about this? But, but Scott, that's part of the reason why I like you so much

[Scott]

as you push me. Thanks, Casey.

[Casey]

A better human being. And now you too, Lisa. But I feel a little teamed up on here because I, I missed her. I missed her. Let's don't have the conversation.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet. Casey. We can gang on. We'll gang up on you even more.

[Scott]

Oh, getting warmed up.

[Casey]

This is going to be so fun

[Lisa Olson Tate]

if you're going to throw out the invitation.

[Scott]

Yeah. You know, Casey, well, I, I, I hope you're not too uncomfortable. You seem to be able to hang pretty well in conversations about complex issues. I've, I've noticed this about you. So I think we're gonna have a good time. I mean, you're going to be fine.

[Casey]

I'm going to try to keep up with you, too.

[Scott]

Yeah, whatever. We're looking forward to challenging some assumptions and digging deeper into things. Like, for instance, we've talked about in future episodes, we want to dig into what is priesthood fundamentally, how they define it early on, and how that lexicon has shifted and changed a little bit. Lisa, what else are we going to talk about coming up?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

Well, I think we'll, we've teased a lot, but, and previewed a lot, but we're going to want to talk, kind of trace this history of how have we talked about women's relationship to priesthood over time? Because there is a really important and interesting history there we also want to talk about. And this kind of takes us back chronologically. If you look at the early saints, the early women who joined the church, what were they looking for? They were looking for the power of God in their lives. And they found that through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and through the spiritual gifts that, that that unlocked for them. So we'll talk about that and we'll particularly focus on healing and women's participation in healing rituals and healing practices and how that shifted over time. So I know that's a, that's a subject that, that we get a lot of questions about that people want to understand better.

[Scott]

Yeah, it's such a cool, lesser, well known, but I almost said the word juicy again. Rich, rich historical season that I think is loaded with insight. Honestly. Casey, what else are we going to talk about?

[Casey]

Once we talked about spiritual gifts, I think the next thing we're going to try and tackle is the organizational role of women. So we've hinted at this a little bit. Women play played at least a supporting role from before the time the church was organized. People like Lucy Mack Smith and Emma and Mary Whitmer all played a role in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, to cite an example. And early women in the church participated in sustaining. Emma was asked to expound the scriptures. But as we mentioned before, the formal organizational role of women in the church seems to commence in 1842 with the organization of the Relief Society. And the Nauvoo. Relief Society is an endlessly fascinating subject. It's an awesome rabbit hole to go down. It has its ups and its downs and it has its complexities, but it also is sort of the core set of documents in understanding the role of women in the organization of the church. And further, Joseph Smith spends a lot of time and effort getting the Relief Society off the ground. He spends a lot of time with them. He gives, I think it's 17 discourses to the Relief Society and those are teachings about women and the role of women within the church. And so that's probably the next space that we would go to.

[Scott]

And then we're headed to women and their role in the temple from the earliest day of the church to the present day. So that's going to be fun to watch how their roles have always been integral, but have shifted and changed as temple liturgy has continued to be pinned down and then as it's proliferated throughout the world. So that's exciting. Anything else you want to say about that, Lisa?

[Lisa Olson Tate]

No, I think that's the 50,000 foot view. And we're on our way.

[Scott]

There it is. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the big picture of what we're covering over the next several episodes. And we realize we're being a bit ambitious here, but we want to make the best of the time we can that we have Lisa with us. So we're just going to get on the move and bring this to you.

[Casey]

Yeah, and we'll cover a lot of ground, but we're glad to have a real expert with us, which is Lisa. So as we're heading into maybe the final few moments of this episode, maybe this question's redundant at this point because we've answered it several times over, but the question could be asked, you know, why do a series on women in the church? For a couple reasons. First, there's a joke sometimes circulated in historical circles that all history focuses on men, and women are often tackled as an afterthought. For instance, I read this book by Dave Barry, and Dave Barry's a humorist. You know, he's not a historian, but it was called Dave Barry Slept Here, and it's a history of the United States. And he goes through and makes all kinds of humorous observations, and then he literally ends every chapter with the same sentence, which is. And also, many women and minority peoples did important things during this time, too. Meaning, yeah, I've covered my bases, but really, I just want to talk about what the men did. Now, that's an uncomfortable joke that you really don't have to highlight the role of women or minorities to hit the highlights of American history. When it comes to church history, American history, and all history, I want to emphasize we just don't believe that's true. It's not true. And there's a lot to learn by understanding, especially the history of women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

[Lisa Olson Tate]

And I would say, Casey, it's not actually a joke because that's the way that history worked for a very long time. And there were a lot of women who did really hard and brave work to make women's history visible and to give it a place in the way we think about history. You know, there are still women alive today who could tell you about conversations with their professors, with their editors, with their advisors. Don't do something on women. Why would you do that? You know, so it really is barely two generations in maybe to where we have started to consider women and women's history as, like, actual history and part of the story. So as a church, partly because of the way priesthood is structured in the church, women, gender as a category is a meaningful category in a way that in the larger culture is not the same as it used to be. And we still, you know, our. Our proclamation talks about gender as an eternal element of our identities and so forth. And so talking about women and women's work in the gospel and in the church is a meaningful category for us because of the way that we do see men and women working independently, but also having their own assignments, their own roles, their own gifts and opportunities. And again, we could talk a lot about how the history of the church has been told over time, but it hasn't been that long since you could open a book that purported to be the history of the church and find no more than one or two women. Women mentioned in that book. So that's, you know, we've. And in the church history department, women's history is one of our fundamental pillars of what we do because we consider it that important to do what's called recovery work, to find the voices and experiences of women that are often hard to find and that are buried, and then to integrate those into the way that we tell our history and think about our history.

[Casey]

Yeah, well said. Well said.

[Scott]

I, for one, am just pumped for this series. And this is a story of priests and priestesses, queens and kings, men and women, and the kingdom of God in the last days. The roles that women play in this work have undergone massive change. Some major ups, some downs, but it has always been central to the story of the Latter Day Saints, and we look forward to. To telling it in this series.

[Casey]

And while we want to be clear that we aren't aiming to solve or answer all of the complexities surrounding the place of women in the church, we do think that the history of Latter Day Saint women is uplifting. It's encouraging, and maybe most important, it's illuminating. It helps us just understand who we are and where we came from and why we do a lot of the things that we do.

[Scott]

Okay, well, we'll see you guys next episode. This will be great, right?

[Casey]

All right. All right, well, I'm excited. We'll see you all next week as we dive into women's history.