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Church History Matters
197 - Can Women Administer to the Sick? | Church History Matters I Women & Priesthood Series
01:03:08
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- [00:00]
A
Priesthood, instead of being thought of as a group of people, is thought of as the authority itself. And then that raises the question of, well, what kind of authority do church leaders operate under? Both male and female women are promised
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B
the gift of healing. And then after the Kirtland temple is dedicated, healing practices intensify.
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C
If God gives his sanction by actually healing that person, then it's obviously good.
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B
If healing by faith is effective, then what is the need for priesthood?
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A
We have at least two examples of women saying they were ordained and set apart under the hand of Joseph Smith, the prophet, to administer to the sick.
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C
This practice of women's healing is clearly officially authorized in the church by the highest authorities of the church. But what we also know is that we clearly don't do this practice in our church today. So what changed? What happened? Hello, Casey and Lisa. Welcome back.
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A
Hello, Scott. Hi, Lisa.
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B
Hey, Casey. Good to see you.
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A
Nice to see you. Yeah.
- [01:03]
C
Episode 4 Women and Priesthood this has been fun so far.
- [01:08]
A
We're on a roll, and it's a twisty. It's a twisty web to untangle, right? There's a lot going on, and there's a lot of moving forward and moving backwards. Last time, we sort of traced the history of priesthood in the church, and one of the main themes that came up was that there are shifting definitions of priesthood throughout the church. Early on, it's thought of as a group of people. And although words like ordain and authority were often used and associated with women, priesthood was primarily men. But then when we got to the Nauvoo period, Joseph Smith starts talking about a kingdom of priests, and he's saying things like that when he's talking to women. And the temple sort of changes the game where there's going to be this priesthood that operates in the temple that consists of both men and women. And after Joseph Smith's death and the move to the inner mountain West, a lot of those themes stay, but they're still trying to sort of sort through it and figure out what it all means. So there's discussions of, do women hold priesthood with their husbands? What authority are the ordinances that are happening in the temple taking place under. And as we move into the 20th century, some of those definitions shift a little bit to the ones that maybe we're more familiar with, where priesthood, instead of being thought of as a group of people, is thought of as the authority itself to perform these ordinances. And then that raises the question of, well, what kind of authority do church leaders operate under? Both male and female is Priesthood separate from the authority that women use when they act in church callings. And we made it all the way up to the 21st century, where I think, Lysa, you used the word. We might be in a transitional period where we looking at priesthood and talking about priesthood in new and different ways. And there's been some interesting statements made in the last little while, but the closer we get to the present, the harder it is to sort of pin down things historically, because we're living the history right during this moment. So I think it's fair to say we're in a transitional era, but we also are still sort of sorting through these issues and figuring out exactly how we define these terms and how we want to define them moving forward. And there still is a little bit of, I guess you would say, discussion in the church about where we're heading and what we're doing. So interesting things, but stuff that is still in motion, basically. So we can't quite say where everything's going to settle down in our generation because we're still talking about it. Is that fair to say?
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B
And we're historians, so we do the past, we don't do the future.
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C
Yes, yes. To what degree will the past inform our future in the Church in terms of definitions of priesthood and how it's been thought of? We don't know. We cannot say. It's been fun to kind of trace that whole theme, though, from Joseph's Day all the way to the present moment. That's been a blast. And we can't say that we have come to full clarity on everything, but it is fascinating to be living in this moment of transition, as you say.
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A
And as historians, too, we have to note that we just tell the stories, right? We don't make the policy and teachings of the church. And so we are sitting here not on the sidelines. We live in the middle of this history, but again, observing and watching and listening to the leaders of the church, who are the people God is using to direct this work and cause it to move in the direction he wants it to go.
- [04:49]
C
And today we want to insert another layer of one of the most, I think, fascinating and potentially controversial questions that comes up when we're discussing women and priesthood. And that's about the historical practice of women laying on hands to bless and heal in the first hundred years or so of the Church. This practice starts almost as soon as the church is organized, and it continues well into the 20th century, but it's no longer an approved practice today. And so we want to talk about why? What happened? How can we understand this history? Again, in what ways does it inform our present moment? And where will this lead? We don't know, but we want to trace that history. And so, Lisa, what's the best way to kind of tee that up and talk about that today?
- [05:41]
B
We want to consider this in the broad context of spiritual gifts and spiritual power, because that's really important to understand where it grows out of. And there's just kind of some basic questions that we'll consider as we talk about this. So, thinking about earlier generations, how did they understand healing? And how did they understand healing in relation to the gifts of the spirit? And. And how did they understand it in relation to priesthood? Because those are important questions. What are some of the broader contexts for women's healing practices, which were part of a bigger picture of how women functioned in their families and in the community? And then also, when we get into the later periods, what's the context in terms of the development of modern medicine and the way that that changes our approach to healing and our feeling sensibilities, even about the body? And then how does this particular subject of women in healing fit into this larger discussion we've been having about the history of women in priesthood and relationship to priesthood? So that's just a few questions. Very simple. I'm sure we can knock this out in a few minutes and. And everybody will have perfect clarity on what we're talking about, I think.
- [07:06]
A
Yeah, I sense your sarcasm there, because there's every single question that you brought up made me go, holy cow. That's a whole other episode. I mean, just for example, the process, the procedures. I was teaching in a class once where we told the story of how Joseph Smith healed Elijah Fordham. Elijah Fordham is comatose. And according to Wilford Woodruff, Joseph Smith grabs his hand and says, elijah Fordham, in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to arise and be made whole. And I had a student raise his hand and go, wait. He didn't, like, say, by the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood, or he didn't anoint with oil. And I was like, no, I guess that's just how Joseph Smith rolled back then. We hadn't worked out all that procedure yet. And the student was sort of flabbergasted that it didn't work exactly the way it works today. And so that's one thing, is that it has changed a lot. And part of it has been been us codifying and also making official the way that we do things, which is part of how religions work.
- [08:07]
C
Yeah, I remember Jonathan Stapley blew my mind when I brought a similar issue up to him. And I said, is there any evidence at all in Joseph Smith's time period that they invoked priesthood when they did healing blessings? And Jonathan said, no, we don't have them ever invoking priesthood. It's almost like, I mean, they were adjacent, but they hadn't come together. The way we kind of think about it today, I think that's part of our discussion today, is to walk through the history of how that came to be. But wow. Yeah, that's a paradigm shifting thought all on its own.
- [08:45]
B
Yeah, yeah. So let's start with just the big picture of the Restoration. The early Saints, what were they looking for? What was the draw of the restored Gospel and the restored Church for these people? And my argument is that at base, what they were looking for was the power of God and they were not finding it elsewhere. And they felt that it was lacking from the religious experiences that they had had. And this is the draw. So let's talk about a couple of particular stories with a couple of women that we're going to be mentioning repeatedly throughout this episode and others. Let's start with Zina. Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Young. Her story is very complex and I'm really sad if all people know about Zina is the complexities of her plural marriages, because she is a beautiful person and a powerful, wonderful leader and someone that I want us to know in a more full way. Her family started investigating the church when she was a young girl, maybe 12ish years old, and they lived in upstate New York. Her father was a prosperous farmer and she had been going to school. And, you know, back in the day there wasn't like a real public education system. So if they were going to get education, they would go off to an academy or a boarding school or something. And so she had been at school and she came home and I don't know how aware she had been about the Latter Day Saints and the Book of Mormon and whatever, but here's how she describes what happened. She says, one day on my return from school, I saw the Book of Mormon, that strange new book, lying on the windowsill of our sitting room. I went up to the window, picked it up, and the sweet influence of the Holy Spirit accompanied it to such an extent that I pressed it to my bosom in a rapture of delight, murmuring as I did so, this is the truth, truth, truth. So even as a young girl, she's feeling this power after a little, it's a Short time later, she's baptized by Hyrum Smith. And that itself was an expression of spiritual power because she had had kind of a manifestation or an impression that she should have Hyrum Smith baptize her. And then circumstances worked out that that's what happened. Shortly after she's baptized, and again, I'll kind of use her words here, but shortly after she's baptized, she receives the gift of tongues. She said it rested upon me with overwhelming force. And she said I was alarmed at this strange manifestation and so checked its utterance. Like, can you picture that? I can totally picture that. Like, oh, my.
- [11:51]
C
What? And. And what is happening?
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B
Yeah. And that causes it to leave. She says the gift left me entirely, and I felt that I had offended the Holy Spirit, by whose influence I had been so richly blessed. She said after that, she suffered a great deal in her feelings about it. You know, just feeling like, oh, what have I done? And finally she went and spoke to her mother about it, and she and her mother were spinning together. I love that image of the domestic life. And they're talking about these things as they're doing their daily tasks. I took courage and told her of the gift I had once possessed and how, by checking it, I had lost it entirely. Mother appreciated my feelings and told me to make it a matter of earnest prayer that the gift might once more be given to me. I walked down to a little spring in one of the meadows, and as I walked along, I mused on my blessing and how I had turned away the Spirit of God. When I reached the spring, I knelt down and offered up a prayer to God and told him if he could forgive my transgression and give me back this lost gift, I would promise never to check it again. And no matter when or where I felt its promptings, I have kept this vow from the day I received the sweet testimony of the Spirit. When grasping the Precious Book of Mormon in my hands to my breast, I have never doubted nor faltered in my faith. She wrote this in 1893, so this was 60 years later, and we'll talk more about this. But the records of the church show that this is absolutely true. Zina became a truly prolific practitioner of spiritual gifts, including healing, which we'll talk more about.
- [13:32]
C
Let me add to that story of Zina with the story of Eliza R. Snow. In her early seeking, she also talks about how the power of God was at the center of it. She said, quote, I was early taught to respect the Bible. When studying these interesting narratives, my mind many times was filled with reflections of the deepest type of. And my heart yearned for the gifts and manifestations of which those ancient apostles testified. Sometimes I wished I had lived when Christ was on the earth, that I might have witnessed the power of God manifested through the gospel, or that I could see and listen to a true prophet of God through whom he communicated his will to the children of men. And we know that Eliza is going to hold back for a few years as she investigates the gospel. But she's finally baptized in the spring of 1835. Almost immediately, she says she experienced, quote, the power of God manifested through the gospel that she had hoped for. She said, in the evening of that day I realized the baptism of the Spirit as sensibly as I did that of the water in the stream. I had retired to bed, and as I was reflecting on the wonderful events transpiring around me, I felt an indescribable, tangible sensation commencing at my head and enveloping my person and passing off at my feet, producing an inexpressible happiness. Immediately following, I saw a beautiful candle with an unusual long, bright blaze directly over my feet. I sought to know the interpretation and received the following quote. The lamp of intelligence shall be lighted over your path. And then she says, I was satisfied.
- [15:13]
B
Isn't that great?
- [15:14]
A
I mean, Eliza and Zina are kind of the two sterling examples that come to mind when we talk about women and spiritual gifts. But they're by no means the only ones that experience spiritual gifts too. For instance, here's another one, Elizabeth Ann Whitney. This is the wife of Newell K. Whitney, the second bishop in the church. She received the gift of singing inspirationally. That's the language she uses, which meant singing in the pure language of Adam. There's actually a great example of this in the book at the pulpit which is in your gospel library right now. Emmaline Wells, another well known woman, president of the Relief Society, she described seeing this. She said the gift of songs Sister Whitney possessed in such rare degree was often a comfort to the prophet in those days of trial and gloom. He would sit as it were, spellbound and listen to the rich melody of her magnificent voice. For the time so absorbed to forget his sorrows. Joseph promised her that if she used the gift in wisdom, she would never lose it. And his words were verified. If all the hymns, psalms and songs she has given utterance to had been written, we should have a choice collection of musical pieces. Her voice was birdlike and full of symphony. And that's an interesting. We don't often think of singing. And I guess this was Sort of a singing but singing in tongues kind of manifestation, which is really interesting and beautiful too.
- [16:42]
B
It is really interesting, isn't it? And something that probably most people have never heard of. And let's just be kind of real here for a minute. Like, on the one hand, I wish we could hear this, and I wish we really could experience what this was like. On the other hand, don't you think in today's context it would be a little strange? You know, I think. I think that's one thing we have to. And I don't mean that to denigrate or tear down or anything like that, but I just think it's an example of how our expectations and understanding of spiritual gifts and how they work is related to the way that they're manifested at any given time. And sometimes people will say, well, you know, why don't we do that anymore? Well, the Spirit operates among us according to what makes sense and according to, as D and C, one says, right. According to our language and according to our understanding. And so in earlier generations, they had different expectations and understandings and ideas about how the Spirit would manifest itself. That's changed over time. It's the same Spirit. It's still the same power. And I don't think we should turn away from the gifts and the way that the Spirit is manifested for us now because it's not the same as how it was back then.
- [18:02]
A
Yeah, that's a question that often comes up. How come the gifts of the Spirit aren't manifested the same way in the church today as it was in the early church? And we've spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about cultural context and how culture shifts. And sometimes we even need to acknowledge that, yeah, it's only been around 200 years since the early restoration, but our culture is radically different. And so God adjusts to speak to us according to our cultural context. And I've been in meetings where people spoke in tongues. Not meetings sponsored by our church, but by other churches. And for me, it was a little strange. And to be honest with you, it didn't give me the warm fuzzies, to use a Latter Day Saint term. It was a little unsettling for me. But again, I won't criticize the people in those meetings too, who I feel like were being totally. When they engaged in those practices. I don't think they were faking it or anything like that. And let me mention here too, that it wasn't just women that did this. Zina's sister, Prasindia, she related an experience where there was a meeting in the Kirtland temple where a man did this. This is what she wrote. She said during the meeting, Brother McCarter rose and sang a song of Zion in tongues. I arose and sang simultaneously with him in the same tune and words, beginning and ending each verse in perfect unison without varying a word. It was just as though we had sung it together a thousand times. Now, that's pretty deep, too.
- [19:38]
C
I could have seen that one.
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B
Isn't that great?
- [19:39]
A
Yeah, I could have gotten on board with that. Like a spontaneous duet where they're ending at the same time and they're singing the same verses.
- [19:47]
B
Building off of what you said, Casey. Even in the early church, when it was quite common, speaking in tongues was something that I think people had varying degrees of comfort with, and there was potential. You know, we often talk about the kind of excesses, the charismatic excesses of the saints at first in Kirtland and how they're doing all these kind of crazy things and thinking it's the Spirit and so forth. And so I think they, early on, recognized that the gift of tongues was liable to, you know, people kind of getting carried away and. And could bring in more confusion and less light than heat, you know. And so in 1842, Joseph speaks to the Relief Society, and he tells them, you can speak in the gift of tongues for your own comfort, but you are not to declare doctrine through the use of the gift of tongues. And so there's some guardrails put around it. And also, the practice seems to have been someone would speak in tongues and then someone would interpret. And that was kind of a check and balance to show that it was the Spirit at work when two people received the same manifestation, just like what Sister Prasindia talked about. And so over the course of the 19th century, speaking in tongues is not uncommon. And we really need a definitive study on this that drills down into a lot of depth, like we have for healing. But what I've seen in the records is that women in particular really pick up this gift of tongues, and it's something that becomes very meaningful to them. If you look at the minutes of, like, Relief Society conferences and meetings, or even, like, Emmaline Wells in her diary, will write about going to a party, and they have this nice luncheon, and then everybody breaks out in speech, speaking in tongues and testifying and sharing their visions and stuff. And so, you know, there's. There's. All of this is just part of the fabric of life at the time. And there's. And Emmeline Wells herself writes about how she received the gift of interpretation of tongues. And so you'll see Zina stand up and speak in tongues, and then you'll see Emmaline interpret what was said. So that's kind of how it looked for most of the rest of the century. And again, like, there's a longer story there. We don't necessarily have time to get into all of it. All along, Joseph Smith himself taught that the gift of tongues was for preaching the gospel and was to be understood in the context of the day of Pentecost, the way that it's portrayed in the New Testament. And so there's always this understanding that the gift of tongues would be part of missionary work and being able to speak to people and preach the gospel and so forth.
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C
And.
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B
And in the early 20th century, part of that priesthood reform movement, part of the changing sensibilities that we have in a more modern world, Joseph F. Smith and other church leaders begin to emphasize that the gift of tongues is for missionary work. It's for helping us to preach the gospel. It should only be exercised through authorized channels. And just on a generational basis, it fades. So that's a quick overview of gift of tongues, which I know is something people wonder about sometimes.
- [23:13]
C
Yeah, I mean, I remember doing a little family history on one of my ancestors In Nauvoo, Nancy McCurdy Woodward, and she, in her own journal, said that she was. Her legs were hurt in a way that she couldn't walk. And then an elder came by and blessed her. And after he blessed her, she was instantly healed. And then she said, and then I started singing this beautiful song in tongues. What she just spontaneous, like singing in tongues. And I thought, man, I would love to see that happen. But there's an example of tongues and healing going together hand in hand. Just one example.
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A
And, Lisa, you also made a really good point that for all of these statements about speaking in tongues, there's Things like Section 50 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which kind of warns against, I guess, overabundant existence, false versions, that it's a function of the Spirit that apparently is easy to be deceived by. And so there's some caution that comes with this. And you've done a good job kind of outlining that there were sort of ecclesiastical safeties, basically, say, because it's such an obvious thing that happens, and it strikes people, it's very charismatic, that it could be something that a person does take advantage of to try and gain authority or leadership or anything like that, or God speaking to Me, because I'm speaking in tongues, when really most of the gospel is a little bit quieter and a little less flashy than speaking in tongues, though it's an amazing practice. It happened in the New Testament church, happens in our church today, just maybe in different forms.
- [25:03]
B
Well, and we should also mention, and I'm no expert on this, but we need to think in a global context as well, because especially as the church has gone into cultures like Latin America and Africa and Asia, you know, places whose culture is quite different from, you know, white, middle class American culture that the church came out of, those cultures are much more attuned to charismatic practices. And so I don't want to portray it as, you know, this was over and done with a hundred years ago and never happened again. It's taken different forms again according to the understanding and culture of people around the world. And I think that that's a beautiful manifestation of our Father's love and understanding for us.
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A
Right, right. Just all things in moderation. Yeah, well said.
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C
So, okay, so Lisa, so drop us back into healing. I mean, that was a fun foray into tongues, but we want to really like now dig deeper into like the healing practices in the church. So how does that unfold from the beginning here with women?
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B
Yeah, well, really quick, let me mention first of all, if people are not aware, in your Gospel library app, in the church history section, there is a section called Church History Topics. And this is, I don't know, I think we're up to over a couple of hundred of these now. It's almost like a new encyclopedia of Mormonism. If anybody remembers back 30 years when they created that, we did this as part of the Saints project. Because, you know, if you've read Saints, you know, it's a narrative style and we can't just stop in the middle of a story and say, oh, hey, did you want to know about the Word of Wisdom and the history of the Word of Wisdom? Here's a five paragraph diversion on that. So instead we took out topics, issues, people, places, events and so forth and created this church history topics section. Makes great reading. I'm not going to say that your sacrament meeting ever gets boring and you pull up your phone looking for something to read. I'm just going to say that, you know, in an odd moment in the car when you're waiting to pick up your kids or whatever, you know, they make great reading and they're really well done. So we have a church history topic on healing that is going to trace a lot of this. So I would Refer people there. Okay. How do they understand healing? Well, there's two parallel tracks in the early church. So first you have, for example, in Mark 16, where the Savior says, these signs shall follow them that believe, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So it's a. It's a gift of the Spirit. It's a manifestation of spiritual power. It's available to all those who believe in the name of Jesus. But then in James 5, and this is then repeated in section 42, the law that the Lord gives right after Joseph gets to Kirtland, is any sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, Anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick. So there's these two kind of parallel understandings. It's a gift of the Spirit. It's available to everyone. It's done in the name of Jesus.
- [28:18]
C
And.
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B
But then there's this idea of you call in the elders. And so there's some kind of association with priesthood there. But that doesn't. I mean, like, these two parallel understandings just exist in tandem for most. For pretty much the 19th century and maybe even into the early 20th century, typically, the healing practices, you know, a lot of times it's documented as well. We blessed this person, we healed this person. It's very rare to have a text or a description of the procedures, but from what we can gather from the sources, the healing typically involved praying for the person afflicted and then laying hands on them. They did not use consecrated oil or invoke priesthood authority. And sometimes, well, often actually, they would, like, lay hands on the afflicted part. So when William McClellan sprains his ankle, they lay hands on his ankle to bless his ankle. And that was very common. Now, starting with those patriarchal blessings that we talked about a minute ago, women are promised the gift of healing. Joseph Smith Sr. Is the patriarch, and we have many documented examples of him blessing women to have the gift of healing. And then after the Kirtland temple is dedicated, healing practices intensify. This has to do with the advent of consecrating oil and doing washing and anointing. Those kinds of practices are developing in conjunction with the Kirtland temple. And Eliza remembered that people came to the temple to be blessed and administer to. She said they would throw away their crutches and go home whole. So early on, there develops this association with the temple and healing. And we know that by the time of Joseph Smith's death, the temple is going to be seen as a site of healing and there are going to be specific ordinances, as they called them, that are adapted to be healing ordinances. In conjunction with the temple. We do have documentation of women engaging in healing practices from the mid-1830s on. So that was something that took root really early. And it's really important, in case you haven't picked up on it already, to recognize that these practices were not codified, they weren't regulated, they weren't spelled out in a lot of detail. There were a lot of form, different forms and practices, and that remained the norm for pretty much most of the 19th century. So that's kind of some background.
- [31:05]
C
And it seems like with lack of like codification or any sort of regulation, there was some suspicion among some church members as to whether or not this was appropriate. And this leads to one of my favorite like moments, I think, in our history of clarity. And this is when Joseph Smith addresses this head on, particularly about women, the appropriateness of women laying hands on to heal. He addresses this head on in a. In a Relief Society talk that he gives to the sisters. April 28, 1842. I'm just going to review some of the notes of that meeting. It says this, it says, quote. He Joseph said the reason of these remarks being made was that some little thing was circulating in the society that some persons were not going right in laying hands on the sick. Right. Maybe this is inappropriate or something. So Joseph wants to address this. He said if he had common sympathies, he would rejoice that the sick could be healed, that the time had not been before, that these things could be in their proper order, that the church is not now organized in its proper order and cannot be until the temple is completed. Interesting. President Smith continued the subject by adverting to the commission given to the ancient apostles. Go ye into all the world, etc. No matter who believeth these signs, such as healing the sick, casting out devils, etc. Should follow all that believe, whether male or female. So back to what you were saying, Lisa, that that mark version of just whoever has faith, these are parts of the fruits of the Spirit. Joseph is invoking that that particular line of reasoning here. He asked the society, continuing from the notes here, he asked the society if they could not see by this sweeping stroke that wherein they are ordained, it is the privilege of those set apart to administer in that authority which is conferred on them. And if the sisters should have faith to heal the sick, let all hold their tongues and let everything Roll on. And then it continues respecting the female laying on hands. He further remarked, there could be no devil in it if God gave his sanction by healing. That there could be no more sin in any female laying hands on the sick than in wetting the face with water. That it is no sin for anybody to do it that has faith, or if the sick has faith, to be healed by the administration. Close quote. That's awesome. So Joseph stands up and says, if God gives his sanction by actually healing that person, then it's obviously good. This is obviously an expression of faith, and it's a blessing of that faith that's being manifested, whether male or female. There is no impropriety in this.
- [33:46]
B
Yeah, it's such a fascinating statement. We'll unpack it a little bit more. But notice when he talks about there's no more sin in any female laying on hands on the sick than in wetting the face with water. He's describing their women's care work, their bedside care work. If someone's laying there with a fever, they might take a cool wet cloth and put it on their forehead or whatever. And so what this is showing, and we'll talk more about this, is how women's spiritual healing practices are an extension of their already established care work, nursing work, within their families, in the community.
- [34:24]
C
Interesting. So he's saying it's not more. It's no more inappropriate to lay on hands, to bless, to heal than it is to do that normal sort of nursing, medicinal work. Yeah.
- [34:37]
A
I'm struck by some of the wording here, because it's clear that there's a little bit of ambiguity about how this is going to play out in the church after it's fully established. The quote I keep coming back to is where he's given that April 28th discourse. He says these things could be in their proper order, that the church is not now organized in its proper order and cannot be until the temple is completed. So I think part of the context here, too is we're missing a big piece of the puzz, which is they haven't finished the temple yet. And it seems like he's alluding to the idea that it might be in the temple where the sick will be administered to, or that the priesthood of the temple will include those who are authorized to administer to the sick. Or another possibility is that those women and men who enter into the order created by the temple, the priestly order, would be authorized or just have the spiritual power necessary to administer the sick in any setting. So it does seem like at least what's happening in the Nava Relief System Society is provisional and it's temporary and it's not the final product that Joseph Smith may have had in mind. But he's also just reasoning through a couple things here, too. Like another question is what does he mean when he says those set apart to administer in that authority which is conferred upon them? The immediate context seems to be that some people were critical of Emma and her counselors administering to Mrs. Durfee in the previous meeting. The minutes of that meeting read Mrs. Elizabeth Davis Durvey bore testimony to the great blessing she received when administered to after the close of the last meeting by President E. Smith and counselors Cleveland and Whitney. She said she never realized more benefit through any administration and that she was healed and thought the sisters had more faith than the brethren. It sounds like Joe Smith is trying to address a little some sparks flying within the Relief Society meeting. And so Joseph's statement could also be referring specifically to the officers of the Relief Society, seeing that their authority as leaders might apply to administering to the sick. Though we have at least two examples of women saying they were ordained and set apart under the hand of Joseph Smith, the prophet, to administer to the sick and comfort the sorrowable. And those two women are Elizabeth Ann Whitney, who we've mentioned before, and Diantha Morley Billings. Which raises some big questions. What's the authority that they're administering under? And also, was authority necessary? Like, that's a question I sometimes come into is we often have this scenario come up of what if there is a mother who's at home and there's no priesthood officers of the church around and she prays for a person to be healed? Will that carry the same impact as anointing with oil and laying hands on a person's head? How does that work? Because Joseph Smith also compares this to Jesus instructing his early disciples to have faith to heal. And he even quotes part of Jesus message there. But the two tracks of understanding that are presented here are the healing with authority conferred upon them. So healing being done with authority and then healing being done by faith. Faith which still sort of exists in the church today, I would argue.
- [38:09]
B
And then the converse question is, if healing by faith is effective, then what is the need for priesthood?
- [38:19]
C
What need is for other authority?
- [38:22]
B
Yeah. So the question kind of goes in both directions. And I think that these teachings are the reason that it was so long before church leaders did make any blanket definitive prohibition against women's involvement in. In healing blessings. As long as we had Joseph Smith on record endorsing female ritual healing, as it's been called. That was a really powerful precedent in authority, and it was invoked over and over and over again for a hundred years.
- [38:53]
C
Good point. Really good point.
- [38:55]
B
Yeah. By the time of Joseph Smith's death, as I said earlier, certain temple rituals had been adapted for healing. So there was baptism for health, there was washing and anointing for healing, temple prayer rituals that often included, as they do now, praying for the second afflicted. Those were all understood to be ordinances that took place in the temple, and the temple was to be a site for healing. And that goes back to what Joseph was saying. Perhaps things are not in their proper order and can't be until the temple is completed. And he's envisioning the temple as the center for healing, and that is, as we would say, now operationalized by the time of his death.
- [39:46]
C
Wow. Okay, so say more about that. Like, how long do women continue to engage in healing blessings either in the temple or outside the temple after Joseph Smith's death? And then. And like, how do they think about this practice and how do they frame it theologically? Is it just faith? There's authority. Is it a mix of both? Like, what's happening here?
- [40:08]
B
I mean, the first thing to say is that they really invoke these authoritative statements from Joseph Smith, and they take that as their commission and permission and the warrant for women to engage in these practices. And again, it's so important to stress how much this is part of the fabric of women's lives, where they are the caregivers. There is no professionalized medical system. They're the nurses. And there's also, you know, disease is rampant, injury, pregnancy, childbirth. There's all these places, occasions need for women to call upon spiritual power for healing. So it's just very natural and very part of their. Very much a part of their lives. By the mid to late 19th century, like by this 1870s for sure, there's this special ordinance, as they called it, that's been developed that they call washing an anointing for confinement or childbirth is what they called confinement meant childbirth. Pregnancy and childbirth were very common experiences for women in the 19th century and throughout human history. Right. And they were literally experiences of life and death.
- [41:39]
A
I'll just add, too, that one of the things studying this era of church history has made me appreciate is how dangerous childbirth was. The maternal mortality rates were scary back then, and I started to pick up on it as I read more and more about, hey, Hyrum Smith's wife died. In childbirth. And Parley P. Pratt's wife died at childbirth. And it feels like a lot of men had lost their wives, a lot of women. It must have been kind of scary because you really don't go to the hospital and get into a sterile, clean environment when you give birth. And so it was a risky proposition. And that might play into what's going. Going on here, too.
- [42:19]
B
Yeah, absolutely, Casey. The stories are just heartbreaking when you're in the sources. You know, a woman who has seven children may go to give birth to her eighth child, and she doesn't survive. And so you have seven child, motherless children after that. And there are accounts of women, especially later in the century, when this new woman kind of ethos takes hold of. Of young women, especially saying, I'm not going to get married because I don't want to risk my life having children. And so it was a serious thing. And they. And they developed this ordinance of washing and anointing for confinement. And the way it worked was that some sisters would come to the home of the pregnant woman, and they usually had, like, you know, lunch or some kind of a little bit of a social event. And then they would retire to a private space where the Relief Society sisters would wash and anoint this woman. And they would go systematically through the parts of the body, in particular those, particularly those that are involved in childbirth, those of us who are old enough to remember what the initiatory ordinances used to look like, where they were more systematic to specific parts of the body and so forth. This was analogous to that. They were just looking for any kind of help and assurance as they faced these really serious ordeals. I mean, even if you survive it, you're giving birth without an epidural, for crying out loud. It hurts.
- [43:54]
A
That's bad enough. Wow.
- [43:56]
B
Yeah. And it's. It's. So anyway, it's difficult to know and really tease out how they thought about these practices. When you get into the sources, you'll see women administering together. And we do know that Relief Society women, just on your local ward or whatever, would be called and set apart to administer to the sick that continued into the 20th century. So it would be sometimes that sometimes just a woman laying on hands as an extension of taking care of her sick child or whatever, sometimes they called in the elders and had men administer. Sometimes women and men administered together. Women often administer to other women and to children. But we have many documented cases of women administering to men. So the thing is, like, we don't know why there's this diary for example, of a woman named Mary Lois Walker Morris. And this is cited in that church history topic where each of these healing rituals, each of these forms of healing is documented. And she makes no comment or explanation on why. Why did you do it one day and call in the elders the next day? And then the Relief Society sisters came. They just didn't. It's just hard to tease that out. We don't. We don't really know.
- [45:15]
C
I was. I was reading like Helen Mark Kimball. Here's a. Here's a little incident from her journal. She said, quote, president Young, Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball, assisted by their wives and Sister Whitney, washed and anointed for their health, their three little children. Wow, what an image you have. Men and women laying hands on children. Well, washing and anointing and blessing them for health.
- [45:40]
B
Yeah, Isn't that great?
- [45:42]
C
We don't have an image for that today. But you're saying they're not explaining why. They're not explaining why in some days they would do it like that, and other days they would do it in a different configuration. There is no record of that, is what you're saying of why they did it. It the way they did it.
- [45:57]
B
I haven't seen anything really definitive. And even if we had something, it would be one person's explanation of their thinking that would be valuable. But the point is that there's no policy. There's no, you know, and there's not even a standard form for administering to the sick. And it's important to recognize as well that women laid on hands not just for healing, but to bless, to comfort, to prophesy. And that was something that continued throughout the century as well. Eliza R. Snow, of course, is a prolific example of this. But when I was working on the history of the young women, and you're in the minutes of the General board in the 1890s, there's multiple occasions where those women will have their board meeting and then someone's having a problem or there's some felt need, and they'll gather around, lay on hands, and bless Sister Taylor or Sister Gates or someone for whatever. They need comfort. And sometimes it's healing, sometimes it's just generally blessing them. So that was very much a part of these charismatic practices as well.
- [47:10]
C
Yeah. And male leaders continue to approve of women healing blessings throughout the latter half of the 19th century. But some questions started to arise as the shifting definitions of priesthood were occurring about this time about what's the relationship to women's healing blessings to the priesthood. And that's going to lead to some clarifying statements by church leaders. For instance, in 1880 there's a quorum of the 12 statement about this. At the time, John Taylor was the president of the quorum of the 12. But this is an entire like Cormeula 12 statement. Yeah. And it says this quote, it is the privilege of all faithful women and lay members of the church who believe in Christ to administer to all the sick or afflicted in their respective families, either by the laying on of hands or by the anointing with oil in the name of the Lord. But they should administer in these sacred ordinances not by virtue and authority of the priesthood, but by virtue of their faith in Christ and the promises made to believers. And thus they should do in all their ministrations. Close quote. Well, so a couple fascinating things here. Not just women, but also lay members. So men who are not part of the priesthood. Right. Men who weren't ordained, totally appropriate to go ahead and lay on hands, anoint with oil in the name of the Lord. Just don't do it by virtue of the priesthood. Do it by virtue of your faith in Christ. Wow. That's 1880 United Statement by the Quorum of the Twelve.
- [48:46]
B
And one thing that that statement shows is this definition of priesthood starting to diverge where priesthood is now what men have. And so it's. So this is where those changing definitions and understanding of priesthood are implicated in this whole question as well.
- [49:07]
C
Yeah, 100%. In fact, eight years later, here's another example. This is Wilford Woodruff, who's writing a letter to Emmaline B. Wells regarding women washing and anointing women in preparation for childbirth like we were just talking about, because people were questioning what is that? Is that priesthood or not priesthood? As these definitions are changing of priesthood. And here's what Wilford Woodruff said. Quote, there is no impropriety in sisters washing and anointing their sisters in this way under the circumstances you describe. But it should be understood that they do this not as members of the priesthood, but as members of the church exercising faith for and asking the blessings of the Lord upon their sisters, just as they and every member of the church might do in behalf of the members of their families. Close quote. A couple interesting things there too. Notice how he's he's talking about women not being members of the priesthood, still addressing priesthood as the body. You're not members of the priesthood. You're members of the church exercising faith, just like any member of the church could do on behalf of those you
- [50:14]
B
love in that Same letter. I'll just add, I think this is where he also kind of takes pains to say, now there is a certain temple ordinance of washing and anointing. And you need to be clear that that is not what washing and anointing for confinement is, that we're not confusing or I don't remember the exact words he says, but basically we're not treading on the sacred nature of the temple ordinance by engaging in this other practice. And that also shows some beginning of divergence between what happens in the temple, healing, the temple as a site of healing, and so forth. We'll talk more about that.
- [50:57]
A
And we should note, too, that the idea that women are administering as members of the church and not members of the priesthood isn't just from the male leaders to the female leaders. Probably the most important female leader during this time period is Eliza R. Snow. And she makes several statements where she explains this. For instance, she's at the Morgan stake in 1883, and she says women can administer in the name of Jesus, but not by virtue of the priesthood. So she's making that delineation, too. Then in another setting, she was asked the question, is it necessary for sisters to be set apart to officiate in the sacred ordinances of washing, anointing, and laying on of hands in administering to the sick? And Lizar Snow's response was, it is certainly not. Any and all sisters who honor their holy endowments not only have the right, but should feel it a duty, whenever called upon, to administer to our sisters in these ordinances, which God has graciously committed to his daughters as well as to his sons. And we testify that when administered and received in faith and humility, they are accompanied with almighty power. Now, you might have noticed in that statement where she says, those who honor their holy endowments, and she seems to be implying that specifically women who've been endowed, who've gone through the temple have both a right and a duty to administer to the sick. And apparently the First Presidency later offers a correction to Eliza R. Snow about this. But questions persisted about the relationship between the endowment and the authority to perform ritual healing. And this wasn't as much of a question for men because they were ordained to priesthood offices, and the authority to heal seems to have been inherent in that ordination.
- [52:46]
C
Can I ask, do we know what the First Presidency corrected? Are they saying that you don't have to be endowed to have that gift? Was that the correction?
- [52:54]
B
Yeah, that seems to be the case.
- [52:56]
A
Okay.
- [52:57]
B
Yeah. That. That they. She shouldn't be teaching that. That it was somehow related or dependent on endowed status.
- [53:04]
C
The endowment.
- [53:05]
A
Yeah.
- [53:06]
C
Much more faith than endowment.
- [53:09]
A
Yeah. Okay. And. And just. Just to refer you to another source, because we've been talking about Elizar Snow, Emmaline Wells diaries have been published. They're actually available for free through the Church History Library. And it shows that these practices, healing practices, as well as other practices like speaking in tongues, were just kind of part of the fabric of Latter Day Saint women's lives in the late 19th century. So there's plenty of sources to identify this, and some that have been made more widely available in the last little while, like Emmeline Wells diaries, which are just a Google away. Are those searchable, Lysa, or is it easy to go and search through those diaries?
- [53:49]
B
Yeah. Church historianspress.org and the way that they're put up there is just beautiful. You can do all kinds of stuff with it.
- [53:59]
A
Yeah, tons of cool stuff in those diaries, too. So, again, we've been talking about Lizar Snow, but Lysa, you actually. You have a few specific places in Emmeline Wells diary. And just to give everybody background on Emmeline Wells, she is a pivotal figure in the 19th century. She eventually becomes the general president of Relief Society. She's a big deal. And her diaries are a key source in understanding Latter Day Saint women's history, especially in the 19th century, though she makes it into the 1920s. So, Lysa, do you want to share a little bit of those excerpts with us?
- [54:35]
B
Yeah, I would love to. I love Emmaline so much.
- [54:39]
A
Yeah, she's great.
- [54:40]
B
Her diaries, they're not just an important source for women's history, they are an important source for Latter Day Saint history, period, full stop. And absolutely. You know, and we've published them as we talked about on the Church Historians Press website. So hopefully there are. People are becoming more aware that they're out there. So let me just share a few examples from her diaries of some of these practices. So on February 12, 1882, Emmaline recorded, quote, today Sister Eliza R. And Sister Bathsheba W. Smith and myself went down to wash and anoint Mother Whitney. So this is Elizabeth Ann Whitney. She's on her deathbed. She's 82 years old at this point, or something close to that. And so they're going down to wash and anoint her. Emmaline says she, Sister Whitney was quite insensible. And when Sister Erss. Sister Eliza anointed her, she said, for her burial. And then she says, we returned home and took dinner, and I went back and stayed until Very late with her. And then Sister Whitney died three days later. But this is a beautiful slice of a practice that another practice we don't really know about. They're washing and anointing the sick, but they're actually also washing and anointing the dying. And there's a sense that that is an efficacious ritual to help people pass into the next life in a. A peaceful and beautiful way.
- [56:12]
C
Kind of sounds like something that happened in the New Testament with Jesus and Mary.
- [56:16]
B
Yep, exactly.
- [56:18]
C
Are they doing it in similitude of.
- [56:20]
B
Yeah, for sure. They're invoking that New Testament precedent there as well. Okay, let me read you another really lovely example here. We talked about this practice of washing and anointing before confinement. And on February 19, 1892, Emmeline went to the home of Clara Horne James, where at least six other sisters met and washed and anointed Clara preparatory to her confinement. And the networks here are really interesting. They're intergenerational. Clara was the daughter of Mary Isabella Horne, who's a prominent Relief Society leader, president of the Salt Lake Stake Relief Society. Clara's sisters Minnie and Maddie were there. Maddie was herself a counselor in the Ylmia Presidency. Zina DH Young was there. She's now the General Relief Society president. Bathsheba is there. She's gonna become the next Relief Society president. So there's all these family and institutional networks involved in this one. Just passing mention in her diary, the entry ends, she said that they had a very nice dinner and visited for a while before going home. And this is, like I say, very typical of blending the spiritual and the social. And just a few months later, Claire gave birth to her baby and everything seems to have been fine. Another time, the washing and anointing happened early in the pregnancy. So in July 11, 1891, Emmaline recorded that she went with Dr. Pratt, that's Romania B. Penrose Pratt or Pratt Penrose, and Sarah M. Kimball, to assist in washing and anointing Jesse Penrose Jones, who is in a delicate condition and has had two or three miscarriages. So she described the procedure here. She said the women prayed together, after which Emmaline washed, Sister Kimball anointed and Dr. Pratt, quote, sealed and confirmed the anointing. This administration took place early in the pregnancy and probably reflected Jesse's desire to carry the child to term after her previous failed pregnancies. And she did. 33 year old Jesse Penrose Jones gave birth to her fifth child and third daughter six months later. And then she went on to have two more children after that. And again, the. The. The relationships are really interesting here. Jesse Penrose is the daughter of Charles Penrose, who happens to be Romania Pratt's husband at the time. But Romania is not Jesse's mother. She's her father's other wife. So it. It just.
- [59:08]
C
Wow, Anita, I need a chart.
- [59:11]
B
Exactly. And how extensive these networks were and how woven into the fabric of their everyday lives and their relationships. I. I feel like in this period, like the 1890s, around the turn of the century, is really a hot high point for these practices. And they've just become so ingrained and so embedded and so much a natural part of what I call female spiritual networks in this period and were just fundamental to how women understood their spiritual lives and their relationships with each other. So those are just a couple of really beautiful examples of what this practice looked like on the ground and how embedded it was in their lives.
- [59:57]
C
Before we pushed record today, we were talking a little bit about Zina DH Young. She was kind of known, like, kind of famous for being a prolific healer. Kept meticulous journals of, like, I can't remember the stat. I think over a thousand blessings that she gave. Or I can't. You might know the. The actual numbers, Lisa, but I don't
- [60:20]
B
have it off the top of my head. Bad.
- [60:21]
C
Okay. But. But. But this. That. Which is just emblematic of what you're saying that this is.
- [60:26]
B
Yeah.
- [60:27]
C
At. At the height of. Of this practice in the church, Zina
- [60:32]
B
would also had some medical training that we could, you know, maybe say in quotes. Medical training, but she had some training in what was the Thompsonian herbal kind of healing practices. So she was a midwife. She was a healer. There was no daylight between the spiritual practices and what they would have considered the medical practices. We do have some of her recipes for tonics and. And remedies. One of them involved boiling a toad and using the water that they had boiled the toad in. So, again, different world.
- [61:10]
A
We got to put this in the show.
- [61:11]
B
Different time.
- [61:12]
A
Yeah.
- [61:13]
C
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.
- [61:16]
A
Wow.
- [61:16]
B
Yep. But the point being that. That spiritual and physical healing were completely connected, and Zina was just this person networking within the community to provide both kinds of spiritual and physical medical care and healing.
- [61:32]
C
So interesting. So interesting. Well, we are looking at the clock and realizing we need to wrap this up, and we're kind of going to leave it on a cliffhanger today. What we've seen so far, if I could recap briefly, is that this practice of women's healing is clearly officially authorized in the church by the highest authorities of the church, from Joseph Smith in Nauvoo all the way up to church presidents and quorum of the 12 around the turn of the century. But what we also know is that we clearly don't do this practice in our church today. So what changed? What happened? Join us next week as we dig into that chapter of this important history.
- [62:21]
A
Oh, that really is a cliffhanger. But this has been really enjoyable and super interesting. And again, we hope that you'll take advantage of some of these sources that we've pointed towards, which have been made readily available, especially in the last couple of years. And some of them you probably have on your phone or device you've got in your pocket right now.
- [62:41]
B
That's right.
- [62:42]
C
Agrees.
- [62:43]
A
Okay. Well, thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Scott.
- [62:46]
C
Okay, we'll see you guys next week. Sam.