What happens when Mormon women are called to ordained ministry?
Talking with five former LDS members who left to go to seminary
“I came to div school as a Mormon ready to reconcile with a God that would give me some relief,” recalled Zora, a Black woman in her early 40s, about her seminary experience in the mid-2010s. “Oddly enough, I found church there [in seminary] with these radical, beautiful other human seminarians, and then I was affirmed constantly in my teaching call and preaching.”
In 2014, 500 Mormon women stood in line outside a priesthood meeting on Temple Square in Salt Lake City and asked to enter as prospective elders seeking ordination. They were denied entrance by a spokesperson from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Shortly thereafter, Kate Kelly, the group’s leader, was excommunicated, sending the larger Mormon feminist community into a time of deep searching for a way forward.
The LDS Church ordains all cisgender men and boys age 11 and older. These Mormon feminist activists were advocating for an equivalent universal ordination for girls and women. Today, some longtime Mormon feminist activists are pursuing calls to ministry by attending seminary and seeking candidacy for ordination in other denominations. In typically mainline Protestant spaces, these now former Mormons have to navigate similar and different challenges from those of their seminary peers.
