We Need the Church to be Good: a Top 15 List for the 15 Top Brethren

SQ: After General Conference, the staff here at SQ realized we don’t need the Church to be true, but we do need it to be good. And consistently honorable.  To this end, we’ve compiled a list of the top fifteen things we want the Brethren to know. Here is our list, in no particular order:

1. We need a church that celebrates the messages of Jesus and is built on the two great commandments as Jesus taught them.
2. We need a church that welcomes truth from any credible source, including its dissidents, and especially from those it has hurt, be they believing or not.
3. We need a church that values the ideas and inspiration of women as much as it values those of men and that sees women as leaders and teachers of men, not just of other women and children.
4. We need a church that sanctions and participates in a conversation about women’s ordination, authority, and autonomy rather than one that sanctions only the perspective of certain, high-level male priesthood leaders on these topics.
5. We need a church that offers full inclusion for LGBTQ members, one that both recognizes God’s grace extends to us all and that trusts the Lord, who knows our hearts, to work things out in the next life.
6. We need a church to which we can invite all our friends, regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or political persuasion.
7. We need a church that encourages, in non-judgmental or passive-aggressive ways, the women of the church to determine for themselves how to fulfill the measure of their earthly creation.
8. We need a church that lives up to its claim of a Gold Standard by implementing thorough training to recognize the signs of predatory grooming and abuse, one that ends the habit of believing priesthood holders are above the accusations leveled at them, and that gives members an independent hotline to report ecclesiastical abuse.
9. We need a church that ends private confession of sexual sin to its lay clergy, whether that’s behind a closed door, a door with a window, or in some more visible setting.
10. We need a church where the leadership is more interested in the members’ needs than in consolidating and perpetuating power and control.
11. We need a church with a hierarchy that practices humility and love through transparency and accountability, to include apologizing when it has done wrongly and working vigilantly to end the practice of leader adulation and the perception that church leaders are infallible.
12. We need a church that openly, thoroughly, and humbly addresses the messiness of its own history.
13. We need a church without courts, or that at least clearly defines and consistently applies standards for discipline and excommunication.
14. We need a church that acknowledges that the Word of Wisdom was not given by way of commandment and that allows members to maintain their standing when they interpret it as transcribed in the original, canonized revelation.
15. We need this church to stop creating dividing lines that mark members as worthy/not worthy, gay/straight, male/female, tithe payer/non-tithe payer, inactive/active, feminist/”elect lady,” faithful/progressive and so on.

We hope that you will share with us what you need the Church to become.

The Sisters Quorum would appreciate hearing your stories. Feel free to comment on this post or see our Submissions page. 

Please like and follow Sisters Quorum on Facebook. You can find us by clicking here.