Episode 258: Cynthia and Susan's Ragecast Potpourri

ALSSI doesn’t usually focus on church announcements or events, but our conversations about Big Ideas do exist within the current context of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Episode 258, Susan and Cynthia take a beat to discuss a few recent headlines and explore some questions raised by these changes.

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Notes & Quotes:

Find the Church Newsroom announcements here and here and here
Jaxon Washburn’s Fb post
Are you sure you know what ‘gaslighting’ is?, by Emma Bowman, All Things Considered, NPR, 3/25/2026
Lifted Up upon the Cross, by Jeffrey R. Holland, 10/2022
The Symbol of our Faith, by Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley, 04/2005
Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo, by Michael G. Reed

“The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have determined that, effective immediately, the bishop may call a man or a woman to serve as ward Sunday School president. If a man is called as Sunday School president, he must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, and his counselors and secretary must be male members of the ward. If a woman is called as Sunday School president, her counselors and secretary must be female members of the ward.” —First Presidency Letter

“There are many capable women and men who can help strengthen gospel instruction and foster spiritual growth.” —Paul V. Johnson, General Sunday School President

”Historically, Latter-day Saint women have prophesied and received revelation. They’ve witnessed angels and administered blessings by the laying on of hands. They have offered the Lord’s Supper as military chaplains. They act as priestesses in the temple. All of these are already performed through God’s power, which is priesthood power.
Ordination + comparably equal ecclesiastical, ceremonial, and social standings and opportunities as men are all fully theologically possible within a Restored Gospel framework.
The destiny of the Daughters of our Heavenly Parents is that of unmatched transcendent power, glory, and perfect unity with God while inheriting all of God’s same qualities, attributes, and creative abilities. I want the ecclesiastical, ceremonial, and social experience of Latter-day Saint women to better reflect that.” —Jaxon Washburn

"When you begin, over time, to accommodate to somebody else's reality and you're giving up pieces of yourself along the way, it can be what many people say is soul-destroying." —Robin Stern, author of The Gaslight Effect

”Lastly, we remind ourselves that President Gordon B. Hinckley once taught, ‘The lives of our people must [be] … the symbol of our [faith].’ These considerations—especially the latter—bring me to what may be the most important of all scriptural references to the cross. It has nothing to do with pendants or jewelry, with steeples or signposts. It has to do, rather, with the rock-ribbed integrity and stiff moral backbone that Christians should bring to the call Jesus has given to every one of His disciples. In every land and age, He has said to us all, ‘If any man [or woman] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’” —Jeffrey R. Holland

“I do not wish to give offense to any of my Christian colleagues who use the cross on the steeples of their cathedrals and at the altars of their chapels, who wear it on their vestments, and imprint it on their books and other literature. But for us, the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the Living Christ.” —Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley

“Bruce R. McConkie was less tactful and more sensational than Hinckley in his influential book Mormon Doctrine. McConkie not only asserted that the cross was a pagan symbol introduced to Christianity via the Roman Emperor Constantine, but he also declared its sign to be the ‘mark of the beast.’ Under the entry ‘Catholicism’ McConkie’s book said ‘See Church of the Devil’.” —Michael G. Reed

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