On 5 October, a group of women (and some male supporters) will, either through tickets granted by LDS leaders (they have petitioned leaders for them) or via the stand-by line, attempt to gain entrance to the priesthood session of general conference. Spearheaded by the group Ordain Women, the announcement of these plans has set LDS blogs afire, reinvigorating a several-decades-long and very important but complex discussion of pathways to full equality of men and women within Mormonism, including the possibility of women being ordained to the priesthood. In this episode of Mormon Matters, two members of Ordain Women--April Young Bennett and Danielle Mooney--join Dialogue editor Kristine Haglund and Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for a discussion of Ordain Women, its origins, activities, philosophies, and its plans for the priesthood meeting admission attempt. The conversation then opens into the wider questions about the objections that are being raised to this plan--its strategic gamble, whether the LDS membership is yet ready for a seismic shift such as would follow an announcement opening the door to women’s ordination, if this is an effective way for the best ideas about why ordination is essential for equality to be heard and prayerfully considered by the Church’s governing leadership. Wherever one stands on the issue of women's ordination, this is an extremely interesting and vital topic, for the future character of Mormonism is very much at stake.

Joseph Campbell spent a lifetime studying myths and stories from around the world, especially the ones that related to life’s biggest questions: Where did everything come from?; Is there purpose to the things that come up in our lives?; How do we as human beings fully flourish? For him, we as human beings aren’t seeking meaning so much as experience--the "experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive"--and he believes that life is structured to allow this unfolding of deep experience to take place. Through his immersion in great art and literature and the stories that seem to come up in every culture and every human life, he came to conclude that there is one story of all stories, a monomyth, that expresses this call to adventure, and which is woven into the structures of the universe (even as deep or deeper than DNA) such that it can and will play out in our lives. The trick will be to recognize it. This monomyth, he believes, is the "Hero’s Journey": "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." In this episode, Carol Lynn Pearson and David A. Stacey join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon in unpacking Campbell’s model, but also applying it to LDS lives, including their own. They explore Mormon scriptures and stories, including the biggest one of all, the Plan of Salvation, in terms of the Hero’s Journey. Through it all, they encourage everyone to examine their own lives in terms of this structure. Where are we on our hero’s journey? Who is serving for us some of the roles that the pattern describes? What forces are keeping us from journeying to the inmost cave and meeting our deepest fears and having the fight there that will kill us and allow us to be reborn as masters who can then share with others the boons we have gained? In the end, the panelists conclude that it does not matter if one ends up deciding whether the universe or powerful beings within it truly structure reality in such a way that these adventures, visions, and empowerments are available to us all or if this is a structure we have learned to apply to our lives to help us feel oriented especially in extremely difficult times. For them, the Hero’s Journey "works"--and that is as "real" as anything needs to be.

Are we made for the Sabbath, or is the Sabbath made for us? Likewise, are we here primarily to serve the Church, or does the Church exist to serve and assist us as individuals? In both cases, most of us would think the second part of the sentences represent the deeper truth, yet so often it seems we act and think as if we as individuals are for the Sabbath and the Church rather than them being given and continuing to exist in order to help and bless us. In a classic article, "The Institutional Church and the Individual," organizational behavior professor and conflict negotiator J. Bonner Ritchie, lays out in a fresh and open way many of the tensions that exist--and will always exist--between organizations and individuals. To greater and lesser degrees, each have different goals and values, and they inevitably conflict with each other. When institutions act, at least some individuals experience hurt or pain. Yet institutions and individuals need each other, need the others’ stability or energy or creativity. The question is how can we mitigate the negative aspects in order to make this a creative tension rather than a painful, energy sucking one? Ritchie makes the claim that it is impossible to make institutions fully safe for individuals, so the task must become how to make individuals safe from organizational abuse or highly negative encroachments upon conscience or our daily lives? In this episode, J. Bonner Ritchie joins Katie Langston, Bill Hansen, and Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for a stimulating discussion about these dynamics, illustrating them with stories and experiences and practical advice. The discussion covers both theory and practice, focusing in the second half on things like avoiding the negative consequences of worthiness interviews or the felt pressure accept every Church calling, etc.

Are we made for the Sabbath, or is the Sabbath made for us? Likewise, are we here primarily to serve the Church, or does the Church exist to serve and assist us as individuals? In both cases, most of us would think the second part of the sentences represent the deeper truth, yet so often it seems we act and think as if we as individuals are for the Sabbath and the Church rather than them being given and continuing to exist in order to help and bless us. In a classic article, "The Institutional Church and the Individual," organizational behavior professor and conflict negotiator J. Bonner Ritchie, lays out in a fresh and open way many of the tensions that exist--and will always exist--between organizations and individuals. To greater and lesser degrees, each have different goals and values, and they inevitably conflict with each other. When institutions act, at least some individuals experience hurt or pain. Yet institutions and individuals need each other, need the others’ stability or energy or creativity. The question is how can we mitigate the negative aspects in order to make this a creative tension rather than a painful, energy sucking one? Ritchie makes the claim that it is impossible to make institutions fully safe for individuals, so the task must become how to make individuals safe from organizational abuse or highly negative encroachments upon conscience or our daily lives? In this episode, J. Bonner Ritchie joins Katie Langston, Bill Hansen, and Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for a stimulating discussion about these dynamics, illustrating them with stories and experiences and practical advice. The discussion covers both theory and practice, focusing in the second half on things like avoiding the negative consequences of worthiness interviews or the felt pressure accept every Church calling, etc.