A new article in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought has attracted attention in the bloggernacle. The article, "Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology," by Taylor G. Petrey, is a discussion of how LDS theology might one day incorporate homosexual relationships. However, even if homosexuality is not a topic that interests you, this article is still worth reading if you ever think about how mortal biology fits into the grand scheme of things. Two of the main topics treated are reproduction and gender. Let's look briefly at each one.
Reproduction
Petrey begins his discussion of reproduction by noting that we have competing notions of how spirits are created. Joseph Smith emphasized the eternal nature of intelligence (D&C 93:29–33), and it appears that notions of "spirit birth" came later, following his death [1].
The ambivalence on this point is a persistent tension in Mormon thought. That is, the doctrine of spiritual birth stands at odds with the doctrine of eternal intelligences, and to this day Mormonism has not resolved this tension. On the one hand, “spirit birth” is a divine reproduction that mirrors human reproduction, requiring a male and female partner; and on the other hand, “spirit birth” is a more metaphorical “organization” that bears little resemblance to reproduction as a result of sexual intercourse.
Sometimes it is emphasized that we are "literally" children of God. Adding in the word "literally," however, doesn't clear up the questions. A friend of mine had parents who divorced when he was young, and his mother re-married soon after. As far as my friend was concerned, the second man--what we would call his step-father--was his father, period. My friend wasn't LDS, but we could imagine that he was and that this reconstituted family was sealed together in the temple--an imaginary situation that reflects a common reality. Under these circumstances, was the second man
literally my friend's father? What does that question even mean? The problem here is that fatherhood (and by implication, childhood) has several fascets to it, with a source of genetic information being only one of them. That's why we have to tack on words like 'biological', 'adopted', and 'step' when not all of the fascets are contained in a single relationship.
To say that I am a spirit child of God is to say something important. But like Petrey seems to, I have trouble connecting it too closely to mortal biology--as though spirit gametes fuse to form a spirit embryo containing spirit DNA from each parent, which then implants in a spirit womb and grows until one day it is ready to come out--with all of this somehow happening inside an immortal physical body. Here I see a connection to Petrey's discussion of sealing as building kinship. Whatever else may be involved (or not) in both my spiritual and physical creation, I see my relationship with God, along with my future potential and eternal destiny, as the defining feature of my existence--both past and future. I'm not wedded to any particular explanation of how that relationship came about. "I know that [God] loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things [1 Nephi 11:17]."
Petrey also notes that it seems strange that mortals pair to bring spirits into mortality, but that somehow it requires two immortal bodies to create spirits, which are two stages back in progression. In connection with this, I've noticed a similar puzzle: according to some commentators Adam and Eve were physically created by the union of two immortal bodies. This would seem to imply that immortal reproductive organs have a dual usage--creation of both physical bodies and spirits, depending on...well, who knows what?
GenderThe article devotes several pages to a discussion of gender. Although we are taught that gender is an eternal part of our identity, the word itself has a somewhat ambiguous meaning, and it isn't clear how it maps onto the premortal life. This is part of a larger problem hinted at above: The closer spirit form and creation is tied to mortal biology, the sillier it starts to sound in light of what we know about biology (especially genetics), and a sort of predestination seems needed to solve some of the consequent problems [2]. Further, Petrey notes:
The whole question of the relationship of the premortal spirit to the mortal body is at stake in the claim that “gender” belongs to both equally. If any of the particularities of one’s genetic and environmental circumstances may be said to not preexist with a particular spirit in a deterministic way, why then is sexual difference the exception? To assert that “gender” is more fundamental to one’s identity than these other contingent features begs the question: Of the many different features of human identity, why does sexual difference—whatever that may refer to—occupy a privileged place in the account of the eternal nature of the human being?
In other words, we know a lot about how genes determine hair color, skin color, and so on. Can any of these features be said to correspond to our premortal spirit, and if not, then why gender? And although it is easy to dismiss intersex individuals as exceptions to the rule (victims of "pranks of nature," to use the term of a couple of Church leaders), such an attitude papers over the multiple layers and plasticity of sexual development [3].
Petrey is not the first to notice these kinds of issues [4], but I think he has done a good job of explaining and expressing them. I don't expect any change in the way the Church approaches the issues discussed in the article, but at a minimum it serves as a good reminder that as clear as we think our doctrines are, they are embedded in a matrix of unnoticed assumptions and unanswered questions, some of which are probably the result of having a doctrinal structure that was mostly in place before the foundations of the sciences as we know them. And you never know--many people concluded that the priesthood ban didn't make sense, and that it had a dubious history, years before it was ended. Although its removal was a matter of revelation, it appears that scholarship helped to clear the path for the revelation [5]. I like to think that
D&C 9:7-8 operates for both individuals and institutions, and that seems to be what Petrey is aiming for.
Notes:1. Blake Ostler, "
The Idea of Pre-existence in the Development of Mormon Thought"
2. Such explanations don't really explain anything, either. See
The Spirit as a Homunculus.
3. See Duane Jeffery's article, "
Intersexes in Humans," for a nice LDS-oriented discussion of this topic. It seems to have held up well since it's publication in 1979. See also Jeffrey Keller, "
Is Sexual Gender Eternal?"
4. For example, see Kent Condie, "
Premortal Spirits: Implications for Cloning, Abortion, Evolution, and Extinction."
5. Edward Kimball,
Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 219-220.
On May 25, Mark E. Petersen called President Kimball's attention to an article that proposed the priesthood policy had begun with Brigham Young, not Joseph Smith, and he suggested that the President might wish to consider this factor.
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