Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism

Among a recent surge of new work on gender and sexuality in Mormonism, Taylor G. Petrey's Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism distinguishes itself by addressing historical instability on multiple fronts.1 LDS conceptions of gender and sexuality, Petrey argues, have never been stable or fixed. "Competing theories" have been the norm throughout the religion's history, rather than there being a "monolithic 'traditional' view" (2). Moreover, even within those competing theories, there has been a general sense that gender roles and heterosexuality must be rigorously protected and policed.Petrey examines the post-World War II period to the present day using "three areas of activity:" "public preaching and teaching," programs developed by the church that addressed gender and sexuality, and "sociopolitical interventions," such as opposition to the civil rights movement, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Proposition 8 in California. Some church officials loom larger than others within these areas of activity. In particular, Boyd K. Packer and Dallin H. Oaks appear frequently, given their outsize impact on internal and external gender and sexual politics. Petrey chronicles a series of transitions in which the church's conceptions of marriage, gender roles, and sexuality, often framed in opposition to a perceived threat, shifted as the nature of those perceived threats changed. Interracial marriage, homosexuality, the Equal Rights Amendment, and same-sex marriage emerge and recede throughout Tabernacles of Clay as foils for how Mormon leadership conceived of marriage, gender, and sexuality. Crucially, despite their similarities to other religious groups in reacting to various social and political developments, "Mormons weren't just reacting to and opposing these cultural trends; they were also adapting them into a Mormon idiom" (218).None of the shifts chronicled in Tabernacles of Clay occurred in isolation. While other work has pointed out the connections between and among race, gender, and sexuality in Mormon thought, Petrey demonstrates the crucial role that race played in the church's conception of marriage, and how a retreat from rhetoric that opposed interracial marriage allowed for a shift to a focus on various other factors as crucial components of marriage. Similarly, Petrey argues that a focus on opposing same-sex marriage allowed the church to "accommodate liberalizing trends" on topics like gender roles and birth control because same-sex marriage and homosexuality became "more threatening" to LDS leaders; this meant that changes in these other arenas appeared more innocuous than they may have otherwise (215). Petrey's attention to more recent developments documents how Mormon conceptions of gender, sexuality, and marriage continue to shift. For example, Petrey examines how church policies for transgender Mormons have been a site where "LDS leaders were disentangling sexuality and gender" (199). Crucially, he is attentive to how LDS leaders have been focused on an image of "the homosexual" as a man, and until quite recently, had given relatively little thought to queer women and trans people's identities and experiences. These factors shape how Petrey approaches these recent developments.One of Tabernacles of Clay's most incisive segments concerns a turn among church leadership toward social scientific and therapeutic language and concepts to inform opposition to homosexuality and later to same-sex marriage. The field of psychology informed church leaders' arguments and gave them a grammar with which to compose their arguments and to understand the arguments of others. Petrey writes that in this process, "what had previously been counted as 'sins,' including crime, intemperance, violence, and sexual delinquency, were transformed into 'illnesses' with religio-psychological diagnoses and cures" (61). Moreover, "these adaptations of therapy to theology shared the modernist values of scientific progress, naturalism, and the reinterpretation of Christianity in light of historical and scientific knowledge" (60). Crucially, Petrey argues that although "Mormon opposition to same-sex marriage has often been framed as motivated by a theology that places mixed-sex marriage at the center of salvation" (73), it ignores that the language of psychology and other social sciences have much more often been what the church puts front and center in its discussion of same-sex marriage.Petrey also outlines what he sees as the present and near future of this continual shifting and identifies two issues as particularly salient. One is the LDS Church's shift to using the language of religious liberty in relation to LGBTQ+ rights. Petrey argues that this signifies a new stage in the church's articulation of teaching on gender and sexuality, one in which it seeks to navigate a post-Obergefell landscape. The other factor Petrey sees as shaping Mormonism's near future is the potential impact of younger generations of Mormons who may diverge from church leadership on issues of gender and sexuality. He argues that church members who have grown up watching women in a wide variety of professional positions may find it strange that "a woman may be a chief financial officer for a company but may not be entrusted to count LDS tithing donations in her local congregation based on not being ordained to the priesthood" (221).While Petrey analyzes survey data that shows broad millennial Mormon support for LGBTQ+ acceptance and concern about women's lack of institutional power within the church, he does not dig into what these sentiments may actually mean (or not mean) regarding these millennials' interactions with the church. For example, when someone indicates in a survey that they believe that "homosexuality should be accepted by society," what implications might that person see such a statement as having (or not having) for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? While Petrey notes that "LGBT issues" have appeared prominently in survey data of millennials who have left the church, much of Petrey's survey data is focused on regularly attending Mormons. What might Petrey's focus on shifting and instability bring to bear in thinking about how these millennials who stay navigate church membership and attendance?Tabernacles of Clay threads Petrey's insights into a broader picture of how the Church's conceptions of marriage, sexuality, and gender have shifted in relation to one another. Moreover, those shifts have then also shifted the others' definitions in turn. "Mormonism produces and is produced by," Petrey reminds us in the book's conclusion, "these modern conflicts about the nature of gender and sexuality" (223).