One term, different readings

So that you know my biases going into this: I rather liked quentin L. Cook’s address at the most recent general conference—so i agree with second of the people below. But despite that, i’m not discarding the opinions of the first as completely out there.

And for background if you didn’t hear it or don’t remember it, Quentin L. Cook’s address included a bit where he condemned nonconsensual immorality. Well, i have two friends, both of whom would self-describe (and i think accurately!) as feminists, and who each had a radically different reaction to that part of his address.

One of them saw it as a way to avoid actually discussing issues of sexual abuse by individuals in church leadership positions, and providing a general suggestion that rape can be the fault of the victim. The other saw it as a much-needed shout-out to the #MeToo movement, and a statement that rape and other forms of sexual abuse are not to be tolerated within the church.

Anyway, just throwing that out there. It’s an interesting split, and one that makes me think that maybe i’m wrong, and that the deconstructionists might have something to actually take into consideration about the way meanings and language work, after all.

(I’ll certainly agree with both of them, though, that it could have been less obliquely phrased.)