Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 2023
Publication Title
Religion and American Culture
Abstract
The 1970s witnessed an efflorescence of religious feminism in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, particularly around the issue of women's ordination. We pose a model for understanding this development—the formation of publics/counterpublics—and explore how it illuminates our case study. Drawing upon oral history interviews and archival sources, we document how RLDS women created independent publications, grassroots consciousness-raising groups, feminist classes and conferences, and Women-Church–inspired worship to reimagine priesthood within their church. We conclude that the lens of a counterpublic offers a capacious view of our topic, one capable of integrating both social movement theory and network theory. Furthermore, we suggest that the RLDS example featured in this essay is simply a manifestation of a larger late twentieth-century American “feminist religious counterpublic” formed across many religious denominations and groups that held a shared feminist social imaginary.
Volume
33
Issue
2
First Page
220
Last Page
247
DOI
10.1017/rac.2023.14
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s) 2023.
Recommended Citation
Howlett, David and Ross, Nancy, "Creating a Feminist Religious Counterpublic:RLDS Feminists and Women's Ordination Advocacy in America, 1970–1985" (2023). Religion: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/rel_facpubs/41
Comments
Archived as published.