How could you POSSIBLY disagree with me?

Hmmm...maybe because you’ve had a meaningfully different experience than I have?

Photo published, April 21, 2023, licensed under the Unsplash+ License

Among the many features of an American conversation going off the rails is an inability for people to fathom how another person could possibly disagree with them. A shock over how someone else could not feel the way they do about [fill in the blank … Trump v. Biden, climate change, sexuality and gender, immigration, religion, COVID, etc.] 

Well, too bad…they do. And it’s not just the people you may regard as morally reprobate. We’re also talking here about some really amazing ones.

In all my experiences of dialogue, there’s no lesson that’s hit me stronger than the reality that thoughtful, good-hearted people see the world differently. And guess what? Life hurts a lot less if we can breathe deep, and wrap our heads around that fact. 

‘If I had experienced what you had…’

Part of what can help us reach that place is appreciating how our own position - even if legitimately held with substantial conviction - could be challenging for others to appreciate and embrace if they had not experienced what we had. 

Joseph Smith Jr. is a man who 20+ million Latter-day Saints throughout the last 200 years regard as a prophet called by God because of this visionary account and this book he helped to bring forth. On another occasion in 1832, in Hiram, Ohio, the prophet and Sidney Rigdon shared this as their combined witness of Jesus Christ:

“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives! For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father—That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.”

If there’s anyone you might expect to be excessively bold and perhaps overbearing in their witness, it would be someone like this who claimed to have spoken with God like Moses did, “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (NIV).

How dare anyone defy that kind of strong witness, right?

But that’s not how Smith was at all. As he once said, “I don't blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself.”

Experiencing the power

I thought of this recently when coming across a statement Dr. Julie Hanks made to the Salt Lake Tribune, in the wake of what many of us found to be a beautiful message shared by Sister J. Anette Dennis, First Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency. In that spring sermon, Dennis said of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “There is no other religious organization in the world that I know of that has so broadly given power and authority to women.”

“Other faiths ordain women to roles like priest or pastor,” this leader added. “But those individuals represent a small minority when compared to the total number of women within their congregations.” In this church, by contrast, all women “who choose a covenant relationship with God in the House of the Lord are endowed with priesthood power directly from God.”

For anyone who wants to understand her meaning fully, I recommend checking out all the talks in the women’s conference that took place to commemorate the founding of the Relief Society on March 17, 1842. In my view, they are some of the most powerful speeches I’ve ever heard (and fully align with Dennis’s statement).

Yet in response to that specific quote, Hanks pushed back - saying at first, “it is technically true, if you consider the endowment [to be] priesthood power and authority. It is available to any woman in the church.”

But then this counselor pivoted to a more cynical and divisive take, “But the gatekeepers of that process are all men. You go to a man for a temple recommend. You go to men primarily to perform the ordinances in the temple. We need to clarify what priesthood power and authority we are talking about.”

She continued, “A lot of women feel like, ‘Yeah, I have power from God, but what can I do with it in the structure of the church?’ Not a lot.”

Not a lot. That’s the part that stood out to me most.

At first, my heart hurt when I heard this (not uncommon in my experience witnessing how Dr. Hanks uses her large platform). Not a lot? How could this woman possibly say that right after hearing so many strong witnesses about God’s willingness to pour down his power on every man and women in the Church?

Then it hit me: Because she hasn’t experienced that power herself. And if that’s really been her experience of the faith, can we blame her for questioning?

As Joseph might say, “if I had not experienced the power and love of God poured out in this church - to me and through me - I would not believe it myself.”