11.15.2017

Pre-mortal and Post-mortal Gender

The Family Proclamation states “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” This was a new teaching with very little antecedent.

Two talks given in 1993 gave explicit teaching to this idea.

Elder Oaks, in his talk, The Great Plan of Happiness, said,

“Maleness and femaleness, marriage, and the bearing and nurturing of children are all essential to the great plan of happiness. Modern revelation makes clear that what we call gender was part of our existence prior to our birth. God declares that he created “male and female.” (D&C 20:18; Moses 2:27; Gen. 1:27).

Elder Oaks also cited a First Presidency statement from 1912 and a statement from Elder Talmage a church periodical in 1922. “A pre-existent, spiritual personality, as the sons and daughters of the Eternal Father.”[1] “The distinction between male and female is no condition peculiar to the relatively brief period of mortal life; it was an essential characteristic of our pre-existent condition.”[2]

Elder Packer’s talk, For Time and All Eternity opens saying, “Apostles and prophets speak of us in premortal life as sons and daughters, spirit children of God.(1) Gender existed before, and did not begin at mortal birth.(2)”

Footnote 1 cites D&C 76:24, which states “The inhabitants [of the worlds] are begotten sons and daughters unto God.”

Footnote 2 cites D&C 132:63, which is part of the revelation on polygamy. The verse discusses virgins and their pre-mortal promises. “But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfill the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men.”

This is such a peculiar verse to use. At best it states a pre-mortal promise of pregnancy. First, not all women become pregnant in this life. And second, the pre-mortal promise does not equate to premortal state. For example, we were given a pre-mortal promise of a body without having that body beforehand.[3]

Elder Packer’s second footnote continued, citing the 1909 First Presidency Statement on the “Origin of Man.”[4] It uses the Brother of Jared’s vision to indicate that Christ’s gender was set prior to mortality.

Packer also cites President Kimball’s March 1976 Ensign Article. “The role of woman was fixed even before she was created.” This teaching comes from a time, as previously discussed, when women’s roles were given the hardline. A teaching we have since abandoned.

Finally, Elder Packer cites Elder Hinckley’s November 1983 Ensign Article, “I know of no doctrine which states that we made a choice when we came to earth as to whether we wished to be male or female. That choice was made by our Father in Heaven in his infinite wisdom. ”

Summary of Precedent

There are no scriptures that support the idea of a pre-mortal gender. Oaks gives three and Packer gives one canonized passage that state that God created “male and female” on this Earth. Elder Packer’s use of D&C 132:63 only pertains to a promise of a mortal condition, not what the pre-mortal condition actually was.

Moving outside the canon, the 1912 First Presidency statement mentions a pre-mortal personality as “sons and daughters.” The 1909 First Presidency statement and Elder Hinckley’s both rely the absence of any mention of something different than our preconceived notions as evidence that we shouldn’t change our preconceived notions.

Finally, Elder Talmage’s statement is a clear precedent for Elders Oaks’ and Packer’s teaching. Elder Talmage claims no revelation for his conclusions, though. Importantly, we do not take one solitary statement from a general authority to mean doctrine. Especially when there is not yet consensus nor additional revelation. Joseph Fielding Smith claimed that most of us would not maintain our gender identity. He wrote, “In both the Terrestrial and Telestial Kingdoms there will be changes in the bodies and limitations. They will not have the power of increase, neither the power nor nature to live as husbands and wives. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be – neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection.”[5]

Discussion

One of the first rules of revelation, is that they do not occur, unless a question is posed and we are willing to receive an answer. God respects our agency and does not force on us what we are not willing to accept. The word of wisdom came after Emma’s inquiry. The first version after diligent searching. The lifting of the temple and priesthood ban on African Americans only came after years of intense research and consensus building.

So, too, with gender. Only recently has genetic, psychological, and anthropological sciences advanced sufficiently to understand the complex reality of gender. There are differences in sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression, the latter being a social construct changing with time[6]. Non-binary sex chromosomes occur in as many as 0.36% of human beings. This may seem too small to worry about, but also reflect that the LDS people only account for 0.23% of the world’s population. Since the Church is so essential to God’s Plan of Happiness, certainly His Plan would take into account non-binary chromosome humans. Their gender is not an essential characteristic of their humanness.

Not until we ponder, humbly ask, and are willing to submit to new revelation can we be sure that we have understood the theology of a new scientific or social understanding. The Church’s current rhetoric points to the past, claiming doctrinal authority from an era where no one asked these modern questions. The scriptures state “male and female” because there was no concept of intersex when they were written. God can only work through our mortal biases and limitations. “That must be terribly frustrating to Him,” as Elder Holland once noted.

Conclusion

The Family Proclamation’s statements on gender, its roles and eternal nature, are non-canonical. They reflect the understanding of the leaders as it stood in the mid-nineties. On the one hand there are remnants of the dominant male and subservient female dichotomy emphasized in the 1970’s. But it exhibits the recent retreat from the commandment against birth control and the denunciations of women in the workforce. The Proclamation’s statement on the nature of gender reflects the new emphasis brought on by the increasing awareness of the complex reality of LGBTQ issues.

[1] Statement of the First Presidency, Improvement Era, Mar. 1912, p. 417

[2] Millennial Star, 24 Aug. 1922, p. 539-540. https://archive.org/stream/millennialstar8434eng#page/538/mode/2up

[3] A third point is that the following verse, 64, gives a theologically uncomfortable command. It states that any wife who learns the law of the priesthood pertaining to polygamy “shall believe and administer unto her husband or she shall be destroyed.” My take is that I generally don’t quote D&C 132, if I can avoid it.

[4] First Presidency, “Origin of Man” (Nov. 1909), in James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–75), 4:203

[5] Doctrines of Salvation Vol. 2, pg. 396

[6] Blue – Boy; Pink – Girl. One hundred years ago, this norm was reversed. Many of the gender norms lauded by the brethren in the 1970’s fall under this category; women’s work vs. men’s work. Is cooking in the home an essential gender trait? No, because if she gets paid as a chef, then it is accepted as the man’s dominion.