As I read this book, two words kept coming to my mind: “prayers” and “words.” From the late 1840s until 1978, countless prayers went up to petition a change in the exclusionary and harmful policy that denied priesthood ordination to Blacks. In 1973, those prayers were joined by the words of Lester Bush, whose landmark article in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought helped pry open the door to the 1978 revelation. Countless prayers have gone up to petition changes in
the church’s LGBTQ+ policies and doctrines, and now Queer Mormon Theology adds words to those prayers—perhaps the right words to pry open yet another door.
—Gregory A. Prince
Author of Gay Rights and the Mormon Church: Intended Actions, Unintended Consequences
For most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its theology is only ever viewed through the authorized lens of Church Correlation. In Queer Mormon Theology, author Blaire Ostler offers a fresh look at the basic tenets of the religion as seen through the eyes of a queer church member. The discoveries she reveals may surprise, captivate, and simultaneously invite the reader to explore new perspectives on living and worshiping as an inclusive community of Saints.
—Laurie Lee Hall, Architect
Blaire Ostler‘s considerate work offers new perspectives around old questions of gender and relationships that have long plagued the larger Mormon community. As Latter-day Saints explore the meaning of discipleship in a modern world, Ostler extends a roadmap of true Christian living and Grace that is big and wide enough to embrace more of God’s children in faith, love and inclusion. Readers will come to engage the Gospel in a way that liberates rather than oppresses. She eloquently demonstrates how to nurture faith and subsume a more holistic relationship with the Divine, where the only sacrifice required is leaving pride at the door and opening one’s heart to more love, light and wisdom.
—Lindsay Hansen Park
Executive director of the Sunstone Education Foundation and host of the Year of Polygamy podcast
