PERSONAL INTEGRITY

Neylan McBaine founded the LDS Women Project and published the first interview in September 2009. She has since worked on multiple projects such as publishing the book “Women at Church” in 2014 and leading the non-profit Better Days 2020. She continues to promote women’s visibility and empowerment in the Latter-day Saint sphere.

What does being a Latter-day Saint woman mean to you today?

That’s a great question. I think the easiest way to define it for me right now is in comparison to what it used to mean for me. When I was younger, it meant a sort of clear-eyed loyalty to the institution because I loved being a part of the institution. I loved what it brought to me in terms of activities and the physical infrastructure – a place to go, to be with my people. It also brought me a virtual family that I didn’t have when I was growing up in a very non-LDS area, with a small biological family of my own. I would say, it used to mean a very clear dedication to the institution and charismatic spiritual experiences.

Both of those elements have changed pretty dramatically now that I’m 48. Both of those extreme levels have been muted, but there’s a third element that’s risen, which is my personal integrity. I define that as being the kind of person that I want to be and that I like being. I’m taking the inputs of good principles from lots of different sources, sorting through them, and deciding what is healthiest for me and what’s healthiest for my family in the long run. It means my membership in the Church is defined by personal agency-driven behavior and set of beliefs, not just what the institution tells me.

That’s not to say that I’ve walked away from the institution or from seeking charismatic experiences. Those are definitely part of my framework. I think, for me, the difference from some other women who reach my stage in life is that the personal integrity pillar still generally works within the framework of the institution. For others, at this point in their lives, it doesn’t. I get that, and that’s fine, but for me, it still works.

The reason it works is because I’ve modified my relationship with the institution. I’m more at a distance from it, more judicious about how I interact with it. I’m more clear-eyed about where it gives me value and where it doesn’t. I’m more honest about its flaws. For me, its flaws, to a point, are faith-promoting because I appreciate the vulnerability and authenticity that comes with understanding those flaws. My husband says, “If there’s just anything good in this, that’s better than a lot of other institutions that we belong to, right?” And so what is that percentage of goodness? Is it five percent goodness? Is it ten percent? Is it sixty percent? Everybody has a different calculus as to what the institution needs to offer them in order for that to remain something of value, and for us to be able to put up with its flaws.

Being a Latter-day Saint woman at this point means taking the good, being honest about the bad, and having the integrity and the confidence in myself to discern those within the same institution.

I can hear a counter-argument that you are taking a buffet-style approach – picking and choosing the parts you want. Does it feel that way to you? Or is it more of a wrestling with things? I’m going to choose how my faith looks.

I feel like what I’m doing is stripping away the fences we’ve built up around the true principles. When I say that I can have integrity within the institution, what I’m saying is, I’m committed to the core principles. They look a little different in my life than they might in somebody else’s. You know, in much of the 20th century, the idea of correlation, retrenchment, or the growth of the global church required a level of uniformity that was preached from the pulpit. You had to be all in. That’s where we get that level of conformity that really peaked in the 20th century. It was thought to be a complete lifestyle.

I’ve seen too many examples of people living in very creative ways, while remaining dedicated to the core principles, to believe there is one way to live the gospel. That’s partly why the LDS Women Project is so close to my heart: in order to gain confidence in how to do that, how to expand the way that looks, you need examples of other people doing that. It’s not something that you can conjure out of your imagination when all the forces are telling you to be just one way.

I want to talk more about personal integrity. I’m curious where that comes from.

There is a lot more elasticity in the institution than people often claim there is. The thing I find most tragic is when people feel like they need to leave membership in the Church to explore different principles and different modalities of religious expression. And I know so many wonderful people who live both and model where they’re active at church, but then they’re also a certified energy healer, or whatever the alternative identity is. We have the ability to expand in that way. Or they’re a member of the Church, and they’re also a female chaplain at a local hospital. Or an active member and an LGBTQ advocate. We can hold all of that. We should be celebrating that. The ultimate tragedy is when people feel like they have to cut ties in order to do that kind of thing. And that’s where the principles have contorted into practices that are limiting and conformist, rather than expansive and agency-driven.

I want to bring in your speech at Restore (Faith Matters 2024) when you talked about the chasm between what Latter-day Saint women experience in the world and what they experience in the LDS community and at church.

I think the counter forces are promoting a feeling of irrelevance in young women in the Church – that the Church is irrelevant to a modern life. That is a powerful force that I would love to see the Church trying to tackle more than they are. We’re a global institution, and our leaders worry about what’s happening in Africa as much as they worry about what’s happening in Sandy, Utah. That emphasis on the global church is understandable, but I also think that it’s having pretty serious repercussions for those girls and women who are growing up in a postmodern society. We’ve lost a lot of the positive cultural forces that bound you and me when we were growing up, those forces that helped our church membership remain highly relevant while we were still developing our testimonies.

What would be an example of that?

Roadshows! We laugh, but they are symbolic of a whole communal practice that we’ve largely lost.

Let’s talk about Relief Society for a moment. There’s nothing about Relief Society right now that’s any different than what the men do at church. There was originally a reason for the Relief Society to exist, essentially, aside from just putting the women in a room by themselves. But we’re not magnifying that opportunity anymore. We don’t have Visiting Teaching anymore. We don’t have our unique curriculum anymore. We’re talking about the same general conference talks as the men. We don’t even have names for our Young Women classes anymore. We don’t have Personal Progress anymore. We’ve lost a lot of cultural texture that was connective tissue while people were growing their testimonies. It’s harder now to have a sense of a larger community that you’re a part of, which was really important to me growing up.

Our global leaders have so many responsibilities. What kind of responsibility do we have, or what can we do, in our own wards? Is that really a place where we can continue to be optimistic? Does the core church experience happen on the local level?

When my husband and I talk to our kids about their membership in the Church, that’s where we always start. We say, “Listen, in this day and age, to have a community like this, that’s throwing you together every single week with people who are literally on their deathbeds and have raised full families and been married sixty years, or whatever it is, there are very few places in the modern world where you are part of something like that, with all ages, all different demographics, political persuasions.” You’re really vulnerable with people in those settings. They’re literally bearing their testimony to you. And you’re getting to know them in very unique ways that their employers don’t know, and probably sometimes their kids don’t even know. It’s just a remarkable, remarkable thing. There’s a lot of good there. In a lot of ways, don’t mess with it. And in the last ten years, I’ve met a lot of people who aren’t bothered by anything that goes on there. It’s a great model. It works really well, and they get what they need out of it.

And then I’ve met a lot of people for whom it’s a really uncomfortable experience. Because they only see men on the stand. They hear things that are, you know, ignorant or close-minded, in their perspective. Not aligned with the way that they see a community of Christ behaving. And I get that too.

I have discovered over the last ten years that there are a lot more people who are fine with the way things are, than those who are not, specifically on gender issues. So what do you do about that? Do we say, well, the majority rules? If you’re not fine with it, then too bad, go elsewhere? Or perhaps we say, “This is the way God wants it to be.” Or it doesn’t seem to be broken, so we don’t need to fix it. Or we don’t have an opportunity to do anything differently because this is the way it’s always been done. Or it’s coming down from Salt Lake this way. Or we just don’t have the authority or the power.

I’ve really struggled seeing this kind of inertia, this unwillingness to try new things and seek for improvements. Because if someone is going to church, they really want it to work for themselves. You’ve got a very intimate, vulnerable part of you invested in this. I don’t think people are going to church and being like, “This sucks, I’m out of here,” very cavalierly. People try, they work really hard to make it work. Those people are looking for innovation. They’re looking for their church organization to take in the best practices of other places in their lives that are doing things well. There are a lot of best practices out there. Organizational behavior specialists in every single industry show that results improve when you have men and women working together in the room where decisions are made. Every modern study says that results change and improve when you have diverse decision-making bodies. And yet, there’s just this wall separating the way we do things in the Church from the way we live and work and do things in the world.

My bishop right now does a great job of breaking down this wall. He’s the CEO of a major company. He’s bringing in best practices all over the place, and it’s so fun. He’s innovative. He’s changed the structure of our sacrament meetings, for example. We have four or five 5-minute talks every Sunday. We have a musical number every Sunday. There’s no order. They’re all random people. Sometimes he’ll pick a married couple, but most of the time, it’s just random people. You’ll have some old man start and a young woman or girl finish. Every single talk for two years now has been focused on personal experiences with Jesus Christ, and it’s just changed everybody’s experience. And it’s such a small thing, but he insists that every time a high counselor comes, he brings a female stake leader, and the female stake leader speaks last. It’s heightened our experience.

Are there limits?

There is definitely a limit to what we can do at the local level. And that observation is something that, unfortunately, has come from watching people try innovations and getting their hands slapped by higher leadership. I think the next step has got to be some top-down instruction. At some point, the Apostles would have to say, “Sacrament meeting structure is going to change, and this is what it’s going to look like now.” Then everybody will fall in line. But until that comes…You know, I fully expect them to say Young Women are going to start passing the sacrament. I think that’ll happen in the next couple of years. And then everyone will act like it’s always been that way.

I’m the Relief Society president in my ward and have a good relationship with my Bishop. He’s open to trying things. But when he’s released, somebody else may come in and see things differently.

And you don’t want a Handbook to be three times as big as what we have now, cause that would limit agency and experimentation even more.

But I’ve definitely come down on the side of lay ministry being a feature, not a bug. But that’s not to say that it’s perfect. It’s a big challenge. It’s a catch-22 because the people who have the power are the ones who ultimately have to give up the power. When it comes to expanding women’s influence in the Church, it will require men to give up power and expand the circles of power, which is almost never in human nature. And I think that there are probably fears that we are not aware of. For instance, we can say it’s best practice for men and women to be together in decision-making bodies. But I’m pretty convinced that there is a fear among our high-level male leadership of men and women working together. It’s not a boardroom, a legal office. There isn’t an HR office. It’s a much more intimate, vulnerable space where you’re talking about people’s lives, their health, and their financial situations. I’m not saying that’s an excuse. I don’t think it is. I think there are ways around all of that. You call couples to be bishops. Just like we’re calling couples to be mission leaders. Why can’t the couple serve together? I think there are ways that we could creatively work around all of that. But sexual dynamics probably undergird most leadership fears about expanding women’s roles.

I want to go back to the Restore talk. I was in the room. What I experienced is that there was a real shift in energy in the room when you spoke, and you talked about this big elephant in the room and named it: Patriarchy. It was vulnerable and real. You spoke truth to power and also held paradoxes – this frustrates me, and I love it. I was standing off to the side of the audience, and I felt the energy shift, and I saw people get uncomfortable, and I thought, yes, and this too. I’m curious, though, what that experience was like for you, to be on that stage saying those things and then after.

It was a life highlight. It was probably one of my favorite moments. I mean, I’ve been doing this for so long. I got tired a few years ago. At the end of Better Days 2020, I really had to take a step away. I was coming off of a really, really heavy emotional investment in this community. So I’ve had a few years off, and now I’m kind of old and grumpy! I don’t have employment that’s wrapped up in what I say. I’ve got a good relationship with my bishop and am very much at peace with my family and my ward. My kids are actually at peace with their relationship with the Church and thriving in it. I’ve got a great marriage. I had some capital to spend. Professionally, I’m a marketer – I know my audience. I’m a good communicator, and I’ve been observing more and more the frustration around authenticity in our church leadership. We would be so much stronger as a community, and we would be more vulnerable with each other, if we were much more honest about what we’re experiencing together. There’s power in naming things honestly.

Yes, there’s power in identifying things. Any therapist will tell you, that you have to name it, and you have to identify and wrestle with and be honest with it, and that’s where the healing starts.

Right, that’s when the healing starts. If we continually pretend something doesn’t exist, it just makes the wound fester. It was all of those principles that led me to the idea of naming patriarchy. I don’t think I used the word patriarchy in Women at Church. If I did, it was not a main theme. It’s buried in there. It’s all implied. It felt like all of these factors came together to say, “Let’s just be honest about this. Let’s find a place where healing and tension can live in a healthy way.”

After your speech, I sat down for lunch with a group of women I didn’t know. It led to an important and interesting conversation. If nothing else, you gave permission to name it, to talk about it. This isn’t a boogeyman that we’re wrestling with. This is what patriarchy is.

It’s textbook. Literally, the definition in the dictionary is what we practice in the Church. That’s a fact. And it doesn’t have to be scary. We can start with the foundation that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints functions administratively as a patriarchy. So you have some options: You can be fine with that. Even if they do see patriarchy, most people are fine with that. Then there’s a group like me who’s like, you know what? Patriarchy has its problems. Yeah, I don’t like it, but there’s enough that’s feeding me in unique ways that I’m willing to continue engaging. And then there’s the third option which is, I see it, and it’s a problem. In fact, it’s too big of a problem. It overshadows all the other good that I get from this particular institution, so I have to go elsewhere. Having a conversation about those three options is productive. But pretending patriarchy doesn’t exist is not.

What does being faithful mean to you now?

I have a very narrow definition of faith: to be committed to my covenants and behave in a way that is aligned with my covenants. My actions are patterned after those actions of the Being I revere as being divine and the ultimate guide. And that’s kind of it. Does being faithful mean that I know that there are three degrees of glory, and I understand exactly who’s going to go to which and what that process is going to look like? Or, that Joseph Smith saw beings exactly as he described in the various accounts? It doesn’t mean that to me. Being faithful at this point means that I trust in my heart and I act in my actions in a way that is aligned with the expectations of this gospel. Because if I just sit around and think, to what degree do I believe? To what degree do I buy the claims of Jesus being a perfect half-god being? To what degree do I believe all of the truth claims? I don’t know how much that personally helps me.

I know to a lot of people, that kind of calculus is exactly what faith is. We’re often told to evaluate the strength of our faith. To ask ourselves, To what degree do I buy that narrative? And to be able to answer “I completely buy it!” That’s a crude way to put it, but that’s what we do. I think a lot of people are like, well, Today I’m at eighty percent buy-in. Today, I’m at thirty percent. Today I’m at one hundred percent. And that’s great. Maybe that works for somebody. I would go nuts if I did that every day. If I were to be constantly asking myself to what degree I “know” something happened or something was exactly the way I’ve been told it was? That would be entirely unproductive for me.

But what is helpful for me is to say, “Okay, I’ve made certain covenants that, on a macro level, I trust are for my good and are getting me closer to divinity. They’re going to bring me comfort in this life and they have a spark of something beyond this life. I’m going to align myself with those, and I’m going to do what I need to do to remain faithful to those.” That’s what works for me, which I feel is in line with having personal integrity.

What’s nurturing your faith these days?

Oh, it’s music. One hundred percent music and art. I don’t mean snobby art, but virtuosic art. As a culture, we moved from virtuosic art to entertainment. And then we’ve moved from entertainment to addictive media so that really worries me. So for me, it’s all about acoustic, virtuosic, technically demanding music. If I want to feel the Spirit, music works for me every time.

What are you up to now?
I’m trying to support music teachers. I have a software product that helps them run their studios in a professional way.

And you have a partnership with the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts?

Yes, it’s called the Ariel Bybee Endowment, and it’s a $5,000 grant prize that we give out every year to an LDS artist who submits a proposal based on nine areas of my mother’s career. She was an opera singer, but she participated in lots of different media and had different areas of her career. So this year, the call for submissions is around a new piece of choreography for the Utah Metropolitan Ballet, which is the resident ballet company in Utah Valley. They will debut the piece next May. My mom sang with New York City Ballet when they had a particular production where it required a live singer on stage with the dancers.

Anything else you want to say?

The Latter-day Saint Women Project is at the core of our community tissue. I remain committed to it being one of the most important things I’ve ever done. I’m so grateful to all of the people who have contributed to it over the years, and to those who keep it so vibrant now.

AT A GLANCE

NAME: Neylan McBaine
AGE: 48
LOCATION: Salt Lake City, UT
MARITAL HISTORY: Married 25 years
CHILDREN: Three daughters, ages 21, 19, and 16
CONVERT TO THE CHURCH: Baptized at 8!
EDUCATION: Studied English and Music at Yale University
OCCUPATION: Small business owner, marketer, activist
LANGUAGES SPOKEN AT HOME: English
FAVORITE HYMN: Come Ye Disconsolate
WEBSITE: www.neylanmcbaine.com

At A Glance

Interview Produced by Elizabeth Ostler