The chair of the Department of Religious Studies authored "Standing with Kate" for the online news site about the Mormon Church's recent excommunication of a prominent voice in favor of ordaining women in the church.
Elon University Associate Professor Lynn Huber wrote a June 24, 2014, column for The Huffington Post online news site in which she shared analysis of the Mormon Church’s recent decision to excommunicate Kate Kelly, founder of Ordain Women, for “conduct contrary to the laws and order of the Church.”
Kelly had been a longtime proponent of ordaining women in the Mormon priesthood.
In the column “Standing with Kate,” Huber sides with Kelly and laments the longterm movement away from gender equality among many Christian denominations that was a hallmark of the early Church.
“From the outside, it appears that she has been cut out of her community of faith for bringing attention to the fact that women within the LDS community are not allowed to be equals within the Church body, that women are restricted from most decision-making authority based upon their gender,” Huber writes before concluding, “Although not a member of the LDS church, as a Christian who desires equality for women in all strands of the tradition, I stand in solidarity with Kelly. The fight of Kelly and other LDS women is the struggle of many Christian women for an equal opportunity to be faithful.”
“Standing with Kate” was Huber’s second column for The Huffington Post in as many months. She also authored “#YesAllWomen Awakens the Beast” following the May 2014 mass shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Huber’s teaching at Elon University focuses on the New Testament and early Christian history. Her research focuses primarily on the Book of Revelation, as well as exploring the construction of gender, sexuality and virginity in the early Christian context, the rhetorical use of metaphor, and the ways that apocalyptic texts prompt audiences to visualize.