Adam was a rule follower, Eve represented compassion and learning. Which are you?
We all need an Adam in our life as we start, then as we mature we can take on an Eve personality. The Church likes to be the Adam in our life, but never really lets us be Eve.
When Satan temped Adan with the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam told him to take a hike, that Father forbade eating of that tree. Eve was more pragmatic. She saw what Adam didn’t, that in order to fulfill the greater commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, that they must eat of the tree. She then explained to Adam why she partook of the fruit, and that she would be kicked out of the garden, and he would be left a lone man. To Adam’s credit (and recollection!) he was convinced of the need to partake, and he did. She followed the spirit of the law, Adam the letter of the law.
The Church is in a tough spot with trying to split the difference between being an Adam or an Eve. When we are immature in the gospel, we need an Adam to delineate everything we should do. But as we grow, there comes a time when we need to make decisions that might not line up with the the Church’s party line. We’ll see a conflict between following the Church rules, and following the Gospel. Elder Poelman, in 1984 tried to give a general conference talk about this subject. He said there was a “difference” between the Church and the gospel. He said there may be conflicts between the two. The talk was edited before it was published in the Ensign, and among the many changes, the word “difference” was changed so that there was now “an essential relationship” between the Church and the Gospel, difference was gone. The Church went to far is to send Elder Poelman back to the tabernacle to record a new talk, complete with a cough track so it seemed like a the original talk. You can read the side by side talks here.
The leaders of the Church are Adam, some more than others. The female general officers are chosen because that are like Adam also, though we have had some Eves though the years. Chieko Okazaki comes to mind as an Eve.
Are you an Adam, or an Eve?
Do you think the Church could be more like Eve if women had more authority in the leadership?
Wheat & Tares 
I have spent decades as an Adam, following all of the rules carefully, but as an elderly woman, I now consider myself an Eve. I suspect the LDS Church would benefit if, at all councils, women were present in equal numbers with men and had equal decision-making ability, but I know I will not see that happen in my lifetime.
This takes on an additional dimension when we consider the role of God in the garden: to punish the person who does the thing you’ve specifically set them up to do.
Consider the church’s position—struggling to maintain relevancy in a changing world while also projecting an air of infallibility (“we seek no apologies”). How do you clean up your mistakes and make progress when you’re explicitly anti-progress and can supposedly see around corners? You employ the same trick God did in the garden. You need a fall guy (or girl).
The church tells everyone to be an Adam but it needs the occasional Eve to kick out. I’m thinking of Kate Kelly and Sam Young—both arguably drivers of change within the church but only because the church was able to punish them for their dissent while benefiting from their progressivism.
Good observation well put, Kirkstall.
The way I see Eve, she is even more of an independent thinker. I think she wanted knowledge. She desired the knowledge of good and evil even more than she wanted to obey any law about obeying God or obeying God to have children. The having children was just a matter of which law one obeys, so it comes back to obedience. I see her thinking through the whole plan of salvation and realizing they were making zero progress sitting around a pretty garden. Oh, sure having children was part of it because nobody was going to progress if they stayed sitting around in the garden. When Satan tempted her, he didn’t say a thing about children. He said the fruit would give her knowledge. She wanted knowledge.
Beginning with humanities origin story told in Genesis, Eve teeters on the precipice of a haunting reality–she (all of us) must choose! Both options replete with gain and loss, leaving behind the mushy middle of indecision, one choice preserves her own life, but sacrifices mankind, forever to remain in spontaneous sweetness. While the other option sacrifices her own life and exposes her to the bitterness and suffering of delivering physical creation. Adam made his choice. Eve is left with the moral quandary between the letter and the spirit of the law.
Eve’s decision was the difference between choosing the law and choosing what the law was pointing to. The Budha captures the heart of Eve’s dilemma, “A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon”. History books have disparaged Eve for her choice, suggesting she is responsible for humanities sinful plight. However, Eve is the hero in the Garden story, she is the good Samaritan, she is the revelation of God in creation. Had she chosen to pass on the bitter cup, she would have been like the lawful Priest and Levite and Adams first choice (sorry Adam for throwing you under the bus) who left humanity for dead in the name of legality. Instead, Eve used the discerning power required by agency to see the good the law was pointing to. And what is that good? Shalom, life, love, creation, grace, Christ.
I am most definitely an “Eve”, albeit a bumbling and stumbling one, but my resistance to the “do as your told” is precariously present. The law will always be insufficient to answer every possible situation. Situations and circumstances vary, and therefore “choice” is required. The aim of the human experience is not to simply obey orders, but to learn to discern what is the proper action.
“The Church likes to be the Adam in our life, but never really lets us be Eve.”
Brother Bill, there’s nothing in the church that prevents us from ascending as fast as we’re able. In fact, it might be said that it is because of the gifts, powers, and keys that are dispensed upon the saints *by the church* that they are able to make their ascent in the first place.