Q&A with Zachary McLeod Hutchins, author of Shall I Have Pleasure? An Answer for Sarah March 03 2025

Greg Kofford Books recently asked Zach Hutchins, author of Shall I Have Pleasure? An Answer for Sarah, about his experience in writing the book.

Q: What inspired you to explore the concept of pleasure in the context of faith and spirituality?

A: Because I was born in Massachusetts, to very religious parents who regularly reminded me that I was descended from the state’s seventeenth-century founders, I sometimes jokingly claim to be the world’s last Puritan. I’m naturally skeptical of fun, inclined to ask whether time and money devoted to leisure, aesthetics, or taste is appropriately allocated. In other words, this book probably emerged from an effort to wrestle with my own neuroses and a pre-disposition to self-denial that borders on unhealthy—especially given the temptation to impose my own values on others, who have a much richer appreciation of the value of pleasure in strengthening our relationship to the Creator and to one another.

Q: You discuss the Christian tradition's historical unease with sensory enjoyment. How do you believe this perspective has shaped modern attitudes among believers?

A: A decision to forego certain pleasures might be an appropriate expression of our agency and discipleship, but I have observed that many Christians—both those who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and those who belong to other denominations—seem to feel constrained by their faith. In other words, it seems to me that many Christians experience Christianity as an involuntary barrier to pleasure, rather than a conscious elevation of other priorities. The effect of this orientation is to render every new encounter with pleasure a form of temptation, even where pleasure might be enjoyed innocently.

Q: What role does Sarah’s question, “Shall I have pleasure?” play in framing your exploration of divine intent for human pleasure?

A: What I love so much about Sarah’s question is that it gets at the question of divine intent. When God informs Sarah that she’s about to conceive a son, the question of whether or not that experience will be pleasurable might seem irrelevant. God could fulfill the promise that Sarah would give birth and that Abraham’s posterity would be as numerous as the stars without making any sort of provision for Sarah’s enjoyment of the experience. But what Sarah is really asking is not, “Can you do the impossible?” but “Why would God do the impossible?” She wants to know whether God cares about the means (how something happens) as well as the ends (what ultimately happens). And the good news that this book celebrates is that God does care about our experience in mortality. God wants us to enjoy the embodied experience of His Creation.

Q: You argue that pleasure is often viewed with suspicion among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. How do you think this perception can evolve while staying aligned with doctrinal principles?

A: I think that the prophets and apostles are already—by virtue of their teachings and their examples—doing much to re-orient our relationship with pleasure. During President Nelson’s tenure as the Lord’s living mouthpiece, he released a picture of himself swinging on his back porch that clearly communicated a sense of pleasure and fun. The good-natured banter between Elder Holland and Elder Kearon at the pulpit of General Conference communicated a light-heartedness that is conducive to play and pleasure. As members of the Church follow the example of our leaders and more fully embrace our roles as agents, assuming more individual responsibility in choosing activities that express gratitude for the Creation, we will stop thinking about prohibited pleasures and start thinking more about how pleasure can bring us into closer relationship with our Heavenly Parents and with our brothers and sisters around the globe.

Q: In your analysis, you connect the biblical concept of joy with embodied experiences. Why is this connection significant in understanding divine intent?

A: Joy has often been framed in opposition to pleasure, as a more spiritual and ethereal experience. But the doctrine of the Restoration insists that a fulness of joy is contingent upon a union between flesh and spirit. When we recognize that a fulness of joy literally incorporates physical sensations like touch and taste and smell and sight, we cannot escape the conclusion that our Heavenly Parents mean for us to find joy in and through the pleasures of this world—and not simply to endure its hardships with gritted teeth, until the morning of the first resurrection arrives. Discipleship may not be a series of uninterrupted pleasures, but traveling along the covenant path shouldn’t feel like walking on broken glass, either. I think the Lord would be pleased if, as we traveled along the strait and narrow, we paused to smell a flower, or paid attention to the birdsong, or reveled in the feeling of someone else’s fingers intertwined with our own.

Q: How do you interpret the role of pleasure in the lives of Adam and Eve, especially in light of their experiences before and after the Fall?

A: The scriptural record seems fairly clear about the fact that living in Eden was a pleasurable experience. The trouble is that the Fall involved pleasure as well: the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil looked delicious and very desirable. I think that for most Christians, the fact that God sentenced Adam to a lifetime of toil amidst thistles and thorns seems like an implicit condemnation of pleasure. The implication is that Adam and Eve didn’t do a very good job of weighing pleasure against obedience, so God removed them from the distractions of pleasure. But Latter-day Saints celebrate the Fall as a moment of progress (2 Nephi 2:25), which suggests that our paranoia about pleasure in this important story is an inherited tradition, not true doctrine.

Q: You mention prophetic warnings against prioritizing pleasure. How can believers balance these warnings with the acknowledgment of pleasure as a divine gift?

A: I have a firm testimony that we will be blessed as we follow the prophet, and I take apostolic warnings against the prioritization of pleasure seriously. But I also know—from studying the life and teachings of Jesus Christ; the lives and teachings of living prophets; and personal experience—that pleasure is an important element of the embodied experience our Heavenly Parents want us to have. As we prioritize pleasures that draw into closer relationship with God and with loved ones, that balance will seem more and more intuitive, a natural outcome of living after the manner of happiness.

Q: What message do you hope readers will take away about the role of pleasure in the plan of happiness, both in this life and the next?

A: I love Elder Kearon’s declaration that we worship in the Church of joy. That joy is enhanced by a perfectly cooked roast at the ward Christmas party; by the beautiful artwork produced by President Yee; by the sound of well-tuned voices in sacrament meetings; and by the embrace of a spouse with whom we are striving to be perfectly united in all things. Elder Talmage wrote that worship is an outgrowth of our understanding of another’s worth, and as we more fully appreciate the role of pleasure in God’s plan for us, we will better be able to understand both the beneficence of our Creator and the worth of His Creation. Better appreciating the gifts with which we are surrounded, we will be better prepared to enter into God’s presence with hearts full of gratitude for the plan of happiness that brought us so much pleasure here on earth.

Shall I Have Pleasure? An Answer for Sarah is available in both paperback and ebook.