MORMON LAND
Mormon Land explores the contours and complexities of LDS news. It is hosted by award-winning religion writer Peggy Fletcher Stack and Managing Editor David Noyce.
Why the new garments are a hit and reminder of a changing church | Episode 386
When news broke last fall that redesigned temple garments — including a sleeveless version — were already on sale in some foreign countries, it became a hot topic among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Would the sacred underclothes, which are expected to be worn under daily clothing, be visible under tank tops? Would the new slip or half-slip allow women to wear their own underwear? Would they be accepted by other members or seen as caving to modern fashion? Perhaps the biggest question was about modesty. For years, Latter-day Saint women had been taught that the typical garment, with its capped sleeves to cover shoulders and upper arms, was meant, at least in part, as a display of modesty. Some members even joked about “porn shoulders.” What do the new “open sleeves” say about those previous ideas? How do the new styles fit in practice? And what other changes would members like to see? Discussing those questions and more on this week’s show are Latter-day Saints Andrea Fausett, a Hawaii-based Instagram influencer who has reviewed and showcased the new garments, and Northern California-based Instagrammer Rachel Gerber, who runs the LDS Changemakers social media account.
The evolution of Exponent II and LDS feminism | Episode 385
In the mid-1970s, a tiny group of Latter-day Saint women in Boston launched a modest effort to discuss women’s issues — past and present — in a magazine they called Exponent II (named after the newspaper of their Mormon foremothers, Woman’s Exponent). These modern feminists did not challenge the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on, say, polygamy, priesthood or other doctrines. They focused primarily on the challenges of motherhood, marriage and material culture. Their first editor was Claudia Lauper Bushman, who exemplified Mormonism as wife of famed historian and Latter-day Saint Stake (regional) President Richard Bushman and as a mother of six. After she was asked to resign the editorship, she went on to other professional and personal projects. Though the Exponent II group was hardly revolutionary, 50 years later it remains an important voice in the Latter-day Saint world, while Claudia Bushman went on to influence an entire generation of feminists in the church. Hundreds of men and women gathered recently to honor her life and work. On this week’s show, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, one of Exponent II’s founders who would eventually teach history at Harvard and win a Pulitzer Prize for her work humanizing ordinary women, talks about the Claudia conference, the trajectory of Latter-day Saint feminism, and how today’s activists are different from the past.
'Latter Day Struggles' podcasters discuss their resignation from the church | Episode 384
As practicing Latter-day Saints with nuanced faith, Valerie and Nathan Hamaker wanted to help fellow believers grappling with a “faith crisis” or how they have been “wounded” by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So, in 2022, Valerie, a mental health counselor in Kansas City, Missouri, and Nathan launched a podcast, called “Latter Day Struggles,” to address some of their issues and find peace. Their podcast drew wide appeal, but it also came to the attention of their local Latter-day Saint leaders. After numerous conversations, they say, those leaders summoned the couple to a disciplinary council. Expecting to be formally tossed out of the church, the couple instead chose to resign their membership. Since news of their resignation became public, the Hamakers have heard from thousands of friends and supporters. On this week’s show, the couple share their experience, their interactions in their congregation, their views of church discipline, their decision to leave, their efforts to help fellow Latter-day Saints, and whether they would consider rejoining the fold when their local leadership changes.
How politics and polarization are shaping Latter-day Saints in the U.S. | Episode 383
A new report by the Pew Research Center, the Religious Landscape Study, has given members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plenty to pat themselves on the back about. According to the survey of 37,000 U.S. adults, including 565 self-identified Latter-day Saints, active members of the Utah-based faith are some of Christianity’s workhorses, showing up for church each Sunday and finding time in between services to pray, read scriptures and teach their children about their faith — all at enviable rates. At the same time, the study’s authors found a significant drop in U.S. retention rates since the last time they polled members in 2014. And women, long heralded as the more reliable sex, appear to now be in the minority. On this week’s show, sociologists Marie Cornwall and Tim Heaton, former professors at church-owned Brigham Young University and editors of the 2001 book “Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives,” contextualize those numbers and other findings — including Latter-day Saint views on politics, abortion and climate change.
What many Latter-day Saints and church leaders get wrong about pornography | Episode 382
Pornography — broadly defined as sexually explicit images — has become a sort-of wallpaper of modern lives. It is everywhere: in our books, movies, computers, video games, social media posts, music and phones. For many years, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint warned members that porn was “dangerous,” “evil” and “damnable.” They taught that viewing porn was a sin. In the past decade, though, the church has suggested that repeated porn watching is an addiction, like alcohol and drugs, often requiring professional help to overcome. Earlier this month, apostle Patrick Kearon addressed attendees at the Utah Coalition Against Pornography conference, saying he was no expert but acknowledging he did have “painful and heartbreaking personal experience with loved ones entrapped by addictions.” Some Latter-day Saint — and other — therapists now question the addiction hypothesis. Count Idaho psychologist Cameron Staley, author of “Confessions of an LDS Sex Researcher” and creator of the “Life After Pornography” online program, among them. On this week’s show, he discusses whether viewing porn is a compulsive behavior; why men and women watch it; how the church has improved its rhetoric on the topic; and how to help those who want to stop looking at such images.
The conservative LDS prophet who led fights over evolution, the age of the Earth and orthodoxy | Episode 381
Joseph Fielding Smith’s family tree alone makes him a significant player in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father, Joseph F. Smith, was the faith’s sixth president. His grandfather was Hyrum Smith, who was slain with his great-uncle, church founder Joseph Smith. His son-in-law, in fact, was apostle Bruce R. McConkie, a theological kindred spirit. Joseph Fielding Smith served as an apostle for 60 years, church historian for 49 and as the church’s 10th president for two. But he will forever be remembered more for his prose and his polemics than for his positions or his pedigree. A conservative and orthodox thinker, he wrote more than two dozen books, answered religious questions from lay members and engaged in high-level, high-stakes debates with fellow apostles James Talmage, John Widtsoe and other leading Latter-day Saint intellectuals. They discussed, debated and disputed issues ranging from scriptural interpretation to the age of the Earth and the theory of evolution. Joseph Fielding Smith was, scholar Matthew Bowman argues, “the most important Latter-day Saint theologian of the 20th century.” On this week’s show, Bowman, head of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University and author of the recently released “Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian,” talks about this towering Latter-day Saint man of letters.
Are LDS men falling prey to extremist masculinity? | Episode 380
Certainly not for the first time, the United States has become a hotbed of hot takes and even hotter debates over men’s roles in the home and society. Fueling this fiery crisis of masculinity is, of course, social media, podcasts and other online forums. Enter the “manosphere,” a conservative- and Christian-leaning media ecosystem aimed at male empowerment. On this week’s show, Amy Chapman, a faculty member at Arizona State University’s teachers college, and Levi Sands, a graduate student in sociology at the University of Iowa, discuss this growing subculture and its influence on Latter-day Saint men.
Why those anti-LDS chants at BYU games? | Episode 379
When Brigham Young University teams play on the road, they, like any visiting opponent, expect to encounter their share of jeers from the home crowd. But what happens when the razzing turns raunchy and the boos give way to bigotry? That occurs all too often at Cougar games. Obscene choruses, often emanating from opposing student sections, break out, mocking BYU’s sponsoring religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and members of that faith. Why have Latter-day Saints and their beliefs become the target of such openly prejudiced chants? Do Catholics and Notre Dame run into the same hostility? And what, if anything, could or should BYU and Latter-day Saint leaders do in responding to such discrimination? Answering those questions and more are Salt Lake Tribune sports writer Kevin Reynolds, who covers the Cougars and wrote about this issue in a recent special report, and Britain Covey, a practicing Latter-day Saint who starred at BYU’s rival school, the University of Utah, plays for the world champion Philadelphia Eagles and has deep familial ties to BYU.
Johnathan Rauch on the LDS Church's trailblazing compromises for the good of the country | Episode 378
Since America’s founding, Christianity has been a “load-bearing wall” of democracy, but in recent decades it has given up that role — and that, argues writer and scholar Jonathan Rauch, has led to the country’s current crisis. In his latest book, “Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain With Democracy,” the self-described gay, Jewish atheist critiques secular Americans who think Christianity should be abandoned and Christian Americans who blame secular culture for their grievances. He shows why the two must work together — and points to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an example of how to do it. On this week’s show, Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, discusses why he believes top Latter-day Saint leaders, including senior apostle Dallin H. Oaks, have landed on a prescription for compromising and healing a polarized nation’s ills.
How can the church sustain the law and support its undocumented members? | Episode 377
As a candidate, he promised “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants. And now, as president, he is setting the wheels in motion in an effort to do just that. While President Donald Trump’s next move — and that of immigration enforcement agents — is uncertain, this much is sure: The country is on edge — so much so that the governing First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expressed concern about the “complex challenges and hardships now faced by members who are undocumented immigrants living in the United States” and outlined guidelines for the faith’s local lay leaders to follow. Questions abound: The church stresses obedience to the law, but how does that jibe with its desire to show compassion to all of God’s children and keep families together? How do human-made borders have any relevance in a divinely created world without such barriers? And, at a basic level, how far should a church, with a rich immigrant history, go in supporting or resisting a sweeping crackdown? Discussing the issue on this week’s show are Sam Brunson, a Latter-day Saint law professor who has written recently about the topic, and Erikala Herrera Urena, a Latter-day Saint immigrant from the Dominican Republic who lives near Atlanta and is now a U.S. citizen.
From stake president and temple designer to excommunicated trans woman | Episode 376
In 2017, Laurie Lee Hall publicly shared her remarkable journey as a transgender Latter-day Saint. It took her through joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving a two-year mission, marrying and having children, being called as a bishop and stake president, and becoming head architect for the faith’s sacred temples. Transitioning to her “authentic self,” she said, caused her to lose her job, her marriage and her church membership. Yet, she is more at peace with herself than she has ever been. On this week’s show, Hall details the twists and turns her life took as she moved inexorably toward acceptance of her true identity, discusses her new memoir, “Dictates of Conscience: From Mormon High Priest to My New Life as a Woman,” and the stricter limitations her former faith has imposed on its transgender members.
Understanding the big courtroom showdown in the tithing lawsuit against the LDS Church | Episode 375
Tithing has long been seen by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a test, a trial, if you will, of faith. Well, now the practice of donating a tenth of one’s income is essentially on trial — in the courts. Nine plaintiffs are suing the global church, accusing Latter-day Saint leaders of soliciting and amassing these donations by the billions to support the faith’s religious and charitable purposes and instead spending money on commercial ventures, including the construction and development of a mall in downtown Salt Lake City. Last week, in a key hearing, a federal judge heard arguments in the lawsuit, which, if it is allowed to move forward as a class action, could end up involving thousands, even millions, of plaintiffs and exposing hidden financial dealings within the church. Lawyers for the faith say the suit unconstitutionally violates religious freedom and should be tossed out. Attorneys for the other side counter that their case is about deception and fraud, not faith. In this week’s show, Salt Lake Tribune reporter Tony Semerad — who has covered this lawsuit and similar ones for several years, along with other aspects of the church’s vast economic empire — sorts through the various arguments, how the judge received them and what comes next.
Separating fact from fiction in ‘American Primeval’ | Episode 374
Note to listeners • This episode contains spoilers for “American Primeval.” It’s bleak. It’s bloody. It’s barbaric. It’s also the No. 1 TV show on Netflix. But what millions of viewers may misunderstand about “American Primeval” is that it is fictional. While the six-part series is centered around real places, a few real events and some real people — ranging from the Utah War and the Mountain Meadows Massacre to mountain man Jim Bridger and pioneer-prophet Brigham Young, the show is not a docudrama. It gets many historical facts “wrong,” though the filmmakers weren’t necessarily trying to get everything “right.” Did, for instance, any Latter-day Saints die in the Mountain Meadows Massacre carried out by Mormon militiamen? Did Native tribes participate in the atrocity? Did Brigham Young order the massacre? Did Latter-day Saints torch Fort Bridger? And are the portrayals of Young, Bridger and various Native American tribes accurate? Answering those questions and more are Barbara Jones Brown, director of Signature Books and co-author of the critically acclaimed “Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath,” and Darren Parry, former chair of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation and author of “The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History.”
What is happening at BYU and why it matters | Episode 373
Brigham Young University has a “unique and compelling faith-based mission to develop disciples of Jesus Christ,” says school spokesperson Carri Jenkins. To that end, the school has long required students and faculty to hold a “temple recommend,” which attests to belief and behavior standards set out by BYU’s owner, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Under the leadership of the church’s commissioner of education, Clark Gilbert, the school has added extra layers of rules, meant to ensure devotion to beliefs beyond what the church expects of its members — namely a firm “testimony” of the faith’s current teachings on marriage, family and gender. To a number of faculty members, the extra demands feel onerous and unfairly compel employees and prospective employees to embrace a conservative interpretation of church doctrine. Here to discuss BYU’s new approaches to hiring and firing, as well as the atmosphere on campus are Latter-day Saint historian Benjamin Park, author of “American Zion: A New History of Mormonism,” and Latter-day Saint researcher Jana Riess, author of “The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church” and columnist for Religion News Service.
New garments, social media stars, temple push (and pushback) and 2024′s other big LDS news | Episode 372
While Russell Nelson, the 100-year-old leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is, by his own admission, slowing a bit, the pace of news in the global faith he oversees is hardly letting up. The headlines from 2024 prove it. Temples top the list. The centenarian prophet-president dedicated the church’s 200th temple and has now announced more than half of its 367 planned or existing temples. The Utah-based faith also bought the church’s first temple — the historic edifice in Kirtland, Ohio — from a sister sect. The Angel Moroni statue returned to its perch on the Salt Lake Temple, but the yearslong renovation work still going on inside the iconic six-spired structure came under fire. Meanwhile, temples planned for places across the U.S. encountered community pushback, often over the height of proposed steeples. Money also drew attention as the church’s publicly reported reserve fund added billions to its bottom line and lawsuits accusing Latter-day Saint higher-ups of fraudulent financial practices wended their way through the courts. Speeches from Relief Society leaders about women’s authority, careers and motherhood stirred up controversy, while Latter-day Saint women gained national recognition as social media stars. Nothing, though, caused more of a sensation than the church’s crackdown on the wearing of temple garments and its unveiling of new “sleeveless,” full-slip and half-slip styles. On this week’s show, Emily Jensen, web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Patrick Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, discuss an eventful 2024.
NFL Hall of Famer Steve Young says to stop making deals with God | Episode 371
Steve Young — yes, that Steve Young, the Hall of Fame quarterback and former Brigham Young University star who earned multiple MVP awards and Super Bowl rings with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers — is talking about love and faith. In 2022, he wrote “The Law of Love,” in part to dispel the idea that love should be transactional. “If I do this, God will love me, or God will reward me.” Rather, Young wrote, love is about following Christ, helping to heal others and embracing all people, no matter where they are in their personal journeys. He drew on his football experiences and revealed much about his own shyness, anxiety and insecurity. Now Young is back with a follow-up book, “The Law of Love in Action,” that moves from theory to practice, from believing to doing. He turns to Latter-day Saint scriptures as well as other faith traditions and personal experiences — his own and those of dozens of others. On this week’s show, Young explains why he continues to think about these issues, and why it’s important to love without expectation, how not to “over-elevate” obedience, why perfectionism is a problem and how the “law of love” can improve everyday living.
What the Bible and historical records really say about Jesus’ birth | Episode 370
Dan McClellan was working full time as a scripture translation supervisor for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2023, when he quit his post of 10 years to go all-in as a podcaster and social media influencer. Rather than peddling parenting or workout tips, McClellan, who has a doctorate in theology and religion, has attracted more than 1 million followers with his hot takes on the Good Book. Through it all, the author of “The Bible Says So,” due out in April, is particularly interested in rooting out misconceptions about what the text teaches. On this week’s Yuletide “Mormon Land,” McClellan help us better understand the evolution of the story of the Nativity and how the rendition enacted in countless Christian households this season — scenes dominated by toddlers donning bath robes and lightsabers doubling as shepherds’ hooks — strays from the descriptions found in the Gospels and historical records.
Single Latter-day Saints discuss faith, dating and the search for love | Episode 369
The long-standing cultural practice of courting, pursuing or wooing prospective romantic partners by asking them out to dinner, a movie, a hike or a play is often called the “dating game” — and for a reason. There are rules, sometimes written but mostly unwritten. There are bad moves and good moves. There are winners and losers. In Utah, this tradition takes on additional twists, turns and even, as some see it, traps. Some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for instance, desire to date only fellow believers so that if the couple marry someday, they can be “sealed” in one of the faith’s temples. Others rule out ever dating a Latter-day Saint, worried perhaps that they may be pressured to convert or at least hoping to avoid any entanglements with the religion. All of these factors — plus a multitude of other scenarios — make dating a pinch point in the “Unspoken Divide” between those who belong to the state’s predominant faith and those who don’t. On this week’s show, Utahns Kristen Jex and Jimmy Henderson, two single Latter-day Saints, discuss those dating dynamics.
All about the LDS Church's rapid growth in Africa | Episode 368
It wasn’t until 1978 (after the priesthood/temple ban on Black members ended) that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began sending full-time missionaries in earnest to sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, though, the Utah-based faith has seen dramatic growth on the continent, and now Latter-day Saint chapels and temples can be found in a multitude of African nations. So, what are the appeals of this American-born faith in lands so physically and culturally distant? Why do some Africans see this patriarchal faith as a “woman’s church”? How has the Word of Wisdom helped transform African families? And why is the church’s wealth sometimes viewed as a “double-edged sword” in these countries? On this week’s show, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, the director of Mormon studies at the University of Virginia, answers these questions after delivering her first major speech at the school. It was titled, appropriately enough, “Mormonism Through an African Lens.”
How practicing gratitude can cure road rage and combat loneliness | Episode 367
For more than 160 years, Americans have celebrated a public holiday to express thankfulness — whether for a bountiful harvest, a successful business, a happy marriage, healthy children or a welcoming community. And, in 2020, President Russell M. Nelson, leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, urged members to flood the internet with messages of gratitude, even as a global pandemic was sewing death and disease in every nation. These days, there seems to be a national trend for keeping gratitude journals or practicing mindfulness. But what’s the benefit of it? Does it really help anyone, or is it just glib talk? Can those in dire circumstances really feel grateful, or is that just a naive view of life? On this week’s show, Marybeth Raynes, a licensed clinical social worker, discusses the benefits of giving thanks.