The Mormon Land newsletter is The Salt Lake Tribune’s weekly highlight reel of news in and about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Join us on Patreon and receive the full newsletter, podcast transcripts and access to all of our religion content.How Joseph Smith made headlines in 2024
What we learned about Brother Joseph this year
With the coming Monday marking the 219th anniversary of Joseph Smith’s birth in Sharon, Vermont, it’s time once again to remind readers and listeners of stories and podcasts we produced this year about a church founder who continues to make headlines:
• In the wake of assassination attempts on Donald Trump, we noted that Smith became the first U.S. presidential candidate ever to be slain during a White House campaign when a mob gunned down the 38-year-old religious leader June 27, 1844, at a jail in Carthage, Illinois.
• On the day he died, he penned a missive to wife Emma. A new exhibit at the Church History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City allowed visitors to view that last letter.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church founder Joseph Smith's letter to wife Emma dated the day of his death on June 27, 1844.
• A church history professor at Brigham Young University drew parallels between today’s political climate and that of Smith’s era.
• Nearly 200 years after publication of the Book of Mormon, the seer stone church historians say Smith used to translate — at least in part — the faith’s signature scripture became the subject of a current debate in, of all places, a federal courtroom.
• Highly regarded scholarly works have documented that Smith had at least 33 wives, and historians widely accept that the church leader preached, albeit privately, and practiced plural marriage. But so-called polygamy deniers persist. This “Mormon Land” podcast explored what the evidence really shows.
Joseph Smith, top left, and some of his wives, clockwise from top middle: Emma Hale Smith; Eliza R. Snow; Martha McBride (Knight Smith Kimball); Marinda Nancy Johnson (Hyde Smith); and Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs (Smith Young).
• A new book examined Smith’s uncanonized revelations that few members know about, including a prophecy on war and teachings about God’s name.
Temple dreams
(The Salt Lake Tribune; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church President Russell M. Nelson, center, surrounded by newly constructed temples in Utah, Wyoming and Argentina.
As the church undertakes a historic temple-building blitz, Exponent II blogger Candice Wendt offers a wish list for changes she would like to see in the faith’s most sacred spaces.
She imagines, for instance, temples that:
• Are “more community-oriented,” suggesting a return of cafeterias for shared meals inside the structures.
• Feature “multiple Adams and Eves from many racial and ethnic backgrounds, speaking many languages.”
• Represent the faith’s belief in Heavenly Mother “through both art and in the presentation.”
• Open their doors to the general public.
• No longer require members to pay tithing to participate in temple rituals.
The latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: The real Nativity
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Painting depicts the birth of Jesus.
Christians sing the holiday hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” but was Jesus really born there? Would a pregnant Mary have ridden on a donkey? And who were the Magi?
Bible scholar and social media star Dan McClellan sheds light on what the Gospels say, what historical records show, and what Luke, frankly, invented.
Listen to the podcast.
‘Year of Mormon women’
Riffing off the enormous popularity of the Hulu reality TV show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a Washington Post article declares 2024 the “year of Mormon women.”
“At a time when conservative politics, personalities and media are surging in popularity,” the piece proclaims, “women ‘Saints’ aren’t just mirroring pop culture, they are, perhaps for the first time, at the forefront of it.”
Marriage vows
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Couples wait to be legally married in Kananga, the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Nov. 30, 2024.
Latter-day Saints united recently with government officials and interfaith leaders as they continued to push for legal marriages in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the traditional practice of the bride’s family demanding a dowry, or “bride price,” has sometimes made such unions unaffordable for couples.
“Our constitution acknowledges family as a natural foundation of the human community,” a provincial governor said in a news release. “I hereby commit to make the process of civil marriage to be smooth and easy.”
The event featured civil weddings of 53 Latter-day Saint couples.
From The Tribune
• $eminary? The church has billions of dollars, so why are some instructors paying for their own ink and printer paper?
• Brigham Young has a new companion. A statue of Martha Hughes Cannon — a Latter-day Saint physician, suffragist and public health trailblazer from Utah who became the nation’s first woman elected to a state Senate — has joined a sculpture of the pioneer prophet in the U.S. Capitol.
(Mark Schiefelbein | AP) Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, center left, and Arline Arnold Brady, center right, the great-granddaughter of Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah, join others in unveiling a statue of Cannon during a ceremony on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Washington.
• A Latter-day Saint lawyer has been selected to lead a group with huge sway over Donald Trump’s judicial nominees.
• Tribune guest columnist Eli McCann recalls an unremarkable yet unforgettable, inexpensive yet priceless Christmas gift.
• Is it Spotify Wrapped or Spotify Warped? Tribune guest columnist Rebbie Brassfield reflects on her dance with naughty lyrics.
• One’s a Hugh Grant thriller, one’s a hot-mess reality show — and both center on stereotypes about Latter-day Saint women.
