Mormon Land

McKay Coppins wrote recently in The Atlantic that President Donald Trump publicly praises evangelicals, prosperity preachers and other religious conservatives, including members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while privately mocking them and belittling their beliefs. Coppins, a Brigham Young University alumnus, joined this week’s podcast to talk about the presidential candidates, the state of this year’s White House race, how the Biden and Trump campaigns are courting members, and whether Latter-day Saints — and the issues they care about most — could help determine the outcome in swing states.

Early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe the ability to translate was one of the spiritual gifts mentioned in the New Testament. Church founder Joseph Smith said he translated the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, “by the gift and power of God” from ancient writings found on gold plates. So, if Smith used this gift to translate the Book of Mormon, as he asserted, how might he have done it? Was there more to this mystical process? What role might a so-called seer stone have played? And what should members and outsiders alike keep in mind when considering the birthing of this global religion’s foundational text? Latter-day Saint physician Samuel Brown, a religious historian and author of the recently released “Joseph Smith’s Translation: The Words and Worlds of Early Mormonism," addresses those questions and more on this week’s podcast.

Many gay Mormons have a story about their experience in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though all the narratives stand on their own, most involve these members recognizing their attractions, trying to reconcile what they are feeling with what the Utah-based faith is teaching about homosexuality — that it is not a sin, just acting on it is — coming out, what they hope for the future, and how their family and friends respond. On this week’s podcast, Matthew Gong, who works in artificial intelligence, discusses his unique journey with his faith, his family, his friends and himself.

In August 2018, President Russell M. Nelson urged the media to use the faith’s full name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and to stop employing the terms “Mormon church” or “LDS Church” — indeed to cease using “Mormon” altogether, even when referring to members. A year later, Public Square Magazine, published from the perspective of Latter-day Saints, decided to survey whether various national news outlets — including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Associated Press and CNN — had complied and how it affected their coverage. On this week’s podcast, Public Square Managing Editor Christopher Cunningham discusses the results, along with the challenges journalists face in heeding the church’s preferred style and the implications their word choices carry.

In 2017, after the election of President Donald Trump, several female members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, distressed by the increasing political polarization and eroding ethics in government, formed Mormon Women for Ethical Government. The group, which is not endorsed by the church, is dedicated to seeking a peaceful, just and ethical world with a pledge to be faithful, nonpartisan and proactive, along with a commitment to civility. In a few short years, its membership has ballooned to more than 7,000. Now, with the nation in the midst of another deeply divisive presidential race, the organization’s executive director, Emma Petty Addams, and Christie Black, an engagement director, joined this week’s podcast to talk about their group and its goals.

Launched in the 1970s, Affirmation is one of the oldest support groups for LGBTQ members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As the Utah-based faith has evolved in its understanding of and approach to its LGBTQ members, Affirmation has expanded as well — across the country and around the world. For the next four weekends, the organization will host a virtual international conference, complete with live and recorded workshops, speakers and discussions. On this week’s podcast, Affirmation President Nathan Kitchen discusses the conference, the group’s widening reach, and the challenges LGBTQ Latter-day Saints face from Arizona to Argentina to Australia — and across the globe.

In 2015, the church issued a short essay matter-of-factly affirming its belief in a Heavenly Mother. It was only six paragraphs, barely 600 words. That left the subject wide open to imaginative exploration with more and more leaders and members embracing the idea and mentioning Heavenly Parents in writings and sermons. Latter-day Saint poet Carol Lynn Pearson insists the world “needs” to find, or rediscover, Heavenly Mother, arguing that bringing her back “is not just cosmetic, it is cosmic” and can help bring peace, justice and harmony to the planet. She undertakes that quest in her new volume of verses, “Finding Mother God: Poems to Heal the World,” and discusses it on this week’s podcast.

As the U.S. presidential race heats up, Latter-day Saints, like all Americans, are starting to choose sides. And both campaigns have begun courting members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, especially in battleground states with significant LDS voting blocs. In recent decades, Latter-day Saints have overwhelmingly cast ballots for Republican candidates, though their support of Donald Trump in 2016 was not nearly as enthusiastic. Four years later, both camps see a chance to win over church members, asserting that their presidential nominee and party best represent Latter-day Saint values. On this week’s podcast, Utah Rep. Kim Coleman, a member of the advisory board of Latter-day Saints for Trump, and Scott Howell, a former state senator who heads up the Joe Biden campaign in Utah, discuss faith, politics and why Latter-day Saints should vote for their candidate.

The long-standing practice of having lay bishops interview teens and ask them questions about their faith and their lives, including any sexual activity, has come under fire in recent years. A group called “Protect LDS Children” urged the church to stop the practice, citing examples of bishops who were insensitive and even abusive. Church leaders made changes, allowing, for instance, those being interviewed to have a second adult with them in these conversations. But critics and some mental health experts maintain the sessions should cease altogether. Jennifer Roach, a therapist, recent Latter-day Saint convert and a victim of clergy abuse herself, believes the interviews serve a vital purpose. She shares her views on this week’s show.

Rabbi Sam Spector of Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City has been in Utah a little more than two years but has already built strong relationships with members and leaders of the state’s predominant faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Just last week, the 30-something rabbi was on hand to oversee a group of Latter-day Saint volunteers who spent five days working alongside Kol Ami congregants to xeriscape the synagogue’s six-acre plot. On this week’s podcast, the young and energetic rabbi discusses coming to Utah, meeting a Latter-day Saint apostle named “Jeff,” traveling to Jerusalem with Brigham Young University professors and engaging in an interfaith dialogue that doesn’t tiptoe around big differences. He also addresses why Christians doing Passover Seders can make him uncomfortable and who uses the term “Zion” more — Latter-day Saints or Jews.

A few weeks after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published the sermons of Eliza R. Snow comes the online release of additional diaries by a lesser known, but no less influential, female leader in the faith’s history. Emmeline B. Wells packed a lot into her 93 years of life. She was a three-time wife, mother of five daughters, a writer, editor, longtime Relief Society record-keeper, Relief Society general president, and, perhaps above all, a zealous advocate for suffrage and women’s rights. Her diaries reveal much about her efforts to, in her words, “advance women in moral and spiritual as well as educational work.” On this week’s podcast, Cherry Silver, a co-editor of the online publication, and Kate Holbrook, the managing historian for the church’s History Department, discuss the project, Wells’ life and her writings.

Amid a global pandemic, civil unrest, a presidential election and — in Utah — a string of nerve-rattling earthquakes, many biblical believers are thinking anew about the so-called apocalypse. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, though, the end times have always been a part of their theology. After all, the latter days are referenced in their faith’s official name. There also is buzz in pews and on porches about the “White Horse Prophecy,” Mormon politicians, and church President Russell M. Nelson, who frequently warns about preparing for the Second Coming Scholar Christopher Blythe, author of a soon-to-be released book, “Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse,” joins the podcast this week to discuss, well, the “end of the world” or, at least, Mormonism’s ties to the prophecies, predictions and passions surrounding it.

Utah author Mette Ivie Harrison has been writing about her transition away from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Besides opposing some of the faith’s policies, practices and doctrines, Harrison also has cited the restrictive views held by some members. In a recent column, however, she notes that she again finds herself bumping into rigid thinking — this time coming from former members. In this week’s show, Harrison discusses her spiritual journey and the “five doctrines of ex-Mormonism.”

Eliza R. Snow ranks as the most influential Latter-day Saint woman of her time and after Emma Smith, wife of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, perhaps the best-known woman in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Snow was a poet and a preacher, a plural wife of prophets and a defender of polygamy, a leader of the Relief Society and a champion of women. Still, there is much Latter-day Saints don’t know about her. That may change now that the church has launched a new website, called The Discourses of Eliza R. Snow, that brings together her sermons, nearly 1,200 of them. On this week’s podcast, two of the forces behind the massive project — historians Jennifer Reeder and Elizabeth Kuehn — discuss how a reluctant public speaker became a powerhouse at the pulpit, how she viewed Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and how she traversed the Utah Territory, building up the faith’s women and rebuilding the Relief Society.

As Americans tune into the movie version of the Broadway megahit “Hamilton” amid a national debate about the virtues and vices of the nation’s framers, the question arises: How do and should Latter-day Saints view them? Mormon scriptures prophecy that the Americas would sprout a place of “promise,” a “land of liberty.” Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are taught that God “raised up” these “choice spirits” to establish a divinely inspired Constitution and a Declaration of Independence that proclaims “all men are created equal.” Yet many of the founders embraced slavery; others enabled it. On this week’s podcast, Benjamin Park, an assistant professor of history at Sam Houston State University and author of the recently released “Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier,” discusses these principles and paradoxes.