Mormon Land

The Atlantic's McKay Coppins on the LDS Church and a second Trump term | Episode 365

Like most Americans in the buildup to the 2024 election, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found themselves caught up in the polarizing tug-of-war over who should be the next president of the United States.
Four years ago, a number of Latter-day Saints, for decades a reliably Republican voting bloc, had bucked Donald Trump and backed Joe Biden, helping to deliver a crucial battleground state, Arizona, for the Democrat.
Those forces were at play again this time around in Arizona and neighboring Nevada for Kamala Harris, with the Trump campaign courting Latter-day Saints as well.
In the end, the nail-biter results pundits had predicted for months never materialized. Trump won the Electoral College count by a comfortable margin and even captured the popular vote.
Early exit polls have shown Latter-day Saints again overwhelmingly stuck with Trump, though his support among these voters may have slipped since 2020. That could be significant, given that the former president’s margins improved among many other constituencies.
So, what happened? What does the election say about the partisan breakdown among Latter-day Saints in the pews? And what might a second Trump administration mean for the church and its members?
On this week’s podcast, McKay Coppins, an award-winning Latter-day Saint journalist who covers national politics for The Atlantic, helps to answer those questions and more.
Coppins is the author of “The Wilderness,” exploring the GOP’s post-2012 drive to win back the White House, and, more recently, “Romney: A Reckoning,” a biography of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the Latter-day Saint politician who famously became one of the most visible and vocal anti-Trump Republicans.

Tribune religion reporter, film critic give their take on ‘Heretic’ | Episode 364

Listener alert • Be advised that while we strived to keep spoilers to a minimum, the discussion reveals some elements from the film. So, if you plan to see “Heretic,” you may want to view the movie first, and then go to our podcast.
Two female missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enter the home of “Mr. Reed,” apparently a welcoming seeker with, it turns out, his own marked-up copy of the Book of Mormon, the faith’s foundational scripture.
Could this be a heaven-sent “golden contact” eager to embrace the Latter-day Saint gospel? Hardly. The young proselytizers have instead begun a hellish descent into the dungeonous world of a bright but demented psychopath determined to test their religion — and all religions — in a terrorizing contest between belief and disbelief.
Therein lies the heart of “Heretic,” the new psychological thriller starring Hugh Grant and due out in theaters nationwide this week.
The film already has earned praise from some reviewers, drawn criticism from the church, and spurred flashbacks to real-life frightening moments among former missionaries.
The week’s show focuses on the merits and demerits of “Heretic” as both a movie, with our longtime film critic Sean P. Means, and as an argument for and against religion, with our award-winning faith reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack.

President Nelson is betting big that more LDS temples will keep more members in the church | Episode 363

The ever-expanding tally of temples under President Russell M. Nelson is truly staggering.
Since taking the helm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he has announced 185 — more than half — of the faith’s global total of 367 planned or existing temples.
At the recently completed General Conference, the 100-year-old religious leader explained the reason for the building blitz rather succinctly: God commanded it, he declared, because “the Savior is coming again.”
Historian Benjamin Park sees other forces at play as well. In a recent piece for The Salt Lake Tribune, titled “Russell Nelson’s billion-dollar gamble,” he points to the millions spent on each temple as among the faith’s justifications for the billions it has in its financial reserves.
Even more, top church leaders view these relatively lavish buildings, with their promises of eternal blessings, as a way to cement Latter-day Saints in the faith. “If we build them,” the thinking goes, “they will stick.”
On this week’s show, Park, author of “American Zion: A New History of Mormonism,” discusses the church’s temple frenzy — how it compares to the past, what it means in the present, and what it may portend for the faith’s future.

Do new sleeveless options show LDS garments aren’t about modesty? | Episode 362

The biggest recent news for members, especially women, in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the introduction in some hot, humid regions of “sleeveless” temple garments.
Faithful Latter-day Saints wear temple garments underneath their clothing as a reminder of sacred covenants. They are not meant to be seen, but the style and cut of them have been difficult to conceal under ever-evolving fashions. That is why so many women were delighted by one of the redesign options — labeled “open sleeve” — because it looks more like a tank top than the current capped sleeve alternatives. They also liked the new “full slip” and “half-slip” designs meant to be worn under dresses.
For now, these new garments are available in the Philippines and parts of Africa. But the church website shows they will be sold in the U.S. by the end of next year.
Discussing the new garments on this week’s show are Laura Brignone, a Latter-day Saint research analyst at Sacramento State University who has assessed current garment cuts and how they work — or don’t work — with popular fashion, and Emily Jensen, a writer and web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.

Parenting challenges and choices from which schools to attend and whether to stick with the church | Episode 361

By following an unconventional parenting path, Latter-day Saints Gabrielle and Ben Blair have learned to buck conventional parenting wisdom — and, along the way, remove a lot of the stress that comes with raising kids.
On this week’s show, Gabrielle Blair, founder of Design Mom and The New York Times bestselling author of “Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion,” and Ben Blair, co-founder and president of Newlane University, discuss what they have discovered on their parental journey.
They spell all that out and more in their new book, “The Kids Are All Right: Parenting With Confidence in an Uncertain World.”

How the Tabernacle Choir wows crowds and spreads global goodwill for the LDS Church | Episode 360

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir was launched on Aug. 22, 1847, just 29 days after the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley.
After the Tabernacle on Temple Square in the heart of Salt Lake City was completed, the choir performed there for more than a hundred years. Millions have heard the group’s music via a weekly devotional radio program, “Music and the Spoken Word,” which The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints started in 1929, making it the longest continuously running network broadcast in history.
The show is inspiring to insiders and outsiders but never dogmatic. Ronald Reagan called the troupe “America’s Choir.” The famed choir has sung at six U.S. presidential inaugurations, 13 World Fairs, as well as the 2002 Winter Olympics, and toured in dozens of countries.
In 2018, the choir changed its name to The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, and, in 2020, it was sidelined by the global pandemic.
On this week’s show, former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, former Health and Human Services secretary and the choir’s current president, talks about how the choir navigated those changes and challenges, the group’s mission, and what’s in the future for the church’s most visible goodwill ambassadors.

If you’re Christian, BYU ecologist says, you’ll work for the Earth and against climate change | Episode 359

More than three-fourths of Latter-day Saints say they revere nature and feel a responsibility to protect it. Classes on Earth stewardship at Brigham Young University are filling up as young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wrestle with the dangers caused by climate change and feel inexorably prompted to act — to do something.
What if the church went all-in on protecting the planet, proposing concrete plans to be adopted in every region? Would being involved in an urgent global effort — much as the food storage mandates prepared members for lean times — give more young people a reason to stay in the fold?
On this week’s show, Ben Abbott, professor of ecology at church-owned BYU, discuss environmental issues, his faith, and the activism and idealism he sees in his students. He also makes the case that safeguarding the Earth and fighting climate change are part of Christian discipleship.

Everything you need to know about the tithing lawsuits against the LDS Church | Episode 358

Two federal appellate courts. Two historic hearings. Two tithing lawsuits. One overarching allegation: namely, that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-days has misled its members — whether about its finances or its history.
In one case, prominent former Latter-day Saint James Huntsman insists top church leaders misrepresented how they spent $1.4 billion of the faith’s funds to build the for-profit City Creek Center shopping mall in downtown Salt Lake City. Topics ranging from religious autonomy and the U.S. Constitution to outright fraud and even a Beatles classic surfaced last week before a full panel of judges in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the other, ex-members accuse church authorities of hiding important details of Mormonism’s beginnings in order to persuade the faithful to pay their tithes. Oddly enough, founder Joseph Smith, his “seer stone” and translation of the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, were openly discussed before a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
So where do these lawsuits go from here? What are their prospects? And how do they fit into the continued media attention on the church’s wealth and a potentially expansive and expensive class-action case?
On this week’s show, Salt Lake Tribune reporter Tony Semerad, who has reported on these lawsuits from the get-go and brought to light other aspects of the faith’s financial empire, helps us wind through this legal maze.

Utah rabbi talks about forgiveness and atonement while Middle East fighting rages | Episode 357

Next week, Jewish adherents across the globe will begin the annual 10-day examination of their lives and deeds.
It starts with Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) on the evening of Oct. 2 and concludes with Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) on the evening of Oct. 11. It is a time for self-reflection, for commemoration, for celebration and for recommitment. It is a chance to think about forgiveness and to make amends to those they have harmed.
This year’s High Holy Days are especially fraught for the world’s Jewry with so many eyes are on Israel and its ongoing battles against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. There’s also a war in Ukraine and deep divisions in the United States during this election season.
On this week’s show, Rabbi Samuel Spector, leader of Salt Lake City’s Congregation Kol Ami, discusses the importance of these holidays at this particular time.

On base, she leads the congregation. In her LDS ward, she sits in the pews. | Episode 356

Latter-day Saint Jenna Carson, who became the first member ever to serve as a chaplain in the federal prison system, was a student at Harvard Divinity School when, she said, God called her to become a military chaplain.
That was 2015. And although Carson did not yet know it, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not at that time grant women the all-important endorsement required by the Defense Department. Female Latter-day Saints could obtain endorsements to serve as chaplains in hospitals, education, hospice care and prisons — but not, it turned out, the military.
Nevertheless, the feeling persisted. And so did she. Setbacks followed, but, in 2021, she won Salt Lake City’s go-ahead.
The next year, she was on her way to boot camp. Two years into being an Air Force chaplain, Carson has more than a little to say about what it’s like to be a female spiritual authority operating if not within the LDS Church, then with its approval.