Mormon Land

A deeper look at #DezNat tweeters | Episode 167

In 2018, John Paul Bellum came up with a Twitter hashtag, #DezNat, which stands for Deseret Nation, to help like-minded conservatives within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints find one another on social media.
Bellum said he was hoping to rally members willing to defend the faith, its leaders, its history, its doctrines and especially its teachings on the family — all of which he saw as under attack online.
Since then, #DezNat has been used in hundreds of thousands of tweets, including some with memes threatening violence toward perceived critics.
On this week’s podcast, researcher Mary Ann Clements, who has tracked and written about #DezNat for the Latter-day Saint blog Wheat & Tares, discusses this internet movement, its origins, its purposes, its evolution, its ideas about race, its place in online Mormon culture, the fears some of the posts engender, and the LDS Church’s response to these messages.

How the LDS Church can adapt as it enters its third century | Episode 166

In his new book, “Restoration: God’s Call to the 21st-Century World,” scholar Patrick Mason explains how 16.5 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can — with help from the billions of others across the globe — “renovate the world.”
Mason emphasizes that while Mormonism’s “ongoing restoration” is more about looking forward than backward, the church and its members must discard some historical and cultural baggage, including racism, sexism and colonialism, to reach its ultimate destination.
He also calls on Latter-day Saints to take up the cause of the “Messiah of the marginalized” and lift all the children of their Heavenly Parents.
Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, joins this week’s podcast to talk about his book, these topics and more.

Former Sen. Harry Reid on the Capitol riot, impeachment, and the Biden presidency | Episode 165

As it prepares to welcome a new president, the United States, a land of prophecy and promise to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stands at a momentous moment.
A defeated, disgraced and divisive president has become the first commander in chief to be impeached twice. A violent mob has desecrated the People’s House, eroding the very foundation of democracy. And, amid threats of more unrest, a shaken nation tiptoes into the future with as much trepidation as hope.
One Latter-day Saint who, perhaps more than any other, can bring insight to this turbulent time is former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. The longtime Democrat served in Congress for 34 years, including eight years as Senate majority leader, the highest federal office ever achieved by a Latter-day Saint, before retiring in 2017.
On this week’s podcast, Reid recounts his early days as a Capitol Police officer, the pain he felt seeing the place he labored for so many years being ransacked, and why he believes top church leaders, perhaps the governing First Presidency, need to warn members to beware of aligning with “fringe” groups and causes, adding that Latter-day Saints who take part in this insurrection are giving the faith a bad name.

Historian Richard Bushman explores faith, doubt and feminism | Episode 164

In a wide-ranging interview published in Sunday’s Salt Lake Tribune, revered Mormon historian Richard Bushman, author of the acclaimed Joseph Smith biography “Rough Stone Rolling,” talked at length about his childhood in Oregon, his mission in New England and his education at Harvard, where he wrestled with his faith in God.
He also discussed the mystery of the gold plates, from which the Book of Mormon sprang, his understanding of truth, and his perspectives on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — its past, present and future.
Bushman discusses those topics and more on this week’s podcast.

Recapping 2020 for the LDS Church | Episode 163

This year’s global pandemic brought extraordinary actions inside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Worship services were halted. Temples were closed. Missionaries were released, recalled and reassigned. Humanitarian outreach reached record levels.
And there was much more: Major denunciations of racism were given. Changes to church practices and parlance were announced. A new symbol and proclamation were unveiled.
Patrick Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, discusses the year in Mormonism on this week’s show and what it all may mean moving forward for the global faith.

Is confronting church critics through satire effective or offensive? | Episode 162

The group FairMormon is dedicated to defending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from critics and rebutting falsehoods about the faith’s history and theology.
FairMormon is particularly concerned about the influence of a 2013 volume called the “CES Letter,” which provides a long list of what it sees as problems with the church’s descriptions of its past, including founder Joseph Smith, his “First Vision,” translation of the Book of Mormon and polygamy.
So FairMormon enlisted a handful of Brigham Young University actors and writers to produce satirical videos with essentially a twofold mission: Tear down the “CES Letter” and build up these younger members.
Will the mocking nature of these videos work? What is the best way to tackle controversial aspects of Mormon history?
On this week’s shows, Michael Austin, a Latter-day Saint writer, BYU alumnus and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Evansville, where he works every day with college students, addresses those questions and more.

The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins on the LDS Church’s quest for approval and its future | Episode 161

In a lengthy essay in The Atlantic posted online Wednesday, reporter McKay Coppins explores The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its history as “The Most American Religion.”
In a subtitle, the article states: “Perpetual outsiders, Mormons spent 200 years assimilating to a certain national ideal — only to find their country is in an identity crisis. What will the third century of the faith look like?”
Coppins’ piece looks backward and forward, not as a dispassionate observer, but through his own lens as a practicing Latter-day Saint. He talks with scholars and politicians, insiders and outsiders, leaders and laypeople, even church President Russell M. Nelson.
In this week’s podcast, Coppins talks about the path Mormonism has followed and what steps the Utah-based faith could — and should — take as it treads into its next hundred years.

Are Latter-day Saint anti-maskers guilty of not ‘following the prophet’? | Episode 160

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted a video this week from apostle Dale G. Renlund in which he pleaded with members to put on masks and put off assembling in large gatherings in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Wearing a face covering,” he said, “is a sign of Christlike love for our brothers and sisters.”
Renlund, a former cardiologist, emphasized that he was speaking not as a physician, but as an apostle, a position of great respect within the Utah-based faith. His words were just the latest in a series of statements and actions by top church leaders in support of public health guidelines. Still, they triggered strong debate between Latter-day Saints who support mask-wearing and those who don’t.
A key question: Are so-called anti-maskers among the church’s membership guilty of not following their prophet?
The short answer is yes, according to Latter-day Saint writer Emily Jensen, the web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Jensen discusses that question and the wider implications for the church in this week’s podcast.

Latter-day Saints and their love-hate history with vaccines | Episode 159

In the not-too-distant future, the United States and other nations will have a vaccination available, thankfully, for COVID-19, which has killed more than 1.5 million people and altered millions of more lives.
But besides the issue of who will get the vaccination first looms another question: Who will be willing to get it?
Debates about the value and efficacy of vaccines — as well as the socioeconomics of those who will get them and those who won’t — have raged throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.
Such a debate took place in the early 1900s in Utah over the smallpox vaccine, dividing prominent community members, leaders and Latter-day Saints, including top church authorities and the editor of the church-owned Deseret News.
On this week’s podcast, Ben Cater — who teaches history at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and has written about the religious politics at play in public health during the Progressive Era in Utah — revisits that period and how it may parallel our current times.

Why giving thanks is healthy — even amid COVID | Episode 158

As a global faith leader, President Russell M. Nelson urged members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last week to “flood social media” with posts about gratitude — even as he acknowledged the pain of the coronavirus pandemic that has plagued the world.
In response, throngs of Latter-day Saints have done so. Some might even see it as a religious obligation. But it’s not just a good religious act. Therapists see the expression of gratitude as good for mental health, too.
On this week’s show, Marybeth Raynes, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist in Salt Lake City, discusses the benefits of giving thanks.