Mormon Land

A deeper look at BYU’s report on campus racism and how the school can fix it | Episode 171

Brigham Young University released a 64-page report from a faculty committee last week on “Race, Equity and Belonging” at the Provo school.
It exposed widespread and significant concerns about the mistreatment of minority students who attend the private university owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Many students of color end up transferring or dropping out as a result of experiences that “left many disillusioned, brokenhearted and struggling.” The report noted that “current systems at the university are inadequate for coordinating services for students seeking assistance with challenges related to race” and recommended 26 changes as “first steps” toward addressing the problems.
On this week’s podcast, BYU law professor Michalyn Steele, the committee’s only Native American, discussed the report and why she remains optimistic that meaningful changes will occur to make the school a better place for all.

They’re engineers from NASA and the Navy, these Black converts now lead an LDS mission | Episode 170

Michelle and John Amos are both converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both are graduates of Southern University, a historic Black college. And both are high-powered engineers.
Michelle worked for NASA for 30 years, including as part of the team that developed the Mars 2020 rover. Her husband, John, after a 21-year career with the Navy and Navy Reserve, became an engineering director at the global company Siemens Energy.
Now the Amoses are overseeing more than 200 young Latter-day Saints as they lead the church’s Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission.
During this last week of Black History Month, the couple talk about their conversion, their careers, their mission and their perspectives about racial issues in their faith.

Robert Kirby reflects on his career as a religion humorist | Episdoe 169

For more than a quarter century, Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby poked fun at Mormon history, practices, culture and members themselves, including one particular member: Robert Kirby.
His brand of comical commentary brought not only winces and complaints but also personal insights and even community healing. He reached out to crime victims and those who had lost loved ones. He officiated at LGBTQ weddings. Mostly, though, his musings elicited laughter. He brought a lovable irreverence to reverent things.
A former police officer, he joked about being a beat cop in the Celestial Kingdom. He boasted that he could “beat up”an aging Gordon B. Hinckley. And his piece about “five kinds of Mormons” is seen as a classic of Latter-day Saint satire. Now, after thousands of columns and millions of chuckles, Kirby is calling it quits. He’s retiring. So brace yourselves, listeners, as he joins us today via Zoom from his holding cell in Herriman to talk about his career as the nation’s only religion humor newspaper columnist.

He’s devout. And he’s gay. Now he’s sharing his personal journey. | Episode 168

For the past 25-plus years, it has been the policy at Brigham Young University that it is OK to be gay, but not to act on it.
That echoes the position taken by the school’s owner, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
There are clearly BYU students who are open about their LGBTQ identity while living the church’s standard of celibacy. But what about faculty and bosses?
Ben Schilaty is a licensed therapist and BYU Honor Code administrator who has written his story in a newly released book titled “A Walk in My Shoes: Questions I’m Often Asked as a Gay Latter-day Saint,” put out by the church’s publishing house, Deseret Book.
In this week’s show, Schilaty — who co-hosts with former Cougar mascot Charlie Bird the “Questions From the Closet” podcast — talks about coming to terms with his sexual orientation, his falling in love with another man, his commitment to living as a devout Latter-day Saint, the evolution of church LGBTQ policies, BYU’s short-lived Honor Code change, and his work at the faith’s flagship school.

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.