Mormon Land

Rabbi Sam Spector on life in an LDS Zion | Episode 142

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.

The lesser-known legacy of Emmeline B. Wells | Episode 141

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.

Latter-day Saints and the end times | Episode 140

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.

Mette Ivie Harrison on the ‘five doctrines of ex-Mormonism’ | Episode 139

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.”

Church historians discuss the legacy of Eliza R. Snow and her 1,200 sermons | Episode 138

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.

How Mormonism embraces the Founding Fathers | Episode 137

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.

How views on sexuality and gender evolved and what that might mean in the future | Episode 136

Perhaps no issues have roiled members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more than questions about race, gender and sexuality.
Scholar Taylor Petrey offers an original exploration of these topics and how they connect and intersect in his new book, “Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism.”
On this week’s podcast, Petrey, the current editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and an associate professor of religion at Kalamazoo College, examines how the Utah-based faith’s views have shifted, especially since World War II, and what that evolution may portend for the future.

BYU activists discuss why the Smoot Building needs a new name | Episode 135

Amid the nation’s reawakening on the issue of systemic racism, Brigham Young University’s president has conceded that “there is work to do” on the Provo campus.
Many students and alumni agree, and some of them have called on officials to rebrand the administration building, given that it bears the name of Abraham O. Smoot, a former benefactor who owned slaves.
On this week’s “Mormon Land” podcast, two of the activists behind this effort, Tristan Quist and Cole Stewart-Johnson, discuss why they are targeting the Smoot Building and how a name change may help make the university a more welcoming place for all. They also share their views about the monikers on other BYU buildings, some of which are named after past leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and about the school’s name itself.

Joanna Brooks on past LDS leaders’ racist views and how white supremacy took root | Episode 134

In 1852, Mormon pioneer-prophet Brigham Young put The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on a path toward a racist practice barring blacks from the priesthood. Some 126 years later, in 1978, church President Spencer W. Kimball ended the policy.
But racist doctrines and white supremacist views from Mormon pulpits and within Mormon pews hardly started with the priesthood ban and certainly didn’t stop with its removal.
Scholar Joanna Brooks, a professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University, explores these uncomfortable teachings and the sometimes-ugly undercurrents in her new book, “Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and the Problem of Racial Innocence.”
In this week’s podcast, she discuss how coming to terms with the past and present could help the church and its members build a brighter, more inclusive, more equitable future.

LDS historian Ardis Parshall shedding light on souls lost during a previous pandemic | Episode 133

With the world in the grips of COVID-19, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, Mormon research historian Ardis Parshall has been posting photos and vignettes of Latter-day Saints who died during the Spanish flu of 1918-20, which claimed tens of millions across the globe.
By doing so on her blog, keepapitchinin.org, she is putting a human face on what too often can appear in history books as cold statistics.
On this week’s podcast, she touches on some of the souls who were lost during this previous pandemic, discusses why she launched the heartfelt, yet heartbreaking, project, and reveals how this labor of love actually has helped her and others cope with the current crisis.