Mormon Land

Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy? | Episode 345

In 2014, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published an official essay detailing Joseph Smith’s marriages to multiple women. After decades of insisting otherwise, the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has since conceded that the faith founder did participate in polygamy. Highly regarded scholarly works have documented Smith had at least 33 wives, and most historians widely accept that the church leader preached — albeit privately — and practiced plural marriage.
So why is this issue gaining increased attention in various Mormon circles and why are so-called polygamy deniers arguing that Smith had but one wife, Emma, while pinning the practice instead on perhaps the Western world’s most famous polygamist, Brigham Young, and his associates?
What does the evidence really show? Why is this debate springing up now? And what do the competing factions stand to win or lose?
Answering those questions and more on this week’s show are Brooke LeFevre, a doctoral candidate at Baylor University who has written about the experiences of 19th-century Latter-day Saint women in plural marriages, and Matthew Bowman, chair of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University who penned a recent Salt Lake Tribune column on the topic.

”Leadership roulette” for same-sex LDS couples | Episode 344

Janette Petersen, a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had been attending Sunday services with her wife, Tammy, as faithfully as her job would allow for nearly five years when her membership was withdrawn. Although the letter she received informing her of the decision did not state a reason, Janette told The Tribune her local lay leader, known as a stake president, had pinned it on her marriage.
The church teaches that while being attracted to individuals of the same sex is not a sin, physical intimacy is and that marriage ought to be between a man and a woman.
Ryan and Liz Giles, on the other hand, have been faithful members of two congregations — one in Houston and their current ward in Washington state — since the two women tied the knot in 2021. They have yet to have their membership challenged.
All three women join us today to talk about their church experience as individuals in same-sex marriages, and what they believe is behind the inconsistency playing out when it comes to treatment of couples like them.

The case for a group dedicated to protecting Latter-day Saint civil rights | Episode 343

For 115 years, the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, has been advancing the cause of justice for Black Americans. For 111 years, the Anti-Defamation League has been doing much the same for Jewish Americans. And for 104 years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been safeguarding the constitutional rights of everyone in the United States.
So which group is protecting, advocating and advancing the rights of Latter-day Saints?
While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints certainly looks out for its own interests and apologetic groups defend church teachings, no independent organization is dedicated to civil rights for members.
It’s time to change that, argues Public Square Magazine. In a recent staff editorial, the online publication written from a Latter-day Saint perspective, called for the establishment of a civil rights organization to advocate for the rights of members in “political, legal and cultural spaces.”
On this week’s show, Public Square Managing Editor C.D. Cunningham and Associate Editor Brianna Holmes discuss why such a group is needed, how it could operate and whom it could benefit.

Why a pastor is teaching evangelicals about the LDS Church | Episode 342

Jeff McCullough took a trip to Utah in 2020, and it changed his life.
No, the evangelical pastor didn’t convert to the state’s predominant religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he didn’t launch a virulent campaign to explore what some have seen as Mormonism’s heresies. Instead, he felt a divine call to launch a YouTube channel, titled Hello Saints, to, as he put it, “fight criticism with curiosity.”
“Most of my Christian friends didn’t say very nice things about the people from the LDS Church,” McCullough says in his introduction, “and I don’t really like that.”
So the 43-year-old Hope Chapel minister from the Bible Belt, who calls himself a “recovering Mormon basher,” set about exploring the beliefs and practices of the Utah-based faith, eager to build bridges between that church and evangelical Christians.
McCullough now lives in the Beehive State and has produced more than 90 short videos comparing and contrasting “the lifestyle, culture and beliefs of Mormons and mainstream Christianity,” including questions like these: Are Mormons Christians? What do Christians and Latter-day Saints agree and disagree about?
On his journey to familiarize himself and his audience with this unfamiliar faith, he has viewed General Conference, attended Sunday services, read the Book of Mormon and toured a Latter-day Saint temple.
His Hello Saints channel, which operates as a nonprofit, has 60,000 subscribers and nearly 7 million views. He is currently hosting a virtual summit with interviews and presentations by Latter-day Saints and evangelicals on topics ranging from Jesus and marriage to politics and heaven.
On this week’s show, McCullough discusses his online efforts, his approach and what he hopes to accomplish.

What happened behind the scenes before and after the Black priesthood ban ended | Episode 341

Forty-six years ago this month, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, under then-President Spencer W. Kimball, lifted its prohibition preventing Black men from entering the all-male priesthood and Black women and men from participating in temple rites.
This historic shift, the most significant since the faith stopped practicing polygamy, abruptly ended this racist ban, but it hardly ended racism within the church. After all, 126 years of theological justifications for the ban remained, including influential works such as “Mormon Doctrine” by apostle Bruce R. McConkie.
Cleanup still needed — and needs — to be done.
Building on President Gordon B. Hinckley’s outreach efforts, current church leader Russell M. Nelson has called on members to lead out against racism and has cemented ties with the NAACP.
Matthew Harris’ new book, “Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality,” explores the history of the priesthood/temple ban, from its racist roots under Brigham Young to its removal and its aftermath, with an eye especially on its effects on Black Latter-day Saints.
With unprecedented access to the papers of Kimball, McConkie, Hugh B. Brown and Joseph Fielding Smith, Harris offers an insider view of the decision-making process among the church hierarchy regarding issues of race and this momentous move. Join us for this conversation.

The surprising news about LDS Church growth | Episode 340

For The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is much to celebrate in its latest statistical report: The worldwide growth rate in the 17.2 million-member faith is growing. The expansion of congregations is expanding. And the number of U.S. states with declining membership is, well, declining.
East Africa, meanwhile, is booming, the U.S. is rebounding, and many growth measures have met or surpassed pre-pandemic levels. Still, there are causes for concern: West Africa, unlike the continent’s eastern and central regions, has seen its Latter-day Saint growth slow. While the U.S. enjoyed an increase in net membership, it once again had the largest net decrease in wards and branches. California continues to bleed Latter-day Saints and growth rates in Utah, home to the global faith’s headquarters, remain near historic lows.
On this week’s show, Matt Martinich, an independent researcher who tracks church movements for the websites cumorah.com and ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com, dissects all this data and deciphers what the numbers say about the state of the church.

What was lost when the LDS Church started emphasizing covenants over community | Episode 339

Since shortening its Sunday services and refocusing its curriculum more than five years ago, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has trumpeted a home-centered, church-supported approach with an emphasis on covenant-making and covenant-keeping.
This shift has some members worried about a loss of community.
Gone are roadshows, pageants, sports leagues, cultural celebrations and more. While there has been an explosion of temple building, there has been a slowdown in chapel building. The church meetinghouse of today has become just that — a house for staid and stiff meetings, mainly on Sunday — and not the buzzing and bustling community centers of yesteryear.
Would a return to some of that past help not only the church’s present but also its future?
Candice Wendt, a staff member of McGill University’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and a contributing editor at Wayfare magazine, wrote about the church’s evolution from community to covenants in a recent blog post for Exponent II.
She joined us for this week’s episode of “Mormon Land” to talk about what she feels is lost in the church’s efforts to emphasize individual covenants over community building.
As she put it “I find when community connection and belonging get weak, motivation to be engaged in the faith tradition falters and religious life actually becomes a lot less relevant to people.”

The LDS Church isn’t dying in Germany, but it is changing | Episode 338

Born in West Germany, Ralf Grünke has been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for most of his life. But it was complicated. And, among his Catholic and Lutheran peers, that meant he sometimes keenly felt his “otherness.”
Still, being “an ugly duckling between the swans,” Grunke has written, was a “blessing in disguise.”
He studied his own faith deeply, reading everything he could find, pro or con, as well as other faiths, and developed a strong foundation spiritually and scholarly. He now enjoys a spectrum of friends and contacts among all religions, while representing the Utah-based church.
Grunke is the church’s assistant communication director for Central Europe, headquartered in Frankfurt. He joined “Mormon Land” for a special on-location podcast in Hamburg about the faith’s status on the Continent.

Why leaders’ efforts to keep women in the faith could backfire — and what could work | Episode 337

Without a doubt, says writer and scholar Caroline Kline, Latter-day Saint leader President Camille Johnson would have heard former church presidents telling working mothers to “come home” and focus on their families.
Instead, she pursued a 30-year career as a corporate lawyer.
In this episode of “Mormon Land,” Kline, assistant director of the Center for Global Mormon Studies at Southern California’s Claremont Graduate University, explains just how radical it is that the top brass of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are lauding her as a role model — and why their decision to do so may be a tough pill to swallow for some.
The author of “Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness” also breaks down what she sees as an increased anxiety by church leadership over female members’ activity and level of devotion, why their current efforts to reverse worrisome trends could backfire and what they could do instead to make women feel more at home.

Will a top LDS women’s leader ever again be seen as a ‘13th apostle’? | Episode 336

The role of women in any patriarchal faith is always fraught. It is especially confusing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which celebrated women who led the charge for suffrage while also practicing polygamy.
Past Latter-day Saint women like Eliza Snow and Emmeline Wells held high-profile positions in the hierarchy almost until their deaths — Susa Young Gates, an influential daughter of church prophet Brigham Young, was even dubbed a “13th apostle” — while today’s top female leaders are in and out in just five years.
Earlier general presidents of the women’s Relief Society were well known to members and wielded wide personal power, but, like the current high-level female leaders, they never held offices as “general authorities.”
Now comes word that, unlike yesteryear, today’s General Relief Society Presidencies don’t even meet weekly with an apostle “liaison” to the governing First Presidency.
On this week’s show, April Young Bennett, a blogger and essayist for Exponent II who has seen the evolving changes for Latter-day Saint women, discusses where top female leaders stand in today’s church, what could or should be done to elevate their status, and whether women’s ordination is the only way to truly balance the gender scales in the global faith.