Mormon Land

Booting women’s leaders off the stand was ‘hurtful’ and ‘heartbreaking’ | Episode 315

For more than a decade, women’s Relief Society leaders were invited to sit on the stand facing the pews during Sunday services among some Latter-day Saint congregations in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was an uncontroversial tradition until October, when an area president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ordered an end to the practice.
The move felt arbitrary to many members and was made without consulting any of the women affected, all of whom were devout believers. After a Salt Lake Tribune story about the edict, many women in the region and across the country are writing letters to church headquarters in Salt Lake City, explaining why the tradition had been good for women in a church governed by men as a sign of inclusion and gender equity.
On this week’s show, we discuss this issue with two women who have felt the impact personally: Amy Jensen, who has served as a Young Women leader in Lafayette, Calif., and Laurel McNeil, a current Relief Society president in Sunnyvale, Calif. One solution, they suggest, to bring uniformity to Latter-day Saint services: Invite women’s leaders to sit on the stand in congregations across the globe.

The woman who runs the church’s most visible publisher and retailer: Deseret Book | Episode 314

Deseret Book has been the church-owned commercial publisher for more than a century, producing landmark theological volumes such as James E. Talmage’s “Jesus the Christ” and LeGrand Richards’ “A Marvelous Work and a Wonder.”
It is a sought-after brand for Latter-day Saint leaders, scholars and writers, and remains the go-to retail outlet for rank-and-file members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Through the decades, the focus of D.B., as it has come to be known, has expanded to include not only books by and about Latter-day Saint prophets and apostles but also a range of novels and art.
The woman overseeing all that is Laurel Day, who rose through the ranks to become D.B.’s president.
On this week’s show, she talks about her vision for the global company; the new openness in detailing the church’s unvarnished history; the increasing visibility of women; the part she plays in deciding what is published and what is put on — and sometimes pulled off — the shelves; and Deseret Book’s role in building the worldwide faith.

Apostle vacancy spurs questions about men who run the church — for life | Episode 313

With senior apostle M. Russell Ballard’s death, church President Russell Nelson’s back injury and apostle Jeffrey Holland’s recent illnesses, the focus has fallen once again on the top men who lead the 17 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Years, even decades, of policy, practice and precedent have established how the hierarchy is ordered — a governing First Presidency, usually made up of the faith’s president and two counselors, at the pinnacle, followed by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the Presidency of the Seventy and general authority Seventies.
But with all the members of the First Presidency in their 90s and increasingly aged apostles, questions are reemerging about a gerontocracy among these men, who must serve for life and are charged with guiding a global religion. Is emeritus status for these leaders an option? Should it be?
And what about the general women’s leaders? Does their service, capped at five years, prevent them from having more influence in the church?
Historian Matthew Bowman, Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University, addresses these questions and more on this week’s podcast.

Steve Young lays out a new game plan for life: the law of love | Episode 312

Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, the former BYU star who earned multiple MVP awards and Super Bowl rings with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, ranks among the most famous members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Recently, though, Young has turned from tactics for victory on the football field to strategies for winning at life — namely by living his religion, following Christ, helping to heal others, and, ultimately, loving all people, no matter whether they are in their personal journeys, as God loves them.
Yes, he does draw on his gridiron experiences in his book “The Law of Love,” but he also reveals much about his own shyness, anxiety and insecurity.
On this week’s show, Young discuss a more expansive, more exultant and more exalting kind of love.

We aren’t perfect. Life isn’t perfect. The church isn’t perfect. Why that’s OK. | Episode 311

No one likes pain or poverty, bigotry or war, frustration or failure, disease or doubt, joblessness or homelessness or loneliness.
That includes this week’s “Mormon Land” guest, Melissa Inouye.
The Latter-day Saint scholar has endured more than her share of heartache. She inexplicably lost her hair at a young age and then, at 37, the marathon-running mother of four, was diagnosed with colon cancer, an affliction she has been suffering from and through ever since.
But as Inouye reminds herself and Latter-day Saints in her new book, “Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance,” a carefree, trouble-free world is not what humanity signed up for.
An easy earthly existence, under Mormon theology, was Satan’s plan, not God’s. Divine design, Inouye writes, calls instead for agency, personal growth, compassion and caring for others, and “living a life full of life” — the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the hopes and the hopelessness — as God’s children learn to be more like their Heavenly Parents by following and finding Jesus.
On this week’s show, Inouye discusses this “sacred struggle” — including how she approaches the sometimes-problematic past found in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, her hopes for women in the faith’s still-present patriarchy, and how she and other members find joy in imperfect lives, imperfect bodies, imperfect families, imperfect communities, an imperfect church and an imperfect world.

Can Latter-day Saints become as good at peacemaking as they are at proselytizing? | Episode 310

Amid today’s polarized political scene, many Americans throw up their hands and say, like Patrick Henry, “‘peace, peace,’ but there is no peace. The war is actually begun.”
To some, the partisan divide seems deeper than ever — with no way to bridge it. Even religions sometimes seem to battle with other faiths, as well as those within a faith.
Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith America and author of “We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy,” has done a lot of thinking about how to overcome divisions. He is also an “impact scholar” at the University of Utah and will visit the Salt Lake City campus a few times each year during his two-year appointment.
Retired federal Judge Thomas Griffith, a Latter-day Saint convert, also bemoans the toxic divides that poison public debate and rip apart the fabric of U.S. society. Recently, the American Bar Association appointed Griffith a member of a newly created Task Force for American Democracy, whose aim is to push back against authoritarian tendencies in the country.
On this week’s show, Patel and Griffith — both hopeful if not optimistic — discuss how to bring peace to our trouble times and how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a vital role to play in that quest, especially if they can become as accomplished at bridge building as they are at evangelizing.

McKay Coppins on Mitt Romney — his faith, his politics and his legacy | Episode 309

Lots of national politicians are keen to learn how Mitt Romney may skewer them in McKay Coppins’ newly released biography, “Romney: A Reckoning.”
Coppins, a Brigham Young University alum who writes for The Atlantic, had access to the journals and emails, as well as candid interviews with the Republican Utah senator, who made history as the first Latter-day Saint to top a major party’s presidential ticket and first senator to vote to remove a president of his own party.
But because Romney and Coppins are both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is also a lot of Mormon-speak in the book. In it, the writer explores the way in which Romney’s faith became a political roadblock for him while, at the same time, providing him spiritual strength and comfort.
On this week’s show, Coppins share ways Romney’s beliefs shaped the man, how he faced the “Mormon moment,” why he lined up so boldly against Donald Trump, and what church leaders had to say about it all.

A Palestinian Latter-day Saint’s view on the Israel-Hamas war | Episode 308

As the war in Israel and Gaza rages on with civilians caught in the violent crossfire, those watching from across the globe are asking what it must be like to live in such a conflict-ridden space. What does it mean to face possible violence every day?
Sahar Qumsiyeh can offer a firsthand description of how routine activities were affected by such a fraught environment.
Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian born in Jerusalem and raised Orthodox Christian outside of Bethlehem. She converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while receiving a master’s degree from Brigham Young University in statistics. She earned a doctorate from the Middle East Technical University in Turkey in the same subject, taught at various universities in the West Bank and worked for four years as a data analyst with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Jerusalem.
She currently teaches in the mathematics department at BYU-Idaho. She is also the author of “Peace for a Palestinian: One Woman’s Story of Faith Amidst War in the Holy Land.”
On this week’s show, Qumsiyeh talks about the current crisis, the tensions that led to it, and what Americans, and particularly Latter-day Saints, should know when discussing it. Her views are her own and do not represent those of her employer or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The rise and fall of Brigham Young’s wine mission | Episode 307

For today’s faithful, believing, temple-recommend-carrying members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sipping a Chardonnay with their salmon entree would be unthinkable, off the table, a no-no.
They know that the faith’s Word of Wisdom health code strictly forbids consumption of alcohol.
But there was time in the church’s history when teetotaling wasn’t the order of the day. In fact, there was a time when Latter-day Saints not only drank wine but also produced it, sold it and profited from it — all with their prophet’s blessing and encouragement.
Indeed, southwestern Utah’s pioneer past was home to a church “wine mission.”
On this week’s show, Lindsay Hansen Park, a blogger, podcaster and executive director of the Sunstone Education Foundation, discusses Brigham Young’s wine mission — its roots, the success it enjoyed, the product it produced, the problems it encountered (and engendered), and the ultimate demise it met.

Only 3 women spoke at General Conference — what they said and why it matters | Episode 306

This past weekend, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held its biannual General Conference in Salt Lake City. In five sessions, held Saturday and Sunday, Latter-day Saints around the world heard sermons, instructions and announcements from their top leaders. Of the dozens to take the pulpit, just three were women: President Emily Belle Freeman, head of the global Young Women organization; her first counselor, Tamara Runia; and Amy Wright, first counselor in the children’s Primary general presidency.
This underrepresentation of female speakers isn’t new — or surprising — in the patriarchal faith, where top leadership is almost entirely male. Some longtime conference listeners, however, did point to a shift in the nature of the sermons given by Freeman, Runia and Wright — as well as other recent female speakers.
On this week’s show, Kimberly Applewhite Teitter discusses all that and more. Teitter is a licensed clinical psychologist in the Salt Lake City area and assistant director of the Debra Bonner Unity Gospel Choir. She was recently featured in the Deseret Book publications “Every Needful Thing: Essays of the Mind and Heart” and “No Division Among You: Creating Unity in a Diverse Church.”