Mormon Land

Stassi D. Cramm did not spend her childhood fantasizing about becoming the first female prophet-president in the Community of Christ’s 165-year history. Indeed, Cramm did not originally plan for a life of ministry in the church, which, like the much-larger Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, traces its origins to Joseph Smith. But sometimes, Cramm says, God has other plans for you. Earlier this month, Cramm was ordained to the highest office in the Community of Christ after nearly a quarter century of full-time ministry. She is ready to help the faith, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, move forward boldly into an even more inclusive, global church. On this week’s show, Cramm discusses her background; the challenges her church faces; its position on a number of issues, including climate change; the faith’s finances and its relationship with the Utah-based religion, especially after selling the historic Kirtland Temple; and her hopes for the future.

To many liberal members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, apostle Hugh B. Brown was an ecclesiastical icon, a fierce warrior for social justice and a passionate proponent of ending the faith’s former temple/priesthood exclusion of Black members. Still, Brown was not without his critics, including some strong opponents among the church’s highest leadership ranks. As a member of the governing First Presidency from 1961 to 1970, for example, Brown wrangled with future church Presidents Harold B. Lee and Ezra Taft Benson, as well as other apostles. “For a generation of Latter-day Saints, he represented the kind of pulpit magic associated with names like Orson F. Whitney, Brigham H. Roberts and Melvin J. Ballard from an earlier day,” wrote scholar Richard D. Poll in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. “For thousands of individuals with questions and problems, he represented the kind of understanding and counsel associated earlier with John A. Widtsoe, James E. Talmage and Joseph F. Merrill.”To Poll “and many others who knew him personally,” the historian wrote, Brown “was a multifaceted, magnificent human being.” Yet, the outspoken Democrat eventually was dropped from the First Presidency, which left him bitter and sad. On this week’s podcast. Matthew Harris, a history professor at Colorado State University Pueblo and author of “Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality” who is working on a Brown biography, explains some of the controversies surrounding the beloved leader.

Critics often say that there is no place in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for LGBTQ+ members. After all, they rightly point out, the faith’s policy is that having same-sex attraction is not a sin but acting on it is. That can put those who are in a same-sex marriage or advocating for it in a tough position. It also has led to self-loathing among LGBTQ+ members and serious conflicts with those who believe everyone has a right to love whomever they choose. In 2012, members of the then-newly formed Mormons Building Bridges donned their Sunday best and marched en masse to wide applause in a Utah pride parade. Their simple yet potent gesture echoed around the globe, setting an example for fellow believers who then took up the style, if not the name, in other pride parades. This year, there were no Latter-day Saint marchers under that banner. Indeed, the parade had few if any entries with a strong Latter-day Saint identity. Instead, LGBTQ+ members are finding homes in a variety of organizations including a relative newcomer, Lift + Love. On this week’s show, Allison Dayton, who founded the group, updates listeners on the current LGBTQ-LDS landscape and to discusses the Gather Conference taking place later this month.

In 2012, scholar John Turner published an award-winning biography of Brigham Young, a mountain of a man in Western Americana. But there remained a bigger fish to pursue, namely Joseph Smith, the “white whale” of Mormon history, the religious icon who gave birth to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Turner’s voyage is now complete and the resulting book, “Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet,” is available this month. Infused with the latest scholarship, the volume reveals a Brother Joseph who is sometimes playful, sometimes reckless, sometimes incensed, often inspired, but always enterprising and forever fascinating. The book appears certain to go down as the most significant and up-to-date biography of the Mormon founder since Richard Bushman’s “Rough Stone Rolling.” On this week’s show, Turner, professor of religious studies and history at George Mason University, discusses what he discovered about Joseph Smith — the husband, the father, the book publisher, the community organizer, the city builder, the religious innovator, the polygamist, the visionary, and, above all, the prophet to millions of followers.

In the second monthly bonus episode brought to you by a collaboration of “Mormon Land” and “Mormons in Media,” Latter-day Saint Rebbie Brassfield and non-Latter-day Saint Nicole Weaver recap season two of “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” From discussing maternity garments and Gen-Z Latter-day Saints bringing back cross necklaces, the pair talks about all the things you may have been wondering. You might even learn the Young Women Theme.

It took more than three decades for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to grow its membership in Kenya from a handful in the late 1980s to more than 21,000 today. These days, though, the number of conversions is rising more rapidly in this East African country. Kenya now even has its first Latter-day Saint temple. Such expansion brings with it challenges brought by having young lay leaders, adapting to cultural practices like “bride prices,” a kind of dowry, and finding new meetinghouses across urban and rural landscapes. In this special “Mormon Land” episode from Nairobi, Denis Mukasa, who serves as a stake (regional) president and directs the faith’s humanitarian work in the area, and his wife, Eunice Kavaya Mukasa, describe how they met (singing in a church choir), how the church has changed from when they both joined, and how local leaders are coping with growth — and poverty. “When I joined the church, there was a lot of negativity towards the church,” Eunice says. “But now people are being more receptive. People are listening, even if they are not joining, they can see that the church is a good place, and we as members of the church are good people.”

As the world held its collective breath for white smoke at the Vatican to signal the selection of a new Catholic pope, some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were smugly thinking how straightforward their faith‘s succession process is. No guessing. No politicking. No top candidates. The senior apostle simply moves up a seat. Some wonder, though, what’s wrong with mystery and surprise? Is an election in this context necessarily devoid of the Holy Spirit? Couldn’t God make any system righteous? Why does it matter? On this week’s show, Latter-day Saint historian Matthew Bowman and Utah Catholic archivist Gary Topping discuss how the two global religions pick their top leaders — the precedents at play, the politics involved, the pluses, the minuses, and how both can see God’s hand in the result.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are more prone to perfectionism. That was the assumption, at least, that Justin Dyer, professor of religious education at church-owned Brigham Young University, was used to hearing. Then the statistician, along with a few colleagues, started digging into the data. What they found was more complicated than the common wisdom that church membership, with its lofty eternal aim of helping followers to become like God, leads its members to hold themselves to unhealthy and unrealistic expectations. On this week’s show, Dyer joins Latter-day Saint psychologist Debra Theobald McClendon to talk about how the faith’s teachings and culture impact the rank and file, their goals, their perceptions and their self-worth.

In 1981, then-apostle Ezra Taft Benson rose to the pulpit during a General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and told women: “You were elected by God to be wives and mothers in Zion. Exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom is predicated on faithfulness to that calling. Since the beginning, a woman’s first and most important role has been ushering into mortality spirit sons and daughters of our Father in Heaven.” Even when another eventual church president, apostle Gordon B. Hinckley, encouraged women in 1989 to “get all the education you can,” he paired it with a wish for his female audience that none of them would ever have to work for pay. In other words, get an education and, if you absolutely must, a job. Such messaging from the faith has since changed, but, for decades, this was the counsel faith leaders gave Latter-day Saint women, many of whom came to see their degrees, if they had them, as a backup plan. Susan Madsen is a Utah State University professor and founding director of the Utah Women & Leadership Project. Tiffany Sowby is the founder of the nonprofit Rising Violet, which gives cash gifts to single mothers. Both have witnessed — again and again — the downstream effects of the advice encouraging Latter-day Saint women to dedicate themselves to the role of stay-at-home mom. On this week’s show, they talk about their observations and what women and the church can do to prevent mothers and their children from falling into poverty if marriages end.

In the first monthly bonus episode brought to you by a collaboration of “Mormon Land” and “Mormons in Media,” Latter-day Saint Rebbie Brassfield and non-Latter-day Saint Nicole Weaver talk about season one of “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and what they’re expecting, and hoping to see, from season two. Rebbie is surprised to learn that Nicole knows about the Celestial Kingdom and even more surprised to learn she heard about it on TV.

Taylor Frankie Paul. Litia Garr. Shari Franke. Andy Reid. Lisa Barlow. Hannah Neeleman. What do all these people have in common? For our online friends, the answer is obvious: All are Latter-day Saints. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Maybe not. But these are just some of the names representing and defining, albeit unofficially, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for millions around the world. Put simply, they matter. So do the Mormon-themed Netflix miniseries and Hulu tell-alls that studios are churning out at ever faster rates. Here at “Mormon Land,” we’ve done our best to blend those conversations with all the other reporting our readers and listeners care about. And we will continue to host some of those conversations. But there’s no way we can do it all anymore. There’s just too much happening that deserves attention. And that is why the “Mormon Land” brand is expanding. We are excited to announce a new partnership with “Mormons in Media,” a podcast and Instagram account that has been tracking pop culture’s portrayal of Latter-day Saints and their church since 2018. Co-hosts of this monthly “Mormon Land” bonus podcast will be Salt Lake Tribune guest columnist Rebbie Brassfield — the creator of “Mormons in Media” and perhaps the only person in the world to equate playing pickleball to crossing the Plains with handcarts — and Nicole Weaver, a Tribune audience team manager whom our superfans will recognize as a co-producer of our “Mormon Land” podcast. Brassfield is an active Latter-day Saint. Weaver has no background in the faith. What she does have are a keen interest in this genre and a range of questions. Together, the two plan to track the developments of Latter-day Saint representations in the media — from “Under the Banner of Heaven” to “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and everything in between. On this week’s show, they tell us more about what listeners can expect from this new venture.

While the racist priesthood/temple ban in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is indeed in the past, racism itself remains very much in the present — for the faith and for society as a whole. In fact, the Utah-based church recently published a new webpage addressing the topic, reminding members that President Russell Nelson directed them to “lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice” and his top counselor, Dallin Oaks, urged Latter-day Saints to “help root out” the sin of racism. The article went so far as to encourage members to speak up when racism arises in their congregations. So how can Latter-day Saints play their part? And do they need to start by looking honestly in the mirror and asking: Do I hold racist views? Mauli Bonner — a well-known Black Latter-day Saint, and an award-winning filmmaker and songwriter — penned an opinion piece recently for The Salt Lake Tribune to help members examine themselves and answer their leaders’ call. On this week’s show, he shares those ideas, assesses how the faith and the faithful are doing in combating racism, addresses how more inclusive art and music can help, and offers suggestions for ways top church leaders can help propel the battle against prejudice.

As a proselytizing faith with a committed corps of volunteer missionaries, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is forever driven to boost its ranks and broaden its reach. It did so last year at a level not seen in decades. Convert baptisms topped 308,000 in 2024, a 27-year high, and pushed total membership above 17.5 million. The army of missionaries shot past 74,000, a number not seen since 10 years ago after leaders lowered the age minimum for full-time service. And the tally of missions around the globe swelled to 450, more than at any point in the faith’s 195-year history. Amid all these encouraging statistics for the church, discouraging trends persisted. Babies added to the rolls continued to fall and the loss of members continued to rise. This week’s show aims to make sense of all these figures, including nations where the church is growing the fastest or shrinking the quickest, with the help of independent researcher Matt Martinich, who tracks such data for the websitescumorah.com and ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com.

When news broke last fall that redesigned temple garments — including a sleeveless version — were already on sale in some foreign countries, it became a hot topic among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Would the sacred underclothes, which are expected to be worn under daily clothing, be visible under tank tops? Would the new slip or half-slip allow women to wear their own underwear? Would they be accepted by other members or seen as caving to modern fashion? Perhaps the biggest question was about modesty. For years, Latter-day Saint women had been taught that the typical garment, with its capped sleeves to cover shoulders and upper arms, was meant, at least in part, as a display of modesty. Some members even joked about “porn shoulders.” What do the new “open sleeves” say about those previous ideas? How do the new styles fit in practice? And what other changes would members like to see? Discussing those questions and more on this week’s show are Latter-day Saints Andrea Fausett, a Hawaii-based Instagram influencer who has reviewed and showcased the new garments, and Northern California-based Instagrammer Rachel Gerber, who runs the LDS Changemakers social media account.

In the mid-1970s, a tiny group of Latter-day Saint women in Boston launched a modest effort to discuss women’s issues — past and present — in a magazine they called Exponent II (named after the newspaper of their Mormon foremothers, Woman’s Exponent). These modern feminists did not challenge the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on, say, polygamy, priesthood or other doctrines. They focused primarily on the challenges of motherhood, marriage and material culture. Their first editor was Claudia Lauper Bushman, who exemplified Mormonism as wife of famed historian and Latter-day Saint Stake (regional) President Richard Bushman and as a mother of six. After she was asked to resign the editorship, she went on to other professional and personal projects. Though the Exponent II group was hardly revolutionary, 50 years later it remains an important voice in the Latter-day Saint world, while Claudia Bushman went on to influence an entire generation of feminists in the church. Hundreds of men and women gathered recently to honor her life and work. On this week’s show, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, one of Exponent II’s founders who would eventually teach history at Harvard and win a Pulitzer Prize for her work humanizing ordinary women, talks about the Claudia conference, the trajectory of Latter-day Saint feminism, and how today’s activists are different from the past.

As practicing Latter-day Saints with nuanced faith, Valerie and Nathan Hamaker wanted to help fellow believers grappling with a “faith crisis” or how they have been “wounded” by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So, in 2022, Valerie, a mental health counselor in Kansas City, Missouri, and Nathan launched a podcast, called “Latter Day Struggles,” to address some of their issues and find peace. Their podcast drew wide appeal, but it also came to the attention of their local Latter-day Saint leaders. After numerous conversations, they say, those leaders summoned the couple to a disciplinary council. Expecting to be formally tossed out of the church, the couple instead chose to resign their membership. Since news of their resignation became public, the Hamakers have heard from thousands of friends and supporters. On this week’s show, the couple share their experience, their interactions in their congregation, their views of church discipline, their decision to leave, their efforts to help fellow Latter-day Saints, and whether they would consider rejoining the fold when their local leadership changes.

A new report by the Pew Research Center, the Religious Landscape Study, has given members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plenty to pat themselves on the back about. According to the survey of 37,000 U.S. adults, including 565 self-identified Latter-day Saints, active members of the Utah-based faith are some of Christianity’s workhorses, showing up for church each Sunday and finding time in between services to pray, read scriptures and teach their children about their faith — all at enviable rates. At the same time, the study’s authors found a significant drop in U.S. retention rates since the last time they polled members in 2014. And women, long heralded as the more reliable sex, appear to now be in the minority. On this week’s show, sociologists Marie Cornwall and Tim Heaton, former professors at church-owned Brigham Young University and editors of the 2001 book “Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives,” contextualize those numbers and other findings — including Latter-day Saint views on politics, abortion and climate change.

Pornography — broadly defined as sexually explicit images — has become a sort-of wallpaper of modern lives. It is everywhere: in our books, movies, computers, video games, social media posts, music and phones. For many years, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint warned members that porn was “dangerous,” “evil” and “damnable.” They taught that viewing porn was a sin. In the past decade, though, the church has suggested that repeated porn watching is an addiction, like alcohol and drugs, often requiring professional help to overcome. Earlier this month, apostle Patrick Kearon addressed attendees at the Utah Coalition Against Pornography conference, saying he was no expert but acknowledging he did have “painful and heartbreaking personal experience with loved ones entrapped by addictions.” Some Latter-day Saint — and other — therapists now question the addiction hypothesis. Count Idaho psychologist Cameron Staley, author of “Confessions of an LDS Sex Researcher” and creator of the “Life After Pornography” online program, among them. On this week’s show, he discusses whether viewing porn is a compulsive behavior; why men and women watch it; how the church has improved its rhetoric on the topic; and how to help those who want to stop looking at such images.

Joseph Fielding Smith’s family tree alone makes him a significant player in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father, Joseph F. Smith, was the faith’s sixth president. His grandfather was Hyrum Smith, who was slain with his great-uncle, church founder Joseph Smith. His son-in-law, in fact, was apostle Bruce R. McConkie, a theological kindred spirit. Joseph Fielding Smith served as an apostle for 60 years, church historian for 49 and as the church’s 10th president for two. But he will forever be remembered more for his prose and his polemics than for his positions or his pedigree. A conservative and orthodox thinker, he wrote more than two dozen books, answered religious questions from lay members and engaged in high-level, high-stakes debates with fellow apostles James Talmage, John Widtsoe and other leading Latter-day Saint intellectuals. They discussed, debated and disputed issues ranging from scriptural interpretation to the age of the Earth and the theory of evolution. Joseph Fielding Smith was, scholar Matthew Bowman argues, “the most important Latter-day Saint theologian of the 20th century.” On this week’s show, Bowman, head of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University and author of the recently released “Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian,” talks about this towering Latter-day Saint man of letters.

Certainly not for the first time, the United States has become a hotbed of hot takes and even hotter debates over men’s roles in the home and society. Fueling this fiery crisis of masculinity is, of course, social media, podcasts and other online forums. Enter the “manosphere,” a conservative- and Christian-leaning media ecosystem aimed at male empowerment. On this week’s show, Amy Chapman, a faculty member at Arizona State University’s teachers college, and Levi Sands, a graduate student in sociology at the University of Iowa, discuss this growing subculture and its influence on Latter-day Saint men.