A Thoughtful Faith - Mormon / LDS

Community of Christ is a worldwide church, and though small in numbers maintain a consistent effort to  “proclaim Jesus Christ and promote communities of joy, hope, love, and peace.”  Their vision is a ‘table’ with everyone invited and participating and belonging regardless of gender, race, or sexuality.

One of their first progressive actions was to ordain women which they did so in 1984.  Today five of the council of twelve positions in Community of Christ are held by women.   At the 2019 world conference, Catherine Mambwe from Zambia was the first African woman to be ordained an apostle.

So, what does spiritual formation look like for a woman in Community of Christ?

Janné Grover is a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, the lead missionary quorum of Community of Christ. She is assigned to the Central USA Mission Field. She is also director of Formation Ministries.

Her previous employment includes disciple formation ministries specialist for Community of Christ and is a musician by training and vocation.

Apostle, Janne joins me to discuss spiritual formation and what it means for a woman to be in senior ecclesiastical leadership in a progressive worldwide church.  

Church College of New Zealand, which was opened in 1958, had a short life by education standards.  For 52 years it served the mostly Māori Mormon LDS community.  But, in a swirl of confusion, it was finally closed in 2009 and demolished.

The school's motto was 'Build Now For Eternity' which motivated many Māori Mormons to contribute money, material resources and years of labour for the building of the school.  Today, despite promises to develop the land and reinvigorate the community of Temple View, few of the promised improvements which were offered to replace a much-beloved school have been realised.

Peter Witehira,  former Chair of the Temple View Heritage Committee, and Rā Puriri join me to discuss the beginning and end of Church College of New Zealand.

(Music by St Joseph's Maori Girls' College)

In 2019 Professor Peter Lineham was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to religious history and the community.  And that honour is well deserved. 

Few, if any scholars in the field of religious history in New Zealand have the sweeping knowledge and intimate understanding of religion in Aotearoa. He’s written about Māori prophets to Catholic missionaries to LDS History over the period of his distinguished career. 

Peter's fluency and his impressive breadth of understanding of Mormon history highlight the issues arising out of an American church who are in a complex relationship with New Zealand Māori.

In this episode, we look at child abuse from the perspective of prevention.  My guest is Gwen Knight, the executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Utah.

According to Prevent Child abuse Utah, its mission is to forge and guide a community commitment to prevent child abuse in all of its forms.

In Utah one in five children will be sexually abused before the age of 18, suggesting the issue of child abuse in the Beehive state is epidemic.

Gwen joins me for a very pragmatic discussion about what child abuse is in all of its forms and varieties,  what to notice, and how to respond when you suspect it.

Anthony Miller lives in Billings Montana.  He grew up Mormon  He did all the things required of good Mormon boys and he thought he knew where his life was heading.  But a dramatic and sudden period of faith deconstruction had him reconsidering everything about his religious life.

Mormon leave-takers don’t usually manage the God and church conversation without some nervousness but Anthony wanted to understand his inner journey well and despite his resignation, he has remained open and curious about spirituality and spiritual formation inside and outside of the LDS Church.   And, Anthony has found gracious and wise ways of accommodating his still adherent wife’s journey in the LDS faith.

Anthony joins me to talk about gracious LDS leave-taking, deconstruction and spiritual reconstruction.

At the beginning of May 2019 two mothers of children who were sexually abused by convicted pedophile, Michael Jensen, appeared back in their former ward in Martinsburg, West Virginia to warn the congregation that the children there are not safe.

This is a community, they argued, that circled their wagons around the perpetrator and their leaders.  This is a community that made sinners out of those who pointed out the sin.  This is a community that never apologized for their role in creating a climate that turned a church against the victims and their families.

Alice Koivu and Kelly Plante join me to talk about their journey back (as uninvited guests with a message) to the LDS Church pulpit.

Lucy Cammock talks passionately and with clarity about the subtle side of sexual abuse trauma that trailed her (a sexual abuse survivor) through her life.  

"I'm never done with the trauma", she argues. 

And while that may sound hopeless to some, for Lucy, what was more harmful was any idea that at some predetermined stage it will all be over. 

Lucy discusses the ideas that she has worked through as a woman and a mother as she works to get into a healthy relationship with her childhood sexual abuse.

Section 132 was Joseph Smith's revelation that provided the theological justification that allowed select men of the early LDS restoration to have sex with more than one authorized partner.

For The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, section 132 and the doctrines that have emerged from it inform gender inequality, the continued practice of post-mortem polygyny, male priesthood and more importantly it lays out the doctrine of the New and Everlasting Covenant which is central to the ordinances of the LDS temple.

It's absolutely essential that those of us in the LDS restoration movement understand Section 132 in order to make sense of Mormon History and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint's contemporary theological challenges.

In that spirit I read Section 132 in plain English.

Tim Kosnoff, victims' advocate and attorney, returns to the podcast to discuss the growing wave of sexual abuse allegations being made against the Boys Scouts and the long-standing relationship between the BSA and the LDS Church.

The Rev. Rob McKay began his religious formation in the LDS Church.  When he returned home from his mission he affiliated with a Pentecostal church in Auckland, New Zealand.  He then became Anglican and was ordained a priest in Tikanga Māori.  Recently he converted to Islam.

Despite these movements, he honours each tradition for what they offered him in his spiritual formation.  Though his journey hasn't been straightforward he is without regret.

In light of the mosque shootings in Christchurch, Rob's ability to deeply appreciate and understand these sometimes adversarial traditions might just be what our New Zealand religious community needs.

Rob McKay and I have a delightful conversation about the many unexpected places to which God calls us home.