Liz Brown MacDonald was curious about the effect of the behaviour of religiously rigid parents on their children who disaffiliate from the LDS Church.

'It's never good,' she concludes, 'to complicate a parental relationship with an expectation of your children's life long affiliation to your religious tradition.' 

Liz, joins ATF Podcast to discuss why.

While we honour the expectant Mary at Advent, we rarely discuss her in the context of the suffering of pregnancy and birth.  Our sacred texts and Christmas stories leave out the intensely feminine experience of a mother's body,  bruised and broken for the sake of Jesus.  Too often written out of the reflections on Advent are the earthiness, the blood and mess of pregnancy and childbirth and the scars it all leaves on women's bodies.

ReNee McDonald and Kristin Jensen, two women at different stages in their mothering, join me to discuss the suffering of mothers.

How does a young gay, afakasi, Samoan, Mormon man put his spiritual life together when he sits across many religious and cultural divides?   When the moorings of fixed belief systems that defined prior generations fall away, what of the spiritual life that is so integral to Māori and Pasifika mental health? 

Is it even possible? 

My guest today says 'Yes.'

Lutheran Ordinand Katie Langston and Community of Christ Elder, Gina Colvin get together in this monthly series to offer our responses to Mormons who are grappling with their spiritual and religious deconstruction and reconstruction.

Today's topics, Grace; The Trinity; Telling family you no longer believe

For those who grew up in the 'Mission Field', Utah is often referred to as Zion. But, in the 2020 US Presidential elections, Utah seemed anything but Zion.

Utah voted for the least Mormon person on the ticket (Donald Trump).  About 20% of Utahns voted to keep slavery in their state constitution. In an age of pandemic, it's been difficult for Governor Gary Herbert to get popular compliance on the wearing of masks.  Seasoned statesman, Representative Ben McAdams (a good Mormon man) was replaced by Burgess Owen, a notorious Trumpian who thinks that systemic racism is the fault of Marxists.

To help unravel the politics of the state that (on the surface) seems at odds with the faith that dominates, scholar, strategic planner, author and former mission president Roger Hendrix joins us.

In this conversation, blogger, Michael Mathews II  exegetes Doctrine & Covenants Section 132.  Mormons socially read Section 132 as pointing to the endurance of familial ties after death.  However, Mathews argues, there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case at all.  

The temple, he further argues, is the place where covenants to live into the promise of plural marriage under the domain of the male priesthood is contracted.

Mormons are making of Section 132 and the Temple covenants something that is literally irreconcilable with the text and the language of the covenants.

 

Are unique Mormon communities like Laie, in Hawaii worth celebrating? 

Absolutely. 

Mormon communities like Laie on Hawaii's North shore, which are uniquely indigenous Mormon,  have made good homes that have been blessed by the confluence of culture, faith, history, structure, spirituality and solidarity.

But, that's not the whole story. 

This conversation is an invitation to think about the shadow side of the church's involvement in places like Laie in Hawaii and Temple View in New Zealand, because there's a pattern here of blatant litigious disregard for Indigenous rights, Indigenous relationships with the land and water, Indigenous people's labour and the appropriation of their culture for financial gain. 

This is also an invitation to consider how faithful the LDS Church has been to native people's in the light of advances in United Nations and domestic legislation that have sought to place protections around Indigenous people that the LDS church has neglected to offer.
 

Whatever your position on LDS Studies, it can't be said that the Mormonism is boring.  Socially, historically, culturally, politically and theologically its a gold mine of intrigue and interest.  Nevermore so than on the topic of sex.

Taylor G. Petrey’s history of sexuality and gender in modern Mormonism is a rollicking and delightfully thorough documentation of the LDS modern teachings on gender, sexual difference, and marriage.  He joins me at ATF podcast to discuss his latest book, 'Tabernacles of Clay.'

When Mormon divorce happens acrimoniously it's never a better time to observe the LDS church's position on the wellbeing of women and children.   

The wife of a physician and the mother of four children Leslie felt that she was fulfilling 'the measure of her creation' until she found herself fleeing from abuse.   However, the involvement of church leaders, that Mormon divorce often requires, complicated financial, legal, relationship and spiritual matters again and again.

Les Butterfield joins me to discuss the pastoral care (or the inadequacy of it) when her own marriage was in free fall. 

Cat McFedries joins me to talk about youth spiritual and religious formation and how some radical pastoring that she received as a young person might have put her off the church, but it didn't put her off the person of Jesus.  

This disconnect between the heart of the gospel, which is on the streets,  and the fears of the church as it sits on the pews needs to change according to Cat. Until then the church will be a thing of growing irrelevance to today's young people.