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.

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

Mormon Land explores the contours and complexities of LDS news. It's hosted by award-winning religion writer Peggy Fletcher Stack and Salt Lake Tribune managing editor David Noyce.

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All kinds of believers and nonbelievers have described brushes with death in which they briefly left their bodies to see and feel otherworldly elements. While most scientists say these “near-death experiences” are the product of neurons firing in particular ways under particular stress, many who are religious view them as objective encounters, occurring in space and time.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seem particularly intrigued by the way such experiences affirm their teachings of the afterlife and have rushed to buy the many books on the topic, including Betty Eadie’s 1992 bestseller, “Embraced by the Light,” and, more recently, John Pontius’ “Visions of Glory: One Man’s Astonishing Account of the Last Days.”

While Eadie’s book tapped into New Age Mormonism popular in the 1980s and ‘90s, “Visions of Glory” — and the writings of Chad Daybell, a Latter-day Saint writer in Idaho who has been accused of murder — seems to draw on apocalyptic and political speculations.

On this week’s show., historian Matthew Bowman, director of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California and author of “The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America,” discusses this genre and its implications in Latter-day Saint culture.

How near-death accounts became apocalyptic and why they attract Latter-day Saints | Episode 335

Few conversations are as fraught as those among family members who disagree about ideas they hold dear, and none more so than religion.

Such exchanges can be especially painful for believers in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith that can be all encompassing with strong teachings about here and the hereafter, especially about family relationships, and practices that reflect those teachings.

So what happens in families when some hold firm to the faith and others walk away? How do parents, children and siblings respond to those who have chosen a different path? Can they still love one another or does judgment make that impossible? Do they talk about it or do they slink away in silent agony?

Utah Valley University’s Kimberly Abunuwara, director of the humanities program, came up with an unusual way to explore these questions. She enlisted a group of students to interview various families about how their attachment to — or distance from — Mormonism affected their connections and communications.

The team then staged a performance, titled “In Good Faith,” in which student actors used those firsthand accounts from members and former members to reveal these wrenching experiences.

In a special “Mormon Land” episode, recorded live at Orem’s UVU, Abunuwara and two of the student performers — Brielle Szendre and Caleb Voss — are discuss what they discovered, how the experience affected them and what others can learn from this effort.

What happens inside LDS families when a loved one leaves the faith | Episode 334

The recently completed 194th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may merit no more than a mere mention in the history books of Mormonism. There were no theological breakthroughs, no major policy changes, no sweeping shake-ups among the top echelons.

But the sessions did feature significant speeches, memorable moments and notable nuances. A British church leader delivered his debut conference sermon as an apostle. A longtime apostle returned to the conference pulpit after an extended absence. A Black general authority rose in the ranks to a historic level. Speakers publicly addressed the private wearing of so-called temple garments by the faithful. And the church’s aging senior leadership, led by a prophet-president inching ever closer to the century mark, made conspicuous accommodations to conference procedures.

On this week’s show, Emily Jensen, web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Patrick Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, look back at the conference and what it may mean to the church and its 17.2 million members moving forward.

A conversation about General Conference | Episode 333

Latter-day Saint leaders seem to be concerned about what they believe is the causal, even “cavalier” wearing of religious underclothing by devout members.

Indeed, in a recent speech, a general authority Seventy reportedly condemned women who wear temple garments only on Sunday and to the temple and the rest of the week can be seen in “yoga pants.” He warned that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was planning to issue stricter rules about the wearing of garments.

The standard instruction has essentially been for women and men to wear them “day and night.” According to a recent survey, though, some women are donning them when and where they want — and they don’t, it seems, view that as disobedience or inappropriate. At the same, it is getting tougher to find clothing, especially for women, that completely covers garments.

On this week’s episode, author Kristine Haglund, former editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Laura Brignone, a Latter-day Saint research analyst at Sacramento State University, discuss the challenges in wearing garments, what some members are choosing, and what it means for their faith.

Who should decide when, where and how often Latter-day Saints wear temple garments? | Episode 332

A decade after the Ordain Women movement within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made national news, another feminist issue is getting lots of media attention.

During a March 17 meeting to celebrate the creation of the church’s Relief Society, J. Anette Dennis, first counselor in the faith’s global women’s organization, declared that “there is no other religious organization in the world that I know of that has so broadly given power and authority to women.”

Dennis went on to say that “other faiths ordain women to roles like priest or pastor, but those individuals represent a small minority when compared to the total number of women within their congregations.”

In the Utah-based church, all women “who choose a covenant relationship with God in the House of the Lord are endowed with priesthood power directly from God.”

It is a sentiment that has been expressed previously by Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the church’s governing First Presidency, and by Sheri Dew, a former counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency. But when the church posted Dennis’ quote on Instagram, a flood of responses from women ensued — more than 15,000 comments. And, in an unusual acknowledgment, the church’s social media team promised to share the “thoughts, feelings and experiences” with the faith’s leaders.

On this week’s show, discussing this speech, the overwhelming response it generated and the role of women in the church, are Julie Hanks, a Latter-day Saint therapist in Utah, and Amy Watkins Jensen, a Latter-day Saint middle school humanities teacher in Oakland, California, who created the Women on the Stand letter-writing campaign in the wake of women’s leaders being removed from the stand at worship services in the Bay Area.

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

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