Mormon Land

As it prepares to welcome a new president, the United States, a land of prophecy and promise to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stands at a momentous moment.

A defeated, disgraced and divisive president has become the first commander in chief to be impeached twice. A violent mob has desecrated the People’s House, eroding the very foundation of democracy. And, amid threats of more unrest, a shaken nation tiptoes into the future with as much trepidation as hope.

One Latter-day Saint who, perhaps more than any other, can bring insight to this turbulent time is former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. The longtime Democrat served in Congress for 34 years, including eight years as Senate majority leader, the highest federal office ever achieved by a Latter-day Saint, before retiring in 2017.

On this week’s podcast, Reid recounts his early days as a Capitol Police officer, the pain he felt seeing the place he labored for so many years being ransacked, and why he believes top church leaders, perhaps the governing First Presidency, need to warn members to beware of aligning with “fringe” groups and causes, adding that Latter-day Saints who take part in this insurrection are giving the faith a bad name.

In a wide-ranging interview published in Sunday’s Salt Lake Tribune, revered Mormon historian Richard Bushman, author of the acclaimed Joseph Smith biography “Rough Stone Rolling,” talked at length about his childhood in Oregon, his mission in New England and his education at Harvard, where he wrestled with his faith in God.

He also discussed the mystery of the gold plates, from which the Book of Mormon sprang, his understanding of truth, and his perspectives on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — its past, present and future.

Bushman discusses those topics and more on this week’s podcast.

This year’s global pandemic brought extraordinary actions inside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Worship services were halted. Temples were closed. Missionaries were released, recalled and reassigned. Humanitarian outreach reached record levels.

And there was much more: Major denunciations of racism were given. Changes to church practices and parlance were announced. A new symbol and proclamation were unveiled.

Patrick Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, discusses the year in Mormonism on this week’s show and what it all may mean moving forward for the global faith.

The group FairMormon is dedicated to defending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from critics and rebutting falsehoods about the faith’s history and theology.

FairMormon is particularly concerned about the influence of a 2013 volume called the “CES Letter,” which provides a long list of what it sees as problems with the church’s descriptions of its past, including founder Joseph Smith, his “First Vision,” translation of the Book of Mormon and polygamy.

So FairMormon enlisted a handful of Brigham Young University actors and writers to produce satirical videos with essentially a twofold mission: Tear down the “CES Letter” and build up these younger members.

Will the mocking nature of these videos work? What is the best way to tackle controversial aspects of Mormon history?

On this week’s shows, Michael Austin, a Latter-day Saint writer, BYU alumnus and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Evansville, where he works every day with college students, addresses those questions and more.

In a lengthy essay in The Atlantic posted online Wednesday, reporter McKay Coppins explores The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its history as “The Most American Religion.”

In a subtitle, the article states: “Perpetual outsiders, Mormons spent 200 years assimilating to a certain national ideal — only to find their country is in an identity crisis. What will the third century of the faith look like?”

Coppins’ piece looks backward and forward, not as a dispassionate observer, but through his own lens as a practicing Latter-day Saint. He talks with scholars and politicians, insiders and outsiders, leaders and laypeople, even church President Russell M. Nelson.

In this week’s podcast, Coppins talks about the path Mormonism has followed and what steps the Utah-based faith could — and should — take as it treads into its next hundred years.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted a video this week from apostle Dale G. Renlund in which he pleaded with members to put on masks and put off assembling in large gatherings in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Wearing a face covering,” he said, “is a sign of Christlike love for our brothers and sisters.”

Renlund, a former cardiologist, emphasized that he was speaking not as a physician, but as an apostle, a position of great respect within the Utah-based faith. His words were just the latest in a series of statements and actions by top church leaders in support of public health guidelines. Still, they triggered strong debate between Latter-day Saints who support mask-wearing and those who don’t.

A key question: Are so-called anti-maskers among the church’s membership guilty of not following their prophet?

The short answer is yes, according to Latter-day Saint writer Emily Jensen, the web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Jensen discusses that question and the wider implications for the church in this week’s podcast.

In the not-too-distant future, the United States and other nations will have a vaccination available, thankfully, for COVID-19, which has killed more than 1.5 million people and altered millions of more lives.

But besides the issue of who will get the vaccination first looms another question: Who will be willing to get it?

Debates about the value and efficacy of vaccines — as well as the socioeconomics of those who will get them and those who won’t — have raged throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.

Such a debate took place in the early 1900s in Utah over the smallpox vaccine, dividing prominent community members, leaders and Latter-day Saints, including top church authorities and the editor of the church-owned Deseret News.

On this week’s podcast, Ben Cater — who teaches history at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and has written about the religious politics at play in public health during the Progressive Era in Utah — revisits that period and how it may parallel our current times.

As a global faith leader, President Russell M. Nelson urged members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last week to “flood social media” with posts about gratitude — even as he acknowledged the pain of the coronavirus pandemic that has plagued the world.

In response, throngs of Latter-day Saints have done so. Some might even see it as a religious obligation. But it’s not just a good religious act. Therapists see the expression of gratitude as good for mental health, too.

On this week’s show, Marybeth Raynes, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist in Salt Lake City, discusses the benefits of giving thanks.

In October 1969, 14 African American players for the University of Wyoming planned to sport black armbands in a football game against Brigham Young University to protest the then-priesthood/temple ban on Blacks in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (that ban ended in 1978).

Their coach booted them off the team hours before kickoff.

Now, more than 50 years later, the “Black 14,” as they have been called, are actually teaming up with the LDS Church, to bring 180 tons of food to people in need in nine U.S. cities stretching from Maryland to Wyoming.

On this week’s podcast, Mel Hamilton, one of the original Black 14 whose son actually converted to Mormonism, talks about the experience, past and present.

Before the presidential election, some pollsters and pundits suggested that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints might play a key role — despite their relatively small numbers.

Indeed, many members became actively involved on one side or the other, forming groups like Latter-day Saints for Trump and Latter-day Saints for Biden. They seemed especially visible in Western swing states like Nevada and Arizona.

So, for instance, did Latter-day Saints help turn the traditionally red Grand Canyon State blue? Quin Monson, a Brigham Young University political science professor who also is a partner at Y2 Analytics, gives a “qualified yes” to that question. He offers more insights on Latter-day Saint voters and how their partisan leanings have changed — and may change — on this week’s podcast.