Mormon Land

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made historic changes last week to its temple ceremonies, drawing widespread attention and praise, especially from women, for its use of gender-equitable language.

Neylan McBaine, author of “Women at Church” and founder of the Mormon Women Project, joins this week’s podcast to discuss what these changes mean for women, men and the wider church.

If The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seemed to be dormant during the waning years of enfeebled President Thomas S. Monson’s tenure, that inactivity ended in 2018.

After Monson’s death at age 90 two days into the year and the ascension of apostle Russell M. Nelson to the presidency, the deluge of changes, adjustments, announcements, rescissions and reforms came at a dizzying pace and show no signs of letting up.

We recap the historic headline-making year in this week’s podcast.

In Christian homes around the world this holiday season, families have dusted off their Nativity sets and carefully arranged the pieces in their living rooms. There are wise men, shepherds, barnyard animals, Joseph, perhaps an angel, all paying homage to the baby Jesus. But what about one woman in every Nativity: Mary.

Where does the mother of the Lord fit in Latter-day Saint theology and the wider Christian world?

Cristina Rosetti, a doctoral candidate in religious studies at the University of California Riverside and an expert on the intersection of Mormonism and spirit communication, examines that question and more. A convert to Catholicism, Rosetti, who is a also an archivist at Sunstone and a former Mormon studies fellow at the University of Utah, explains the prominent role Mary plays in Catholic worship and her more-subdued part in Latter-day Saint teachings, along with the doctrine of Heavenly Mother and how together they affect women’s places in the world of faith.

Salt Lake County is home to the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It also boasts the faith’s famous tabernacle and its landmark temple.

But the county is no longer populated mostly by Mormons. The latest membership numbers, supplied by the church itself, show that Utah’s most populous county is now 48.91 percent Latter-day Saint.

In fact, the Latter-day Saint tally statewide has fallen below 62 percent.

This continuing demographic shift is more than a statistical footnote. It carries with it sweeping implications for schools, politics, neighborhoods and the church itself.

Jim McConkie, a Salt Lake City attorney, former Latter-day Saint bishop and an ex-congressional candidate, has witnessed this transformation and sees opportunities for the area to become more cohesive and inclusive even as it grows more diverse and increasingly becomes a place for non-Mormons.

Two days before Election Day, Marty Stephens, a Latter-day Saint stake president and the church’s chief lobbyist on Utah’s Capitol Hill, took to the pulpit and urged his congregations to “Follow the prophet” and, in so many words, vote against the ballot measure legalizing medical marijuana.

Although most Utah voters ultimately bucked the church’s position and approved Proposition 2 anyway, Stephens’ sermon and the public and behind-the-scenes actions of Utah’s predominant faith during the campaign have revived questions about the separation of church and state and whether Latter-day Saint authorities wielded inappropriate influence on politicians, policymakers and rank-and-file church members.

McKay Coppins, staff writer for The Atlantic and a graduate of Brigham Young University, shares his views on Prop 2, the midterm elections, Mitt Romney, the church’s forays into public policy, its clout in Utah and Washington and the intersection of religion and politics.

The federal government recently released a sweeping scientific report filled with dire predictions if climate change is left unchecked, but President Donald Trump is doubting his own administration’s findings.

The White House’s perplexing response set off fresh conversations this week about the perils of a warming climate. As that debate, like the planet itself, heats up, we invited Ty Markham, a co-founder of the Mormon Environmental Stewardship Alliance, to discuss her grass-roots activism and how her Latter-day Saint faith informs it.

It’s Thanksgiving week, and Americans’ thoughts — and stomachs — turn inevitably to food.

What better time, then, to explore whether Latter-day Saints have any special connection to food or, at least, certain foods? After all, we’ve all heard about funeral potatoes and green Jell-O. But the faith also has a health code that counsels members on what they should and should not eat or drink. What role does it play?

Here to discuss this topic is Christy Spackman, who holds a doctorate in food studies and teaches at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society.

So-called Middle Way Mormonism is generating a lot of chatter online, in homes, at churches and elsewhere. While a clear definition of the term remains elusive — even among self-proclaimed middle wayers — this approach is gaining traction, especially among millennial members, more and more of whom are seeing themselves as neither all-in nor all-out of the faith. By Common Consent blogger Sam Brunson argues all members, at some level, are middle wayers.

Three years ago this month, word leaked out of a new policy from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one that deemed members who enter a same-sex marriage “apostates” and barred their children from baptism and other religious rituals until they turn 18.

The policy made international headlines, setting off a wave of protests and rallies, public resignations and private resentments.

That furor has faded but, for many, the questions and the pain, like the policy itself, persist.

So, three years later, what is the state of LGBTQ relations within the faith?

Kendall Wilcox, an openly gay Latter-day Saint filmmaker and co-founder of the group Mormons Building Bridges, would like to see improvement, but under the church’s new leadership of President Russell M. Nelson and given recent sermons by his first counselor, Dallin H. Oaks, he isn’t hopeful.

He talks about that and more on this week’s podcast.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints surprised many when it announced that large church pageants are now “discouraged.”

That same day, leaders of the mother of all Latter-day Saint pageants, the Hill Cumorah Pageant, said that it would end its 81-year run after the 2020 season.

On this week’s podcast, Gerald Argetsinger, who served in the pageant presidency for 12 years and worked as its artistic director for most of the 1990s, laments the loss of this iconic piece of Latter-day Saint dramatic history, discusses the pageant’s storied past and highlights the impact the show had through the decades on members and nonmembers alike.