Mormon.ish

On this episode of Mormonish Podcast, Rebecca and Landon unravel the events of the past week involving Tim Ballard and the LDS Church. In a statement in Vice Magazine, an LDS church spokesman publicly denounced Tim Ballard, founder of Our Underground Railroad and claimed he had very limited involvement with Apostle M. Russell Ballard, who Tim Ballard claims is a strong supporter of his organization and efforts.

What follows is an ongoing story with so many twists and turns it's impossible to keep up! We try to sift through the information and bring you what's current and relevant in a way that's easy to follow. In some ways, there are even more questions than answers the deeper you dig.

Just hours after taping this podcast, Tim Ballard made a statement to the press regarding the authenticity of the LDS church's statement. This situation is only going to get wilder! Buckle your seatbelts!

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In Episode 4 of Mormonish Podcast’s series with Dr. John Lundwall, Dr. Lundwall examines the "Caractors Document" with symbols allegedly written from the gold plates, as well as other examples of glyphs from both the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham.

Lundwall recounts the testimony of Charles Anthon and compares the writing from the gold plates to magical seals from the Western esoteric tradition; textual density problems are soon resolved when one considers the magic worldview and how Joseph Smith imagined ancient writing systems.

Dr. Lundwall ends the episode by comparing the Caractors Document with every known writing system and examines the iconographic features of the symbols to determine that the script has to be logo-syllabic, but then shows problematic issues with the symbols, especially in the proper names that are being represented by them. Once again, this episode will leave you saying, “How did I never think of this..”

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Have you read D. Michael Quinn's "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View?" On this episode of Mormonish, Landon and Rebecca present a discussion of Quinn's ground breaking book on early Mormonism and folk magic.

This was a revolutionary concept when the first edition of the book was published in 1987. Very few members knew anything about the prevalence of folk magic and the occult in the early days of the church and it's importance in the Smith household itself.

This book is a must read to truly understand the origins of the church. If you haven't read the book and don't think you want to tackle it, this presentation and discussion offers a great synopsis of the important information in the book.

This episode was taped as a spooky Halloween edition of The Good Book Club in October 2022, so don't be surprised by anything you see!

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On this episode of Mormonish, we sit down with our two new friends from a concerned citizen's group in Heber, UT, to find out more about their goal, to have the new LDS temple relocated to a more appropriate site. As you watch the episode, you certainly won't miss the parallels to the situation with the Cody, WY Temple.

As background info, a new temple for Heber Valley, UT was announced at General Conference in October 2021. The site was revealed on September 19th, 2022 and a ground breaking ceremony with President Russell M. Nelson was held on October 8th, just a few weeks later. The temple will be 88,000 square feet with an elevation of 5,712.72 feet, by far the largest building anywhere in the area. Three times taller than the existing tabernacle in Heber, for comparison.

While many of us were lamenting the effect a large temple would have on the dark skies in this untouched area, most assumed that after the groundbreaking the temple had begun construction. This is not the case and a very active and organized group of citizens in the Heber Valley area are working hard to find a better solution and have the temple relocated to a more suitable area.

As Mormonish learned from a site visit with the citizen's group, there are big concerns about the present site including dark skies, water table issues, height issues, location in the flight path to a local airport, and more.

We learned a lot from our visit to the Heber Valley proposed temple site and we know you will too.

If you'd like to learn more or help financially, here is their contact info.

Email

[email protected]

Social Media

Facebook and Instagram - SaveWasatchDarkSkies

Facebook and Instagram - HeberValleyTempleInfo and HeberValleyTempleInfoDiscussionPage

Venmo

@Better-Location

We are conducting a T-Shirt fundraising here https://www.customink.com/fundraising/preserve-the-night-skies-in-wasatch-county-1?utm_campaign=desktop-campaign-page-share-v3&utm_content=preserve-the-night-skies-in-wasatch-county-1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=copy-link&side=front&type=6&zoom=

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Were you shocked at the parallels between Mormonism and the "Shiny Happy People" documentary on Amazon? If you watched the documentary like we did, the similarities were impossible to ignore.

On this episode of Mormonish Podcast, Rebecca and Landon have a fascinating discussion with Lindsey Williams and Chad Harris, both survivors of the IBLP religious organization started by Bill Gothard.

We highly recommend that you watch the documentary, "Shiny, Happy People" on Amazon Prime to understand the full scope of this high demand, high control religious movement and what survivors went through.

Both Lindsey and Chad appeared in the documentary to tell their story of survival and eventually thriving. Their humor and positive outlook is very inspiring and they are both just wonderful people.

It was our pleasure to get to know them better on the episode and we plan to collaborate more in the future. We know you'll feel the same way when you get to learn more about Lindsey and Chad on this very inspiring episode of Mormonish.

Lindsey Williams

Speaking out against Bill Gothard’ s cult, ATI/IBLP

@theCultChronicles on TikTok

@theCultChronicles on Instagram

TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/@thecultchronicles

LinkTree

https://linktr.ee/Cultchronicles

Chad Harris

TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8YwdyfS/

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On this PSA short episode of Mormonish Podcast, we are so excited to talk with the amazing Carah Burrell, aka NuanceHoe, about the launch of her new non-profit, "The Nuance Hug Foundation" and it's accompanying podcast "The Mormon History HoeDown!"

This is exciting news in the post Mormon space as Carah lends her unique voice and perspective, and her hilarious point of view to create great content that will educate, entertain, and foster community and connection.

If you're in the SLC area, there is a launch party for the new non profit on Saturday, September 9th. Follow the link below for more info. You can also donate to Carah's new endeavor to make sure this amazing content keeps coming!

We're so happy for Carah and her new project and can't wait to see what happens next!

Links to the launch party info and Carah's non profit

https://donorbox.org/events/492116

https://donorbox.org/fund-and-keep-nuancehoe-content-alive

HOW TO DONATE TO MORMONISH PODCAST:

We appreciate our Mormonish viewers and listeners so much! If you would like to support our podcast financially, you can DONATE to support Mormonish Podcast here:

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On another collaborative episode in The Gospel Topics Essays Series with The Backyard Professor, Rebecca and Landon dive into the Gospel Topics Essay, "Book of Mormon Translation." Most of us learned a narrative growing up in the church with a very specific story of how Joseph Smith learned about the golden plates, retrieved the plates, and translated the plates. In recent years, this narrative has been turned on it's head. The church essay claims that these new details have always been available to members and we must have misunderstood the information we were given in the past. Mormonish and BYP take a look at the narratives of the past and present and dissect the evolution of the entire translation process in this very insighful episode of Mormonish's "The Gospel Topics Essays Series."

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Wondering what the new changes and updates to the BYU church school honor code are?

On this episode of Mormonish we dive into the recent changes to the BYU honor code, dress and grooming standards, and the updated ecclesiastical endorsement questions at all BYU schools.

The changes at the BYU schools are indicative of attitudes, views, and culture shifts seen in the church itself, which makes these updates even more interesting.

The links to the changes are found in this article:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/updated-ces-standards-students-closer-to-christ

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Can our cell phones give us a clue as to whether LDS memberships numbers are declining? As Dr. Simon Southerton tells us, one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Mormon church is the numbers of people sitting in Mormon chapels each week. Church leaders know what the attendance figures are, but the leaders don't like sharing bad news.

The truth is that attendance is lower than everyone expects and is declining rapidly in most western countries. While the church won't share the numbers, our cellphones may hold the key to getting a more accurate picture of what the real attendance numbers are.

Dr. Southerton dives into the use of cellphone technology and the information it can give us in this absolutely fascinating episode. We learned so much from this conversation and we know you will too.

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What is it like to search for community as a young post Mormon? Mormonish has a very special guest on today's episode, Landon's son Jarin! Jarin is a post Mormon navigating the world of relationships, friendships, changing faith, and more in a predominantly LDS environment. Many of us have children, grandchildren, or friends who are in a similar situation.

This interesting discussion delves into strategies for finding community and avoiding feelings of isolation as you move forward living your best life. Adding her voice to the conversation is Meg Griffes, a family life educator and CEO of "G.R.O.W. with Meg," a Relationship Coaching & Education initiative. Meg gives us valuable insights into this world of finding community and making positive connections. We think you'll really learn a lot from this conversation, we certainly did!

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