Abortion — always a hotly disputed, highly divisive topic — is back in the headlines.

Several states, including Utah, have passed laws severely restricting the procedure in hopes of setting up a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court, where a new conservative majority would have the chance to strike down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Where does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially stand on the issue? Is it more “pro-life” or more “pro-choice.” And do rank-and-file members understand the nuances in their faith’s position?

“I hear a lot of rhetoric from church members … who I don’t think are giving an accurate view of what the church’s actual stance is on abortion,” says Angela Clayton, who recently wrote about the issue for By Common Consent.

The church’s policy, she argues is “enabled by Roe v. Wade,” and those Latter-day Saints who call abortion murder are resorting to a “theological hyperbole” that stretches beyond the faith’s doctrine.

Clayton discusses those issues and more in this Tribune story and on this week’s podcast.

The ins and outs of the church’s nuanced policy on abortion | Episode 84

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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The role of women in any patriarchal faith is always fraught. It is especially confusing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which celebrated women who led the charge for suffrage while also practicing polygamy.

Past Latter-day Saint women like Eliza Snow and Emmeline Wells held high-profile positions in the hierarchy almost until their deaths — Susa Young Gates, an influential daughter of church prophet Brigham Young, was even dubbed a “13th apostle” — while today’s top female leaders are in and out in just five years.

Earlier general presidents of the women’s Relief Society were well known to members and wielded wide personal power, but, like the current high-level female leaders, they never held offices as “general authorities.”

Now comes word that, unlike yesteryear, today’s General Relief Society Presidencies don’t even meet weekly with an apostle “liaison” to the governing First Presidency.

On this week’s show, April Young Bennett, a blogger and essayist for Exponent II who has seen the evolving changes for Latter-day Saint women, discusses where top female leaders stand in today’s church, what could or should be done to elevate their status, and whether women’s ordination is the only way to truly balance the gender scales in the global faith.

Will a top LDS women’s leader ever again be seen as a ‘13th apostle’? | Episode 336

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.

The ins and outs of the church’s nuanced policy on abortion | Episode 84

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