Mormon Land

When Russell M. Nelson, already the oldest-ever president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, turned 100 last year, the Utah-based faith celebrated him with a televised birthday party. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox declared Sept. 9, 2024, as Russell M. Nelson Day. Throngs of young single adults signed a giant birthday card. And members everywhere reflected on the centenarian’s accomplishme...

A new nine-part video series about Mormonism, titled “ An Inconvenient Faith ,” was recently uploaded to YouTube. It tackles the thorniest issues — LGBTQ relations, feminism, church history, race, polygamy, Book of Mormon historicity and divine revelation — currently faced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The ultimate approach seems to be to defend the church and help explain ho...

Is the following playing out more and more among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? • The bishop asks Brother So-and-So to give a talk next week on being kind to strangers. “No problem,” the member thinks. “I’ll just make a couple of queries in ChatGPT and, voila, instant sacrament sermon.” • Or the Sunday school president calls on Sister Such-and-Such to pinch-hit in Gosp...

The mission statement of Brigham Young University, the flagship school of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, says nothing about pursuing spots in the College Football Playoff or the Final Four. It does say that BYU graduates “should be capable of competing with the best in their fields.” So, in this era of “name, image and likeness,” with athletic budgets soaring into the mega-millio...

For many early Utah pioneers, James Brown Jr. was a hero of sorts. He led a Mormon Battalion company into the Salt Lake Valley just days after Brigham Young. He and his family settled Ogden, which became known for a time as Brownsville, and he served as a Latter-day Saint bishop. As a prominent leader, he married 13 women — all sealed to him in temple rites — and fathered 28 children. What most ch...

Gordon B. Hinckley, then president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stepped up to the microphone in General Conference in the fall of 2000 and solemnly denounced tattoos as “graffiti on the temple of the body.” The following year, the faith’s “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlet pointedly counseled young people not to “disfigure” themselves with tattoos. With those words, body a...

On the fourth crossover episode between ‘Mormon Land’ and ‘Mormons in Media, ’ Rebbie and Nicole dissect the latest dating show to come out of Provo — The Altar. Rebbie fills Nicole in on the history of the show and Nicole can't seem to figure out why these 21-year-olds are so worried about marriage. Turns out, it's a lot deeper than she thinks. Plus, what IS a "basic Utah girl?" Let's discuss.

To Christians everywhere, the story of refugees is a part of Scripture. It is sacred. Adam and Eve, Moses and the Israelites, the Book of Mormon’s Lehi and his family, even Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus. The history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints includes an epic journey of migrants fleeing persecution to find a promised land. Latter-day Saints, then, have a natural affinity...

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a standard crossing-the-Plains narrative: Pioneers traversed the Mississippi River on the ice led by Brigham Young. Everything was well organized, and everyone was well behaved. They trekked hard by day and prayed together at night. They sang “Come, Come, Ye Saints” around the campfire and then delighted in dancing to the tunes of fid...

The latest  word from the IRS  is that, contrary to popular belief, churches and other houses of worship can endorse political candidates from the pulpit without threatening their tax-exempt status. When asked to comment on the tax agency’s stance, a  spokesperson for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pointed , perhaps tellingly, to the faith’s official policy of  political neutralit...

This nonpartisan Latter-day Saint group has called out President Donald Trump for continuing to spread the false narrative that the 2020 election was rigged and for targeting those who have reported the truth about his electoral defeat that year. It has denounced the present federal administration’s quest for greater power and Congress’ unwillingness to act as a constitutional check against such e...

On the third crossover episode between ‘Mormon Land’ and ‘Mormons in Media, ’ Rebbie and Nicole are joined by Meg Walter, host of the ‘Hive Mind’ podcast. After watching the ‘Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ reunion, the three talk about the heaviness of it. Nicole asks the question: If faith is so important to these women, why stay in the LDS Church where they don’t follow the rules versus choosing...

On Sept. 28, 2017, The Salt Lake Tribune premiered a new podcast, “Mormon Land,” and its first guest was Tom Christofferson, a prominent LGBTQ+ member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a brother of apostle D. Todd Christofferson. Deseret Book had just published Tom’s memoir, “ That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith and Family .” As hosts, we were definitely ne...

Stassi D. Cramm did not spend her childhood fantasizing about becoming the  first female prophet-president  in the Community of Christ’s 165-year history. Indeed, Cramm did not originally plan for a life of ministry in the church, which, like the  much-larger Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , traces its origins to  Joseph Smith . But sometimes, Cramm says, God has other plans for you....

To many liberal members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, apostle Hugh B. Brown was an ecclesiastical icon, a fierce warrior for social justice and a passionate proponent of ending the faith’s former temple/priesthood exclusion of Black members. Still, Brown was not without his critics, including some strong opponents among the church’s highest leadership ranks. As a member of th...

Critics often say that there is no place in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for LGBTQ+ members. After all, they rightly point out, the faith’s policy is that having same-sex attraction is not a sin but acting on it is. That can put those who are in a same-sex marriage or advocating for it in a tough position. It also has led to self-loathing among LGBTQ+ members and serious conflic...

In 2012, scholar John Turner published an award-winning biography of Brigham Young , a mountain of a man in Western Americana. But there remained a bigger fish to pursue, namely Joseph Smith, the “white whale” of Mormon history, the religious icon who gave birth to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Turner’s voyage is now complete and the resulting book, “ Joseph Smith: The Rise and...

In the second monthly bonus episode brought to you by a collaboration of “Mormon Land” and “Mormons in Media,” Latter-day Saint Rebbie Brassfield and non-Latter-day Saint Nicole Weaver recap season two of “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” From discussing maternity garments and Gen-Z Latter-day Saints bringing back cross necklaces, the pair talks about all the things you may have been wondering. You...

It took more than three decades for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to grow its membership in Kenya from a handful in the late 1980s to more than 21,000 today. These days, though, the number of conversions is rising more rapidly in this East African country. Kenya now even has its first Latter-day Saint temple . Such expansion brings with it challenges brought by having young lay l...

As the world held its collective breath for white smoke at the Vatican to signal the selection of a new Catholic pope , some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were smugly thinking how straightforward their faith‘s succession process is. No guessing. No politicking. No top candidates. The senior apostle simply moves up a seat. Some wonder, though, what’s wrong with mystery...

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are more prone to perfectionism . That was the assumption, at least, that Justin Dyer , professor of religious education at church-owned Brigham Young University, was used to hearing. Then the statistician, along with a few colleagues, started digging into the data. What they found was more complicated than the common wisdom that church me...

In 1981, then-apostle Ezra Taft Benson rose to the pulpit during a General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and told women: “You were elected by God to be wives and mothers in Zion. Exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom is predicated on faithfulness to that calling. Since the beginning, a woman’s first and most important role has been ushering into mortality spirit sons...

In the first monthly bonus episode brought to you by a collaboration of “Mormon Land” and “Mormons in Media,” Latter-day Saint Rebbie Brassfield and non-Latter-day Saint Nicole Weaver talk about season one of “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and what they’re expecting, and hoping to see, from season two. Rebbie is surprised to learn that Nicole knows about the Celestial Kingdom and even more surpris...

Taylor Frankie Paul. Litia Garr. Shari Franke. Andy Reid. Lisa Barlow. Hannah Neeleman. What do all these people have in common? For our online friends, the answer is obvious: All are Latter-day Saints. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Maybe not. But these are just some of the names representing and defining, albeit unofficially, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for millions around the w...

While the racist priesthood/temple ban in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is indeed in the past, racism itself remains very much in the present — for the faith and for society as a whole. In fact, the Utah-based church recently published a new webpage addressing the topic, reminding members that President Russell Nelson directed them to “lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions...