Postmormon Postmortem

Wade Christofferson, brother of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apostle D. Todd Christofferson, pleaded guilty to child abuse. Six church leaders knew first. None called police. This episode traces the Wade Christofferson case chronologically: the earliest documented abuse allegations in a Crystal Lake, Illinois ward in 1985, two bishops who heard direct disclosures four years apart, t...

Two men went to their graves arguing over who invented the LDS CTR ring — and neither of them designed it alone. Jess traces the real, messy origin story on this WDYKW. Every Mormon kid got a CTR ring, and almost none of them know it came from three separate committees fighting over credit for decades — the "Choose the Right" hymn from 1909, Gordon B. Hinckley's 1970 primary announcement, and jewe...

A new nonprofit wants to give the LDS Church outright ownership of Martin's Cove — brokered by a man who sold the ranch bordering it during the same window he pitched the deal. Jess and Hannah trace the 1856 Willie and Martin handcart disaster, Franklin D. Richards' decision to call a vote instead of halting departure, and Brigham Young's public rebuke that followed. Then they dig into the current...

In 2006 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints quietly rewrote a sentence in its own scripture about DNA and Native American ancestry — years before anyone was told why. Jess and Hannah trace the 1981 introduction naming Lamanites as the "principal ancestors" of Native Americans, the DNA research pointing to East Asian origin via the Bering Land Bridge, and the 2014 Gospel Topics essay ex...

In March 1902, fourteen-year-old Clyde Felt admitted cutting Samuel Collins’s throat inside a cave above Salt Lake City. Collins had spent years cultivating relationships with neighborhood boys, giving them gifts, paying them, inviting them to spend the night, and asking them to perform sexual acts and violent “operations.” Clyde said Collins repeatedly begged him to kill him and “could make me do...

Some Mormons believe a bishop will one day announce it's time to gather at secret tent cities. Jess and Hannah break down the real cost — and history — behind LDS prepper culture. On this "What Do You Know Wednesday," Hannah quizzes Jess on modern LDS prepper culture — a world beyond basement food storage. They dig into "the call out" belief, the rumored gathering points in Rexburg, Idaho and Card...

The Salt Lake Temple just finished a $2 billion seismic retrofit. Russell Nelson says it'll be the safest place in Salt Lake Valley during an earthquake. The engineers might disagree about who deserves the credit.  day Saints' newly completed Salt Lake Temple renovation — 98 base isolators, 263 miles of cable, and two decades of planning — and how the institution is already framing a predi...

Ted Bundy was baptized LDS in 1975, already having killed five women — and his ward defended him at trial. We trace how, and launch our series on the Mormon crimes those lists that include crimes like Bundy's leave out. On Postmormon Postmortem, Jess and Hannah trace Ted Bundy's brief membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — the baptism, the temple recommend, and jou...

A church president was asked a direct question about core Mormon doctrine — and answered like it didn't exist. There's a name for that pattern, and it goes back to Joseph Smith himself. Jess and Hannah trace "Lying for the Lord" from Joseph Smith's 1835 denial of polygamy to Gordon B. Hinckley's 1997 TIME interview dodging a direct doctrinal question — with the King Follett Discourse, the Lorenzo...

The Church sued a podcast over a logo. A group called "Latter-day Saints for Trump" used the actual Salt Lake Temple in a campaign ad and got a press release. Twice. Two election cycles. The actual First Presidency's photos on a campaign website. The actual Family Proclamation as a mission statement. No cease-and-desist, no trademark claim, no lawsuit. Meanwhile Mormon Stories — run by an excommun...

The LDS Church denied this committee existed for years. Then it admitted the committee tracks members' speech, feeds files to bishops, and — the church says — never judges or punishes anyone itself. Jess and Hannah trace the Strengthening Church Members Committee (SCMC) from its 1985 founding to 2023: the 1992 First Presidency statement confirming it, Doctrine and Covenants 123 as its scriptural c...

In 1911, Gisbert Bossard secretly photographed the inside of the Salt Lake Temple, and Max Florence tried to sell the images back to the LDS Church. Joseph F. Smith refused to pay. Then the photos hit the front pages. This week on What Do You Know Wednesday, Hannah tells Jess the story of the Salt Lake Temple photo scandal: unauthorized temple images, attempted blackmail, a gardener with access, n...

Four young Latter-day Saints say their liberal politics came from  their faith, not despite it — and it exposes the gap between Church neutrality and ward culture. A Salt Lake Tribune piece profiles Riley Cooper, Eric Biggart, Laine McPherson, and Jayden Weekes — four young, liberal members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — on how missions, ward welfare service, and Relief Socie...

The apron Lucifer wears in the LDS temple ceremony isn't in Genesis — it's Masonic. Joseph Smith became a Master Mason in 1842, and seven weeks later, the endowment appeared using the same signs. Hosts Jess and Hannah trace Joseph Smith's rushed 1842 Masonic initiation under Grand Master Abraham Jonas, the pre-1990 temple penalties and their exact Masonic parallels, the Five Points of...

The Bear River Massacre is the deadliest massacre of Indigenous people by the United States military in American history, and most of us were never taught about it. This week on What Do You Know Wednesday, Jess walks Hannah through the history behind the LDS Church’s new digital resource, Native Saints: The Washakie Ward, and the much older history underneath it. On January 29, 1863, Colonel Patri...

The story the LDS Church tells about people who leave is that they lacked the faith and character to stay. A BYU faculty member and former bishop just spent years disproving that with 15,000 respondents. Jeff Strong's study  Torn  found that 42% of people who left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cited church history as their primary reason. Social issues: 33%. Church experience...

The LDS Church doesn't need anyone to be cruel. The recommend interview, the ministering grid, and the love bombing cycle do the work — and they were built to. Jess and Hannah break down three structural practices built into LDS institutional life: temple recommend gatekeeping (and what the tithing declaration actually does inside that interview), passive shunning through record removal and mi...

In 1897, a theatrical Holy Land lecturer named Lydia von Finkelstein Mountford arrived in Salt Lake City — and then appeared 67 times in Wilford Woodruff's diary. No person appeared more often. He corresponded with her using only the initial "M." He traveled to the Pacific Coast under an assumed name while she was there. D. Michael Quinn argued Woodruff probably married her as a post...

Why does Utah's most Democratic city sit at the heart of the LDS Church? This week on Postmormon Postmortem, we examine Salt Lake City's political evolution, Utah's controversial redistricting battles, and the Church's claims of political neutrality. From gerrymandering and court fights to the Pentagon's rapid reversal on LDS religious classification, we explore what influence...

There's an earlier First Vision account — written in Joseph's own hand, kept in a church official's personal safe for decades. It describes a different age, a different reason, and one being, not two. Joseph Smith wrote the earliest account of the First Vision in 1832 — in his own hand, without a scribe. In it, he's in his sixteenth year, not his fourteenth. He doesn't go to pray because he's conf...

Utah has more MLMs per capita than any state in the country, and the three biggest — Young Living, Doterra, and Nu Skin — were all founded by members of the LDS Church. This week, Jess explains to Hannah why that isn’t an accident: ward lists that double as sales databases, missionary training that doubles as sales training, testimony culture that treats anecdote as proof, and a prosperity-gospel...

A missing Lego Star Wars collection somehow became one of the strangest Mormon-adjacent internet stories of the year so far. Bryan Mansell says his family’s valuable Lego collection was taken after a Bricks & Minifigs consignment deal went bad. Reckless Ben turned the dispute into a viral investigation. Then American Fork police got involved. There were searches, arrests, charges, a lawsuit, a...

This week on Mormon Monday, we’re talking about Elder Kyle S. McKay, a General Authority Seventy and Church Historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who apologized after making racially offensive remarks at the Yukon Oklahoma Stake conference. McKay opened his remarks by talking about “This Little Light of Mine,” a hymn recently added to the church’s new hymnbook. From there,...

Someone showed up in our comments with three arguments, one after another — missing scrolls, Chicago Fire, syncretism. Behind that comment is a funded nonprofit, studio space, and SEO training. Here's the machine. We traced a comment section exchange back to the Ancient America Foundation — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose stated mission pillars include "Missionary Productivity" and &quot...

Joseph Smith’s “Happiness Letter” is famous for the line “Happiness is the object and design of our existence.” But the full letter was connected to Nancy Rigdon, the 19-year-old daughter of Sidney Rigdon, after she refused Joseph Smith’s proposal of plural marriage. We walk through the proposal, Nancy’s refusal, the full text of the letter, Joseph’s denial, Nancy’s confrontation, Sidney Rigdon’s...