What inspired and disappointed at General Conference | Episode 202

10/06/21 • 30 min

The recently completed 191st Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provided 10 hours of sermons from the faith’s top leaders, including four women among dozens of men. In this fourth straight all-virtual conference, worldwide listeners heard speeches about mental illness, the importance of temples and dissension among the membership. Speakers also focused on the need to hold fast to faith in Christ, use the church’s full name, and take precautions against the coronavirus pandemic. On this week’s show, Emily Jensen, a writer and web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, discusses the weekend’s sessions — the words, the music, what inspired, what disappointed, and what the proceedings may mean moving forward.

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Is the church in the midst of sea change — and how might it navigate the rocky waters? | Episode 201

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was once known almost as an ethnic group. In the past three-plus years, since President Russell M. Nelson took the helm of the 16.6 million-member global faith, elements of that identity have been stripped away. Statues of the Angel Moroni, a figure from the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, are rarely being added to the tops of new temples. The “live” endowment temple ritual, created as a kind of religious theater, has been replaced by a film. Class names for Young Women, including Beehive, Mia Maid and Laurels, have been scrapped. Long-standing outdoor pageants have ended. Nelson has declared that even using the name Mormon is a “major victory for Satan” and has generally prohibited its usage. What’s happening to the Utah-based faith? Is it in danger of losing its identity? Liz Layton Johnson, a Latter-day Saint blogger who lives in Saudi Arabia with her family, discusses those questions and more for a church she describes as “in flux” as it strives to chart a unifying, yet distinctive, future.

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Liberals vs. conservatives — the tug of war within the church | Episode 203

When the governing First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints amped up its plea in August for masking and vaccinations, some conservative members who oppose such COVID-19 measures balked. Now they know how it feels, responded many progressive Latter-day Saints, who have found themselves similarly on the outs with top church leaders on a range of issues from women’s rights to same-sex marriage. Such was the setup for a major Washington Post story about the rise of liberal Latter-day Saints, especially among younger members. On this week’s show, author Emily Kaplan joins us to discuss her piece and the tug of war taking place between progressive and conservative forces within the faith.