Mormon Matters

37: Why Are Mormons Seen as “Dangerous” by Some Evangelical Christians?

June 14, 2011

A recent article at the Patheos website by evangelical Christian writer and publisher Warren Cole Smith made a big splash both on that website and in Mormon circles because of Smith’s argument that a Mitt Romney presidency would be “dangerous” for many souls who could lose their salvation if they were led astray by Mormonism’s false teachings about God and Christ. Smith hangs his case for a president’s religious beliefs being a strong enough influence for something like this to happen on several claims that many, including other evangelicals writing at Patheos, find dubious. Yet, according to Smith (and the…

35–36: Moving Beyond the “Negro Doctrine”

June 7, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

35–36: Moving Beyond the “Negro Doctrine”

This month marks the thirty-third anniversary of the 1978 revelation extending the priesthood to “all worthy males” in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since that day, little has been said by Church leaders on any topic related to the ban, including the reasons for the ban, the doctrinal justifications for the ban, and the process by which the ban came into existence in the first place. Even without such clarifications, the Church has nevertheless successfully grown in Africa and in U.S. inner cities with large African-American communities. Mormon Matters is very pleased this week to for the…

34: Self-Identifying as “Mormon”

May 31, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

Mormonism has always been a home to members with many different religious temperaments, levels of belief, attitudes toward authority, and commitment to and comfort within the community. Still, even with this diversity, Mormonism has often felt to many members (and certainly to most outsiders) as monolithic—if the diversity is there, it hasn’t always been easy to find those “like you.” Indeed, much of this sense and appearance of unity came as a result of the efforts of the institutional church to deliberately set and convey fairly rigid boundaries about what constituted orthodoxy and orthopraxis, and who was and was not…

33: The LDS Church and Its Single Young Adults, Part 2

May 25, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

33: The LDS Church and Its Single Young Adults, Part 2

Episode 31 provided a solid first framing of many of the issues faced by Mormon young single adults—of which group, some 80 percent are becoming inactive at least for a period of time, and many are deciding to leave the church altogether. This episode follows up on that discussion, but focuses on hearing the voices of those in this age group themselves, hearing in their own words about their spiritual journeys, their experiences in singles wards, the messages that are being taught from the pulpit, in classes, and through interactions with church leaders, and the ways these messages are being…

32: Heavenly Mother in Today’s Mormonism

May 17, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

32: Heavenly Mother in Today’s Mormonism

The most recent issue of BYU Studies features the article, “ ‘A Mother There’: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven,” co-written by David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido. (Here is a link to the article and also a blog post on it by Joanna Brooks.) The article presents an overview of research that attempted to find every printed or recorded mention of Mother in Heaven or Heavenly Parents by LDS leaders. It is a great piece of scholarship and much needed. In this podcast discussion, host Dan Wotherspoon and panelists Martin Pulido (article co-author), Tresa Edmunds, and…

31: The LDS Church and Its Single Young Adults

May 10, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

31: The LDS Church and Its Single Young Adults

Official statistics are hard to come by, but it has become clear over the past several years that Mormonism is seeing many of its 18- to 30-year-olds reduce their participation in the church or leave the faith altogether. Two recent actions confirm this trend and reveal the church’s initial responses in trying to stem the tide. First, in an effort to better track singles and help them feel connected to a local unit by providing new opportunities for callings and meeting other singles without “ward hopping,” the church has disbanded Utah student wards and reorganized them into singles wards in…

30: Mormon Women and Equality

May 3, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

Michael Otterson, head of the LDS Church’s Public Affairs department, recently wrote a short piece for the Washington Post‘s “On Faith” blog titled, “What Mormon Equality Looks Like.” In his post, he cites three anonymous LDS women who assert their equality with men in terms of access to pulpits to teach and pray, their chances to preside over Church organizations, their equality “in the eyes of God, as equal halves of a divine pair and equal partners in his work, which includes the raising of families,” as well as equality in their rights to “direct access to God through prayer…

29: David Brooks, The Book of Mormon Musical, and Rigorous Religion

April 27, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

29: David Brooks, The Book of Mormon Musical, and Rigorous Religion

New York Times columnist David Brooks very much enjoyed the Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon,” but, as he articulates in his 21 April 2011 column “Creed or Chaos,” he believes the play’s authors end up celebrating a “vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal” type of religion that can’t last and doesn’t motivate people to perform “heroic acts of service,” such as serving missions to third-world nations. As a result, he uses the musical as a springboard for celebrating the virtues of thriving religions, which he says have “communal theologies, doctrines and codes of conduct rooted in claims of absolute truth.” In this…

28: Racism in Honor Code Enforcement for BYU Athletes?

April 19, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

28: Racism in Honor Code Enforcement for BYU Athletes?

On 13 April 2011, Deadspin.com published a fast-trending article, “The Truth about Race, Religion, and the Honor Code at BYU,” that highlights possible racial factors at play in the way BYU enforces its Honor Code among its athletes. The story states: “Since 1993, at least 70 athletes have been suspended, dismissed, put on probation, or forced to withdraw from their teams or the school after running afoul of the honor code. Fifty-four of them, or nearly 80 percent, are minorities. Forty-one, or almost 60 percent, are black men.” In this episode, one of the article’s co-authors, Darron Smith, joins Mormon…

27: Mormons and Their Leaders

April 12, 2011

By Dan Wotherspoon

This episode, which was recorded a couple of days after the close of the April 2011 General Conference, explores the interplay between Latter-day Saints and those who are called to lead them as prophets, seers, and revelators. Why do some church members want to elevate leaders’ words delivered at conference almost to the level of scripture? Why is there so much adoration of leaders even as they regularly acknowledge their own humanity and fallibility, and even speak of the adulation they receive as one of their biggest challenges? To whom do church leaders aim their words, and why? How much…

25-26: Theologies of Nature – Mormon Resources for Thinking about Natural Disasters

April 1, 2011

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