The shadow and light of the church are a part of the same story and integrating the suffering and the healing that the church created is part of our necessary preparation for the next part of our journey.

Acceptance of our past life in church with its blessings is  a wholesome alternative to staying locked in the fight with what has been.  In which case, there's no freedom to move on. 

It’s one thing to know that letting go is possible and even necessary.  But it’s another to stand at the threshold of leaving without feeling fear.  Most of us will carry some fear.  In this episode I discuss the DNA of Mormon fear of leaving the church. 

In this episode:

"Letting go needn't be truly feared.  Letting go can become a friend to us, releasing us into the flow of an abundant and growthful life."

 

This episode opens up the last chapters of my time as host of A Thoughtful Faith Podcast.  I aim to hang up the mic at the end of the 2022.

The remainder of my time with the podcast will be devoted to faith reconstruction and exploring  how to have a good church ending and an even better spiritual beginning.

Some years ago, Tali Aitofi found Mormon podcasts and became hooked.  But Tali isn't Mormon, he's Pentecostal.  His faith journey has played out with the hum of Mormon faith crises in the background.

Tali recently came out as gay; he left his family church, and is currently suffering from a life threatening illness.  All of this has caused deep and searching questions.  

Tali joins me to talk about his life journey and how the Netflix series Midnight Mass spoke to his larger  questions about church, God, Jesus, shame and forgiveness.

Painter, now documentary film maker and producer Nathan Florence joins me  to discuss ‘Bright Spark:  The Reconcilation of Trevor Southey’

For eleven years, artist Nathan Florence documented Trevor Southey's life with his heart and with his lens in order to tell an unfolding story that ended in Trevor’s death in 2015. 

It’s an unusual documentary but nonetheless affecting because like a painting it constantly unfolds. The film is a soft place among the polarized voices of LDS folk in and out of the church, because it has no agenda beyond the story of art as an expression of the deepest musings of humanity; How it's made;  at what cost; who it's for, and mostly, how does it change lives?

Utah based life coach, Jana Spangler, reflects on her extensive work with Mormons who are in the thick of deconstruction and reconstruction.  She argues that being in healthy relationship with our bodies will yield precisely the wisdom we need to make critical life decisions.

If you love Christmas, then this episode isn't for you. 

But, if you or someone you know doesn't approach Christmas with merriment and cheer, then this conversation between me and my good friend Nicola Petty might be worth listening to.

Both of us are avowed Grinches and as a concession to those who have to put up with our annual disagreeableness we get together for a chat to identify our points of disagreement with the Silly Season.  And we wonder if we need to cancel it next year?

At Syracuse University, moral injury is defined as,

"… the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when that person perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress one’s own moral beliefs, values, or ethical codes of conduct."

In this episode, clinical psychologist Dr. Sean Aaron joins me to discuss moral injury. Many coming from the LDS tradition have been taught to spiritually bypass our gut reactions to practices or doctrines, chalking our doubts up to our personal failings and faithlessness.

Sean draws on the concept of moral injury to help us understand what is happening when we do so, and how we can trust and respond to our emotions in healthy ways.

Child sexual abuse in the church is pernicious and confounding. Why anyone purporting to be Christian would sexually abuse a child is beyond the imagination of many. Yet it happens, and far too often to be dismissed.

The Royal Commissions of Inquiry into Sexual Abuse in Ireland and Australia, and currently being conducted in New Zealand, have resulted in powerful evidence-based recommendations for best practices that keep children safe from predatory behaviour in faith-based institutions.

Despite the extent, breadth and thoroughness of these inquiries, the Salt Lake church seems largely disinterested in the wisdom and advice originating from any legal jurisdiction or cultural context other than their own.   

Neville Rochow joins me to discuss how child sexual abuse is managed legally and ecclesiastically in the LDS Church in light of the Royal Commissions of Inquiry.   

Author of the Spiritual Child, Professor of Psychology Lisa Miller writes in ‘The Spiritual Child’:

“Spiritual development through the early years … provides a protective health benefit, reducing the risk of depression, substance abuse, aggression, and high-risk behaviors.”

It’s for this reason that the team at Upliftkids have created a resource for parents to help them spiritually nurture their children, regardless of religious persuasion.

The resources at Uplift Kids help both parents and children find their inner compass by integrating the best of modern science and ancient wisdom that  honour and support the gracious spiritual development and sensitivity of children.

Amanada Suarez and Drew Hansen join me to discuss the healthy spiritual formation of children.

Australian barrister Neville Rochow QC has offered the LDS Church legal advice over the years and has appeared for the church at parliamentary committees on the question of religious freedom.   For two years, he also represented the church at the European Parliament in Brussels.

He has been intimately involved in the church’s legal concerns and is well versed in how its legal machinery works, particularly internationally.

In part two of this series, Neville joins me to discuss the LDS Church and its financial activities. 

Australian barrister Neville Rochow QC has offered the LDS Church legal advice over the years and has appeared for the church at parliamentary committees on the question of religious freedom.   For two years, he also represented the church at the European Parliament in Brussels.

He has been intimately involved in the church's legal concerns and is well versed in how its legal machinery works, particularly internationally.

In part one of this series, Neville joins me to discuss the LDS Church and its legal machinations.  In this episode he offers an overview of the relationship between the US church in the international legal arena.

Mark Crego and I met around eight years ago, fellow sojourners in the quest to understand our shared faith in the LDS church.  We had a similar curiosity about the spiritual life and consequently we both completed a Masters degree:  He in theology and me in ministry.   Having taken a Christian formation path we find ourselves similarly interested in the necessity of the divinity of Jesus.  Was he literally, biologically the Son of God? 

Neither of us think so.

This conversation is not new.  Jane Schaberg  is one scholar who tackled the question front on, and she paid dearly for it. 

Mark and I come to similar conclusions, that the divinity of Jesus has more to do with claims of power,  authority and Empire than it has to do with biology.  For Mark and I, the illegitimate, fatherless Jesus who God chose as his son is a far more spiritually enlivening and plausible alternative.

While the Mountain Saints speak of the Law of Chastity being the iron clad rule that anything sexual should happen in marriage, the Praire Saints have a statement of Sexual Ethics.

The Statement of Sexual Ethics is the distillation of years of discussion with church leaders across the world and continues as a living document up for discussion and debate.

Community of Christ Apostle Robin Linkhart and former LDS members and now Community of Christ Ministers, Brittany Mangelson and Nancy Ross join me to have the conversation about sex  from the perspective of two very different restoration traditions.

 

Born and raised a devout Mormon in Utah, Katie Langston chronicles her unexpected conversion to orthodox Christianity with candor and theological depth. Her remarkable debut memoir explores themes of religious fundamentalism, mental illness, and family belonging—culminating in her surprising and liberating encounters with the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Gina and Katie dive deep into the question of faith and family.

We were made for tenderness, gentleness, openness, authenticity, vulnerability, compassion and caring.  We are threaded through with the strands of genuine goodness.  Our true selves, our inner landscapes are beautiful and potentiated for wholeness, fullness and love.

Mormon trauma is most profoundly felt into being culturally, or institutionally permitted to be our true selves but to live in this highly controlled world where we are treated as potentiated for evil and best kept managed, where the greatest virtue is obedience. 

Mormon trauma is experienced as death by a thousand cuts, from the way that policy and doctrine  is dropped to way we serve, teach and lead, to the way we are with each other and in our families, to the stories we tell about the world beyond Mormonism.

Lindsay Hansen Park joins me to discuss the ordinariness of Mormon trauma.

Some people say that Community of Christ is just LDS lite. This simply isn't true.

Despite their common roots, you would be unlikely to find two more differently wired faith traditions than the Community of Christ (RLDS) and the LDS (Mormons).

To discuss how this came to be and why the RLDS set about revising and reforming their church in the 1960's while the LDS took on a renewed commitment to restoration fundamentalism and American political conservatism, Professor of American religion, David Howlett from Smith College joins A Thoughtful Faith Podcast.

Ambivalence, ambiguity, lack of accountability and spiritual abuse characterize Natasha Helfer's membership council. Her witnesses speak out about their experience.

Spencer Wells and Isaac Barnes May seek to put the recent ex-communication/name removal of Natasha Helfer from the LDS Church into the broader context of church boundary maintenance in America.

As a performance artist, Andi has been feeding her culture with bread for many years.  She bakes, graffitis and gifts her bread warm to those in need.

Artistically weaving mountains, fire, lament and bread comes from an elemental and a cosmic drive to make the spiritual immanent. 

Andi and I talk about how material culture becomes spiritual culture.

Natasha Helfer (LCMFT, CST, CSTS )is a licensed clinician and mental health professional who has been summoned to a LDS Church trial for her public stance on sexual health. Taking offence at the idea that the LDS Church is a toxic religious home for our LGBTQIA+ community, and that masturbation can be both appropriate and healthy, a Kansas Stake President has held onto Natasha's records for 18 months in order to execute this action.

Natasha joins me to discuss the broader context of LDS Church culture that makes such punitive measures acceptable and actionable.

This month, our discussion comes from listeners' questions about; white supremacy, intra-faith marriage,  community belonging, spirituality and the true church!

One of 150 siblings, Mary Jayne Blackmore is the daughter of Mormon leader Winston Blackmore.  Mary Jayne Blackmore grew up within the closed-off polygamist community of Bountiful, BC. Her family’s staunch Fundamentalist Mormon faith imposed fanatical doomsday preparation and carried an instilled fear of the world outside her community.

Mary Jayne has written a memoir 'Balancing Bountiful' of her evolution as a woman with a most unusual childhood.  Now out of the church but still in the community Mary Jayne has made a life for herself both inside and outside.

Today Katie Langston returns to the Spiritual Advice Line. We discuss spiritual abuse; unhelpful images of God; spiritual direction; the necessity of community, and how to read the Bible. If you would like to submit a question you may do so by going to katielangston.com

(These discussions are not necessarily representative of the official positions of either the ELC or the Community of Christ.

Emily Rose is the Campus Minister for Faith, Justice and Solidarity at a Jesuit University in Kansas City, Missouri.

In this episode, Emily Rose joins me to discuss eco-spirituality, eco-justice and eco-feminism and the way that the environment undergirds her relationship with her faith, the Divine and ultimately with the rest of the human family.

As a young person in the service of younger persons, her voice is essential as we think about the future of faith, spirituality and Christianity.

Eco-humanitarian and eco-theologian BYU Professor George Handley joins me to discuss his immense concern for the Earth and its future.

Professor Handley argues that humanity must be seen in light of our intimate and dependent relationship with Earth’s natural systems.  The Earth sustains and nourishes life but it needs our reciprocal care to ensure that it can do its sacred work.

Any theology that positions humanity as superior to the Earth or entitled to take what we like is why we face this current problem and insecurity over whether or not our home planet will last humanity’s trouble impact.

Katie Langston joins me to discuss Christmas; Why it's perfectly fine not to take the Bible literally;  Why Jesus is not the Jehovah of the Old Testament; Finding new images and symbols for God, and the power and versatility of spiritual practice.

 

Liz Brown MacDonald was curious about the effect of the behaviour of religiously rigid parents on their children who disaffiliate from the LDS Church.

This is Part Two of the discussion.

 

Liz Brown MacDonald was curious about the effect of the behaviour of religiously rigid parents on their children who disaffiliate from the LDS Church.

'It's never good,' she concludes, 'to complicate a parental relationship with an expectation of your children's life long affiliation to your religious tradition.' 

Liz, joins ATF Podcast to discuss why.

While we honour the expectant Mary at Advent, we rarely discuss her in the context of the suffering of pregnancy and birth.  Our sacred texts and Christmas stories leave out the intensely feminine experience of a mother's body,  bruised and broken for the sake of Jesus.  Too often written out of the reflections on Advent are the earthiness, the blood and mess of pregnancy and childbirth and the scars it all leaves on women's bodies.

ReNee McDonald and Kristin Jensen, two women at different stages in their mothering, join me to discuss the suffering of mothers.

How does a young gay, afakasi, Samoan, Mormon man put his spiritual life together when he sits across many religious and cultural divides?   When the moorings of fixed belief systems that defined prior generations fall away, what of the spiritual life that is so integral to Māori and Pasifika mental health? 

Is it even possible? 

My guest today says 'Yes.'

Lutheran Ordinand Katie Langston and Community of Christ Elder, Gina Colvin get together in this monthly series to offer our responses to Mormons who are grappling with their spiritual and religious deconstruction and reconstruction.

Today's topics, Grace; The Trinity; Telling family you no longer believe

For those who grew up in the 'Mission Field', Utah is often referred to as Zion. But, in the 2020 US Presidential elections, Utah seemed anything but Zion.

Utah voted for the least Mormon person on the ticket (Donald Trump).  About 20% of Utahns voted to keep slavery in their state constitution. In an age of pandemic, it's been difficult for Governor Gary Herbert to get popular compliance on the wearing of masks.  Seasoned statesman, Representative Ben McAdams (a good Mormon man) was replaced by Burgess Owen, a notorious Trumpian who thinks that systemic racism is the fault of Marxists.

To help unravel the politics of the state that (on the surface) seems at odds with the faith that dominates, scholar, strategic planner, author and former mission president Roger Hendrix joins us.

In this conversation, blogger, Michael Mathews II  exegetes Doctrine & Covenants Section 132.  Mormons socially read Section 132 as pointing to the endurance of familial ties after death.  However, Mathews argues, there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case at all.  

The temple, he further argues, is the place where covenants to live into the promise of plural marriage under the domain of the male priesthood is contracted.

Mormons are making of Section 132 and the Temple covenants something that is literally irreconcilable with the text and the language of the covenants.

 

Are unique Mormon communities like Laie, in Hawaii worth celebrating? 

Absolutely. 

Mormon communities like Laie on Hawaii's North shore, which are uniquely indigenous Mormon,  have made good homes that have been blessed by the confluence of culture, faith, history, structure, spirituality and solidarity.

But, that's not the whole story. 

This conversation is an invitation to think about the shadow side of the church's involvement in places like Laie in Hawaii and Temple View in New Zealand, because there's a pattern here of blatant litigious disregard for Indigenous rights, Indigenous relationships with the land and water, Indigenous people's labour and the appropriation of their culture for financial gain. 

This is also an invitation to consider how faithful the LDS Church has been to native people's in the light of advances in United Nations and domestic legislation that have sought to place protections around Indigenous people that the LDS church has neglected to offer.
 

Whatever your position on LDS Studies, it can't be said that the Mormonism is boring.  Socially, historically, culturally, politically and theologically its a gold mine of intrigue and interest.  Nevermore so than on the topic of sex.

Taylor G. Petrey’s history of sexuality and gender in modern Mormonism is a rollicking and delightfully thorough documentation of the LDS modern teachings on gender, sexual difference, and marriage.  He joins me at ATF podcast to discuss his latest book, 'Tabernacles of Clay.'

When Mormon divorce happens acrimoniously it's never a better time to observe the LDS church's position on the wellbeing of women and children.   

The wife of a physician and the mother of four children Leslie felt that she was fulfilling 'the measure of her creation' until she found herself fleeing from abuse.   However, the involvement of church leaders, that Mormon divorce often requires, complicated financial, legal, relationship and spiritual matters again and again.

Les Butterfield joins me to discuss the pastoral care (or the inadequacy of it) when her own marriage was in free fall. 

 

Cat McFedries joins me to talk about youth spiritual and religious formation and how some radical pastoring that she received as a young person might have put her off the church, but it didn't put her off the person of Jesus.  

This disconnect between the heart of the gospel, which is on the streets,  and the fears of the church as it sits on the pews needs to change according to Cat. Until then the church will be a thing of growing irrelevance to today's young people.

In the wake of Joanna Brook's book that starkly presented a case for Mormon white supremacy, Samoan Mormon, Tasi Young, BYU alumna and die-hard Cougars fan wrote to the Salt Lake Tribune asking for the name of BYU to be changed sparking an important conversation among the Mormon Polynesian community.

What has been the effect of Mormon White Supremacy on Polynesians?

Two Afakasi (half-castes), (Tasi a Samoan and Gina who is  Maori) ponder and critique what it means to be Polynesian/Pasifika in a white supremacist church.

In the basic beliefs of Community of Christ The Book of Mormon is understood as follows:
 

We affirm the Bible as the foundational scripture for the church. In addition, Community of Christ uses the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants—not to replace the witness of the Bible or improve on it, but because they confirm its message that Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God. When responsibly interpreted and faithfully applied, scripture provides divine guidance and inspired insight for our discipleship. 
 

That might be so, but its not quite that straightforward in practice, as my guest Elray Henrickson has elsewhere written:

"Community of Christ has had a complicated relationship with the Book of Mormon. Although we believe it to be scripture, we can no longer say we are big fans."

Community of Christ peace and non-violence activist, Norwegian Elray Henrickson,  joins me from Belgium where he lives with his husband, Anton.  Elray attends the Graceland University seminary and has been working on repurposing and rethinking the Book of Mormon for a post-literal context. 

Professor Rick Phillips hails from Utah and has an impressive Mormon pedigree.  He was raised under the sacred canopy of LDS belief and faith.  And it was a good life, one that Rick remains nostalgic about to this day. 

But, his aspirations to be a seminary teacher didn't last as more and more questions and conundrums took the place of the orthodoxy he was born into.

Prof. Rick Phillips joins me to discuss his subtle evolution from a profoundly vested believer of Mormonism to a deeply interested non-believer.

Exponent II Editor, Margaret Olsen Hemming says of the Exponent guest edition of Dialogue, "

 

In this issue, we asked women to write about claiming power. We hoped that writers would think creatively about the idea of power, including traditional forms of authority in an organizational hierarchy but also going beyond this sometimes-limiting definition. We wanted women to examine their engagement of power within their families, wards, workplaces, and selves."

 

Artist Michelle Franzoni, Mormon scholar Nancy Ross and Margaret Olsen Hemming join me to discuss this historic issue of Dialogue:  A Journal of Mormon Thought.

The question as to whether or not Mormonism is a cult is a contentious one, but despite your definitions, one thing is for certain, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a high demand faith and as such the exercise of agency and decision making is a charged issue.

Wherever you are in relation to the LDS Church, it is useful to understand the science of belief and how we can indeed cultivate healthy cognitive responses to life's most vexing questions, so that (as Luna argues), 'we can relieve ourselves of: 

 "feelings of depression, guilt, shame, exhaustion, phobias, magical thinking, passive-aggressive behaviour, and hidden familial abuse.'"
 

 

Liberation theologian James Cone has said:

“It is ironic that America, with its history of injustice to the poor, especially the black man and the Indian, prides itself on being a Christian nation.”

So, what sense does a profoundly faithful black Christian woman make of America still mired in its many racial sins?   What can be said about a nation who remains at odds with itself in its resistance to the spiritual healing that it so desperately needs?

In this very personal conversation,  The Rev. Dr Fatimah Salleh mourns with me the brokenness that is her nation and her church.

Is the USA a democracy, a nascent theocracy, or a mobocracy?  Perhaps it's all of those things and all at the same time.  

The Nauvoo experience gives us a strong sense of the unsettled ideological, economic and religious arguments that remain unresolved in the United States.  Powder Keg is what the United States feels like in 2020, and after reading Kingdom of Nauvo that covers a short period of American religious history between 1839-1846, this book brings some of these centuries-old quandaries about America into perspective.

Faith and violence are twinned in this remarkable telling of a doomed social and theocratic experiment to find a religious utopia under the leadership of the Joseph Smith.  

Plodding and boring this story is not.  
 

In this much-needed volume, that follows the evolution of LDS Church thought about race,  from its earliest beginnings to its contemporary constructions, Professor Brooks seeks to account for a religious tradition that has never made a definitive departure, nor offered an explanation or an apology for why being racist is not a matter for Mormon censure while advocating for the increased authority of women or the safety of children is?

In Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and the Problem of Racial Innocence Brooks offers a vital racial critique of the faith of her ancestors and her birth. 

Professor of Law, Annick Masselot and I reflect on the many gender inequalities that the COVID-19 pandemic has made apparent.  

With research foci on equality and anti-discrimination law, gender equality, pregnancy and maternity rights, and work-life balance, Annick argues that world leaders are well-positioned to create new economic and social arrangements that are fairer and more humane particularly for women.

 

 

 

One of the great American phenomena is the enmeshment of religion and politics.   That relationship is never more present than in the Book of Mormon belt where being Republican is a matter of faithfulness.  From Southern Alberta down to Arizona being Mormon means listening to Fox news like its a sermon;  supporting the NRA like its a mission and loving the Constitution like its scripture.  

For Steve Otteson, this was the ideological food that he grew up with.   A Mormon boy of pioneer stock who was raised simultaneously without much space between the politics of his region and the religion of his ancestors.   

And then one day it all came crashing down;  both his political and religious certainties.

Great, great-great-grandson of Joseph and Emma Smith, Lachlan Mackay, is a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles in Community of Christ.  

A native of Independence, Missouri, Lach argues that context is absolutely critical when doing church history. Unbundling theology from history offers these disciplines the integrity they both need and deserve. 

This has been important to Lach both professionally and personally as someone who sits in a faith tradition founded by a great-grandparent who continues to be one of America's most controversial religious figures.

John Hamer, the Pastor of Centre Place in Toronto,  joins me to talk about how digital technology has radically changed his congregation. 

The Toronto community has had a long and continuous presence in Canada since the very early days of the Restoration. 

Now, from a congregation of dwindling numbers, the pastorate team have transformed Centre Place into a community without borders which, during the COVID-19 pandemic,  has welcomed nearly 1000 weekly participants from 26 different nations.

The Navajo Nation has approximately 356,000 people living on the reservation and from the Navajo Times on Monday 27 April 2020 we read:

 “As of Monday evening, there are 1,769 positive COVID-19 cases on the Navajo Nation, more than one per cent of the residents on the reservation...The total number of deaths remains at 59.”

For comparison, New Zealand has a population of 5 million and has had 1472 cases and 19 deaths.  

Something is clearly amiss and to discuss the urgent situation on the Navajo Nation, Jo Overton (Lakota) joins me.

In this episode, my guests Nancy Ross from St George and Brittany Mangleson from Saratoga Springs discuss the Utah response to Covid-19 including some of the philosophical, ideological and religious issues with which this disease intersects.

What happens to Easter when a member of the LDS Church Alumni Association can no longer believe in one of Christianity’s greatest stories? What happens when there's too much religious hurt caused by an emphasis on literalism and religious authority that made about 150 too many supernatural claims that became tests of fellowship? Could Easter ever offer hope again?

This episode is for those who find themselves in this sometimes lonely corner of the Christian world where there's still faith even when literal belief in Christianity's more persistent supernatural claims are no longer.

Dr Joanne LaFleur is Associate Professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Utah. Joanne has taken an interest in questions that lie at the intersection of science and morality.  In this state of lockdown, there are surprisingly many things to see as science, public health, politics, economics, morality and philosophy generate many new questions for all of us.  Whose lives are worth saving?  How is life-saving to be done?  Does this moment expose the flaws in our economic systems?  Does Covid-19 bring us into conversation about alternative ways of understanding the structures we depend upon for human survival?

Not, all of these questions will be answered in this conversation, but I hope Joanne’s reflections on this moment as a scientist and an epidemiologist and as a regular person who is entering into the question with refreshing honesty and humility, will give us permission to wonder anew this thing we call life.

Rome stands out because of its Christian history and now, even churches have shut down leaving Rome almost empty of the crowds who for centuries have arrived daily to make their pilgrimage to the eternal city.

To discuss Italy's lockdown, its cultural impact and the comfort hope he’s found in online Community of Christ ministry, Michael Wright joins me from the Eternal City.

Duke Divinity School graduate and Baptist Pastor,  Rev. Dr Fatimah Salleh and Exponent II Chief Editor, Margaret Olsen Hemming team up to give the Book of Mormon a Social Justice Reading.  The Book of Mormon for the Least of These is the result.

Refreshingly, and without making any origin or belief claims,  Fatimah and Margaret offer a new perspective on the Book of Mormon arguing that there are yet spiritually useful things to pay attention to that goes beyond our squabbling about whether or not the book is what the church says it is.

As Marcus Borg argued, "believing something to be true has nothing to do with whether it is true.”

One of the most important issues confronting those who have left fundamentalist faith traditions is what to do about their faith life.

In this episode, I discuss deconstruction and reconstruction from a personal perspective for those who are curious about how others proceed across the bridge of what once was a reconstructed spiritual life. 

Of course, one's faith reconstruction will be done on one's own terms and in one's own way, but it might be useful to hear another’s story!

"When Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth” (Matthew 6:19), the term “lay-up” did not simply speak of having possessions, but of your possessions having you. “Lay up” could be better translated “hoard” or “stockpile.” - Greg Laurie

Theologically what are we to make of a church that religiously taxes its adherents, demands their labour for a lay clergy and then banks its money only to watch it accrue? 

Is it justifiable?

Most actively participating and paying Mormons won’t question it.  They’ll call it good stewardship and an indication of the care with which the LDS Church Corporations treat its donor revenue.    For others, including my guest, former Salt Lake City tax attorney Mark Barnes, there are more than legal reasons to question the LDS church’s outsized fortune.    

Let's be fair.  Neither Joseph nor Brigham could be considered as good men in their care, affection, fidelity and love for their wives.  To the contrary, they were want to swap them, share them, manipulate them, ignore them, betray them and abandon them.   We might make much of Joseph's affection for Emma, but he broke her heart over and over again.

These were two men for whom the idea of a good husband had entirely eluded them.  And there was a terrible price to pay for all of the women who had to endure what could only be considered a despicable mischief.  

Joe Geisner joins me to discuss wives, sex, priesthood, power in Joseph's inner circle.

Maxine Hanks and I have a conversation about Christmastide. Christmastide runs from 25 December until early January.  More particularly we discuss the delicious idea of incorporating Mary  as more than just incidental to our celebrations. According to Maxine Christmas is Mary’s holy time.  Mary symbolizes so much more than the vessel through which the Christ child emerged into the world.  Mary is prophetic, priestly and queenly.

But getting to that reading of Mary requires a deeper way of engaging scripture so we begin with a conversation about hermeneutics and suggestions for deepening our reading of the Christmas story. And with another year to prepare perhaps this will help enrich our forthcoming Christmas celebrations.

Generation Y and Zeds are vexing for the traditional  church.  Author of ‘Losing Our Religion’ Christel Manning argues that Millennial and Gen Zed Nones (those born in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s)

“hold a wide variety of worldviews, ranging from deeply religious to highly secular, and transmit them in diverse ways. What ties them all together is a commitment to spiritual choice—a belief in the moral equivalence of religions and secular worldviews and in the individual’s right to choose—and it is that choice they seek to pass on to their children.”

In sociological speak, instead of having their identities ascribed or handed down and inherited, Gen Y’s and Zeds value elective identities and that includes religious and spiritual identities.

Dutch religious studies teacher and theologian Frank Brouwer joins me to discuss this fascinating question of how the young in Western Europe are responding to the deeper questions of life, how they understand the church and how, most interestingly, they are building their own spiritual literacy, on their own terms.

On the 17^th December, the Washington Post published an article about a former employee of Ensign Peak Advisors, (a not for profit corporation constituted under the direction of of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).  The article tells of the whistleblower's complaint to the IRS alleging that Ensign Peak has failed to meet its charitable giving obligations.  According to the complaint, not one charitable distribution from the $100billion dollars that purportedly sits with Ensign Peak has been made during its 22 years of operation, which it is obligated to do as a supporting organisation with tax-exempt status.

Professor Sam Brunson, a tax law specialist at Loyola University, joins me in order to make sense of what the complaint to the IRS is all about and if and how it might be resolved.

David’s book 'The Complete Heretic’s Guide to Western Religion:  The Mormons' is not your usual snipe at faith that Atheists can bore you with.   His history of the Mormons is straight-shooting without being unfeeling; it's efficient without cutting too many corners, and it leaves one feeling both impressed and rightly appalled at the faith that gave us the 'Family’s Can Be Together Forever' and a disciplinary culture that would make God blush.

David Fitzgerald and I are unlikely conversations partners; me a theologian and spiritual formation enthusiast and he an avowed atheist. But, it’s one that seems to work well because we both have an appreciation for the absurd.  And Mormonism is brimming with absurdities. 

Mormon history, as it turns out,  makes its people and its past seriously interesting.

Jana Johnson Spangler, a recent graduate from Richard Rohr's 'Living School',  joins me to discuss the spiritual formation and potential richness of the place between the sometimes intractable institution, and the soul's organic growth.

We address the questions:  How do we manage and trust our growth when there is little in the way of a  healthy institutional response to our spiritual change?  How can we find our own faithful path through our faith crisis?

Brigham Young's status in the early LDS Movement needs to be understood in order to tackle the hard question of what gave him the right to claim the presidency,  particularly in light of the fact that it is now well known that the transfiguration of Brigham was a myth.   

Joe Geisner joins me to discuss Brigham's 'right' to succeed Joseph?

Bringing a philosophical eye to Mormonism helped author Brittany Hartley to appreciate the beauty and potential of Mormon thought as she came into her own questions about her ongoing affiliation. 

Unfortunately, Mormon thought kept alive by generations of curious Mormon intellectuals, can’t quite compete with the heft of Mormon authoritarianism.   When push comes to shove, the church’s direction is often decided by edict rather than drawing on the traditions own philosophical and theological resources.

Where one stands in relation to this tension between the Big ‘C’ Church’s bent toward authoritarianism, and the small ‘c’ church’s concern for keeping the Mormon theological conversation expanding and emerging is where the heart of faith crisis lies.  

Brittney’s book ‘Mormon Philosophy Simplified’ is a philosophically accessible treatise that excavates the best of what Mormonism continues to offer while not being naive that most of it will ever make it to the pulpit or to the Ensign. 

Cristina Rosetti is a Roman Catholic woman and scholar who is interested in Mormon Fundamentalism.

She joins me to discuss her own religious and spiritual path.  Oddly her inquiry into Mormon Fundamentalism comes out of an interest in how certainty shapes and creates religious identities.   Her scholarship in Mormonism was initially a way of helping her understand the relationship between faith and doubt, certainty and uncertainty

But, her questions of faith drew her into the world Mormon Fundamentalism and the way in which Mormonism has unfolded as highly schismatic and overly concerned with truth claims and authority.

In order to really understand the LDS Church, one absolutely needs to understand Mormon history.  There are few periods in Mormon history that are darker and more defining than the Mormon Reformation. 

In order to really understand the LDS Church, one absolutely needs to understand Mormon history.  There are few periods in Mormon history that are darker and more defining than the Mormon Reformation. 

Lindsay Hansen Park characterizes this period of Mormon history as best understood by imagining what you’d get if you introduced the wild, wild West to an Old Testament God. She further argues that the LDS Church today continues to be shaped by the unresolved violence that took place during that murderous time.

Over the last couple of years, Michael Wright has discovered his spiritual self anew in the LDS Restoration tradition.  A descendant of Mormon pioneers he spent years trying to make himself straight in the LDS Church so he could be everything that was expected of him.   But, despite his efforts, nothing worked and his religious and spiritual life went on hold.

Then he discovered Community of Christ, (not an offshoot but a Restoration cousin of the Utah Mormons) a Christian church that offers full inclusion to LGBTQ people and women.

Now, the newly baptized Michael participates fully in the spiritual and missional life of Community of Christ from his home in Rome, Italy.   He has discovered, God and Jesus Christ and the Spiritual life as a gay man married to the love of his life, Antonio.

For most people, General Conference is a pleasant ritual.  

But General Conference over the years has become less straightforward, particularly for women. Sara Hughes-Zabawa a licensed mental health worker, and Carrie Salisbury, a board member and moderator at Exponent II share their reflections on the General Conference fall out.

What kind of claim does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have to the proposition that they are a faithful continuation of the church Joseph established?  What kind of character was Brigham Young anyway?  What did he really want with a church and a people?  

Dr David Mason is the author of Brigham Young: Sovereign in America and he joins me to discuss the man who made the Mormons.

The perennial question is where, how and what do we teach our children about sex and sexuality? What is appropriate, and what isn't? Additionally, those who have come from orthodox faith traditions are often on the back foot and at a loss as to how to re-think sex let alone teach their children about sex and sexuality.

Our Whole Lives (OWL) is life span sexuality programme that caught my attention after being mentioned in 'Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free' by Linda Kay Klein. The premise of OWL is that the more informed we are, the better positioned we are to make holistic, healthy decisions about our sexuality.

OWL is based on four key values: Self-worth (everyone has worth); Sexual Health; Responsibility; Justice and Inclusivity.

Dr Melanie Davis is the OWL Program Manager for the Unitarian Universalist Association and joins me to discuss OWL a lifespan sexuality program that takes nothing for granted.

Those who grew up in the Restoration tradition will be familiar with the songs of Zion;   That place where God and community meet. 

But, despite his original intentions Joseph Smith was corrupted by his 'Kingdom' ego.  Kirtland and Nauvoo failed as intentional communities, and Utah has not been faithful to the promise and hope of Zion either.

So, can Zion ever be realized?

Andrew Bolton, former apostle of Community of Christ certainly likes to think so.

Nick Literski discusses the many and varied ways that he has found a vibrant spiritual life after leaving active involvement as a family man in this LDS Church.   It has surprised and delighted him that having a deep and rewarding spirituality did not depend on him denying his sexuality.   

Nick and I talk early faith needs; fundamentalism; faith changes and renewal.

After Debra Brown Gordy discovered that her husband, a BYU Professor, was gay her world fell apart.   They tried to keep the marriage together but it wasn't to be.   

After the divorce, Debra went back to graduate school and conducted research about the experience of women in relationships with gay men. She joins me to discuss her personal experience being married to a gay man;  the results of her research and the reconstruction of the lives of women divorced from gay men.

How can our service to the dying be improved?  What pastoral practices are helpful in order to help our loved ones or those to whom we’ve been called to minister pass away in peace.

Sue Bergin, a hospice chaplain and spiritual carer, with more than 10 years of experience in Salt Lake City and Utah County, joins me to offer helpful suggestions for ministering to the dying.

Alexandre Christoyannopoulos is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Loughborough University.   He’s of French and Greek parentage and without a religious upbringing arrived out of curiosity at the door of Christian anarchism and ended up writing his PhD thesis on the topic.

Alex’s book, 'Christian anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel' brings some of the most important thinkers together in one volume.  Alex's book highlights the underlying revolutionary intention of the gospels that gets so lost in the business, ideologies, and the financial exchanges of the church.  

Alex joins me to discuss the radical character of the Jesus Way that has shaped Christian Anarchist thinking

Dr Matt Frizzell (former Dean of the Graceland University Seminary) and I get deep and animated about theology.

Theological conversations by their very nature are porous, expansive and self-reflexive.   Theology is all about breathing in the mystery and letting the mystery discover the words that have always pulled at our souls.  Theology is profoundly intimate and deeply transformative, wonderfully elusive, and ever-changing.   

But, it's ideal to be trained in theology, as our robust discussion reveals!

 

Brenda Nicholson joins me to discuss the social life of women in the FLDS church where she grew up under Rulon and Warren Jeffs.   She’s since left the sect and fiercely argues that there is no way, that polygamy benefits anyone. 

Women, she argues are dehumanized in a system that was designed, as Section 132 intends, for the glory of men. More recently Brenda has made some interesting connections between Hulu’s Gilead in the Handmaids Tale and the social hierarchy in the FLDS community.

David Ostler is a former LDS Bishop, a Stake President and a Mission President.  David has been kept awake at night by questions of what good pastoral care or ministry to those who question and doubt might look like.

But, rather than guess (as is often the case), he went to both those in faith crisis and to those in leadership and he collected data.  From that data his book ‘Bridges; Ministering to those who Question’ emerged, and the results are fascinating.


This episode is co-hosted with Nathan McCluskey.

Gina Colvin, host of A Thoughtful Faith Podcast offers a reflection on her personal spiritual and religious journey and how a vibrant spiritual life is invariably filled with interesting twists and turns; some quite surprising! 

In this Reconstructing Death series, I talk with a range of LDS spiritual, palliative and health care professionals whose work is with those at the threshold of death.  Each of them explores their evolving understandings of dying and death as a result of both their professional work and their personal faith development.

Dr Kathleen Moncrieff:  Family and community physician:  Calgary

Dr Kathleen Moncrieff completed medical school, her family medicine residency, and her master’s degree in medical education at the University of Calgary and she currently works in community-based family medicine.  Kathleen talks about assisted dying in light of Canada’s new laws.  She discusses how religious and cultural pluralism has shaped her approach to the dying and their families.

 

In this Reconstructing Death series, I talk with a range of LDS spiritual, palliative and health care professionals whose work is with those at the threshold of death.  Each of them explores their evolving understandings of dying and death as a result of both their professional work and their personal faith development.

Dr Julia Durrant:  Neurocritical care attending physician:  Oregon

Dr Julia Durrant is an attending physician in neurocritical care at a university hospital in Oregon.  Julia has attended hundreds of deaths and she talks wisely about the point at which religion, faith and science intersect which has caused her to strongly believe that God is not orchestrating anyone’s death. 

In this Reconstructing Death series, I talk with a range of LDS spiritual, palliative and health care professionals whose work is with those at the threshold of death.  Each of them explores their evolving understandings of dying and death as a result of both their professional work and their personal faith development.

Anni Lehti-Nieminen:  Oncology Nurse:  Finland

Anni Lehti-Nieminen is a registered nurse who works in outpatient palliative care at a university hospital in Tampere in Finland.   Anni talks about dying, death and grief in Finland including how LDS funerals can sometimes be in competition with Finnish customs and needs.

In this Reconstructing Death series, I talk with a range of LDS spiritual, palliative and health care professionals whose work is with those at the threshold of death.  Each of them explores their evolving understandings of dying and death as a result of both their professional work and their personal faith development.

Dr Ryan Williams:  Internal Medicine Physician: Idaho

Dr Ryan Williams is a  Board Certified Internal Medicine Physician.  He served for 4 years in the US Air Force and he went on to specialize in Hospital, Skilled Nursing and Hospice Care. He has been practicing in the Boise Idaho area for 10 years.  Ryan discusses how his maturing faith has gifted him with more uncertain views of death and dying but have improved his capacity to respond to his patients with more openness.

In this Reconstructing Death series, I talk with a range of LDS spiritual, palliative and health care professionals whose work is with those at the threshold of death.  Each of them explores their evolving understandings of dying and death as a result of both their professional work and their personal faith development.

Ana Nelson Shaw: Spiritual Care Co-ordinator

Ana Nelson Shaw lives in Butte Montana where she works coordinating spiritual care and volunteer services for hospice patients including making spiritual care visits.  Ana talks about creating environments of kindness and compassion for those at nearing death.

Dr Taylor Petrey and I talk about the Bible, its wonders, its frustrations and its possibilities.  And we discuss openly and honestly the widely felt frustration that Sunday School classes are not always welcoming of the skills of Biblical interpretation. While the curriculum is not always sound as it could be.

Lesley Butterfield is a registered nurse and survivor advocate who works with victims of abuse. 

She’s passionate about increasing literacy about abuse and trauma in particular for women survivors of spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse in the Church. 

Lesley has certifications and training in Trauma-Informed Care, Community Advocacy, Faith and Spiritual Development, Familial Mental Health, Domestic Abuse, and Resiliency.

We discuss the role that women play in the revictimization of female trauma victims in the Church and the lack of protection and safety for women who find themselves in abusive situations.

Community of Christ is a worldwide church, and though small in numbers maintain a consistent effort to  “proclaim Jesus Christ and promote communities of joy, hope, love, and peace.”  Their vision is a ‘table’ with everyone invited and participating and belonging regardless of gender, race, or sexuality.

One of their first progressive actions was to ordain women which they did so in 1984.  Today five of the council of twelve positions in Community of Christ are held by women.   At the 2019 world conference, Catherine Mambwe from Zambia was the first African woman to be ordained an apostle.

So, what does spiritual formation look like for a woman in Community of Christ?

Janné Grover is a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, the lead missionary quorum of Community of Christ. She is assigned to the Central USA Mission Field. She is also director of Formation Ministries.

Her previous employment includes disciple formation ministries specialist for Community of Christ and is a musician by training and vocation.

Apostle, Janne joins me to discuss spiritual formation and what it means for a woman to be in senior ecclesiastical leadership in a progressive worldwide church.  

Church College of New Zealand, which was opened in 1958, had a short life by education standards.  For 52 years it served the mostly Māori Mormon LDS community.  But, in a swirl of confusion, it was finally closed in 2009 and demolished.

The school's motto was 'Build Now For Eternity' which motivated many Māori Mormons to contribute money, material resources and years of labour for the building of the school.  Today, despite promises to develop the land and reinvigorate the community of Temple View, few of the promised improvements which were offered to replace a much-beloved school have been realised.

Peter Witehira,  former Chair of the Temple View Heritage Committee, and Rā Puriri join me to discuss the beginning and end of Church College of New Zealand.

(Music by St Joseph's Maori Girls' College)

In 2019 Professor Peter Lineham was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to religious history and the community.  And that honour is well deserved. 

Few, if any scholars in the field of religious history in New Zealand have the sweeping knowledge and intimate understanding of religion in Aotearoa. He’s written about Māori prophets to Catholic missionaries to LDS History over the period of his distinguished career. 

Peter's fluency and his impressive breadth of understanding of Mormon history highlight the issues arising out of an American church who are in a complex relationship with New Zealand Māori.

In this episode, we look at child abuse from the perspective of prevention.  My guest is Gwen Knight, the executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Utah.

According to Prevent Child abuse Utah, its mission is to forge and guide a community commitment to prevent child abuse in all of its forms.

In Utah one in five children will be sexually abused before the age of 18, suggesting the issue of child abuse in the Beehive state is epidemic.

Gwen joins me for a very pragmatic discussion about what child abuse is in all of its forms and varieties,  what to notice, and how to respond when you suspect it.

Anthony Miller lives in Billings Montana.  He grew up Mormon  He did all the things required of good Mormon boys and he thought he knew where his life was heading.  But a dramatic and sudden period of faith deconstruction had him reconsidering everything about his religious life.

Mormon leave-takers don’t usually manage the God and church conversation without some nervousness but Anthony wanted to understand his inner journey well and despite his resignation, he has remained open and curious about spirituality and spiritual formation inside and outside of the LDS Church.   And, Anthony has found gracious and wise ways of accommodating his still adherent wife’s journey in the LDS faith.

Anthony joins me to talk about gracious LDS leave-taking, deconstruction and spiritual reconstruction.

At the beginning of May 2019 two mothers of children who were sexually abused by convicted pedophile, Michael Jensen, appeared back in their former ward in Martinsburg, West Virginia to warn the congregation that the children there are not safe.

This is a community, they argued, that circled their wagons around the perpetrator and their leaders.  This is a community that made sinners out of those who pointed out the sin.  This is a community that never apologized for their role in creating a climate that turned a church against the victims and their families.

Alice Koivu and Kelly Plante join me to talk about their journey back (as uninvited guests with a message) to the LDS Church pulpit.

Lucy Cammock talks passionately and with clarity about the subtle side of sexual abuse trauma that trailed her (a sexual abuse survivor) through her life.  

"I'm never done with the trauma", she argues. 

And while that may sound hopeless to some, for Lucy, what was more harmful was any idea that at some predetermined stage it will all be over. 

Lucy discusses the ideas that she has worked through as a woman and a mother as she works to get into a healthy relationship with her childhood sexual abuse.

Section 132 was Joseph Smith's revelation that provided the theological justification that allowed select men of the early LDS restoration to have sex with more than one authorized partner.

For The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, section 132 and the doctrines that have emerged from it inform gender inequality, the continued practice of post-mortem polygyny, male priesthood and more importantly it lays out the doctrine of the New and Everlasting Covenant which is central to the ordinances of the LDS temple.

It's absolutely essential that those of us in the LDS restoration movement understand Section 132 in order to make sense of Mormon History and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint's contemporary theological challenges.

In that spirit I read Section 132 in plain English.

Tim Kosnoff, victims' advocate and attorney, returns to the podcast to discuss the growing wave of sexual abuse allegations being made against the Boys Scouts and the long-standing relationship between the BSA and the LDS Church.

The Rev. Rob McKay began his religious formation in the LDS Church.  When he returned home from his mission he affiliated with a Pentecostal church in Auckland, New Zealand.  He then became Anglican and was ordained a priest in Tikanga Māori.  Recently he converted to Islam.

Despite these movements, he honours each tradition for what they offered him in his spiritual formation.  Though his journey hasn't been straightforward he is without regret.

In light of the mosque shootings in Christchurch, Rob's ability to deeply appreciate and understand these sometimes adversarial traditions might just be what our New Zealand religious community needs.

Rob McKay and I have a delightful conversation about the many unexpected places to which God calls us home.