Mormon Land

Ronell Hugh says he was recently hiking a trail in Highland, Utah, when a white man in a gray truck leaned out his window and shouted a racist threat.

It was a moment both startling and deeply troubling for the president of the Genesis Group, a support organization for Black Latter-day Saints.

Hugh hadn’t been threatened like that before since living in the Beehive State. But he had heard lots of stories from other members of his Black congregation, who told him that racism has been on the rise due to the current political climate in the country as well as in Utah, where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the dominant religious institution.

On this week’s show, Hugh, a Latter-day Saint convert and marketing executive who most recently worked for church-owned Deseret Book, discusses the increase in racial tension, what top church leaders have said about it and how Latter-day Saints can counter the sin of racism.

It’s the late 1960s to mid-1970s. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continues a century-old priesthood and temple ban against its Black members. It takes a high-profile public stance against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. And a persistent patriarchy urges women to abandon careers and return home to care for their children and husbands — all the while limiting their leadership and other opportunities within the religion.

These policies and practices created friction for a number of working women in the church. But rather than leave the fold, a number of talented trailblazers chose instead to turn to Christ and seek personal answers to private prayers to carve their own paths and not only stay true to the faith — and their ambitions — but also emerge even stronger.

On this week’s show, Robin Ritch discusses their journeys, which she documents in her newly released book, “Using Friction to Grow.”

On April 4, millions of Latter-day Saints worldwide raised their hands to show symbolic support for their new prophet-president, Dallin H. Oaks.

It was a rare ritual, called a solemn assembly, done primarily at the time of a new leader for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But this act of “sustaining” is also commonly used in congregations as a way to express goodwill and welcoming to new members and to members who have completed their volunteer assignments or are accepting new ones.

“With those raised hands and encouraging smiles, we [are] participating in common consent, where we can choose to sustain, by the raising of the right hand, those called to serve,” apostle Patrick Kearon explained right after Oaks’ solemn assembly. “Common consent is not a mere formality but a beautiful mix of our agency, unity and faith. It is a voluntary, personal commitment to support, uphold and help the Lord’s called servants in their responsibility.”

And it is almost always unanimous.

But does that act imply members are or should be in complete agreement with those who are sustained? Or that the leaders are infallible? Or that the thinking among members is done?

On this week’s show, Taylor Kerby, author of “Scrupulous: My Obsessive Compulsion for God,” and Heather Sundahl, a historian at Exponent II and a marriage and family therapist in Provo, discuss the church’s teachings about “sustaining.”

Nearly 50 years ago, Latter-day Saint prophet-president Spencer W. Kimball warned boldly and directly about the dangers of war, including the vast resources used in the destruction of America’s enemies. The Yoda-like leader cautioned that members were becoming a “warlike people.” His successors in the office, though, have rarely spoken with such passion and purpose. Their condemnations of war and proclamations of peace have been more tempered, more cautious, more general.

Now the U.S. is at war again and other religious leaders, most notably Pope Leo XIV, have condemned the military assault. In his first General Conference sermon as the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Dallin H. Oaks gave a major address urging members to be peacemakers — echoing Jesus’ call in the Sermon on the Mount — but his remarks were mostly aimed at interpersonal rather than geopolitical conflicts.

What has happened in the intervening decades to cause Latter-day Saint presidents to avoid speaking up about war? Why are some members wishing their leaders were following the pope’s lead?

Discussing those questions and more related to war and peace are Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University who wrote a book titled: “Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict" and Holly Burton, a Utahn who is studying conflict management and resolution at the Kroc School of Peace Studies at the Catholic-led University of San Diego.

Netflix's harrowing 4-part docuseries focuses on the crimes of Sam Batemen, but before Sam Bateman there was Warren Jeffs. As outsiders, Nicole and Rebbie can't begin to understand how either of these men were able to do what they did. Cristina helps contextualize what these religious doctrines and communities are like, how they differ from each other, where they can be mischaracterized, and what kinds of media can help vs. hurt.

Resources: 

Cherished Families: https://www.cherishfamilies.org/

Kidnapped From That Land: https://www.amazon.com/Kidnapped-That-Land-Government-Polygamist/dp/0874805287

Unfinished Short Creek podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/lu/podcast/introducing-unfinished-short-creek/id1516705248?i=1000488964911