A Thoughtful Faith - Mormon / LDS

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.  

When I began questioning the LDS Church, I did not expect the Stake Relief Society president to join me. Nicola Petty went from orthodox and loyal member guided by the priesthood to a Stake Relief Society President who had been woken up by the Ordain Women movement. It was in this capacity that I watched her press priesthood button after priesthood button advocating intelligently and determinedly for the women in our stake. And then, when the church was no longer reconcilable, rather than spit the church out, Nicola planned her exit well, and took up the challenge to build a new life. Her's is a story of integrity, integration, and extraordinary grace for a church she once loved deeply but no longer sees as essential to her human becoming.   This is a personal story of breaking up well. 

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.