Featuring guest scholars Barbara Jones Brown and Ben Spackman, this part two of a special two-part review of the October 2018 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explores two newsworthy topics:
- President Oaks’ talk on current issues pertaining to marriage / sexuality, etc.
- President Nelson’s talk about the naming guidelines for Church (i.e. no more “Mormon,” “LDS,” etc.)
Morgan: Thank you everyone for your patience as we were forced to take a temporary hiatus from publishing new episodes of Mormonism Magnified. We’re finally back with Part 2 of our October 2018 General Conference Review, just in time to prep you for the next General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which takes place in April 2019. We’ve got a great episode and some exiting announcements for the future including the new name of our podcast, which we’ve decided will be Latter-day Landscape. So thank you for joining us!
Morgan: So Patrick, just a couple days before last year’s October 2018 General Conference, the Church made a big announcement. The famous, Grammy-award-winning Mormon Tabernacle Choir, one of the most well-known and beloved names or groups or anything associated with the Church, was no longer the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
Patrick: It shows that the Church, and President Nelson, are serious about emphasizing the proper name of the Church, and in sort of scaling back the word Mormon, especially in a sort of institutional setting. … I think this underscores the seriousness with which President Nelson is approaching this, he said this wasn’t just about a rebranding exercise. And I think this shows when he says that, he does so with a lot of conviction, in the sense that one of the best brands that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had for several decades has been the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And so, to be willing to in some ways alter that brand, or to take away from a very successful part of your brand because President Nelson feels that God has given him directions in this way shows that he’s willing to follow the voice of the Spirit regardless of the cost.
Morgan: Of course, that means the popular nickname MoTab is probably out too. What do you think of the suggestion of one of the choir members that since it’s now the Tabernacle CHOIR AT TEMPLE SQUARE, they should be nicknamed the TABCATS?
Patrick: Ha ha, we’ll see if it sticks.
Morgan: Of course, that turned out to be the first domino of many to fall, as in the last few days we’ve seen changes announced to all the Church’s major internet and social media names. In this podcast, we’ll be revisiting the October 2018 announcement where President Nelson talked about the naming guidelines of the Church, with some strong language that led to news headlines:
President Nelson: To remove the Lord’s name from the Lord’s Church is a major victory for Satan.
Morgan: We’ll also talk about the two talks from President Oaks, which reinforced the Church’s positions on a number of current issues that cross over into politics and have occasionally generated controversy:
President Oaks:… maleness and femaleness, marriage between a man and a woman, and the bearing and nurturing of children are all essential to His great plan of happiness.
We’ve got the same outstanding guest scholars from last episode, Barbara Jones Brown and Ben Spackman, to help us break down some of these issues, along with sharing some personal highlights. We’ll also be explaining the new name for our podcast, Latter-day Landscape and rationale behind the change, as well as some big personal news for Patrick.
Morgan: Thank you for joining us on another episode on Mormonism Magnified, or as we like to call it, the podcast soon to be formerly known as Mormonism Magnified. My name is Morgan McKeown, and I’m joined as usual by my co-host Patrick Mason, who is the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University, where he is also the Dean of Arts and Humanities.
On our last podcast episode, we talked about two noteworthy topics that came up in the October 2018 General Conference: (1) the reducing of the Sunday church meetings to 2 hours with an emphasis on home learning, and (2) the first General Women’s Session ever in conference weekend. On today’s episode, we’ll be talking about President Oaks’ talks, in which he addressed a whole host of current issues upon which the Church has at various times run into opposition. We’ll also be discussing President Nelson’s talk from conference reinforcing those new name guidelines for the Church, and the ongoing efforts to eliminate the use of nicknames like Mormon when referring to the Church or members. And we’ll use that as an opportunity to talk about why we have decided to rename our podcast.
We’ve got the same outstanding scholars from our last episode. First, Barbara Jones Brown, historian, author, and the Executive Director of the Mormon History Association. Second, we’ve got Ben Spackman, a PhD student at Claremont Graduate University where he is part of the Mormon Studies program. Let’s dive right in.
President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave not just one, but two talks in this October 2018 conference that reinforced the Church positions on various current issues that sometimes spark controversy, or as he puts it:
President Oaks: Our positions on these fundamentals frequently provoke opposition to the Church.
M: I don’t think any of these positions that President Oaks laid out in his talks this conference would be considered novel, or in other words, this isn’t the first time that we’ve heard these points from President Oaks or other Church leaders. But it was a fairly comprehensive overview, not only describing the issues, but where they fit into current thoughts on Church doctrine, as well as why the Church leadership considers these issues one of their top concerns. President Oaks, of course, has never shied away from addressing these types of issues head on. He was actually the keynote speaker at our Claremont Mormon Studies Conference on Religious Freedom a couple years ago, in which he talked about the importance of respectful and civil dialogue, given the current climate of controversy, hostility, and conflict regarding many religious beliefs. Here’s just a short clip from President Oaks at that Claremont conference:
President Oaks: We should be wise in explaining and pursuing our positions and in exercising our influence. In doing so, we ask that others not be offended by our sincere religious beliefs and the free exercise of our religion.
M: Let’s actually start with the second of his two talks, entitled “Parents and Children,” which he gave during the General Women’s Session of conference.
Patrick: The thing that I was struck by with President Oaks’ comments was that he opened with really a fairly dire view of demographic crisis within the Church in terms of marriage ages that are rising, and birth rates that are declining.
President Oaks: The average age of our Church members’ marriages has increased by more than two years, and the number of births to Church members is falling. The United States and some other nations face a future of too few children maturing into adults to support the number of retiring adults. Over 40 percent of births in the United States are to unwed mothers. Those children are vulnerable. Each of these trends works against our Father’s divine plan of salvation.
Patrick: And no doubt he has very good data that he is looking at from the research division of the Church. And so I have no doubt this is empirically true within the Church. And that is a cause for concern. Of course, there’s a theology of family within Mormonism, and there’s a reason why Mormons have traditionally had large families (or Latter-day Saints, I should say). But it does become a sociological challenge for the leadership of the Church as they look forward at the future, in terms of growth, and finances, and stabilizing the Church and its culture moving forward. If Latter-day Saints don’t get married, and if they don’t have children, that does provide an alternative, and (in the minds of the leadership of the Church) a negative forward path that they would want to correct.
Morgan: In his other talk, which was entitled “Truth and the Plan”, President Oaks puts some additional framework around his comments, using the language of restored gospel truths:
President Oaks: I will now speak of restored gospel truths that are fundamental to the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Please consider these truths carefully. They explain much about our doctrine and practices, perhaps including some things not yet understood.
Patrick: In some ways this was classic Dallin H. Oaks. Of course he’s a trained attorney, jurist, very well respected in his field. He served on the Utah state supreme court. He is a systematic thinker and I think we see this the hallmarks of this of this training as a lawyer in which he goes through the doctrines of the Gospel in a very kind of detailed and systematic way. Kind of point by point about the major beliefs and the things that that he believes are central or core to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He recognizes that a number of those beliefs are relatively unobjectionable at least kind of broad Christian viewpoint: a belief in God and Jesus Christ and the Atonement and the authority of scripture and things like that. But of course, there are a number of distinctives that the Church teaches about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and then he also recognizes that there are a number of distinctive things that are controversial even within the Church. That there is some discussion, even division and disagreement on some things like same-sex marriage and other things related to gender and sexuality in particular.
President Oaks: We are beloved children of a Heavenly Father, who has taught us that maleness and femaleness, marriage between a man and a woman, and the bearing and nurturing of children are all essential to His great plan of happiness.
Patrick: So I think this talk was again, kind of classic Dallin H. Oaks in terms of fearlessly and unambiguously declaring the doctrine. He sees himself in that role that is part of the role of the Apostleship as outlined by revelation is to define and defend and outline the doctrine of the gospel. And so I think that talk that he gave in General Conferences is a really prime example of him filling that role as an Apostle but also coming from his own kind of personality and training – the lifetime of study and preparation that went into that.
Morgan: This can be a delicate discussion, but let’s talk briefly about some of the controversial issues that are highlighted in these positions touched upon by President Oaks.
Barbara: As a mother of a gay son, and as a friend and family member of other parents of gay children, and other friends who are gay or transgender, the question I have is, ok I understand that this is the Church’s doctrine and so this needs to be the standard that President Oaks wants to uphold. But there’s no alternative for those of us who don’t fall within that standard. Ok, so marriage is to be between a man and a woman. But what’s the alternative for my son? What do I teach my son? Do I teach him, no you shouldn’t get married? Do I teach him, no, you should be abstinent the rest of your life, and then, frankly bring misery upon himself? What’s the alternative suggested for those of us, and we are many, whose family members, whose loved ones or who ourselves do not fall within that standard. As a mother of a gay son, what I want for my child, for my son, is the same thing I want for all of my children. I hope that he will be married and have a committed, loving, monogamous relationship with his spouse throughout his life. Am I wrong for wanting that, for that child? I wish there was some kind of an alternative that could be presented. Because those of us who are Latter-day Saints, and who want to follow the Church’s standards, but have loved ones, or who ourselves are LGBTQ, what is our alternative? What choices do we have?
Ben: And I think this is a broader issue, actually. I have a single LDS friend in his late 30’s who is unmarried, and he asks, “what is my role in the Church?” And the question becomes, what can the Church do? I don’t think that anyone expects the Church to stop preaching the doctrine, or the ideal. But the question becomes, let’s assume that is unattainable for some reason. What can we do secondarily? What is the practical choice? What is that role? And that’s not something that we’ve talked about a lot. We’ve focused so heavily on the ideals, that people who don’t fit the ideal for whatever reason don’t feel like they have a place within the Church’s structure.
Patrick: And even the Family Proclamation, which clearly President Oaks and this First Presidency is deeply committed to, and continuing to teach the principles that are outlined in the Family Proclamation….it even allows for some variety in the particular arrangements of the family. I don’t think it allows for same-sex marriages. But within heterosexual marriages, or for single people or single mothers… I mean, we have to keep in mind that President Oaks was raised by a single mother. And so, it’s not that they’re unaware of these things, and the leaders will often say in General Conference that we have to teach the rule, and then of course there are exceptions. But at least President Oaks’ language didn’t allow for exceptions, there wasn’t even the one sentence caveat, “we recognize that by circumstances that will mean that not everyone can achieve this ideal in this life.” You know, the kind of language that we’ve heard from other speakers. And that does leave some people feeling left out.
Morgan: Are there any other legal or political implications that come to mind when thinking about these positions of the Church?
Barbara: The other thing I’ve been thinking of is that now that same-sex marriage is the law of the land, within the United States at least, and we profess to honor and uphold the law as stated in our Articles of Faith, how do we move forward with that, with those two differing beliefs? That we uphold the law of the land, and gay marriage is the law of the land, but state that we don’t support gay marriage, is that a tension?
Patrick: I think there are a lot of things, Barbara, that are legal but not permissible within the Church. And controlled substances, you know, alcohol and tobacco would be the prime examples of this. So just because it’s legal to do something doesn’t mean that the Church has to countenance it.
Barbara: Right, that’s true.
Patrick: But this has been a challenge especially in terms of marriage historically. If you look back at the Manifesto, the reason that President Woodruff gives in giving up plural marriage is because of desire to conform to the laws of the land. Of course, it came by revelation to do so. But the reason he gives is so that we can conform to law of the land. But the Church has maintained that even in places where polygamy would be legal, they would not do it. And so there’s a long, and rich, and complicated history of how the Church relates to the law of the land, especially given that there are different laws of different lands. And so what they preach in terms of what is permissible in kinds of marriages that Latter-day Saints can enter, they can or can’t enter into.
Morgan: There’s a lot more that could be said on those topics addressed by President Oaks, and it almost certainly won’t be the last time these sorts of topics make it into the news. For now, let’s move on to our next topic from General Conference, President Nelson’s talk about “The Correct Name of the Church.” We previously dedicated the entire episode 3 of our podcast to the name announcement which came out two months before General Conference, strongly discouraging the use of the terms Mormon, LDS, and Mormonism when referring to the Church or its members. That announcement led to a flurry of international news and media attention. So it was no surprise that President Nelson addressed this topic during last October’s General Conference. In just the last few days, we’ve seen further announcements from the Church as they’re starting to implement this especially in their websites and social media. LDS.org is now ChurchOfJesusChrist.org, and the MormonNewsroom.org is now Newsroom.ChurchofJesusChrist.org. The LDS Music Ap is now “Sacred Music.” Mormon.org is temporarily ComeUntoChrist.org while it becomes integrated with the ChurchOfJesusChrist.org. So there’s definitely been action since President Nelson’s proclamations last year.
Patrick: After President Nelson first made the announcement in August wanting to emphasize the full name of the Church and move away from the use of the terms Mormon and LDS… I think a lot of people were holding their breath as to how serious this was going to be. Well, in General Conference President Nelson made it clear that he heard and was aware of the variety of responses from people who were fully on board to people who were a little wishy washy, to other who kind of rolled their eyes and were skeptical.
President Nelson: Many members immediately corrected the name of the Church on their blogs and social media pages. Others wondered why, with all that’s going on in the world, it was necessary to emphasize something so “inconsequential.” And some said it couldn’t be done, so why even try?
Patrick: He addressed that very straightforwardly, and said, “We are very serious about this.” And not just we as a Church, but God is serious about this, that this is something that God takes seriously in terms of the name of the Church. That He gave it to the Church by revelation, and that he’s still serious about it. And that he is offended when we use nicknames.
President Nelson: Thus, the name of the Church is not negotiable. When the Savior clearly states what the name of His Church should be and even precedes His declaration with, “Thus shall my church be called,” He is serious. And if we allow nicknames to be used or adopt or even sponsor those nicknames ourselves, He is offended.
Patrick: So if anything, I think President Nelson made a really strong statement that he was aware of the kind of whispers and the range of receptions, but that he was not going to back down, nor was he going to water down what he felt like was clear revelation from the Lord. So I was really struck by that. And so I think we are going to see more changes along these lines, and this is going to be a real initiative and real effort from the Church in order to emphasize the full name of the Church and to scale back the use of the word Mormon.
Morgan: Although the news media had already covered this new name emphasis extensively when the announcement came out before General Conference, President Nelson’s talk led to some more media attention due to the strong language that he used.
Patrick: I think one of the things that a lot of people picked up on and that also caused some concern among academics and journalists was that at one point President Nelson referred to God being offended when we don’t use the full name of the Church, but also that in some ways that by using the name Mormon instead of the full name of the Church, that in some ways people who use that are in league with Satan or that at least it advances Satan’s cause.
Patrick: I think that kind of strong language caused some discomfort among people, even ridicule in some corners
Ben: And what he actually said, the most blunt line was, and I’m quoting here, “To remove the Lord’s name from the Lord’s Church is a major victory for Satan.”
President Nelson: To remove the Lord’s name from the Lord’s Church is a major victory for Satan.
Ben: He didn’t say, “Any time you say ‘Mormon’ Satan chuckles.” When I’ve seen English-speaking journalists say, “The Church of Latter-day Saints” even that rubs me wrong, and you’re kind of leaving out the most important part there. You know, that Jesus thing is important.
Barbara: And of course there’s the Book of Mormon references saying that if it’s called Moses’ Church, it’s the Church of Moses, and if it’s called any other man’s name’s church, then it’s the church of that person. So if it’s the Mormon Church, then it is the Church of Mormon, which it’s not, it’s the Church of Jesus Christ. So I think that discussion has been taking place since the Book of Mormon was published. So I think it’s just President Nelson trying to get back to that.
President Nelson: For much of the world, the Lord’s Church is presently disguised as the “Mormon Church.” But we as members of the Lord’s Church know who stands at its head: Jesus Christ Himself.
Patrick: We know this is something that President Nelson has cared about for a long time. I think he’s been uncomfortable with the word Mormon and the term Mormonism for many years. And now he’s in a position as President of the Church where he can speak authoritatively about it. And he did mention in his talk that essentially members of the Church have been complicit in this. That they’ve accepted this as a nickname. They use it to refer to themselves. I continue to do so because it’s an old habit that I find hard to break. And it goes all the way back to Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith referred to him as Mormon. So very early Latter-day Saints adopted the nickname and used it in a way that quickly became quite friendly. It very quickly became a non-derogatory term, especially when used by people within the movement. And so when journalists and scholars have used it over the past decades, they’ve done so precisely because the members of the Church did so comfortably. And I think President Nelson’s strategy here, he knows that he can’t force outsiders not to use the name of the Church, but he’s hoping that a shift in internal usage will over time also affect the way that outsiders, especially sympathetic journalism scholars refer to it. So it’s going to be interesting to see what kind of leverage and pressure points they’re able to bring to bear. Whether it’s just the power of persuasion, or whether there are other instruments used to try to eradicate the M-word out of our vocabulary.
Morgan: In our previous episode on the name announcement, we talked a lot about the historical uses of the term Mormon, and some of the back-and-forth from Church leaders on whether it was acceptable or not. And as Patrick mentioned, President Nelson has clearly cared about this for many years. Here’s a clip from his April 1990 General Conference talk, which uses similar language that it probably could have fit right in with his October 2018 talk:
Elder Nelson: Sometimes a nickname is used instead of the real name. But a nickname may offend either the one named or the parents who gave the name. The name of which I shall speak is not a personal name, yet the same principles apply. I refer to a name given by the Lord: “Thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” (D&C 115:4.)
Morgan: A few of our listeners wished that we had highlighted what happened in the General Conference that followed, in October 1990.
Barbara: I remember President Gordon B. Hinckley’s talk, “Mormon means More Good.”
Morgan: In that October 1990 talk, President Gordon B. Hinckley, who was First Counselor in the First Presidency at the time, seemed to offer a respectful counter-argument to the direction that President Nelson was leaning towards:
President Hinckley: I suppose that regardless of our efforts, we may never convert the world to general use of the full and correct name of the Church. Because of the shortness of the word Mormon and the ease with which it is spoken and written, they will continue to call us the Mormons, the Mormon church, and so forth. They could do worse.
Ever since, when I have seen the word Mormon used in the media to describe us—in a newspaper or a magazine or book or whatever—there flashes into my mind his statement, which has become my motto: Mormon means “more good.”
We may not be able to change the nickname, but we can make it shine with added luster.
Morgan: So there has been some back and forth over the years from the Church leaders on whether the term Mormon could be encouraged or not.
Barbara: I worked for the New Era magazine as an editor in the ’90’s, I think it was 1994, trying to purge Church terminology of the word “Mormon.” We had to get rid of our most popular feature of the New Era magazine, which was the Mormon Ads. I don’t know if any of you remember those. And we tried and tried and tried to come up with a new name for those, and we never could, and so we just ended up calling them the poster page or something like that. But I was kind of sad to loose the Mormon Ads, because it was our most popular brand. We also had a joke page called Mormonisms that we just did away with as well. But then the pendulum seemed to swing back, and it was ok to use Mormon again. So, it will be interesting to see.
Morgan: In our previous episode on this topic, we talk more about some of those back-and-forths, including the recent “I’m a Mormon” campaign. We also discussed how some of the key drivers for this seemed to be President Nelson’s long-time concern for the topic, enabled by his comfort with his new position as prophet and revelator of the Church and his sense of revelation on this specific topic. Were the any other possible motivations of this change that we haven’t addressed yet?
Ben: The thing that goes unsaid here that I haven’t seen in a lot of discussion, is the international elephant in the room, namely China. President Nelson apparently speaks Mandarin Chinese. He has been involved with discussions with Chinese diplomats about the Church over there. I don’t know Mandarin, but I am told by people who do that the characters for Mormon and the way you say Mormon in Mandarin have negative connotations. As the Church is, I was going to say moving into China, but I don’t think we are in any formal sense, this is the religious market that we are not in. And if we are moving into a religious market with a brand, so to speak, that misleads people from the get-go. It’s like the apocryphal story of trying to sell the Chevy Nova in Spanish speaking countries; if your car is named the “it doesn’t go,” that’s not great PR. If he has China on the mind with the name in the Church, to move away from Mormon and at least keeping Jesus Christ in the name. I would not be surprised if that is part of what is driving him to emphasize “don’t use the nickname Mormon, use the full name of the Church.”
Morgan: And yes, after confirming with an internet search, and Mormon in Chinese sounds a lot like “Gates of Hell.”
Barbara: That’s a problem.
Patrick: They’ve changed the kind of pronunciation, again, I don’t speak the language, but they’ve changed the pronunciation slightly so that it means something else, and they’ve used different characters. So it’s been a problem. The Church is in Hong Kong, and there are lots of Chinese speaking members of the Church. And the missionaries proselytize to many Chinese speaking people even not in mainland China.
Barbara: I’ve heard that it’s not just China but just the Church as it increasingly becomes a more global Church, that it’s with all nations, other languages. Mormon doesn’t translate well into many other languages. I served a mission in Japan, and the way you say Mormon in Japanese is “Morumone.” And the way that you say “hormone” in Japanese is “horumone.”
Ben: The Church of Hormones might be very popular, who knows?
Barbara: Yeah, we were teased quite a bit… horumone, Morumone, Morumone, horumone. I think it’s something that’s happening in a lot of other languages that “Mormon” doesn’t translate well. And so, again as the Church continues to grow in places outside the United States and places that aren’t English-speaking, I think it’s a problem throughout the world.
Morgan: Let’s talk a little bit more about some of the challenges this new name emphasis may lead to.
Barbara: Coming from a journalistic background before I became a historian, it’s really hard when you’re constantly trying to shorten all references to things to say the full name of the Church. It is a really long name. And that is why journalists and others look to shorten it. So I don’t think it’s an intention on anyone’s part to necessarily take Christ out of the name. But it’s the fact that it’s a really long name. And the brand of “Mormon” has been around since the 1830’s. So it’s something that’s difficult to change. So I understand some of the reasons why Church leadership would try to change that, but I also acknowledge that it’s really difficult to use on every reference—the full name of the Church every time. We’ll see if it sticks.
Patrick: I have a question for you, Barbara, I mean you’re the Executive Director of the Mormon History Association. You know, I’m a Chair of Mormon Studies. Are there times when Mormon still is the best or only term to use?
Barbara: I’m glad you asked that, because I’ve gotten this question quite a bit, being the Executive Director of the Mormon History Association. And the answer that I’ve shared with people is, the term “Mormon” has been a part of our history, part of the history of the Restoration movement since the 1830’s, when the term as you said, Patrick was used to refer to us in a derogatory matter, but quickly Latter-day Saints adopted that to refer to themselves. And I don’t think it has negative or derogatory connotations today. But I think if our organization were called the Mormon Church History Association then yes, we would need to look at changing our name. But the fact is, it is not. We are an organization that studies all churches that are off-shoots of the Restoration movement that Joseph Smith started in 1830. So we do not just study or look at the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but all churches affiliated with that. And so, I think the term “Mormon,” we can try to change the use of that going forward, but the fact is, it is indelibly part of our history. You cannot take it out of our historical sources, starting in 1830. It’s always going to be there as part of our history. And so it’s used as an adjective in the Mormon History Association, rather than the name of any church. And so we’ll continue using that name, and I don’t think there’s any problem or concern with that.
Patrick: Got it.
Barbara: How do you feel about it, Patrick, being the Chair of Mormon Studies?
Patrick: I feel much the same way. I think your explanation is the perfect one. I had somebody call me on the phone and ask, in a nice way. And I said, let me tell you what I was doing this morning. I was revising for publication my presidential address from the Mormon History Association when I was president this past year. And in that lecture, I talked about both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in World War 1. And so I can’t just say “Latter-day Saint” because I’m talking about people from these two different churches. And Mormon, it seems to me, Mormonism, is an encompassing term that brings together people from both of those churches within the Restoration movement. Now it becomes interesting moving forward, because many members of the Community of Christ now don’t particularly like the word Mormon or Mormonism to describe themselves, and in fact throughout RLDS history that’s been the case because they’ve seen Mormons and Mormonism as being associated with the Utah church. So it’s never been an un-problematic term. It’s simply been the best term available. It’s sort of like democracy is the least bad form of government. Sometimes Mormonism is the least bad term to refer to the movement, the idea of the peoples, the culture, etc.
Ben: As an academic, finding a useful adjective is really tough. It will be interesting to see what comes out for adjectives. Mormon will probably stick around, I think.
Barbara: It’s been interesting as Richard Turley and I have finished up our final comb-through of volume 2 of Massacre of Mountain Meadows. We’re keeping this in mind as we’re going through the book. We never have referred to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Mormon Church, even before. We have, however, used the noun “Mormon” as a noun and also as an adjective. So as we go through, we’re thinking about every reference as it appears, and of course when it appears in a historical source, and is historical usage, we leave it, because that’s how it appeared in that source. But we are finding that here and there we can change “Mormon” when it’s used as an adjective to “Latter-day Saint.”
Patrick: We have talks within the academy, and I know journalists do the same all the time, and I think most of us want to refer to our subjects in the way that they would prefer to refer to themselves. So we would do this for Native American nations. We would do this for LGBT or other individuals who feel strongly about using a particular designation for them. And so, I think we should apply the same standards to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its leadership and its members whenever we can. But there are certain usages, certain sentence structures, certain phenomena that are not co-terminous with the institutional Church. And so sometimes we have to use other words to describe that.
Morgan: And that’s a good segue to talking about why we have decided to rename our podcast, Mormonism Magnified. As discussed, Patrick and I agree that the term “Mormon” still has a place, especially when referring to the broader religious movement launched by Joseph Smith that led to not one, but multiple churches; and that it therefore has continued relevance in describing Mormon studies. For that reason, the Mormon Studies program at Claremont Graduate University will most likely keep the Mormon moniker. But our podcast doesn’t necessarily have all the same goals as Mormon Studies in general. For one thing, it’s meant to be more relevant and focused on current events, so that almost exclusively means news associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members.
We also feel like another main goal of this podcast is to introduce many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the outstanding work done by the scholars of Mormonism, especially those in the Claremont Graduate program. As a bit more context: Patrick and I have worked together for years on the Mormon Studies council of the Claremont Graduate University, and Patrick is the Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. We’ve mentioned it before, but the name of that Chair is actually the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies, in honor of the 14th prophet of the Church, President Howard W. Hunter. This had to be sanctioned not only by the Hunter family, but by the leaders of the Church. I want to play a bit of something that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said at the time:
[Elder Holland endorsement]
We love those principles he talks about. We hope that members of the Church can realize how the language of scholarship can be added to the language of faith in order to influence policy makers and opinion leaders around the world. We know that not all Latter-day Saints will understand why scholarship is important, but we also know that many will understand. But right now, many are not even aware of this type of scholarship. One of our goals is to introduce that concept, and the scholars in this field, to as many Latter-day Saints as will listen. Since there are so many Latter-day Saints not yet familiar with Mormon studies, we don’t want to send up any red flags with our name before they’ve even had a chance to learn about how scholarship can expand the world’s understanding of Mormonism and the Church.
Furthermore, we realize that in today’s world, it can be very difficult for Latter-day Saints to find an intelligent and qualified, and yet “respectful” voice where they become informed and hear meaningful perspectives regarding the Church. There are a lot of Mormon podcasts out there, but we thought that good commentary on recent Church events was largely missing… especially respectful insights from qualified scholars. The fact that we’ve already received so many thousands of downloads in our first few months would indicate that many of you have indeed been looking for something like this. So signaling “respect” for Latter-day Saints with our name is an important objective, and we think will probably set us apart from the numerous podcasts with Mormon in their title that are often highly critical of the Church, who probably won’t be changing their name anytime soon.
With full disclosure in mind, Patrick and I did feel that we wanted to highlight one other motivation that caused us to start this podcast, and it’s not an academic one. Patrick and I are both active, believing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we’ve realized that some members of the Church struggle with faith and/or feeling like they don’t fit in the Church. Patrick is the author of a non-scholarly, more pastoral book called “Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt,” which was published by Deseret Book, the publishing division of the Church. Patrick also speaks regularly in many ward and stake firesides all over the U.S., sometimes with Terryl and Fiona Givens, as well as Richard Bushman, talking about how to maintain belief and belonging in the Church in spite of modern-day challenges. Both Patrick and I share this desire to strengthen our fellow Latter-day Saints; we hoped that our honest, intelligent, and respectful discussions about the range of topics, including tough ones when they arise, would help bolster some of those who needed that. And we also had talked about doing “belief and belonging” episodes, similar to what Patrick has done in firesides with the Givens and Richard Bushman.
Morgan: Finally, we have some big news from Patrick.
Patrick: Yeah, well, it’s sort of a Bittersweet for me. But I’m excited to look forward to the opportunity that I was recently appointed as the Leonard JN Torrington chair Mormon history and culture at Utah State University bittersweet because Claremont Graduate University has been a tremendous place for me and my family certainly been a very congenial place for my scholarship and teaching for the past seven and a half years and I’ve just had a number of incredible opportunities associated with being here at CTU and in particular being that the hunter chair of Mormon studies. And so this is this is really a special place. It’s a special program and I feel great about what we’ve done over the past several years, but I’m also excited about the possibilities and potentials at Utah State. The Arrington chair was actually the first endowed
Worship in Mormon studies anywhere and Phil Barlow has held that position for about a decade until is a great friend and mentor and colleague senior scholar in the field of Mormon studies. So trying to fill his shoes will be a little bit daunting but I’m excited by the prospect there and and Utah state is is really kind of an interesting the place especially for the field of Mormon history or Mormon studies. It’s a state school, which I appreciate what the kind of neutrality towards matters of religion and Faith, but it’s also got a majority LDS student population and so given, you know, the kinds of issues that I work on the kinds of conversations that I have. I’m excited about having, you know, it’s a bigger audience. [00:02:00] So to speak of undergraduate students in particular to be able to teach and interact with so so it’s exciting and it’ll give me an opportunity to do a lot more research and writing.
That I’ve been able to do especially for the past couple of years, but I will certainly Miss Claremont and all the amazing things that are going on here.
Morgan: So given all those reasons, a recognition of our focus on Church news and not broader Mormon studies, an academic desire to show respect, a desire to introduce more Latter-day Saints to the value of Mormon studies, along with a pastoral desire to facilitate belief and belonging… well, all of those reasons led us to the conclusion that we would be better off with a name that more clearly communicated our objectives. We realize that not everyone will like our decision to rename our podcast, and we respect that. But it’s one that we’ve considered deeply and decided to move forward with. So the name we’ve chosen is Latter-day Landscape, which we think lines up nicely with the goal of our podcast to put a global, respectful, and scholarly perspective on the vista of culture, people, doctrine and everything that pertains to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Morgan: And with that, we’ll close this episode by sharing some of our personal highlights from conference. Patrick and Barbara shared theirs during our last episode, so this time Ben and I will be sharing our favorite moments.
Ben: This is actually very simple. I tend to be very pastoral as an academic. I wear both hats as Patrick does, but they probably blur a little bit more. So I’m very attuned to the kind of expectations that official communication sets up. And so my favorite moment was actually in the Women’s Session, with General Primary President Joy Jones talking about service. Where she talked about she and her husband had been assigned to visit a long-inactive family that they didn’t know very well. And she tells this story of showing up with a plate of cookies, confident that chocolate chips would melt their hearts, they didn’t. It’s not a terribly surprising story. I think something like that has happened to all of us. But I loved this story of failure in General Conference, because it showed that she felt like she could tell this story of failure worldwide. She was moving away from purely idealistic models, kind of mechanical magical thinking that if you do x, y will happen. And not creating expectations of “go visit your inactive neighbor and the heavens will open and everything will change immediately.” I’m a huge fan of creating realistic expectations, as hard as they might be. And this really stood out to me as a good example of that.
Morgan: Thanks Ben. As for me, I had a lot of favorite personal moments from conference. I loved Elder Gong’s talk, especially when he talked about creating and learning:
Elder Gong: First, our campfire of faith can encourage us to find joy in wholesome creativity. There is joy in imagining, learning, doing worthwhile new things.
Morgan: And I also loved Sister Cordon’s talk about becoming shepherds:
Sister Cordon: We have the opportunity to be the “angels round about” them as He goes before their face.
Morgan: But I think my favorite talk was President Ballard’s talk about the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, which was received by President Joseph F. Smith.
President Ballard: The revelation he received on October 3 comforted his heart and provided answers to many of his questions. We too can be comforted and learn more about our own future when we and our loved ones die and go to the spirit world by studying this revelation and pondering its significance in the way we live our lives each day.
Morgan: And Elder Ballard’s talk also reminded me of two things I love most about the Church: first, the belief that the heavens are not closed, but that revelation is alive and well, and that there are many great and wonderful things yet to be revealed pertaining to the kingdom of God. And second, the expansive view of the eternities, not only that this life isn’t the end, but that we have a rich purpose and eternal destiny ahead of each and every one of us.
And on that personal note, we’ll conclude this podcast.
Thank you to our scholars for joining us, and thank you for tuning in. You can find us for now on the web at both Latterdaylandscape.com and MormonismMagnified.com while we make the transition, where you can also read transcripts from all our episodes and weigh in on what our new name should be. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or however you’re listening. If you want to support us, please give us a five-star rating and share us with your friends.
As a reminder, our podcast is independently produced, and is not an official production of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Claremont Graduate University.
Thanks again for listening, and we’ll look forward to having you with us on our next episode.