Money talks. It makes headlines, too. Just ask The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Utah-based faith’s finances have become a source of discussion, debate and, yes, dissent among insiders and outsiders.

In recent weeks, the church’s chief investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, has seen its publicly reported stock portfolio shoot past $50 billion, helping to propel the global faith’s total wealth to an estimated $265 billion.

Days ago, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed the church a mini-victory, agreeing to rehear the fraud lawsuit brought against it by a prominent Utahn, James Huntsman, who has accused Latter-day Saint leaders of misleading members about how the faith spends tithing funds.

In addition, the church has been targeted in at least five states by a string of what it has called “copycat” tithing lawsuits seeking class-action status.

On this week’s show, Salt Lake Tribune reporter Tony Semerad, who has been tracking the church’s finances and legal entanglements for a number of years, helps sort out all this money maneuvering and courtroom drama.

The Huntsman case, ‘copycat’ tithing lawsuits and expanding LDS Church wealth | Episode 328

The recent acquisition by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of Mormonism’s first temple — in Kirtland, Ohio — along with historic buildings in Nauvoo, Ill., similarly tied to founder Joseph Smith and his band of believers thrilled the global faith’s members.

For followers of the Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the longtime diligent, devoted caretakers of these properties, the sale, which that faith’s top leaders acknowledged was “painful,” brought sadness, heartache and tears.

While grateful for the good the $192 million purchase price will do for the Community of Christ’s future, they lament losing ownership of these cherished pieces of their past.

On this week’s show to discuss that past and that future is David Howlett, a Community of Christ historian, visiting religion professor at Smith College in Massachusetts and author of “Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space.”

A look at the Kirtland Temple’s past and its future under a new owner | Episode 329

In the past, historians and preservationists were not always pleased with how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints treated its treasured buildings. Bulldozing Utah’s Coalville Tabernacle and gutting the Logan Temple led to cries of anguish from insiders and outsiders alike.

These days, though, the same groups are lauding the painstaking and resplendent renovation of the faith’s pioneer-era Manti Temple, which is now open to public tours. And they are reassured by the Salt Lake City-based church’s plans for its recent purchase of Mormonism’s first temple, in Kirtland, Ohio.

On this week’s show, Matthew Grow, managing director of the church’s History Department, and Emily Utt, a curator of Latter-day Saint historic sites, discuss these preservation efforts.

Preserving the Kirtland and Manti temples — through the eyes of LDS historians | Episode 330

A decade after the Ordain Women movement within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made national news, another feminist issue is getting lots of media attention.

During a March 17 meeting to celebrate the creation of the church’s Relief Society, J. Anette Dennis, first counselor in the faith’s global women’s organization, declared that “there is no other religious organization in the world that I know of that has so broadly given power and authority to women.”

Dennis went on to say that “other faiths ordain women to roles like priest or pastor, but those individuals represent a small minority when compared to the total number of women within their congregations.”

In the Utah-based church, all women “who choose a covenant relationship with God in the House of the Lord are endowed with priesthood power directly from God.”

It is a sentiment that has been expressed previously by Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the church’s governing First Presidency, and by Sheri Dew, a former counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency. But when the church posted Dennis’ quote on Instagram, a flood of responses from women ensued — more than 15,000 comments. And, in an unusual acknowledgment, the church’s social media team promised to share the “thoughts, feelings and experiences” with the faith’s leaders.

On this week’s show, discussing this speech, the overwhelming response it generated and the role of women in the church, are Julie Hanks, a Latter-day Saint therapist in Utah, and Amy Watkins Jensen, a Latter-day Saint middle school humanities teacher in Oakland, California, who created the Women on the Stand letter-writing campaign in the wake of women’s leaders being removed from the stand at worship services in the Bay Area.

What LDS women want — in the wake of a controversial ‘priesthood power’ speech | Episode 331

Latter-day Saint leaders seem to be concerned about what they believe is the causal, even “cavalier” wearing of religious underclothing by devout members.

Indeed, in a recent speech, a general authority Seventy reportedly condemned women who wear temple garments only on Sunday and to the temple and the rest of the week can be seen in “yoga pants.” He warned that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was planning to issue stricter rules about the wearing of garments.

The standard instruction has essentially been for women and men to wear them “day and night.” According to a recent survey, though, some women are donning them when and where they want — and they don’t, it seems, view that as disobedience or inappropriate. At the same, it is getting tougher to find clothing, especially for women, that completely covers garments.

On this week’s episode, author Kristine Haglund, former editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Laura Brignone, a Latter-day Saint research analyst at Sacramento State University, discuss the challenges in wearing garments, what some members are choosing, and what it means for their faith.

Who should decide when, where and how often Latter-day Saints wear temple garments? | Episode 332

The recently completed 194th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may merit no more than a mere mention in the history books of Mormonism. There were no theological breakthroughs, no major policy changes, no sweeping shake-ups among the top echelons.

But the sessions did feature significant speeches, memorable moments and notable nuances. A British church leader delivered his debut conference sermon as an apostle. A longtime apostle returned to the conference pulpit after an extended absence. A Black general authority rose in the ranks to a historic level. Speakers publicly addressed the private wearing of so-called temple garments by the faithful. And the church’s aging senior leadership, led by a prophet-president inching ever closer to the century mark, made conspicuous accommodations to conference procedures.

On this week’s show, Emily Jensen, web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Patrick Mason, head of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, look back at the conference and what it may mean to the church and its 17.2 million members moving forward.

A conversation about General Conference | Episode 333

Few conversations are as fraught as those among family members who disagree about ideas they hold dear, and none more so than religion.

Such exchanges can be especially painful for believers in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith that can be all encompassing with strong teachings about here and the hereafter, especially about family relationships, and practices that reflect those teachings.

So what happens in families when some hold firm to the faith and others walk away? How do parents, children and siblings respond to those who have chosen a different path? Can they still love one another or does judgment make that impossible? Do they talk about it or do they slink away in silent agony?

Utah Valley University’s Kimberly Abunuwara, director of the humanities program, came up with an unusual way to explore these questions. She enlisted a group of students to interview various families about how their attachment to — or distance from — Mormonism affected their connections and communications.

The team then staged a performance, titled “In Good Faith,” in which student actors used those firsthand accounts from members and former members to reveal these wrenching experiences.

In a special “Mormon Land” episode, recorded live at Orem’s UVU, Abunuwara and two of the student performers — Brielle Szendre and Caleb Voss — are discuss what they discovered, how the experience affected them and what others can learn from this effort.

What happens inside LDS families when a loved one leaves the faith | Episode 334

All kinds of believers and nonbelievers have described brushes with death in which they briefly left their bodies to see and feel otherworldly elements. While most scientists say these “near-death experiences” are the product of neurons firing in particular ways under particular stress, many who are religious view them as objective encounters, occurring in space and time.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seem particularly intrigued by the way such experiences affirm their teachings of the afterlife and have rushed to buy the many books on the topic, including Betty Eadie’s 1992 bestseller, “Embraced by the Light,” and, more recently, John Pontius’ “Visions of Glory: One Man’s Astonishing Account of the Last Days.”

While Eadie’s book tapped into New Age Mormonism popular in the 1980s and ‘90s, “Visions of Glory” — and the writings of Chad Daybell, a Latter-day Saint writer in Idaho who has been accused of murder — seems to draw on apocalyptic and political speculations.

On this week’s show., historian Matthew Bowman, director of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California and author of “The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America,” discusses this genre and its implications in Latter-day Saint culture.

How near-death accounts became apocalyptic and why they attract Latter-day Saints | Episode 335

The role of women in any patriarchal faith is always fraught. It is especially confusing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which celebrated women who led the charge for suffrage while also practicing polygamy.

Past Latter-day Saint women like Eliza Snow and Emmeline Wells held high-profile positions in the hierarchy almost until their deaths — Susa Young Gates, an influential daughter of church prophet Brigham Young, was even dubbed a “13th apostle” — while today’s top female leaders are in and out in just five years.

Earlier general presidents of the women’s Relief Society were well known to members and wielded wide personal power, but, like the current high-level female leaders, they never held offices as “general authorities.”

Now comes word that, unlike yesteryear, today’s General Relief Society Presidencies don’t even meet weekly with an apostle “liaison” to the governing First Presidency.

On this week’s show, April Young Bennett, a blogger and essayist for Exponent II who has seen the evolving changes for Latter-day Saint women, discusses where top female leaders stand in today’s church, what could or should be done to elevate their status, and whether women’s ordination is the only way to truly balance the gender scales in the global faith.

Will a top LDS women’s leader ever again be seen as a ‘13th apostle’? | Episode 336

Without a doubt, says writer and scholar Caroline Kline, Latter-day Saint leader President Camille Johnson would have heard former church presidents telling working mothers to “come home” and focus on their families.

Instead, she pursued a 30-year career as a corporate lawyer.

In this episode of “Mormon Land,” Kline, assistant director of the Center for Global Mormon Studies at Southern California’s Claremont Graduate University, explains just how radical it is that the top brass of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are lauding her as a role model — and why their decision to do so may be a tough pill to swallow for some.

The author of “Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness” also breaks down what she sees as an increased anxiety by church leadership over female members’ activity and level of devotion, why their current efforts to reverse worrisome trends could backfire and what they could do instead to make women feel more at home.

Why leaders’ efforts to keep women in the faith could backfire — and what could work | Episode 337

Born in West Germany, Ralf Grünke has been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for most of his life. But it was complicated. And, among his Catholic and Lutheran peers, that meant he sometimes keenly felt his “otherness.”

Still, being “an ugly duckling between the swans,” Grunke has written, was a “blessing in disguise.”

He studied his own faith deeply, reading everything he could find, pro or con, as well as other faiths, and developed a strong foundation spiritually and scholarly. He now enjoys a spectrum of friends and contacts among all religions, while representing the Utah-based church.

Grunke is the church’s assistant communication director for Central Europe, headquartered in Frankfurt. He joined “Mormon Land” for a special on-location podcast in Hamburg about the faith’s status on the Continent.

The LDS Church isn’t dying in Germany, but it is changing | Episode 338

Mormon Land explores the contours and complexities of LDS news. It's hosted by award-winning religion writer Peggy Fletcher Stack and Salt Lake Tribune managing editor David Noyce.

The Huntsman case, ‘copycat’ tithing lawsuits and expanding LDS Church wealth | Episode 328

Mormon Land

Related tracks