The Mormon Land newsletter is The Salt Lake Tribune’s weekly highlight reel of news in and about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Join us on Patreon to receive ad-free podcast episodes, the full newsletter and access to all of our religion content.

A holiday tribute

As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we look at what several church leaders have said about the nation’s other founding document: the Constitution.

Church founder Joseph Smith, while a fan of the Constitution, sometimes exhibited his frustration with the repeated harassment early Latter-day Saints endured as they practiced their religion:

“I am the greatest advocate of the Constitution of the United States there is on the earth. … The only fault I find with the Constitution is, it is not broad enough to cover the whole ground. Although it provides that all men shall enjoy religious freedom, yet it does not provide the manner by which that freedom can be preserved, nor for the punishment of government officers who refuse to protect the people in their religious rights,” he said in October 1843. “ … The Constitution should contain a provision that every officer of the government who should neglect or refuse to extend the protection guaranteed in the Constitution should be subject to capital punishment.’”

Church President Dallin Oaks, a former Utah Supreme Court justice, reminded members that the Constitution is still evolving:

“Our belief that the United States Constitution was divinely inspired does not mean that divine revelation dictated every word and phrase,” he preached in April 2021’s General Conference. “… For example, inspired amendments abolished slavery and gave women the right to vote. However, we do not see inspiration in every Supreme Court decision interpreting the Constitution.”

President Camille Johnson, head of the women’s worldwide Relief Society and a high-powered attorney in her professional career, called on “we the people” to safeguard the Constitution.

“The work of defending the United States Constitution, religious freedom and the family is not just for legal scholars and academics,” she said at a fireside earlier this year. “It is for blue-collar lawyers, too, and Relief Society presidents and nonlawyers and people of every religious persuasion.”

Latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: A Cold War-era influencer

Historian Benjamin Park explores how Latter-day Saint writer W. Cleon Skousen, author of books about the Bible and communist conspiracies, is gaining an audience in the age of MAGA and Donald Trump.

Listen to the podcast.

Around the world

• The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square gave back-to-back performances at Los Angeles’ famed Hollywood Bowl last week.

All ticket proceeds, plus a matching amount from the church, will go toward charities to improve the health, education, and well-being of women and children.

The shows also featured guest artists David Foster, Katharine McPhee, Daniel Emmett, Stephanie J. Block, Sebastian Arcelus, the Bonner Family and Donny Osmond, who donned his signature kaleidoscopic robe from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

“It was a night,” Osmond said in a news release, “that I will never forget.”

• Members and missionaries are sending food, drinking water, hygiene items and other essentials to tens of thousands of people in earthquake-stricken areas of Venezuela.

They also are distributing mattresses, blankets and pillows to families in temporary shelters.

More assistance, a news release reports, is planned for families who lost belongings in the recent deadly quakes.

• The art world is enjoying a Mormon moment, so to speak, as a “vibrant Latter-day Saint artistic culture” takes root.

So argues Isaac James Richards in a recent edition of The Utah Monthly. He points to the work of independent institutions such as the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts and the rise of the internet as a place for artists to share their creations.

“I’m optimistic,” Richards writes, “that the art in Utah specifically and the Latter-day Saint tradition as a whole is indeed entering a glorious third century.”

• Liberia’s first lady, Kartumu Yarta Boakai, joined with Latter-day Saint leaders in breaking ground on a new church-funded maternity hospital in the capital of Monrovia.

• On the 182nd anniversary of Joseph Smith’s slaying, apostle Gerrit Gong dedicated the new Nauvoo Temple Visitors’ Center. The center’s hilltop site drew some community backlash before winning city approval.

From The Tribune

• Will this new portrait and sculpture — based on a much-debated daguerreotype — become the definitive depictions of Joseph Smith?

• Legendary Latter-day Saint writer Carol Lynn Pearson reflects on “this strange, beautiful, wonderful, bizarre church.”

• “The Chosen” is shooting part of its seventh and final season at the church’s film studios in southern Utah County.

• Tribune columnist Gordon Monson discusses what makes for a good Sunday school lesson.

• Tribune guest columnist Rebbie Brassfield argues the tradwife bestseller “Yesteryear” should just dive into Mormonism.

• Tom and Gayle Holdman have brought their stained-glass wonders to hundreds of Latter-day Saint temples, Protestant churches, Catholic cathedrals, even a Jewish synagogue.

• Require background checks for every calling involving children, youth or vulnerable individuals. So urges a Latter-day Saint commentator. The church already does this in the United Kingdom.

• Latter-day Saint musician Michael McLean — “Mormonism’s answer to Billy Joel” — and his openly gay son, Jeff, share their journey of reconciliation in their new book, “Stay in the Room.”

• The iconic Salt Lake Temple is now ready to “ride out” a major earthquake.