Tamarra KemsleyMormonism is a religion anchored in community. And that is exactly what some whip-smart, milkshake-fueled students from across the Latter-day Saint spectrum are seeking to grow at the relative frontier outpost that is the University of Chicago.
Currently, 40 Latter-day Saint students attend the university, including 12 undergraduates, according to this student group’s website.
Known as “Reflection and Engagement with Latter-day Saint Identity and Culture” (or RELIC, for short), the recently formed organization is equally enthusiastic about attracting devout believers (serving a church mission while attending the school is, the students write, “totally doable”) as the “less active.”
These budding academics have reserved a spot, they explain, at their weekly Sunday dinners for anyone with ties to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
That’s not all.
Noting that Mormonism is also a religion with a history of building community through writing, the students have launched a brand-new journal. The goal: to showcase the diversity of experience of members affiliated with the University of Chicago, where church President Dallin Oaks graduated from law school and also taught.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Dallin H. Oaks, speaking at the University of Virginia in 2021, earned his law degree from the University of Chicago, where he later taught as a law professor.
Writes co-author Kyle Miguel Anderson, a senior majoring in urban studies and business economics: “Like the organizational aims of RELIC, we are not interested in policing the divisive — and porous — prefixal modifiers that demand segmentation across spectra of Mormonism: the active and inactive; the converted and the born-again; the ex-, the post-, and the prog-.”
Instead, Anderson continues, “We have fostered what I find to be profound friendships that supersede fragmentation on the basis of mutual respect and honest conversation.”
(Kyle Miguel Anderson) Kyle Miguel Anderson is a co-author of a new journal by Latter-day Saints attending the University of Chicago.
Whether the journal survives the churn of students and becomes a lasting foothold, or whether the project represents a short-lived venture by some enterprising souls, remains to be determined. But even if the debut issue were its last, the publication — also named RELIC — would warrant attention.
In a faith increasingly struggling to hold on to its younger members, the installment is a treasure trove of the concerns, hopes and disappointments of its young authors.
In one entry, 2025 graduate Lucas Montoya comes to terms with his gay identity, declaring, “Queerness is a goodly pearl worth seeking.”
(Lucas Montoya) In his journal, student Lucas Montoya describes coming to terms with his identity as a gay Latter-day Saint.
In another, senior Ruby Swensen writes of the impact of purity culture and sexism — as well as a powerful sisterhood — while growing up in the church.
“I remember learning about the nuances of the polygamy-suffragist era,” Swensen writes, “and gaining a profound respect for the women who were asked to lead contradictory lives, like I am.”
(Ruby Swensen) In her entry, Ruby Swensen grapples with what it means to be a Latter-day Saint woman and the legacy of those who went before.
A poem about the personal toll of climate change and an academic treatment of the much-debated (and highly dubious) “soaking” phenomenon — attributed to unmarried Latter-day Saints attempting to circumvent rules around chastity — appear alongside sacrament meeting talks.
In one of the latter, first-generation college student Pascual Zarate from Peru describes turning to God for help navigating feelings of inadequacy only to find the answer to his prayer in the form of a social media post encouraging him to look outward.
“I came to Chicago thinking my greatest challenge would be academics,” Zarate, a sophomore, writes. “Instead, God showed me that my greatest challenge — and my greatest opportunity — is learning to receive his love by giving it away.”
For these stories to exist separately would be one thing. To have them stitched together under a shared mission transmits to them a new weight, however, each becoming individual squares in a quilt meant to be large enough to encompass a people they fear are becoming increasingly divided.
Indeed, it is perhaps this stanza from a poem by student Hazel Skousen, who previously attended church-owned Brigham Young University, that best summarizes the efforts of this idealistic group of self-described sugar-buzzed thinkers on the shores of Lake Michigan:
“I hope we are becoming
By attending to separation
By attending to reconciliation
Individuals in community.”
Tamarra Kemsley has been a reporter at The Tribune since 2021 but has been covering religion and politics since 2019. Her work has appeared in Religion News Service, the New York Post, and Religion & Politics. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Brigham Young University and a master’s in Islamic studies from Hebrew University.