The Mormon Land newsletter is The Salt Lake Tribune’s weekly highlight reel of developments in and about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Support us on Patreon and get the full newsletter, podcast transcripts and exclusive access to all Tribune religion content.
A boycott and a birthday
Some Latter-day Saint women have decided they are not going to take last year’s removal of female leaders from the stand at worship services sitting down.
In fact, they’re sitting out, choosing this Sunday, the 182nd anniversary of the founding of the Relief Society, to stay home from church as a way to protest the slight and, as they see it, the global faith’s undervaluing of women.
The thinking is that their invisibility may bring more visibility to the issue. Certainly the absence of women from the two-hour block — depending on how many join the one-day revolt — could make for some, shall we say, interesting services Sunday.
Seattle Latter–day Saint Kierstyn Kremer Howes called for the boycott in a Salt Lake Tribune op-ed last December and reinforced the action in a follow-up piece this week.
“A lot of women reached out to me after I published my first article … [with] stories of women being belittled, maligned, insulted and ignored,” the licensed mental health counselor wrote. “... I’ll email my bishop to let him know I opted out of church to bring attention to the struggles women in our church are experiencing.”
Later, the church itself is staging a worldwide Relief Society devotional — including recorded messages from President Russell Nelson and the Relief Society General Presidency of Camille Johnson, J. Anette Dennis and Kristin Yee — to commemorate the birth of the women’s organization, followed by local testimony meetings.
This would be a “great time to share your experiences as a woman in the church,” Kierstyn Kremer Howes wrote in The Tribune, “and your hopes that the church will work to improve the lives of Latter-day Saint women.”
Temple predictions
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) An aerial view of the Nairobi Temple, the faith's first in Kenya, on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. New temples are expected to be announced at General Conference the first weekend in April.
It’s a safe bet to say the church will reveal new temples at April’s General Conference (the practice has become a conference fixture), but the odds are much longer in predicting where they will be built.
That challenge hasn’t stopped independent church tracker Matt Martinich from giving it a whirl (and finding, at times, remarkable success). So here is his tally from ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com of the 10 “most likely” cities to hear their names pronounced from the pulpit for new temples next month:
• Spanish Fork, Utah.
• Angeles or Olongapo, Philippines.
• Kampala, Uganda.
• São José, Brazil.
• Santiago, Dominican Republic.
• Maracaibo, Venezuela.
• Osorno or Puerto Montt, Chile.
• El Paso, Texas.
• Price, Utah.
• Bo, Sierra Leone.
Message to Muslims
Citing a shared belief in fasting and prayer, recently named Latter-day Saint apostle Patrick Kearon extended best wishes on social media to Muslims around the globe during their holy month of Ramadan.
Women as peacemakers
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Sharon Eubank, director of humanitarian services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaks at a panel at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in New York City about partnering against poverty on Monday, March 11, 2024.
• In a panel discussion this week at the United Nations, Sharon Eubank, who directs the church’s humanitarian services, called collaboration the key to ending poverty. “You’ve got to work together,” she said. “Your politics [may be] different in your own family and in the Legislature and in the community, and the only way to make progress is to build bridges with people who may feel differently than you.”
From The Tribune
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Ordinance room in the renovated Manti Temple displays the restored and brightened Minerva Teichert murals.
• The Manti Temple, an architectural jewel of pioneer-era Utah, reopens, so those saved Minerva Teichert murals now can be savored.
• Farther north, in Salt Lake City, another Latter-day Saint gem is destined for demolition.
• A global “sisterhood,” armed with religious freedom and “unburdened by prejudice and oppression,” can help bring world peace, Relief Society President Camille Johnson tells the European Union Parliament.
• Get up to speed on the James Huntsman case, “copycat” tithing lawsuits and the church’s current wealth by listening to last week’s “Mormon Land” podcast.
• Spaceships, skyscrapers and Bears, oh my! In the wake of the church’s purchase of the Kirtland Temple, Tribune columnist Gordon Monson explores what else it could buy.
• Religion News Service columnist Jana Riess reports survey findings on why Latter-day Saints leave or stick with the church.
