The Mormon Church Admitted Joseph Smith's Polygamy, But Not the Coercion

A Former Utah Supreme Court Justice Asked Dallin Oaks to Defend the Courts

David Bennett, a former Utah Supreme Court justice, wrote to Dallin Oaks in the Salt Lake Tribune on May 14. Oaks is also a former Utah Supreme Court justice and the current president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The ask: speak out for Utah's courts. The context is Proposition 4, the anti-gerrymandering law Utah voters passed in 2018. The legislature repealed it in 2020 and drew its own map. Five years of litigation followed. In late 2025 the courts threw out the legislature's replacement map and installed one drawn by plaintiffs including the League of Women Voters and Mormon Women for Ethical Government. Republican-appointed justices upheld those rulings, and a campaign to remove two of them followed. The same month, the church directed every U.S. ward to hold a fifth Sunday lesson on religious freedom and constitutional principles, set for May 31, with a worldwide fast for the rule of law on July 5.  Bennett’s argument is that Oaks has the standing, the title, the legal background, and now the reach into every U.S. chapel to say that judges shouldn't lose their seats for ruling correctly. Bennett’s letter is linked below.  Postmormon Postmortem is the podcast where we lovingly sift through the ashes of our former faith.  Full episodes on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Sunday at 9:00 am, just in time for sacrament meeting.  🎙️Subscribe on YouTube: @postmormonpostmortem 📱TikTok: @postmormonpostmortem  📱Instagram: @postmormonpostmortem  📱Facebook: @postmormonpostmortem  ☕Buy Me A Coffee: postmormonpostmortem  🌐Website: postmormonpostmortem.com  ✨patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem

The Mormon Church Admitted Joseph Smith's Polygamy, But Not the Coercion

Joseph Smith married more than thirty women, including a fourteen-year-old, and the LDS Church's own Gospel Topics essay "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo" admits it. Then it stops right where the reckoning would start. Jess and Hannah read the essay line by line and trace what it leaves out. Fanny Alger, the teenage domestic worker Joseph married first. Zina Huntington Jacobs, pregnant by her husband when she was sealed to Joseph. Helen Mar Kimball, fourteen, told her family's salvation depended on saying yes. And Emma Smith, named by God in Doctrine and Covenants 132 and threatened with destruction if she refused. Plus the angel with the drawn sword, the public denials from the Nauvoo pulpit, the Utah sermons that called monogamy a disease, the 1890 manifesto, and the celestial polygamy still in the church's General Handbook as of 2024. The church told you what happened and asked you to walk by faith about what it means. This is the part it left out. New episodes every Sunday at 9am. Support the show at buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem

Mormon Monday: The LDS Church's Real Estate Buying Spree

The LDS Church's investment arm just dropped $240 million on a luxury apartment complex in Florida. We connect that purchase to a deep-dive investigation into the Mormon Church in New Zealand — billions in assets, members in low-income communities paying tithing first, volunteers giving nearly a full-time week in unpaid labor, and an institution that asks for personal sacrifice while keeping its finances private. This is what institutional wealth looks like up close. 🎙️ Postmormon Postmortem — where we lovingly sift through the ashes of our former faith. 🌐 postmormonpostmortem.com 📱 @postmormonpostmortem (TikTok, Instagram) ☕ buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem 🎙️ patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem

The Mormon Church Disavowed 126 Years of Racist Doctrine. They Called It "Theories."

The LDS Church called the priesthood ban a "direct commandment from the Lord" for 126 years. In 2013, they published an essay. We read both — and the gap between them is the whole story. Jess and Hannah read the primary sources the 2013 Gospel Topics Essay on Race and the Priesthood was written to address — and then read the essay itself. Brigham Young's 1852 speeches. The 1949 First Presidency statement that called the ban "founding doctrine" and declared there was "no injustice whatsoever." Mark E. Peterson's 1954 BYU address laying out the pre-mortal valiance framework. Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine, published by Deseret Book and cited in Sunday schools for decades. Then: what the essay says, what word it uses to describe all of the above, and what the 1949 statement's complete absence from the published text tells you about the choices an institution makes when it's trying to close a record without opening accountability. Disavowal is real. It isn't the same as an apology. The church hasn't issued one, and Dallin H. Oaks has explained — in his own words — exactly why it won't. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem Ad-free listening from $2/month: patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem TikTok & Instagram: @postmormonpostmortem postmormonpostmortem.com New episodes every Sunday at 9 AM — just in time for sacrament meeting. 01:45 Historical Context of Racial Teachings in the Church 02:41 Brigham Young's Controversial Statements 05:03 The Role of Black Figures in Early Church History 06:31 The Evolution of Church Doctrine on Race 07:59 The Impact of Church Teachings on Racial Perceptions 09:52 The 1978 Revelation and Its Implications 12:06 Reflections on Personal Experiences with Church Teachings 14:11 Conclusion and Call to Action 21:06 The Legacy of Exclusion 22:50 Institutional Necessity and Revelation 25:03 The 2013 Essay: A Quiet Reckoning 27:14 Theories and Doctrines: A Historical Perspective 30:27 The Role of Leadership in Doctrine 33:25 The Church's Response to Racial History 36:26 The Complexity of Accountability 41:50 The Absence of Apology 45:20 The Impact of the Ban on Families 48:54 Disavowal vs. Accountability 49:45 Patterns of Institutional Response 01:45 Historical Context of Racial Teachings in the Church 02:41 Brigham Young's Controversial Statements 05:03 The Role of Black Figures in Early Church History 06:31 The Evolution of Church Doctrine on Race 07:59 The Impact of Church Teachings on Racial Perceptions 09:52 The 1978 Revelation and Its Implications 12:06 Reflections on Personal Experiences with Church Teachings 14:11 Conclusion and Call to Action 21:06 The Legacy of Exclusion 22:50 Institutional Necessity and Revelation 25:03 The 2013 Essay: A Quiet Reckoning 27:14 Theories and Doctrines: A Historical Perspective 30:27 The Role of Leadership in Doctrine 33:25 The Church's Response to Racial History 36:26 The Complexity of Accountability 41:50 The Absence of Apology 45:20 The Impact of the Ban on Families 48:54 Disavowal vs. Accountability 49:45 Patterns of Institutional Response

Mormon Baptisms for the Dead: Anne Frank, Hitler, and Holocaust Victims

Baptism for the dead is one of the most distinctive practices in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In this episode, Jess and Hannah talk through LDS proxy baptism, Joseph Smith’s introduction of the practice, the use of famous historical names, Wilford Woodruff’s temple work for American founders, and the repeated controversies involving Holocaust victims, Anne Frank, Adolf Hitler, Daniel Pearl, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Simon Wiesenthal’s parents. The church often frames improper submissions as the work of individual members, but the pattern raises harder questions about consent, religious identity, institutional responsibility, and what it means to perform saving ordinances for people who never chose Mormonism.