Naked Mormonism Podcast

Naked Mormonism bills itself as a serial Mormon history podcast, and it is built that way. Episodes lean on what came before. The narration recaps earlier installments, names a previous episode by title when an old quarrel comes back, and pauses to ask whether the 'dear listener' grasps the gravity of what is coming. Recent episodes are set in Nauvoo in 1844, and they take their time. Three dissenting families, the Fosters, the Higbys and the Laws, each get an episode; the narrator calls them a trio of insurrection and names the Laws the most important of the three. In 'Ep 199 – Lawful Dissent' the key source is Joseph H. Jackson's exposé. Read aloud, it alleges that Joseph Smith spoke of William Law as dangerous to the church, said it was God's will that Law be removed, had designs on Law's wife, and put the Nauvoo City police on night watch to catch Law with his guard down. By that account Law avoided the attempt, and William Marks was named as a target too. 'Ep 192 – Called and Numbered with the Chosen' works from a different kind of document, a letter to the editor of the New York Tribune that reads, to the narrator, almost like a neighbor answering Nauvoo's talking points one by one. The first point on the table is the economic growth credited to the Mormon refugee crisis. Smith's steady insistence that the Mormons were an industrious people is traced from the pulpit to the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor. 'Ep 213 – With Useful Studies Store Your Mind' finds Smith in Carthage Jail, and the narrator says plainly that he will not leave it alive. Instead of hurrying to that ending, the episode doubles back to figures the narrator calls less crucial to the timeline and admits it will be all over the place. Eliza R. Snow comes first: an altercation with Emma that historians generally accept even though accounts differ, then her move out of the Nauvoo homestead to the Morley settlement known as Yelrum. The register is conversational and a little irreverent. Smith is often just 'Joe', Nauvoo's publicity gets called a propaganda machine, and Mormon codenames earn a teasing aside. None of it crowds out the sources, which run long before the narrator steps in. The cold open introduces Ryan McKnight, Cara Santa Maria, Christopher Smith and Andrew Torres, and the credits name Julie Briscoe as social media manager, Brian Ziegenhagen as audio engineer and Andrew Torres as legal counsel. The show is a production of Ground Gnomes LLC. It fits best for someone who wants the Nauvoo years up close, dissenter by dissenter and document by document.