Six years ago, the book “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation” hit shelves. A 75-year history of evangelical masculinity, The New York Times bestseller laid out the forces that, according to author Kristin Kobes Du Mez, turned President Donald Trump into a hero of the religious right.

Now the professor of history at Calvin University is out with a new book, “Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made.”

Precious Moments figurines. Purity culture. “Little House on the Prairie” and free enterprise. They’re all connected in Du Mez’s telling of a system that promised women everything — and often demanded the same.

Although primarily focused on white evangelicals, the names of women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are woven throughout the often biting history that has joined its predecessor on The New York Times’ bestseller list.

Despite their theological differences, the women from both traditions came together through the years to, she writes, “define conservative femininity for generations to come.”

This week, Du Mez traces the contributions of Latter-day Saint women past and present to this ideal.

The U.S. Central Area Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued an official statement last month opposing the Idaho Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act, better known as Proposition 1.

The memo was brief. Its signers, all men, did not get into the debates swirling around the ballot measure widely seen as having a decent shot at passing this November. Instead, it read: “Our long-held stance on abortion remains clear and unchanged.”

A few weeks later, the church cut a check for $1 million to the group opposing the measure.

Official church policy opposes “elective abortion for personal or social convenience.” However, it has long noted that there are circumstances in which abortion is not a sin. Those include a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, if the “life or health” of the mother is in “serious jeopardy,” and instances when a fetus is found to have “severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.”

Current Idaho law is more restrictive, barring abortion at all stages of pregnancy with an exception for the life of the mother. Survivors of rape and incest who have reported the crime to law enforcement can also seek an abortion during the first trimester.

In contrast, Prop 1 goes, arguably, further in its allowances than church policy, establishing “a right to make private reproductive healthcare decisions, including abortion up to fetal viability and in medical emergencies.”

The result is a Latter-day Saint community split on the measure, along with heated arguments online and off over what these laws and proposed laws mean for maternal and newborn health.

This week, Heather Pugmire, a Latter-day Saint and OB-GYN, describes her own experience practicing in Idaho and her wrestle with the question of how to vote come Election Day.

The explosion in gambling — especially through the emergence of online sports betting and so-called prediction markets — has been debated in the courts, Congress and now Latter-day Saint living rooms. The latter comes after President D. Todd Christofferson’s blistering broadside against all types of wagering in this past weekend’s General Conference.

While the church’s anti-gambling stance is hardly a revelation, the environment, energy and extent to which it was delivered made headlines and even caught some members by surprise.

Gambling, Christofferson said, is “morally wrong” and incompatible with Christ’s gospel.

Joining us remotely to discuss his message, its theological roots and potential culture impact — along with other conference moments — is Latter-day Saint scholar Matthew Bowman, chair of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University and co-author “Game Changers: AJ Dybantsa, BYU, and the Struggle for the Soul of Basketball.”

Brazilian Helvécio Martins was the first Black general authority in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He was named a dozen years after the Utah-based faith ended its 126-year priesthood/temple ban in 1978.

His son Marcus Martins had just turned 19 and thus, by most accounts, became the church’s first Black missionary after the change.

The younger Martins went on to earn a master’s degree in organizational behavior and a doctorate in sociology of religion, race and ethnic relations. Eventually, he became chair of religious education at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. He has served as a mission president, twice as bishop, and as a full-time senior missionary with his wife, Mirian.

All this time, Marcus Martins has remained keenly interested in the politics and sociology of Mormonism. He has addressed how geopolitical, sociocultural and technological trends have affected missionary and temple work.

As he prepares to embark on his third church mission in Brazil — which recently surpassed Mexico as having more Latter-day Saints than any other nation outside the U.S. — Martins discusses why Brazilians have embraced this American-born faith and how they view U.S. culture, traditions and politics?

The on-again, off-again debate about retention in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, most definitely, on — again.

And in a big way.

The latest round began with a report by BYU Studies, which found a number of positive signs of high religiosity among members. But it also noted that retention among U.S. Latter-day Saints has plunged from 82% in the heady 1980s to about 50% today.

Stories appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune and the church-owned Deseret News, followed by a post from statistician Ryan Burge under the headline “The LDS Church Has a Retention Problem,” pointing to a 54% rate.

Religion News Service columnist Jana Riess weighed in on the issue, and her commentary spurred a pair of responses from BYU researchers and a number of entries on Mormon blogs.

Of particular concern to Riess, who is a Latter-day Saint, is the even lower retention rate among young women and the remarkable reversal that shows women (especially younger ones) are now more likely to leave the faith than men.

On this week’s show, Riess, author of the forthcoming book “Leaving Mormonism: Who Is Exiting The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and Why,” discusses this data debate, what it means for the overall church, and why more Latter-day Saint women appear to be struggling with staying in the fold.

Starting in September, the Sabbath experience will change for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around the world.

Services each Sunday will feature all of the faith’s traditional classes for adults and youths, rather than every other week. That means an hourlong sacrament meeting, the faith’s main worship gathering, followed by 25 minutes of Sunday school for adults and teens, and then 25 minutes for all-male priesthood classes, along with women’s Relief Society and Young Women classes. Children’s Primary will remain 55 minutes long.

Essentially, church leaders are cramming classes and meetings that used to take three hours into the two-hour block the faith adopted in 2019.

Latter-day Saints see allowing men, women and teens to gather each week in their groups as a plus. But members worry about the 25-minute classes. Is that enough lesson time for meaningful discussion and deep gospel and scripture study?

On this week’s show, Cynthia Winward, co-host of the Latter-day Saint podcast “At Last She Said It,” and Michael David Huston, a contributor for the Latter-day Saint blog By Common Consent, discuss the Sunday shift.

Scott Howell is a well-known figure among Utah Democrats. He served for a decade in the state Senate and was twice the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.

During the past dozen years, though, Howell donned a different mantle: service missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He and his wife, Linda, spent their days teaching workshops on self-reliance, addressing the problems of homelessness, helping those living on the margins get the care they need, even helping a toothless member get dentures.

On this week’s show, the Howells discuss the church’s program, its challenges and rewards, and what they learned along the way.

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is opposed to gambling. … [It] is motivated by a desire to get something for nothing. This desire is spiritually destructive. It leads participants away from the Savior’s teachings.”

With those words, the faith’s position is clear. No gambling — of any type.

So when The Atlantic staked staff writer McKay Coppins, a practicing Latter-day Saint, $10,000 to place bets while investigating the booming business of sports betting, he felt the need to consult with his bishop.

Since the money wouldn’t be his own and the assignment was for research, the wary church leader gave Coppins the go sign but added a caution: “Be careful.”

During the ensuing months, Coppins learned the wisdom behind that warning as he came to understand the addictive nature of gambling and the odds against winning at it.

“I started with $10,000,” he said. “I ended with less than $200. I lost, basically, all of it.”

On this week’s show, he discusses his article, titled “Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler,” along with what he discovered about the industry, himself and the implications of sports betting for Latter-day Saints.