Photo by Derrick Clements.

#MormonMeToo Part 2: The Church Responds

July 18, 2018

In the previous episode of this series, McKenna Denson shared her experience recording a conversation with her former Missionary Training Center president, Joseph Bishop, in which he can be heard admitting to sexual misconduct with multiple women while he was a leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On the recording, she confronts him with the allegation that he raped her while she was a Mormon missionary in 1984, an allegation he denies.

In this part of the series, the spiritual dimension of this story begins to untangle.

How has the church responded to emerging facts — both "the church" as a collection of individual believers, as well as the corporate institution based in Salt Lake City?

McKenna Denson (left) is pictured at the Provo Missionary Training Center in 1984. Image courtesy of Jessica Lowder, with permission by McKenna Denson.

#MormonMeToo Part 1: The First Law of Heaven

May 31, 2018

While McKenna Denson was was training as a Mormon missionary in the MTC in Provo, Utah in 1984, she says the MTC president, Joseph Bishop, raped her in a basement room.

Last year, she confronted Bishop in person and recorded their conversation, where he can be heard admitting to sexual misconduct with multiple women throughout his time as a high-ranking church leader.

Bishop denies the rape allegation, but a Brigham Young University police report shows that he told officers that while he served as president of the MTC, he asked a young sister missionary to expose her breasts to him in a basement room.

On this episode of Mosaic, the #MeToo movement comes to Mormonism.

In this first entry in a special series on #MormonMeToo, we'll look at how the Mormon concept of obedience helps shed light on this complex, difficult story.