I am Ryan McKnight. I'm Kara Santa Maria. I am Christopher Smith. Hi, I'm Andrew Torres. This is Naked Mormonism. The Serial Mormon History podcast. Welcome to today's podcast. We are taking a break from the historical timeline to bring you an interview that I've been excited for and anticipating for months now.

Today I sit down with Jana Reese, the author of The Next Mormon's Book, and Benjamin Null, the data scientist who helped author the study and the book in order to discuss the future of Mormonism based on data collected in this

first of its kind snapshot study. It's a bit of a long interview, but it's well worth the listen

if you're willing to generously give us your time. I'll have some concluding thoughts after the

interview, so be sure to stick around after Jana and Benjamin sign off. Without further ado,

here we go.

Jana Reese is a current columnist for Religion News Service. She holds a degree in religion

from Wellesley College and Princeton Theological

Seminary, as well as a PhD in American Religious History from Columbia. She's written many well-known

and award-winning books, including The Prayer Wheel, Flunking Sainthood, and the Twibble, or the Twibble.

I'm not sure which eye she borrows from, whether it's the Twitter or the Bible, but that's exactly what you think it is. It is the Bible in tweets. And she is here to talk about her most recent book, The Next

Mormons. Jana, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Benjamin Noll is the

John Marshall Harlan, Associate Professor of Politics at Center College. He graduated summa cum laude with a

BA in Political Science from Utah State University and holds summa cum laude with a BA in political science from

Utah State University and holds an MA and PhD in political science from the University of Iowa.

His research has been published in multiple peer review political science journals, and he also co-authored,

She preached the word women's ordination in modern America published in 2018.

And Benjamin was the data scientist who collaborated with Jana to make sense of the next Mormon's survey which birthed the book that we'll be discussing today.

So, Ben, thank you so much for joining us.

Sure, absolutely.

Thank you.

So in the interest of transparency and, of course course contextualizing not only our conversation,

...