I'm Christa Tippett, today inside Mormon faith.

My guest Robert Millett is a leading scholar and lifelong member of the Church of Latter-day

Saints.

We'll explore spiritual and doctrinal basics, which are rarely clarified when Mormon history

and religion enter political debates.

We discover distinct ideas about the nature of God, family, and eternity, and a young

frontier tradition which continues to develop internally.

We're in the religion-making business, and this takes time, it takes centuries, and trying

to explain the faith and articulate the faith.

That doesn't come overnight.

We've really only been about that for 20 or 30 years.

This is speaking of faith, stay with us.

I'm Christa Tippett.

Americans have been hearing a lot about Mormonism in the context of Mitt Romney's presidential

campaign.

But we're learning about this faith of 13 million people indirectly, by way of rhetoric and

defense.

This hour, we'll avoid well-trodden, controversial ground.

We'll seek an understanding of core beliefs and spirituality of Latter-day Saints with

a leading scholar of the Church and a lifelong practitioner.

He describes a developing, young religion with distinct, mystical, and practical interpretations

of the nature of God, family, and eternity.

...