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Columnist | Scholar | Speaker

Natalie Brown is a columnist, cultural critic, and Latter-day Saint who asks what happens to faith, family, and religious organizations when the economic and social infrastructure on which they were built stops working. Her writing has appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune, By Common Consent, Wayfare, and elsewhere.

Natalie examines Mormonism's relationship to American culture, with particular attention to economics, family, and the institutions that shape religious life. She writes about everything from the affordability crisis and the future of the Mormon family to her appreciation for tithing and the Word of Wisdom. Her latest book, After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis, asks how we can look beyond happiness culture and grow in faith when our lives and societies do not follow the trajectories we wanted.

Natalie holds a BA from the University of Chicago, a JD from the University of Virginia, and a PhD from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature. She is an advocate for the increased study of Mormon literature and The Book of Mormon.

  • “Natalie Brown is one of the Latter-day Saint community’s wisest and most original thinkers. She asks hard questions of the tradition, she takes suffering and fear seriously, but she also refuses to surrender to despair.”

    — Matthew Bowman, Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University

  • “At last, a book for Latter-day Saints who have struggled to find the happiness they expected despite a lifetime of following the recommended formulas.”

    — Susan Hinckley, author and co-creator of At Last She Said It

  • “It is a rare and vital thing for an author to tackle the profound question of what constitutes the good life, but Natalie Brown does so brilliantly.”

    — Caroline Kline, Research Assistant Professor, Claremont Graduate University

  • “It's a mistake, Natalie Brown warns us, to confuse goodness with happiness. Christian discipleship is about the former, not the latter.

    She's right.”

    — Adam S. Miller, author of Original Grace

  • “[A] highly intelligent, movingly heartfelt, and deeply faithful meditation on the risks of conflating the gospel’s message of happiness with the image of happiness mediated by an American society under increasing stress.”

    — Matthew Wickman, University Professor of English, Brigham Young University

  • “It’s exactly the kind of book that needs to be discussed in reading groups and talked about at the water cooler.”

    — Cynthia Winward, author and co-creator of At Last She Said It