Mormon Beefcake

It's always March in Loree Moser's living room in Redmond, Calif. That is, it's always March according to the calendar that features a shirtless photo of her 22-year-old son, Matthew, with one bicep-bulging arm hanging from a tree branch. Pin-up calendars are nothing new, but this one has a twist: it shows handsome, recently returned Mormon missionaries both in and out of traditional missionary garb.

That fusion of sexuality and religion in "Men on a Mission" was so combustible that last weekend the calendar's creator, Chad Hardy of Las Vegas, was excommunicated by a disciplinary council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. LDS authorities won't discuss the matter since the church treats disciplinary matters confidentially. But Hardy said the church's move was motivated by LDS officials' desire to scare the flock away from expressing their sexuality and disobeying their edicts. Hardy had been instructed by his local stake president (a Mormon clerical leader) to stop producing the calendar; instead he moved ahead with the 2009 edition, due out in September, and is conducting auditions for the 2010 version.

"To them, the excommunication process is a repentance process," said Hardy, 31, who said he and a business partner have sold 10,000 of the 2008 calendars at $15 apiece, with some proceeds being donated to the charity of each model's choice. "What do I have to repent of? For producing a calendar? Giving money to charity? I believe in what I did, what I'm doing, and I'm not going to stop it."

Hardy says the church has accused him of using religion to sell sex. But he prefers to think of it as the other way around: he's using eye-catching and unexpected images of usually buttoned-up men to draw attention to the charitable and civic contributions of the faith. Until his excommunication, Hardy was a sixth-generation Mormon who some six years ago stopped attending church, tithing or wearing the requisite sacred undergarments, but he insisted he still admires the church and wanted to use the calendar a form of outreach. "I have my own feelings about the church; they're personal," he said. "I don't want to make the church look bad. I want this to be a positive thing for these guys."

Each page of "Men on a Mission" shows a shirtless man, along with a shot of the same fellow in the traditional uniform that Mormons wear during their two-year missions--a white button-down-collar shirt and tie, black pants and a black name badge. The calendar also features a biography of each model, mentioning the place where he served his mission and some thoughts on his faith. None are particularly provocative poses by beefcake calendar standards, although Mr. October 2008 does have a finger tugging down his belt and exposing the elastic of his underwear.

"I thought it could be a pretty cool idea to strip off some stereotypes and hopefully build some bridges between different groups of people," says Hardy, who also owns a Vegas-based company that puts on team-building exercises for companies.