Based on your requests, I wanted to let you know that:
Mormon Stories is now an official 501c3 non-profit organization, which means that any future donations you make to the podcast will be tax deductible.
I have set up the means whereby you can make automatic monthly donations to Mormon Stories. Just click on the buttons at the top right of the home page to set up monthly, automatic recurring donations.
In this 3-part interview I speak with Lisa Butterworth, founder of (perhaps) the most popular blog within the LDS Bloggernacle: FeministMormonHousewives.org.
In Part 1, Lisa discusses her early life, how she became a feminist, and what led to her creation of FeministMormonHousewives.com
In Part 2, Lisa discusses the importance of open, thoughtful and candid discussions about women’s issues within the church, and on the Internet
In Part 3, Lisa discusses the costs and benefits of blogging, provides some final insight and advice to LDS women, along w/ her testimony of the LDS gospel.
In this episode I interview Shawn McCraney, author of “I was a Born-again Mormon” and host of “Heart of the Matter“, a controversial weekly Christian TV show geared towards LDS Church members.
In part 1, Shawn discusses his born again experience, and makes his best case for why LDS Church members should also seek to become Born Again.
In part 2, I ask Shawn several questions about his style, doctrine and theology.
In part 3, I ask Shawn some final questions, and he shares some closing thoughts.
In this series I interview Jacque — a faithful, believing LDS church member whose husband lost his LDS testimony last year.
Episode 1: Jacque discusses her husband’s loss of testimony, how they first discussed it, and the lessons she learned from dealing with the immediate aftermath.
Episode 2: Jacque discusses the compromises that both her and her husband had to make to work through his loss of faith, and what eternal marriage has come to mean for her.
Episode 3: Jacque discusses some of the unexpected blessings that have come to her marriage as a result of her husband’s loss of faith, and some final tips for couples dealing with this dilemma.
In this episode Peter and Mary Danzig discuss life after resigning from the LDS Church, including how they are raising their children as former members, reworking their relationships with extended family, and their new life/spiritual perspectives. They also discuss their recent work the Foundation for Reconciliation, which seeks reconciliation between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Gays and Lesbians
The music from this episode was played live during the interview. For more about the Danzig’s music, check out their web site here.
In this episode Peter and Mary Danzig discuss Peter’s removal from the Orchestra at Temple Square because of his letter to the editor opposing professor Jeffrey Nielson’s termination from BYU (over Dr. Nielson’s public support of gay marriage). They also discuss his local church leadership’s request for silence, the threats of church discipline, his and Mary’s ultimate decision to resign from the LDS Church, and Craig Jessop’s resignation as Director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
The music from this episode was played live during the interview. For more about the Danzig’s music, check out their web site here.
In this episode Peter Danzig discusses how his experience as a social worker to (primarily) LDS Church members led to an increase in sympathy for LDS homosexuals, a loss of his traditional LDS testimony, and his decision to write a letter to the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune to protest the action taken against former BYU Professor Jeffrey Nielson, and the LDS Church’s urging of members to support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
The music from this episode was played live during the interview. For more about the Danzig’s music, check out their web site here.
In this episode John Dehlin speaks with former LDS Church members Peter and Mary Danzig about their early years as faithful LDS church members, their mission experiences, their marriage, their joining as founding members of the Orchestra at Temple Square, and the origins of their interest in the topic of homosexuality.
The music from this episode was played live during the interview. For more about the Danzig’s music, check out their web site here.
I’m set to do an interview next week with Shawn McCraney.
Shawn is a former LDS Church member who is now an evangelical minister in SLC. He is the author of the book “Born Again Mormon” and is the host of the TV show “Heart of the Manner.”
Shawn and I talked before agreeing to do the interview. His purpose (nor mine) will not be to bash the LDS church, but instead to share his journey out of Mormonism and into Evangelical Christianity in a respectful way. If you have questions for Shawn, please post them here.
Community of Christ Apostle Susan D. Skoor and Prophet Stephen M. Veazey ordain Becky L. Savage to be a member of the First Presidency
Community of Christ temple
In part 2 of my interview with John Hamer, we discuss the transformation of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (RLDS) towards a more Christ-centered church, including the decision to build a temple in Independence, Missouri, and change its name to “The Community of Christ.”
We also discuss its transition away from prophetic succession based on blood line, and its decision to ordain women to the priesthood.
In this episode, John Hamer discusses the LDS Succession Crisis after Joseph Smith’s death, and the ground that it laid for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (or Community of Christ).
(Music provided courtesy of Clayton Pixton and Skype Pixton. If you can, please email them and thank them for the music…better yet…email them and then buy an album!!!!)
In this episode (also a re-publication), the good guys at Mormon Expression podcast interview John Dehlin, Brian Johnston and Logan Beaux about James Fowler’s Stage 5, and how it might apply to Mormonism.
This episode is re-published courtesy of John Larsen.
Each week I continue to receive at least 2-3 emails from people who are deep “in the struggle” — having lost their traditional faith in the LDS Church, and don’t know where to turn. They feel isolated and alone: often desperate. Here is a summary of the best advice I can offer someone in this situation:
(Note: please consider this as a very rough draft. I am very open to suggestions to make it better.)
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Thank you for sharing your story with me. If there are a few messages I can leave with you…that I hope you will repeat to yourself over and over again in the coming years….it would be these things: read more…
I recorded my first podcast in some time last night w/ professor, author and mother Joanna Brooks. Joanna was a very important figure in the uber-controversial BYU Academic Freedom days of 1990-1993…and is now a writer on Mormon topics for Religion Dispatches (along w/ being the Dept. Chair of English at SDSU). She was also recently featured on RadioWest to discuss the phenomenon of Glenn Beck.
If any of you have ideas for new guests on Mormon Stories, please post them here. If they’re aligned with the new direction, great. If not, that’s great too.
What’s even MORE helpful is if you’re able to contact these people in advance and ask them if they’re willing to come on the podcast. That could save me a TON of time.
Thanks for your willingness to give Mormon Stories a 2nd run.
My focus for 2010 (and beyond?) will be:
Empathy and Support for Those Struggling w/ a Faith Crisis: First and foremost, I want to help to build greater understanding, empathy and support within the broader LDS culture for those struggling with an LDS-related faith crisis. I envision interviewing many who have struggled with their faith — and to put forward several examples of people who have found joy on the other side of the struggle (regardless of whether they landed in or out of the church). The goal will not be to keep people in the church…nor to nudge them out of the church…but instead to help build broad empathy, and to help the strugglers find positive role models, tips, tricks and ideas to help them in their own religious/spiritual/life journey….regardless of where it leads. I anticipate interviewing folks from all sides including: FAIR/FARMS, StayLDS, New Order Mormon, PostMormon and ExMormon.org — and wherever else it makes sense. This will be about finding joy for those who come from a Mormon paradigm…NOT about nudging people one way or the other. read more…
Lately I’ve been feeling a very strong pull to bring Mormon Stories back. If I were to do so, I would target few areas I feel really strongly about: read more…
I remain an active, temple recommend-holding member of the LDS Church. My wife and I currently teach in the primary and really, really enjoy it.
I love both the church and its members deeply — and sincerely hope to see the Church strengthen and prosper in the coming years.
That said I consider myself a heterodox, (largely) orthoprax, universalistic Mormon (“Open Mormon” for short). What this means to me is:
Orthoprax: I generally take the commandments of the church pretty seriously in my own life. I’ve still never tried alcohol or tobacco, for example. I attend church weekly, fulfill my callings, contribute financially to the church, have family prayer and scripture study, etc.
Heterodox: My beliefs in LDS doctrine and theology are different than the average member (I am guessing). For example, I don’t believe it very likely that either polygamy or the black priesthood ban were commandments from God. I view them more likely as mistakes. These would be just 2 examples of many.
Universalistic: I don’t presume to judge the status of other churches and/or belief systems, relative to my own. I’m always thrilled to find faith, hope and charity wherever it may be found: within our church, within other churches, or outside of religion altogether. I no longer seek to rank my church and/or beliefs relative to the churches and beliefs of others. While I feel most comfortable with our doctrine and theology from a religious perspective, I feel like I have no clue what “the truth” is with respect to doctrine and theology. I tend to feel like each religion does its best to figure that out….each has their share of good and bad doctrines….and I feel like it’s God’s job to sort all that out in the end. As the good book says, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
If any of you are struggling in your relationship with the church, and resonate with some or all of the bullets below…
Your study of LDS church history is causing you to question your testimony and/or commitment to the church
Recent current events (like the FLDS thing in Texas, the Mitt Romney thing, or the Gay Marriage ballot initiative in California) have awakened in you discomfort w/ the church
You find yourself bored and/or frustrated in church — because you do not feel as though you are able to have honest/candid discussions, or that the conversations/lessons are meaningful/relevant to you
You have begun to doubt your testimony in the LDS Church, but feel as though you have no one to talk to about it
You are somewhat uncomfortable saying “I know this church is true” — but you still are comfortable saying “I know this church is good”
AND….you retain a desire to try to maintain your membership and activity in the church….
….if these bullets describe you, please email me with your story at mormonstories@gmail.com. I may have some resources that could prove helpful to you.
Welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast — the most popular LDS/Mormon-themed podcast on the Internet (between 4,000 and 6,000 listeners per episode)
For those of you looking for some interesting, Mormon-related content to try out your new Christmas iPods — allow me to explain what Mormon Stories podcast is, and how to listen:
What is a podcast? A podcast is like a combination radio/TV show, but better because you can download it to your iPod (or MP3 player) and listen to/watch it whenever and wherever you want — pausing, rewinding, or fast-forwarding (as the need arises). You can enjoy a podcast while driving in your car, doing household chores, or exercising. Mormon Stories has released podcast episodes in both audio and video, as well as via Youtube — to accommodate your situation.
“And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse aanother, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.”
I wanted to share with you the testimonies of 2 heroes of mine….one new, and one old.
William D. Russell: For over 40 years, William D. Russell has been a progressive voice among the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (now the Community of Christ). This is his story — from a 1993 Sunstone Symposium presentation called, “Pillars of my faith”.
Richard D. Poll: In early 1994 the distinguished career of Richard D. Poll, historian, professor, writer, husband and friend, came full circle. His Liahona/Iron-rod dichotomy, borrowed from the Book of Mormon, had entered the lexicon of Mormon thought almost 30 years earlier in his landmark essay “What the Church Means to People Like Me” (Dialogue 2:4, Winter 1967). His “Pillars of My Faith” sermon in Sunstone called for committed LDS worshipers and writers to join a mighty Christian chorus “in which almost all the singers hear the dissonant sounds of the alternate voices as polyphonic enrichment of the message of the gospel music.” For people like him, “neither dogmatic fundamentalism nor dogmatic humanism provides convincing answers to life’s most basic questions.” He defined history as “human strivings to discover divine realities.” Like Paul, Richard Poll lived his life as part of the leaven that “leaveneth the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9), offering his Liahona questioning in the spirit of “charity, humility, persistence.” In a time when men and women are being called sinners for a word (or many words); when the terms “alternate” and “dissident” are being redefined as sinister; when some seek apostasy, while others have apostasy thrust upon them, Richard Poll’s calm, reasoned, compassionate voice rings with a clarity that will live on in our hearts and minds.
I would like to kick of the inaugural “Mormon Stories Book Club” with our first book: Karen Armstrong’s “The Case for God”.
Part 1 [39:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
In this episode Peter Danzig discusses how his experience as a social worker to (primarily) LDS Church members led to an increase in sympathy for LDS homosexuals, a loss of his traditional LDS testimony, and his decision to write a 
In this episode John Dehlin speaks with former LDS Church members Peter and Mary Danzig about their early years as faithful LDS church members, their mission experiences, their marriage, their joining as founding members of the Orchestra at Temple Square, and the origins of their interest in the topic of homosexuality.
In this episode, John Hamer discusses the LDS Succession Crisis after Joseph Smith’s death, and the ground that it laid for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (or 
I recorded my first podcast in some time last night w/ professor, author and mother 
