Being a single, 25-year-old Mormon female is a tough life. But Dorothy Black makes it into a stand-up comedy routine in this episode of the Sunstone Podcast. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/SLP-199.mp3
For Heather Sundahl, Relief Society was the “monster child that sucked up my mom.” What was it like to be the daughter of the most powerful woman in the stake—who couldn’t find time to read to her? https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SLP-198.mp3
In 1954, California LDS bishop Devere Baker set out to prove that Lehi could have sailed from the Persian Gulf to Guatemala—by sailing his own raft, which he called the Lehi. Samuel Taylor tells about Baker’s 25-year endeavor—and how he went through six Lehis in the process. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SLP-197.mp3
How much can we heal from the wounds our religious community gave us? Stephen Carter explores the “hero cycle” story structure to find out. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SLP-196.mp3
The Baseball Baptism era is a controversial one in LDS history. Richard Mavin gives a first-hand account of how it all happened in Britain and how his mission experience both thrilled and haunted him for the rest of his life. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SLP-195.mp3
Probably the most controversial period of Mormon missionary history was from about 1960–1962 when more than 100,000 boys were baptized into the LDS Church worldwide—sometimes without realizing it. They were on a baseball field one moment and being baptized the next. In this episode, D. Michael Quinn tells the story of the Baseball Baptism era and the fallout that occurred from it—including the excommunication of about 90 percent of those boys. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SLP-...
LDS testimony meetings are usually tedious affairs. Yet we have them every month. Why? Anthropologist David Knowlton compares testimony meeting with similar rituals worldwide to see if it’s doing its job—or if we should toss it. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SLP-193.mp3
In 1948, Annalee Skarin had just published a book she said was written by the power of God. She was very soon excommunicated from the LDS Church. But then a few days later, eyewitnesses said she was translated. She wrote eight more books after that, becoming nationally famous. In this episode, Samuel W. Taylor and Skarin’s daughter Hope A. Hilton give two very different perspectives on Skarin’s life and legacy. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SLP-192.mp3...
Clark Gilbert is tightening the orthodoxy clamps at BYU, just like Ernest Wilkinson did in the 1950s and 60s. Is this the best way to make BYU students into lifelong Latter-day Saints? Stephen Carter compares Wilkinson’s BYU with Gilbert’s and then talks about his own experience with two BYU professors who kept him engaged with the Church—because of their unique mix of faithfulness and unorthodoxy. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SLP-191.mp3...
Sterling M. McMurrin had only been a seminary teacher for two years before the president of the Church, Heber J. Grant, wanted to fire him. And he camped at the edge of excommunication for the rest of his life. McMurrin recalls these turbulent, and comic, years in this episode. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SLP-190.mp3
Much is made in the LDS Church about how David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, never recanted his testimony, even though he left the Church. What they don’t tell you is that it was precisely his testimony of the Book of Mormon that drove him out. In this episode, Karl C. Sandberg tells the rest of Whitmer’s story, showing how Whitmer, B. H. Roberts, and Werner Heisenberg represent three different types of believers—all offering something completely different. https://s...
In the movie “Heretic,” Mr. Reed is the logical conclusion of many parts of Mormonism. And they threaten to destroy Mormonism’s best parts. Join Stephen Carter on a deep dive into Heretic’s multi-faceted story. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SLP-188.mp3
What happens when you grow apart politically from a parent? In this episode, Bryan Waterman looks back over the years he spent with his father—both at home and at school—and how they learned to live together. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/SLP-187.mp3
William A. Wilson and John B. Harris spent years gathering missionary folklore—everything from greenie initiation stories to encounters with the Devil. Whether the stories are true or not, Wilson shows in this episode what they reveal about the inner lives of missionaries. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/SLP-186.mp3
People need organizations to help us fulfill our potential. However, organizations are never entirely safe. In this episode, J. Bonner Ritchie explores how the LDS Church functions and how members can transcend its inherent organizational dangers. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/SLP-185.mp3
Stephen Carter takes you on a tour of various afterlife theologies—from Ancient Greek to LDS to New Age—to see if he can believe in one. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/SLP-184.mp3
What should we make of the astonishing lack of females in the Book of Mormon? Carol Lynn Pearson says that it points to a lesson the Nephites never learned—one that likely contributed to their destruction. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SLP-183.mp3
In 1972, Marylee Mitcham started a quasi-monastic Catholic community, where she lived for ten years. Later, when she joined the LDS Church, she learned that one of her ancestors had started a branch of the United Order in early Utah. Mitcham narrates her fascinating religious history in this episode. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SLP-182.mp3
LDS scholar Hugh Nibley became a legend in his own time. But how many of the legends were real and how many were fantasies? In this episode, Boyd Petersen digs into the facts behind the stories. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SLP-181.mp3
Religious conversion and trauma have very similar structures, but with one important difference. In this episode, Stephen Carter draws on Adam Phillips, Julie Hanks, and Prentis Hemphill to explore what happens when people enter a religion, and what happens when they leave. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/SLP-180.mp3
Is the story of Korihor the story of a missed opportunity? In the Book of Mormon, an anti-Christ named Korhior is struck dumb by Alma using the power of God. Could there have been a neurological contributor to Korihor’s sudden loss of speech? But even more importantly, could Korihor have been rehabilitated, physically and spiritually, if he had received the same treatment Alma had received when he had been struck down by God? Wade Greenwood explores the possibilities and what we can learn from t...
A Mormon can’t get a temple recommend if they drink coffee or black tea, but they can get one if they consume energy drinks that have five times as much caffeine as either. Launching from Michael Pollan’s book “Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World,” Stephen Carter explores the strange limbo caffeine has occupied in in the LDS Church—from general condemnation to apostolic approval. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SLP-177.mp3...
“When virtues run wild, catastrophe reigns.” In this episode, John Durham Peters reveals the dangers of Mormon perfectionism and suggests a new approach. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/SLP-176.mp3
Esther Peterson was one of the most beloved and effective activists of the 20th century, working with John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter to improve women’s rights in the United States. And she grew up Mormon in Provo, Utah. In this episode, Esther talks about how her Mormon upbringing affected her activism—both for good and ill. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/SLP-175.mp3
If the Christian God and the Mormon God got into a fight, who would win? In this episode, S. Richard Bellrock shows just just how unfair the fight would be. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/SLP-174.mp3
History is a dangerous profession in the LDS Church, sometimes leading to excommunication. Stephen Carter explores why history is such a charged topic—and what Ethiopian leopards have to do with it. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SLP-173.mp3
One fine July Sunday in Relief Society, Deja Earley was asked to share a story about her Mormon ancestors. Her story did not go down well. In this episode, Deja tries to come to terms with her polygamous forebears. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SLP-172.mp3
Testimony meeting would be a terrible place for Stephen Carter to talk about the movie that finally made him feel a connection to the atonement. Hint: It has connections to Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and Run Lola Run. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/SLP-171.mp3
The Atonement is all about suffering. Or is it? In this episode, Stephen Carter stumbles across a new atonement theory that would stop any Sunday school lesson in its tracks. Yet, it fits perfectly into the Plan of Salvation. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/SLP-170.mp3
In Part II of Gregory Prince’s article, he explores what he thinks the LDS Church has done right and what kinds of changes both it and its members will need to go through to meet current and future challenges. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SLP-169.mp3
