Mormon Stories Podcast

Mormon Stories Podcast is a podcast hosted by John Dehlin featuring interviews with scholars and others on topics of interest to Mormons and those leaving Mormonism. History: In September 2005, after finding reasons to stay a member of the LDS Church, John Dehlin created the Mormon Stories podcast as an open discussion of Mormon issues with the intention of giving listeners reasons to remain in the church. Through interviews, Mormon Stories focused on varying Mormon experiences and perspectives, including antagonistic, apologetic, intellectual, gay, black, fundamentalist, feminist, and dissenting. Several notable Mormon figures were guests on Mormon Stories, including Gregory Prince, Todd Compton, Grant Palmer, Darius Gray, Margaret Blair Young, Richard Bushman, and Margaret and Paul Toscano. To date, listenership at times exceeds 25,000 downloads per episode. Mormon Stories has been featured in many venues, including being broadcast on KVNU in Logan, Utah. In June 2007 John Dehlin was quoted for stories by The New York Times and Good Morning America, discussing Mitt Romney and Mormonism. At times personally conflicted about continuing Mormon Stories, Dehlin stopped and restarted the project a few times. In January 2010 Dehlin resumed the blog and podcast, focusing on faith crises, mental illnesses, and notable guests, beginning with interviews of Joanna Brooks and John Hamer. Among numerous other regular hosts who have joined Dehlin in conducting interviews for the podcast were Dan Wotherspoon, former editor of Sunstone magazine, and Natasha Helfer Parker, a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist. As of 2015, Dehlin said Stories episodes had "tens of thousands" of listeners and that the webcast's "goal has always been to alleviate suffering. It’s an act of love." Criticism: In 2013, a critical review of Mormon Stories by Gregory L. Smith was published in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture. In the review, Smith alleges that "Dehlin is frequently uninformed of the often controversial material he discusses with interviewees, and that he promotes views hostile to the foundational beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". The pending publication of the piece catalyzed within the Mormon studies community a discussion (referred to by some as the Dehlin affair) about the roles of apologetic and non-faith-based scholarship, respectively, within the academic study of Mormonism by Mormons. Guests: Featured guests of the podcast include, according to Jana Riess of Religion News Service (as quoted in the New York Times), include Latter-day Saints considered orthodox, "curious," doubters and heretics. These have included: -David H. Bailey -Elna Baker -Philip Barlow -Bruce W. Bastian -Janet Bennion -Mary Lythgoe Bradford -Joanna Brooks -Richard Bushman -Claudia Bushman -Lisa Butterworth -Jim Dabakis -Richard Dutcher -Brant Gardner -Terryl Givens -Darius Gray -John Hamer -Ralph C. Hancock -Maxine Hanks -Kate Kelly -Edward L. Kimball -Hans Mattsson -Neylan McBaine -James McLachlan -Linda King Newell -Nathan Oman -Carol Lynn Pearson -Daniel C. Peterson -Gregory Prince -D. Michael Quinn -Jana Riess -William D. Russell -Benji Schwimmer -Denver Snuffer -Laurel Thatcher Ulrich -Margaret Toscano -Margaret Young