A Thoughtful Faith - Mormon / LDS

Latest Episodes:

267: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Affinity Fraud: Mark Pugsley Nov 05, 2018

Show notes

Mark Pugsley is a lawyer in Salt Lake City Utah who specialises in recovering money lost by investors due to bad advice or misconduct.
He has represented victims of investment fraud and unsuitable investment recommendations in civil litigation, whistleblower cases, and receivership (clawback) cases for over twenty years.
Mark reports that Affinity Fraud is a big problem in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints community and he’s repeatedly called on leaders of the LDS Church to be more proactive in warning church members that they need to carefully evaluate investment opportunities on their merits, regardless of who is pitching them.

266b: A Guided Meditation for Fowler's Stages of Faith: Stage Four Oct 24, 2018

Show notes

Sara Hughes-Zabawa offers a guided meditation to accompany our journeys into Stage Four: The Individuative-Reflective stage of faith.

266a: Fowlers Stages of Faith: Developing a Healthy Individuative-Reflective Faith: Sara Hughes-Zabawa Oct 24, 2018

Show notes

Sara Hughes-Zabawa returns to discuss one of the most emotionally and spiritually challenging stages in Fowler's Stages of Faith; the development of an Individuative-Reflective Faith. In high demand or fundamentalist faith traditions Stage Four is poorly understood and often poorly responded to by families, hurch friends and leadership.
Sarah calls for the celebration and normalisation of the individuative-reflective stage of faith and for more openness and acceptance of its necessity in everyone's spiritual becoming.

265: Let's Talk About Religious Abuse: Kathleen Shannon Oct 22, 2018

Show notes

As my interview with spiritual trauma therapy specialist Kathleen Shannon will indicate, a definition for religious abuse is difficult to nail it down. But according to Caswell and Swindle (2018) religious abuse occurs within three categories.

Abuse perpetrated by religious leaders.
Abuse perpetrated by a religious group.
Abuse with a religious or spiritual component.

There is a good amount of literature about religious and spiritual abuse and what comes up, again and again, is that firstly, religious abuse is ubiquitous in conservative and fundamentalist faith traditions. And secondly, religious abuse has a profound effect on personal well being and mental health.

In this interview, Kathleen and I will be talking about the dominant forms of religious abuse which are:

Power-posturing and authoritarianism
Double Talk and hypocrisy.
Lifestyle rigidity and a preoccupation with performance.
Top-down communication and the control of doubt and dissent.
Image control and the pressure to keep everything looking sweet.
The tendency to think that everyone has to wrong but your group.
Legalism.
The extra religious tax on women.

What’s interesting in this interview is that as two people who come from two different backgrounds we soon realise that we have a great deal in common. Which begs many questions about what is going on society that Christianity that denominations have been captured by a form of church that has great potential to cause harm.

264: I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar: Jan Tyler Oct 18, 2018

Show notes

Jan Tyler has been an active campaigner for women's rights since the early 1970's.

Her first job was at Weber State University as the Women's Dean. It was there that she met the incoming President, Joseph Bishop. He became so problematic that she eventually hired a lawyer and took out a discrimination case against him.
She was later employed by BYU where she went head to head with Dallin Oaks (the then president) over women's rights. She took three top Utah State administrators to court over sex discrimination. And as the head of the coordinating committee for the Utah International Women's Year convention in 1975, she stood for women's rights against a 13,000 strong Mormon contingent who were hell-bent on disrupting the proceedings.
Jan went on to champion the cause of women and Mormon women in one of the most patriarchal and conservative states in the USA.
Her story is one of plucky and determined resolve to support women's rights in the face of institutions, culture and even her own faith tradition.

263: The Spiritual Journey that Led to an Excommunication: Sam Young Oct 10, 2018

Show notes

Sam Young was recently excommunicated from the LDS Church. His sin was 'advocating' for a change of policy to prevent Church Leaders from asking children sexually explicit questions. He had collected the testimonies of hundreds of abuse victims, but this was not enough to prevent his ousting. Sam's Disciplinary Council and Stake President were more disturbed by his challenging the Church leaders than they were by the hundreds of instances of abuse he presented to them.

In this interview, we explore the spiritual journey that brought Sam to a reckoning with the church to which he has given his life.

262: Let Us Worship How We May: Bradley Burgess Sep 30, 2018

Show notes

LDS sacrament meetings are decidedly low church but without the possibility of any variation or innovation - anywhere in the world. And it's been that way for decades.
Bradley Burgess a convert to the LDS Church from South Africa, is a graduate of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. A professional organist and church musician, Bradley currently serves as the full-time Associate Director of Music and Worship Arts at a large North Carolina Methodist Church. He joins me to discuss his hope for an ecumenical model of LDS worship that draws on the best of other Christian traditions.

261: Understanding the Conditions that lead to Church Related and Clergy Perpetrated Sexual Abuse: Dr. Rocio Figueroa Sep 26, 2018

Show notes

It comes as no surprise that the Roman Catholic Church is suffering a crisis of credibility over its handling of cases of church-related and clergy perpetrated sexual abuse.
Dr. Rocio Figueroa was involved in uncovering cases of serial sexual abuse in Sodalico, a conservative Roman Catholic society in Lima, Peru by its founder Fernando Figari, its vicar Herman Doig and other senior leaders of the movement. In doing so she encountered institutional cover-ups and denials that caused her own dark night of the soul.
Drawing on the research relating to sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church Rocio joins me to discuss the conditions that enable sexual abuse in religious contexts.

Rocio specializes in issues related to women's studies, and reciprocity between men and women. In the Holy See she was responsible for the Women’s section in the Pontifical Council of Laity (specifically creating networks between the different international Catholic associations which promote the dignity and value of women).

260: Reckoning with the Corruption of Brother Joseph: Andrew Bolton Sep 20, 2018

Show notes

Few institutions are more equipped to peek in on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with more understanding, sympathy and even critique than the Community of Christ. They too have been dealing the same history with which the Mormons have been struggling. But they are a generation or two ahead of the Mormons, suffering the natural convolutions and troubles that come from any institutional reckoning. As a result, they know what it means to pay the price for, and then to enjoy the spiritual liberation that comes from squaring up to your tradition's past sins.
Andrew Bolton, a former apostle of the Community of Christ, joins me to discuss ‘the problem of Nauvoo.'

259: The Feasibility of Staying: Tom Mikota Sep 12, 2018

Show notes

Tom Mikota has designed special effects on such blockbuster movies as Avatar, King Kong, Tintin etc. But it wasn't until he was shoulder tapped to work on the 360 degree Joseph Smith film on Temple Square that things began to occur to him. After a lifetime of faithful service, he was introduced to the contradictory first vision accounts that he was employed to represent as an employee of the church.
In this interview, we walk through Tom's faith crisis and we confront the question, 'Can I continue in the church without the trappings and social markers of orthodoxy?'

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

A Thoughtful Faith – Mormon / LDS

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected