Faith Matters

Today we are so excited to share a session from this year’s Restore Gathering with Mallory Everton.  Mallory is best known for her work on the sketch comedy show Studio C , and in this session, she asks a question she says she’s been asking her whole life: do Latter-Day Saints have a problem with laughter? She explores how in the context of spirituality, humor sometimes gets sidelined—dismissed as...

We’re really excited to share this week’s episode with you—a conversation with scholar and historian, Matt Bowman.  Matt is the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies and an associate professor of religion and history at Claremont Graduate University. In this conversation, he draws on ancient scripture to explore two archetypes that show up again and again: the prophet and the priest . The proph...

Today we’re bringing you a special live episode recorded at the Compass Gallery in Provo with filmmaker Matt Whitaker. Matt is the director and one of the writers and producers of the new film Truth & Treason , which tells the astonishing true story of Helmuth Hübener—a 16-year-old Latter-day Saint in Nazi Germany. After secretly tuning into forbidden BBC broadcasts on his brother’s radio, Hel...

Today we’re wrapping up our week of Unpacking Polygamy with a very honest, illuminating and challenging conversation among three faithful friends: Bethany Brady Spaulding, Patrick Mason and Bill Turnbull. Together, they tackle the profound theological problems that polygamy presents, particularly as it is laid out in what is perhaps the most challenging scripture in our canon—Section 132 of the Do...

Today we’re joined by Carol Lynn Pearson—poet, playwright, and author of The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy . With extraordinary honesty, clarity, and compassion, Carol Lynn shares her deeply personal perspective on this chapter of our history and why she believes polygamy was a great mistake—one that continues to “haunt the hearts and heaven” of many Latter-day Saints today. In this episode, we learn...

Today we’re welcoming back Patrick Mason for a conversation with author and historian Brittany Chapman Nash. In this episode, Patrick and Brittany explore what plural marriage looked like in the early Utah period—how it was lived, how it was taught, and why so many Latter-day Saints practiced it with such deep conviction. Brittany shares stories from women whose voices often go unheard, and helps...

Today, we’re honored to welcome Nate Oman—law professor, scholar, and co-founder of the pioneering Latter-day Saint blog, Times and Seasons. Our conversation begins with a bold idea: that experiencing a stupor of thought, or being troubled, is very often a prelude to revelation. For Nate, facing discomfort head-on—naming it and wrestling with it—has become a sacred part of his discipleship and a p...

Today’s episode kicks off our five-part series Unpacking Polygamy—a deep dive into one of the most complex and sensitive topics in our church’s history. We hope you’ll listen to the full series, where you’ll hear from a variety of voices and perspectives that help illuminate this part of our shared story. To start us off, we’re honored to bring together two remarkable thinkers. Patrick Mason is a...

Today, we’re sharing a conversation that feels especially urgent. In fact, we’d planned to release this episode later in the month—but this week, as a major hurricane moves through the Caribbean and the U.S. government shutdown is causing massively disruptive ripples in the daily life of countless families, we know so many are asking, What can I do?   We hope this conversation offers real practica...

Today, we’re bringing you what we think is one of the most important conversations we could be having right now. We’re talking with our friend and scholar Medlir Mema about artificial intelligence—and what it means for people of faith. Now whether you’re already fascinated by AI, cautious, or ready to turn this episode off, this episode is for everyone. Medlir makes the case that AI is a human iss...

We sometimes reduce “faith-promoting” stories to those tidy endings—where miracles show up just in time, doubts vanish, and testimony replaces tension. But sometimes growth begins when the script falls apart. For Susan Meredith Hinckley and Cynthia Winward, these stories are nourishing a faith that looks like trust and transformation.   Susan and Cynthia are co-hosts of the At Last She Said It pod...

Today, we’re sharing a conversation with Jeff Burningham—entrepreneur, former candidate for governor, and now author of a new book called The Last Book Written by a Human. This conversation begins with an unforgettable scene Jeff witnessed in India on the banks of the Ganges—a place where death, life, and the mundane all unfolded side by side. That image becomes a frame for everything we discussed...

Today we’re sharing Arthur Brooks’ keynote from Restore this last weekend. This message was so powerful—it will stop you in your tracks, and feels so essential for this exact moment. We believe it needs to be heard everywhere—in our homes, our communities, and across the country—so we’re sharing it with you now. This year we gathered at Utah Valley University for Restore , where just two weeks ear...

This week, we’re sharing a special live episode of Proclaim Peace recorded in person at the Compass Gallery on Peacemaking and Discipleship with Jennifer Thomas and Chad Ford. We’re also excited to announce the first-ever Waymakers conference, REPAIR , is taking place October 23–25 in Provo, Utah. This is such an incredible opportunity to learn from world-class peacemakers leading intensive worksh...

This week, we're bringing you a special episode recorded live from the Restore gathering in 2024, where we were joined by Jared Halverson. This one one of my very favorite topics to hear Jared talk about. His session was on what he calls “contraries” or paradoxes that are inherent in a life of faith. His message feels especially timely this week.  He offers the powerful image of the cross as...

Before we jump in, we wanted to acknowledge that so many in our community and across the world have been stunned and horrified by the murder of Charlie Kirk at UVU. It feels to us like a particularly difficult moment in this country, and we find ourselves grasping both for hope, and for the message to share in a moment like this. It’s in that spirit that we wanted to share this week’s episode — a...

This week, we’re re-sharing what we thought was an “instant classic” from last year’s Restore Gathering; a deeply personal and thought-provoking message about family, faith, and the complexity of life from Joseph Grenny, author of Crucial Conversations and co-founder of The Other Side Academy. Drawing from his own experience with his own “messy” family, Joseph speaks openly about moments of despai...

You’ve probably heard the old joke—we caught it again recently on Ezra Klein’s show. A conspiracy theorist dies and goes to heaven. At the pearly gates, God tells him he can ask one question—anything at all. The conspiracy theorist says, “Who really killed JFK?” God replies, “Lee Harvey Oswald and he acted alone.” The conspiracy theorist pauses, nods, and says, “Wow. This goes higher than I though...

We’re excited today to talk about the temple. It’s a topic we love—one that sits at the heart of our faith—but because of its sacred nature, it can sometimes be difficult to explore openly. Our guest today is historian Jonathan Stapley, who has spent the past two decades studying the temple and its role in Latter-day Saint life. His new book, Holiness to the Lord, is coming out this fall, and it i...

We’re so happy to welcome back Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife—someone whose voice and work have shaped our thinking in really lasting ways. Today we’re talking with Jennifer about her brand-new book, published by Faith Matters: That We Might Have Joy: Desire, Divinity, and Intimate Love.   The book offers an honest look at how sexual intimacy can reveal the truth of a relationship—and how, for those...

Nearly 200 years ago, Joseph Smith gave us a holistic code of health called the Word of Wisdom. But over the next century, we largely reduced that revelation to a list of don’ts—one that came to define us as a church and serve as a kind of status marker within the Church. As we look ahead to the next hundred years, we’re asking: is it time to rethink how we see this revelation?  Today, we face an...

Today, we’re so excited to share a powerful session from last year’s Restore gathering, given by Astrid Tuminez, president of Utah Valley University. Astrid’s story is truly extraordinary. She was born in a small village in the Philippines and raised in the slums of Iloilo City. Her journey has taken her from Catholic convent schools to Harvard and Wall Street to leading a major public university—...

Today we’re so happy to share a conversation with our friend Brian McLaren about his brand-new novel, The Last Voyage . The book is set in the future, as Earth nears collapse and a final crew is sent to Mars in a last-ditch effort to begin again. It’s a compelling story on its own, but it also opens up space for deeper questions—about what happens when we try to leave everything behind, only to di...

Today we’re sharing another fun session from last year’s Restore gathering—one of the most unforgettable moments from the whole weekend—featuring Mauli Bonner. Mauli has spent the past two decades in the entertainment industry, developing and writing for Grammy-winning artists and directing music for film and TV, and he also co-founded the nonprofit Lift Up Voices to empower young voices through c...

Today, we’re really grateful to share a conversation with historian John Turner about the brand new biography he’s just published: Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet . John is a professor of Religious Studies and History at George Mason University. While  not a member of the the Latter-day Saint faith, he has had a particular fascination with the early history of Mormonism, and...