We are taking a season break, but wanted to share this bonus episode with Richard Ostler from the Listen, Learn, & Love Podcast.

Richard’s podcast is all about amplifying queer and other marginalized voices in the LDS community, and telling their stories. We really enjoyed our time with him, and hope that you will enjoy this interview.

The video version is a little easier to listen to, as the tracks are better aligned. You can find that on the Listen, Learn & Love Podcast Youtube page, or at this link:https://youtu.be/YIKsjXnlQIc?si=9jigff_L9jp7Q3dL

We will be back in October with more Coffee & Cocoa!

For the past three months, Kimberly and Kari have been tossing ideas back and forth about the good and bad in the LDS Church. This week, Kimberly makes her case for why Kari should leave.

She covers the historical and theological reasons she finds the church untrue, the problems with prophetic authority and the lack of diversity in leadership, and why she believes the church can sometimes get in the way of living a genuinely Christ-like life. Kari responds with where she's landed after years of wrestling. Not certainty, but compassion. Not perfection, but people stumbling toward the light.

They end this season where they began, with respect for each other’s choices, and lots of love for each other.

For the last two episodes of the season, Kari and Kimberly are going to try to convince each other why they should switch teams. This week, Kari presents her case for why Kimberly should come back to the LDS church. She shares why she thinks it would benefit her, what she misses about having her kids in the church, and why she thinks that the church would be better if Kimberly were still a part of it.

Will Kimberly change her mind and come back? You will have to listen to find out.

CULT. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to religion, but what does it even mean? In this episode, Kimberly and Kari evaluate the LDS church, using Steven Hassan’s BITE model. They discuss how undue influence is sometimes exerted in church organization, and why it is important to examine our own motivations for our behavior and to pay attention to our own feelings of right and wrong.

Of course, the TLDR version is, it’s nuanced, and any organization that involves human beings is going to tend towards some cultishness, so how do we maintain our individual integrity while being part of a group? That’s the real question they grapple with in this discussion.

This episode is longer than most, but worth the listen.

In this episode of Coffee & Cocoa, the real-life mother and daughter dynamics come out. What starts as a lighthearted discussion about EFY and church youth culture triggers feelings and frustrations, and leads to a more emotional disagreement about deeper issues and conflicting values. What are the motivations behind church programs and policies? Are they achieving what the church would hope? Are they actually bearing good fruit?

They don’t agree on everything in the end, but they do something even harder. They lean in, call out the feelings and the disagreements, listen to each other, and end with saying “I love you” and meaning it. If you’ve ever had a conversation that unexpectedly turned into an argument, and you didn’t know what to do about it, you will want to listen to this episode.

Maintaining family relationships can be difficult in the best of times, but when one or more family members decides to leave the faith that the family once shared, it can be especially challenging.

This episode is part two of Kimberly and Kari sharing some of the specific lessons they have learned about rebuilding their relationship after they found themselves on different sides of the faith divide. Who goes first when it comes to reaching out? What can you do when you think it’s the other person who needs to change? And how do you learn to accept each other when you disagree about really important things?

If you really want to reconnect with someone you love who doesn’t believe the same things you do, don’t miss this episode.

If you are in the thick of trying to rebuild your family relationships after someone has gone through a faith transition, this is the episode you have been waiting for.

In this episode, Kimberly and Kari get down to the real “how to” of healing relationships. Drawing on their own ongoing experience, they describe what has worked for them and what they wish they could have done better. They talk about how to take care of your own emotional well-being, and why that is such a vital part of healing relationships. They share mistakes that they made, as well the things that made it possible for them to come back together, and to keep coming back.

Listen now and tune in next week for part 2, and then share this with someone who needs help reconnecting with someone they love.

What are we actually talking about when we talk about religion? Is it possible that we are just using different words to describe experiences we all have in common?

In this episode of Coffee & Cocoa, recorded shortly after Easter, Kimberly and Kari discuss the themes of death and renewal that are part of the Christian holiday, and how they are echoed in the pagan celebrations that came before. They consider how the stories we tell shape what we believe, and how we choose and change our beliefs.

Along the way they talk about new hymns, old family traditions, feeling the spirit at women’s hockey games, and what they believe is ultimately true.

You might come away from this episode reconsidering some of your own beliefs.

What actually changes people's minds about the queer community? Not arguments. Not policy debates. Not conference talks. It's the minute you know someone you love is queer.

In this episode, Kari and Kimberly discuss the intersection of the LDS church and the LGBTQ community and their journeys to allyship. They talk about the ways that the church culture felt incompatible with their experiences, about some of the people they knew, loved, and admired who identified on the queer spectrum, the inner conflicts they felt, and how each of them resolved those conflicts. They consider David Archuleta’s memoir about leaving the church, Charlie Bird’s recent account of how his bishop handled him moving into a new ward as a married gay man, and what Pres. Oaks meant when he recently said, “Surround yourself with people who believe” (spoiler: Kari doesn’t think that means excluding anyone).

This episode doesn't tell anyone what to do. It just asks the question: what happens when you actually open up and listen?

In this episode, Kari and Kimberly take on purity culture. They talk about what they were taught about sex growing up in the LDS church and the lasting damage that sexual repression does to individuals, relationships, and families.

They discuss the difference between protecting children and shaming them, the double standard between men and women, why repression doesn't work and what sexual integration looks like instead, and the real harm done when institutions neglect teaching about consent. Drawing on the work of LDS sex therapist Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, they explore what it might look like to raise children with a healthier, more honest relationship with their bodies and sexuality whether inside or outside the church.

If you have ever carried shame about your body, your desires, or your choices, and wondered if that shame was actually deserved, you will relate to this episode.