Latter-day Faith

Every person who finds the Latter-day Faith podcast has wrestled and is still wrestling with Mormonism in some way. We each find ourselves in in our own unique relationship with the LDS church, its teachings, and its members (often including our family members). How did we end up where we are now? If we are still attending meetings, why? If not, why? What factors have tipped the scale for us in making that decision.

Whether or not we are attending, how are we feeling about our decision? Are we enjoying our interactions? Are we holding good or ill feelings toward the church (even for those of us who do remain actively engaged)? Are we angry, sad, at peace? What keeps us wrestling the way we do? Our Latter-day Faith virtual firesides for the month of May focused on these questions, and each one was well attended and featured lots of sharing and active discussions. For confidentiality reasons we never record our firesides, but because these two were so special, Latter-day Faith hosts Dan Wotherspoon, Terri Petersen, and Mark Crego decided to bring the discussion into a podcast episode, which was recorded early in the morning Memorial Day Monday (fresh on the heels of the Sunday fireside). Listen in! What follows is a combination of discussions of the main topics they noted during the firesides as well as each panelist sharing their own experiences and thoughts about these plus several other issues related to Latter-day wrestling. Enjoy!

The famous creeds of Christendom focus solely on who Christ is, including his relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, his resurrection and role in bringing about salvation. But the do not include any of this teachings or personal qualities, or the principles he focused on during his ministry. This show's guest, Russ Hinckley, recognized this and decided to try his hand at creating a new creed, The Christ Creed, that focuses on how he interacted with people, institutions, and types of power during his ministry. For instance, the first two parts of this new creed are "Eat with Everyone" and "Restore Sight and Promote Healing." Russ and LDF host Dan Wotherspoon discuss in depth these and several others emphases in his creed. Each is rich, encouraging us to see in new ways, reminding us to rethink why we act the way we do with each other and the institutional church. Russ's approach is fresh and mixes good scriptural study with experiences from his life. Listen in on this insightful conversation!

In this wonderful episode, writer Stephanie G shares with Terri Petersen her experiences as a Latter-day Saint in a patriarchal system. Together, she and Terri mourn what was lost to them through the church's purity and modesty culture, leading to body image issues, irrational notions that they are in charge of men's thoughts, and more.

In another section, they discuss the frequent rhetoric from men about their needing women, but only for the service they provide, and never their ideas and self empowerment. They also talk about how many women feel "unsafe" in situations in which they are forced to counsel or be interviewed by men. A particularly poignant section is introduced by Stephanie G reading parts of an essay describing her feeling compelled to engage in a temple assignment while she was postpartum, with her body aching to be with her child, including having her breasts leak onto her body and through a temple shield. Her descriptions are powerful reminders about the war between what we think we must do and what women's bodies, their temples, are compelling them to care about.

They also talk about what advice they would give to their younger selves, focusing primarily on claiming God's grace and giving grace to themselves. They talk about messages they inherited from having to face the prospect of living polygamy and how it complicates for the church its messaging about Heavenly Mother. Stephanie G also shares ways that she imaginatively inserts the Mother God into scriptural and other stories that have left her out.

They close with a discussion about dealing with their anger over experiences stolen from them through their imbibing messages that support patriarchy and women's secondary importance in God's plan. How are they now trying to use that anger more productively as they continue to engage with Mormonism.

This is a rich and powerful episode! Don't miss it!

In this wonderful episode, writer Stephanie G shares with Terri Petersen her experiences as a Latter-day Saint in a patriarchal system. Together, she and Terri mourn what was lost to them through the church's purity and modesty culture, leading to body image issues, irrational notions that they are in charge of men's thoughts, and more.

In another section, they discuss the frequent rhetoric from men about their needing women, but only for the service they provide, and never their ideas and self empowerment. They also talk about how many women feel "unsafe" in situations in which they are forced to counsel or be interviewed by men. A particularly poignant section is introduced by Stephanie G reading parts of an essay describing her feeling compelled to engage in a temple assignment while she was postpartum, with her body aching to be with her child, including having her breasts leak onto her body and through a temple shield. Her descriptions are powerful reminders about the war between what we think we must do and what women's bodies, their temples, are compelling them to care about.

They also talk about what advice they would give to their younger selves, focusing primarily on claiming God's grace and giving grace to themselves. They talk about messages they inherited from having to face the prospect of living polygamy and how it complicates for the church its messaging about Heavenly Mother. Stephanie G also shares ways that she imaginatively inserts the Mother God into scriptural and other stories that have left her out.

They close with a discussion about dealing with their anger over experiences stolen from them through their imbibing messages that support patriarchy and women's secondary importance in God's plan. How are they now trying to use that anger more productively as they continue to engage with Mormonism.

This is a rich and powerful episode! Don't miss it!

The famous creeds of Christendom focus solely on who Christ is, including his relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, his resurrection and role in bringing about salvation. But the do not include any of this teachings or personal qualities, or the principles he focused on during his ministry. This show's guest, Russ Hinckley, recognized this and decided to try his hand at creating a new creed, The Christ Creed, that focuses on how he interacted with people, institutions, and types of power during his ministry. For instance, the first two parts of this new creed are "Eat with Everyone" and "Restore Sight and Promote Healing." Russ and LDF host Dan Wotherspoon discuss in depth these and several others emphases in his creed. Each is rich, encouraging us to see in new ways, reminding us to rethink why we act the way we do with each other and the institutional church. Russ's approach is fresh and mixes good scriptural study with experiences from his life.  Listen in on this insightful conversation! 

Many of this show's listeners are aware of the incredible podcast, "At Last She Said It." Its co-hosts, Susan Hinckley and Cynthia Winward, are long-time friends personally and have been on this show several times. They are always insightful and well-spoken, but we are so excited that they now have moved from the spoken to the written word. In this episode, LDF host Dan Wotherspoon and LDF board member Mark Crego celebrate with them the very recent release of their book, At Last She Said It: Honest Conversations about Faith, Church, and Everything in Between (Signature Books, 2025). Through a great conversation, we learn what went on behind the scenes from conception to completion of the book, with a focus on what it includes and why. At every step, Cynthia and Susan give background on the book's five sections and the essays and dialogues within them. We discuss why they have chosen on the podcast and now in the book to discuss openly many of the "p-words" that women (and more and more, men) have long had difficulty with, among them patriarchy, priesthood, presiding, and polygamy. The book also features essays other difficult topics (and we have discussions on some of them), including God, Grace, Obedience, Fear, Worthiness, the Temple, and "when women are the problem." All in all, the book contains twenty-six essays, all of which discuss their subjects in ways that are personal and self-revelatory as well as insightful. Don't miss this conversation among old friends that not only features important things but also easy banter and laughs! Join in the fun!

We are in a time of profound divisions, where our religions and particularly our politics are tearing the very fabric of our society. How can we continue like this? How does our faith survive when so many within our religious communities are in conflict with each other? How do we heal this rift?

In this episode, Terri Petersen interviews Ben Heaton, sharing their insights from years of meditation and yoga practice in the Hindu tradition. Terri was intrigued by an essay Ben wrote on a Facebook group focused on the "Inner Path", and it gave her hope that by embracing ideas in the Bhagavad Gita, we might find a way to heal our divides.

We had yet another LDS General Conference this past weekend--the semi-annual tradition of listening to the talks that will inform our sacrament meetings as well as priesthood and Relief Society meetings for the next six months.

Conference is a challenging time for many in faith journey originating in the Latter-day Saint tradition. While our Latter-day Faith podcasts have not tended to focus on Conference, Terri Petersen and Mark Crego were both affected by the recent conference with mixed feelings of the good, the not so good, and perhaps the outright challenging talks. In other words, it was in many ways typical.

Terri and Mark take the approach that Conference is kind of a pot-luck dinner: there are some truly helpful talks--delicious dishes, and there are the ones to avoid. Part of the challenge is that we both bring to conference our expectations and hopes for something more, but in the end, we discovered that our attachment to our hopes and expectations can prevent us from truly connecting to the messages that can help us. Take a listen!

Each person's life journey includes intense wrestles with the matter of "authority." When we are young, we are in a position in which we must defer to another's authority in order to survive. As we grow, we soon become self-conscious, taking into account how we are viewed by others. And in order to fit in, we will often defer our own authority to that of the group. At first it will be to our immediate friends and acquaintances. Heidegger noticed that we give away our authority to larger, more diffuse cultures and societies, referring to it as "the tyranny of the they." In our maturation processes, we hopefully will come to understand these pressures on us and begin to form a firm sense of our own self and can more easily walk our particular path without relying on others for the final word about what we should do and think. Our religious lives bring extra complications with regard to authority. When we view certain texts or particular leaders as spiritually and ethically authoritative, it becomes even harder to stand our ground because we worry that we might be upsetting God should we stray from its or their directives. This podcast discusses our views of God and how these are typically quite influential when it comes to whether we yield our authority to these texts and people. Do we view God as completely "other," external to us, and distant, or can we allow ourselves to believe that God is a part of us, intimately caring, compassionate, and ever encouraging us Godward? If the former, we are more likely to allow authority figures more sway, perhaps complete sway, over our thoughts and actions. If the latter, we can typically differentiate from these others and begin to trust our own experiences over their interpretations and directives. Certainly, these will align with each other at times, but when they don't, we will follow our own light. LDF host Dan Wotherspoon is joined by board members Mark Crego and Terri Petersen in a li

In this terrific episode, Terri Petersen interviews Jana Spangler and usual LDF host Dan Wotherspoon about "mysticism." The ultimate goal of their conversation was to take this word and topic and drop it down from the clouds (how many people imagine it) and into our lives here and now. Through great questions from Terri and sharing their personal experiences, Jana and Dan emphasize that mysticism basically means getting in touch with the Divine/God/the Universe directly. Instead of staying in the realm of talking about God with words that can't capture the depth and wideness of of the Divine, when we give ourselves permission and imagine that what underlies and gives life to all things can be accessed directly we are never again the same. When we are able to touch it, everything in the foreground changes. As the mystic and spiritual teacher James Finley says, what happens isn't that we can see more of the nature of things as much as it is we are able to see all things by utilizing more of ourselves. Mystical experience teaches us directly about our actual depths. A fun part of the discussion focuses on the question, "Can Mormons be mystics?" The answer, of course is a resounding "yes," but the perspectives everyone brings to that question reveal various layers to that answer. Listen in! You are a mystic, after all, just like everyone is, you just may just not know it yet.