Mormon gender roles teach that women’s highest divine purpose is motherhood while men hold exclusive access to priesthood authority and church leadership. Girls are prepared to bear and raise children, while boys receive religious power that adult women can never hold.

This episode examines the pressure on Mormon women to marry young, have large families, stay home with their children, and place education or careers behind motherhood. We also cover the history of women giving healing blessings, the removal of female authority, and how Relief Society became subordinate to male priesthood leadership.

We discuss Mormon modesty culture, the policing of girls’ clothing, guilt placed on working mothers, the doctrine of eternal gender, and the claim that women don’t need the priesthood because they are supposedly more righteous than men. We also examine how these teachings affect women’s confidence, identity, mental health, and financial independence.

Mormon polygamy officially ended on earth, but eternal polygamy remains part of LDS sealing doctrine. We look at how plural marriage shaped expectations of male authority and female submission, why women can become financially trapped in unhealthy relationships, and how women continue to perform much of the church’s unpaid labor without control over doctrine, policy, budgets, or leadership.

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Mormon beliefs begin with Joseph Smith’s claim that God and Jesus appeared to him, an angel led him to golden plates, and seer stones placed inside a hat produced the Book of Mormon.

This episode examines the founding claims of Mormonism, including the First Vision, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith’s secret polygamy, and the LDS Church’s claim to be the only true church on earth.

We also cover the three degrees of glory, becoming gods, eternal families, temple sealings, the second anointing, tithing requirements, Mormon teachings about race, and the doctrines that determine who qualifies for the highest level of heaven.

These are the core beliefs that shape Mormon culture, temple worthiness, missionary work, family relationships, and the authority claimed by LDS prophets and church leaders.

The Mormon Word of Wisdom prohibits coffee, tea, alcohol, and tobacco while allowing energy drinks, soda, and other highly caffeinated products. What started in 1833 as health advice “not by commandment or constraint” later became a requirement for entering an LDS temple.

This episode examines the history of the Mormon health code, including the original reference to “hot drinks,” the influence of the temperance movement, Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo tavern, his use of wine, and the stricter enforcement introduced under Heber J. Grant.

We also cover Mormon Diet Coke culture, dirty soda shops, coffee substitutes, food storage, prepper culture, prescription drugs, medical marijuana, and the contradictions created when one cup of coffee affects temple worthiness while five energy drinks do not.

The Word of Wisdom shapes Mormon identity, family relationships, social status, and religious participation. We look at how beverage choices become visible signs of worthiness, why members monitor one another’s behavior, and how a supposed health code became a test of obedience and institutional loyalty.

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Dr. Gina Colvin's "Ordinary Mormon Trauma" — The Framework That Finally Names What Happened to You

"Ordinary Mormon trauma" is not the dramatic incidents. It's the daily, invisible harm of growing up trained to be nice but not kind, obedient but not teachable, disciplined but not emotionally regulated. 

Dr. Gina Colvin — former Mormon academic and host of A Thoughtful Faith — identified ordinary Mormon trauma as the everyday experience of living inside a culture that has never resolved its formative pathologies. Jess and Hannah apply her framework to their own childhoods: the contrasts that explain everything (service-oriented but not care-oriented; confident but not integrated; dependable but not safe), the theological contradiction of a church that preaches agency while eliminating it systematically, and how years of daily self-betrayal produce adults who cannot trust their own instincts. This is the episode for people who say "I had a fine Mormon childhood" and still can't figure out why they ended up in therapy.

In this episode: Dr. Gina Colvin's ordinary Mormon trauma framework and the seven contrasts that define it; how LDS theology preaches agency while structurally eliminating it; the difference between service-orientation and genuine care; why decades of self-betrayal produce adults with broken instinct calibration; what it means to have had a "fine" Mormon childhood and still carry significant psychological harm.

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New episodes every Sunday at 9 AM — just in time for sacrament meeting.

The LDS Church paid $350,000 to hide historical documents — and every single one was fake. Meet the returned missionary who forged Mormon history and built pipe bombs when the bills came due.

Mark Hofmann spent five years selling forged documents to the highest levels of LDS leadership — the Anthon Transcript, the Salamander Letter, the Joseph Smith III Blessing — exploiting the Mormon Church's deep fear of its own history. He wasn't an outsider. He was temple worthy, mission returned, Eagle Scout. The perfect Mormon resume was his weapon. When debts caught up with him in October 1985, he built pipe bombs. Two people died. A third bomb exploded in his own car.

Jess and Hannah trace how Mormon worthiness culture bypassed institutional skepticism, why the Salamander Letter was theologically plausible to leaders who knew their own folk magic history, and what the church's document-buying operation revealed about its relationship with truth.

If a fake salamander letter almost unraveled a global religion, the foundation was always shakier than the testimony meeting suggested.

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We're diving into Abducted in Plain Sight—the Netflix documentary.

On the surface, it's a story about a child predator who kidnapped the same girl twice. But underneath? It's a devastating exposé of how religious trust, toxic niceness, and institutional denial create the perfect storm for abuse.

We'll talk about grooming, the Mormon obsession with appearances, and why "He's such a good member of the Church" is the single most dangerous phrase ever uttered.

Mormon patriarchal blessings are personalized prophecies that claim to reveal a person’s spiritual gifts, future marriage, family, career, earthly mission, eternal destiny, and descent from one of the biblical tribes of Israel.

This episode explains how patriarchal blessings work, where the practice came from, why Joseph Smith Sr. became the first Patriarch to the Church, and how Mormon patriarchs pronounce individualized revelations over teenagers and adults.

We examine tribal lineage declarations, why most Mormons are assigned to the tribe of Ephraim, how church explanations shifted from literal ancestry to adopted or spiritual lineage, and what happens when DNA results conflict with a supposedly revealed bloodline. We also compare the repeated language, gender roles, and conditional promises found across thousands of blessings.

Patriarchal blessings can influence decisions about missions, marriage, education, careers, children, and church service. We discuss what happens when promised blessings never come true, why unfulfilled prophecies are often blamed on the recipient, and how a document presented as personal revelation can become a source of pressure, anxiety, and self-doubt.

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Mormon missions take young adults—often just eighteen or nineteen years old—and place them in an intensely controlled environment for eighteen months to two years. Missionaries follow rigid schedules, live with assigned companions, obey detailed rules, and spend their days trying to convert strangers to the LDS Church.

This episode examines Mormon mission culture, including the pressure placed on young men to serve, the growing expectations for young women, the companion system, restricted communication with family, baptism quotas, weekly statistics, and the authority mission presidents hold over missionaries’ daily lives.

We also cover Spencer W. Kimball’s campaign to make missionary service a priesthood duty, the 2012 missionary age change, returned-missionary status at BYU and within Mormon dating culture, the financial burden placed on families, and the emotional consequences of isolation, constant rejection, and religious pressure.

Mormon missions can shape identity, relationships, faith, mental health, and social standing long after missionaries return home. We look at why some former missionaries describe their service as meaningful while others report depression, anxiety, spiritual trauma, cultural dislocation, and difficulty adjusting to life outside the mission system.

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Mormon folklore includes immortal Book of Mormon disciples, Cain wandering the earth as Bigfoot, miraculous missionary stories, satanic panic, and mysterious strangers who appear exactly when faithful members need help.

This episode examines the Three Nephites, the belief that they have spent nearly 2,000 years secretly helping people, and David W. Patten’s alleged encounter with Cain as a large, hairy figure condemned to wander the earth. We also cover how Spencer W. Kimball helped popularize the Cain-Bigfoot story in The Miracle of Forgiveness.

We explore missionary miracles, Sacred Grove appearances, Mormon fears about heavy metal, Dungeons & Dragons and demonic influence, and racist teachings that connected skin color with righteousness. We look at where official Mormon doctrine ends, where folklore starts, and what happens when prophets repeat folk beliefs from the pulpit.

These stories help Mormons interpret coincidences, hardship, spiritual experiences, and unexplained events. They also reveal how Mormon culture creates shared beliefs about divine protection, Satan, race, revelation, and supernatural intervention… even when the LDS Church later distances itself from the stories.

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Mormon worthiness interviews determine whether members can be baptized, take the sacrament, serve missions, enter temples, get married in the temple, and participate fully in church life. These interviews are conducted by local bishops—unpaid volunteers who generally have no formal training in counseling, child development, or sexual health.

This episode examines the questions bishops ask about the law of chastity, masturbation, pornography, sexual thoughts, marital intimacy, obedience, and personal worthiness. We also discuss why these interviews begin with children as young as eight and what happens when a bishop decides someone is no longer worthy.

We cover Spencer W. Kimball’s The Miracle of Forgiveness, the Mormon teaching that sexual sin ranks next to murder, Sam Young’s Protect LDS Children campaign, his excommunication, and later policy changes involving youth interviews. We also explain tithing declaration, the requirement to pay 10 percent of your income, and how financial obedience affects temple access.

Worthiness interviews shape Mormon attitudes toward sexuality, confession, authority, shame, scrupulosity, and spiritual approval. They place major life decisions in the hands of local leaders and teach members that their private behavior must be evaluated before they can participate fully in their families, congregations, and religious ordinances.

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