Is it blasphemous to publish a cartoon about Angel Moroni? How about Jesus? How about God? Sunstone has been exploring the limits of what LDS culture is willing to laugh at for decades. Using many hilarious (and possibly blasphemous) examples, Stephen Carter talks about the times when Sunstone ran afoul of sacred sensibilities, and also how its cartoonists subtly changed the Church—right up to the Church Office Building. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SLP-206.mp3

Is your life a sermon? Do you imagine your every action being narrated by a general authority? In this episode, Stephen Carter dives into perfectionism, showing how it manifests in people’s lives, and proposing a few odd ways to escape it. (Hint: Not through fasting and prayer.) https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SLP-205.mp3

Jesus, Mormon, and David Lynch walk into Stephen Carter’s head. Together, they manage to revise everything Stephen thought he knew about the Book of Mormon, the Atonement, and Eraserhead. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/SLP-204.mp3

A faith crisis is one of the most destabilizing things that can happen to an LDS marriage. Both partners feel betrayed. Feelings either erupt or are suppressed. In this episode, therapists Adam Fisher and Mary Fisher talk about the three most important things a couple can do to help each other. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/SLP-202.mp3

He was the Church’s most unlikely general authority. A coffee habit, an oft-shot-off mouth, and–according to this great-grandnephew–a deep spirituality. This episode includes some of J. Golden Kimball’s funniest stories and reflections by James N. Kimball on the man behind the myth. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/SLP-200.mp3

In September 1993, six scholars—called the September Six—were disciplined by the LDS Church. Lynne Kanavel Whitesides was the first. For the next ten years, she went on an extraordinary spiritual journey. Sadly, she passed away July 7, 2025. In her memory, this episode features a recording of the speech she gave about her spiritual journey at the 2003 Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium.

Being a single, 25-year-old Mormon female is a tough life. But Dorothy Black makes it into a stand-up comedy routine in this episode of the Sunstone Podcast.   https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/SLP-199.mp3

For Heather Sundahl, Relief Society was the “monster child that sucked up my mom.” What was it like to be the daughter of the most powerful woman in the stake—who couldn’t find time to read to her? https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SLP-198.mp3

In 1954, California LDS bishop Devere Baker set out to prove that Lehi could have sailed from the Persian Gulf to Guatemala—by sailing his own raft, which he called the Lehi. Samuel Taylor tells about Baker’s 25-year endeavor—and how he went through six Lehis in the process. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SLP-197.mp3

How much can we heal from the wounds our religious community gave us? Stephen Carter explores the “hero cycle” story structure to find out. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SLP-196.mp3

The Baseball Baptism era is a controversial one in LDS history. Richard Mavin gives a first-hand account of how it all happened in Britain and how his mission experience both thrilled and haunted him for the rest of his life. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SLP-195.mp3

Probably the most controversial period of Mormon missionary history was from about 1960–1962 when more than 100,000 boys were baptized into the LDS Church worldwide—sometimes without realizing it. They were on a baseball field one moment and being baptized the next. In this episode, D. Michael Quinn tells the story of the Baseball Baptism era and the fallout that occurred from it—including the excommunication of about 90 percent of those boys. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SLP-194.mp3

LDS testimony meetings are usually tedious affairs. Yet we have them every month. Why? Anthropologist David Knowlton compares testimony meeting with similar rituals worldwide to see if it’s doing its job—or if we should toss it. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SLP-193.mp3

In 1948, Annalee Skarin had just published a book she said was written by the power of God. She was very soon excommunicated from the LDS Church. But then a few days later, eyewitnesses said she was translated. She wrote eight more books after that, becoming nationally famous. In this episode, Samuel W. Taylor and Skarin’s daughter Hope A. Hilton give two very different perspectives on Skarin’s life and legacy. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SLP-192.mp3

Clark Gilbert is tightening the orthodoxy clamps at BYU, just like Ernest Wilkinson did in the 1950s and 60s. Is this the best way to make BYU students into lifelong Latter-day Saints? Stephen Carter compares Wilkinson’s BYU with Gilbert’s and then talks about his own experience with two BYU professors who kept him engaged with the Church—because of their unique mix of faithfulness and unorthodoxy. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SLP-191.mp3

Sterling M. McMurrin had only been a seminary teacher for two years before the president of the Church, Heber J. Grant, wanted to fire him. And he camped at the edge of excommunication for the rest of his life. McMurrin recalls these turbulent, and comic, years in this episode. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SLP-190.mp3

Much is made in the LDS Church about how David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, never recanted his testimony, even though he left the Church. What they don’t tell you is that it was precisely his testimony of the Book of Mormon that drove him out. In this episode, Karl C. Sandberg tells the rest of Whitmer’s story, showing how Whitmer, B. H. Roberts, and Werner Heisenberg represent three different types of believers—all offering something completely different. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SLP-189.mp3

In the movie “Heretic,” Mr. Reed is the logical conclusion of many parts of Mormonism. And they threaten to destroy Mormonism’s best parts. Join Stephen Carter on a deep dive into Heretic’s multi-faceted story. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SLP-188.mp3

What happens when you grow apart politically from a parent? In this episode, Bryan Waterman looks back over the years he spent with his father—both at home and at school—and how they learned to live together. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/SLP-187.mp3

William A. Wilson and John B. Harris spent years gathering missionary folklore—everything from greenie initiation stories to encounters with the Devil. Whether the stories are true or not, Wilson shows in this episode what they reveal about the inner lives of missionaries. https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/SLP-186.mp3