For more than 45 years, Sunstone has been exploring Mormonism in all its expressions through our publications and symposiums. The Sunstone Podcast gathers the best of these explorations, including compelling sessions from our worldwide symposiums as well as interviews, book reviews, and deep dives into all things Mormon. Hosted by Stephen Carter.
Listen to the Sunstone Podcast on iTunes or Spotify, or view and stream any of the episodes from this podcast on the Sunstone website.
E137: Affinity Fraud in Mormonism
Utah has often been called the ‘fraud capital of the world.” In this episode, Ryan McKnight takes us on a tour of Utah’s worst fraudsters—all of them LDS. Recorded at …
Read MoreE136: From the Book of Mormon to a Box of Tissues: How Mormon Masculinity Is Changing
They’re embedded in a patriarchal church, so shouldn’t Mormon men be the very definition of toxic masculinity? In this episode, Stephen Carter explores the surprising ways Mormon masculinity has shifted …
Read MoreE135: How Artificial Intelligence Changes How We Think About the Plan of Salvation.
In the Book of Abraham, the gods create intelligences and put them into human bodies. Humans are now creating intelligences. But the intelligences we create could have the capacity to …
Read MoreE134: AIDS in 1980s Utah.
Utah’s first AIDS cases were confirmed in 1983. How did gay and lesbian people in Utah respond to this new disease? How did the LDS Church respond? J. Seth Anderson …
Read MoreE133: More Than One Way to Polyg.
What if we could free polygamy from patriarchy and inequality? In this episode, Brady Williams and Blaire Ostler talk about how we could greatly expand the definition of this odd …
Read MoreE132: Don’t Forgive the Way God Forgives
Stephen Carter found a copy of “The Miracle of Forgiveness” at DI . . . and read it. How does the book that launched a million bishop confessions sound more …
Read MoreE131: Why Most Ex-Mormons Leave Religion Completely.
When people leave the LDS Church, they rarely go join another church. Why do ex-Mormons go from “all in” to “all out”? Ryan Wimmer presents his ideas in this episode, …
Read MoreE130: Own Your Religion
After working with Helen Whitney on the PBS documentary “The Mormons,” Whitney told Greg Prince, “You have a good religion, but you need to own it. Most of its members …
Read MoreE129: Disconcerting Soup for the Soul
How many of your beliefs, words, and actions are driven not by your self, but by your context? Social psychologist Peter Leavitt proposes some disconcerting answers, giving us more reason …
Read MoreE128: More Than One Way to Family
After an LDS apostle suggested the existence of “counterfeit families,” Sunstone sponsored a conference that gave many types of families a voice. In this episode, LaShawn Williams, Jerilyn Hassell Pool, …
Read MoreAbout the Host
Stephen Carter stumbled into the Mormon Studies community in 1998 when he became Eugene England's administrative assistant at Utah Valley University, helping him establish the world's first Mormon Studies program. After earning an MFA in creative writing and a Ph.D. in narrative studies, Stephen joined Sunstone as its director of publications in 2008. Since then, he has had a front-row seat to everything from Proposition 8 to the Ordain Women movement to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign to the effects of COVID-19 on the the LDS Church. From all this, Stephen has found that Mormonism is most interesting where its tensions are greatest.
Stephen's tension-marked life in Mormonism can be encapsulated in two experiences. The first was when he was fired from being an early-morning seminary teacher for "raising more questions than he answered," but on his last day, receiving a letter from a student saying that her time in his classes had reactivated her interest in the Church. The second was the year he spent attending a Unitarian Universalist congregation on Sunday mornings before rushing back to his ward to fulfill his calling as Sunday school president. (He still attends both congregations.)