It’s that time of year again!! Time to decide which X-Mormon made the biggest splash in 2024!!! Just like every year, I’ll remind you that you don’t have to have gotten excommunicated during the year in question — but it doesn’t hurt your chances! So I’m guessing that this year…
Community
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What Fills the Void When Church Leaders Sow Division?
Tell-tale signals of Mormonism seem to be fading faster than the label President Nelson rejects. In a 2022-2023 survey, fewer than half of Church members born after 1965 said they were actually wearing their garments on the day they answered the question. A 2016 survey found that only 45% of…
Film
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Heretic Review: If only…
I went to see Heretic on Sunday, along with some fellow heretics. A group that included one non- and five ex-Mormons, two of whom were returned LDS missionaries. We were not disappointed. The critics were a little. Manohla Dargis of the New York Times wrote: “Even as the movie dribbles…
God the Monster
This summer, when I posted on X about my lifelong conviction that the god of Mormonism is a moral monster, someone told me, very helpfully and completely accurately, that I would love God’s Monsters by Esther Hamori. God’s Monsters is the first work of religious scholarship that has made me…
Humor
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Another Mormon Horror Story
Horrors! Another Mormon-themed film is about to come out. And this time it’s an actual horror story. Heretic, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, and starring Hugh Grant, debuted at this year’s Toronto Film Festival to mostly favorable reviews. At first glance, the film’s premise seems compatible with…
Mormons
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The lapsed who dare to call themselves Mormon
After I was asked to co-host an AMA on Reddit’s forum about Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, I mentioned to a casual acquaintance that one big question the community had about the show’s stars was whether—with their boozing, coffee-drinking, garment-eschewing, sex-outside-marriage ways—they were really Mormon. “Well OF COURSE…
Authority
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A Tale of Two Lyfts, and thoughts on Free Agency
Of all the talks and convos at last month’s Sunstone conference, one odd experience stands out. Historian Connell O’ Donovan always makes me laugh and learn, so I was excited he agreed to have coffee with me the morning before the conference started. All I had to do was pick…
Book Review
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Wandering the Afterlife, Never Knowing the Plot: Review of Tales of Unworthiness by Paul H. Dumm
The clue to the narrative engine is in this book’s title: “Tales of Unworthiness,” three stories crafted by Paul H. Dumm. The pen name for author Scott Stevens—a play on the name Paul H. Dunn—sets the tone for this 103-page book of speculative fiction of Mormon life. A popular speaker…
Book of Mormon
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on “American Trinity”
David Pace’s American Trinity is a striking collection of twelve short stories tied together by the common thread of Mormonism. The stories were written over the past several decades, and draw from his lifelong experiences with the church. These experiences are not insignificant, and I found myself somewhat dismayed to hear some…
Literature
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Meet Author Donna Banta!!
Latter-daily Digest just posted a fantastic interview with author Donna Banta!! Donna told some great stories about her life in and out of the church — many I hadn’t heard myself, even though we’ve been friends for years!! Absolutely worth a listen!