By K. Ogden I was driving my three-year-old the other day and as usual, she sat in her car seat jabbering about all sorts of things like friends and SpongeBob and as usual, I mumbled the occasional, “Uh hua, yeah”. I was half-listening as I always do while driving and thinking of the 45 things…
Jeff and Amy have a unique perspective of what it is like to be fully active, participating members of the church even though they aren’t members of the social club. Infertility and the struggles that come with it created a situation where they felt that…
When I was fifteen years old, my father lived in the studio apartment down the hall from my own Manhattan 2-bedroom which I shared with my mom. This is about as separated as a New York City couple gets when real estate prices trump any…
Dr. Jeremy Timothy MD is a Pediatric Neurologist for Cardon Children’s Medical Center in Mesa, Arizona. In this podcast Dr. Timothy shares how his Social Anxiety Disorder presented formative challenges throughout his life, and how bouts of depression and severe anxiety during his Residency almost…
[large portions of this post were cribbed with some adaptations from my personal blog] I searched for “doubt is” in the BYU General Conference Corpus, and this is what I came up with: a negative emotion related to fear (2009) not a principle of the…
In a ward I once attended, a Bishop stood in front of the opening exercises of priesthood and chastened those of us who were not dressed in white shirts. In a large meeting there were three of us not in white. I was in a…
I am the type of person who probably cares too much about what others think of me. If I donʼt check myself I have a tendency to stress about certain interactions I have had with people for days or weeks after the conversations have transpired.…
Almost a decade ago, I was in Normandy. I was three months into my mission, and I was feeling good about myself—my French was decent, the branch seemed to like me, and my mission president trusted me enough to let me train a new…
Guest Post by: Jay Griffith As I was running with my dog Echo along a trail on the east bench the other morning I saw the sun ignite a patch of the Oquirrh mountains to the south of Kennecott. The snow white peaks lit like…
“I get impatient with dogma and dictum, but somewhere way inside me and way beyond impatience or indifference there is that insistent, infernal, so help me, sacred singing — All is well, All is well. My own church, inhabited by my own people — I…
If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably experienced religious doubt at some point in your life. Perhaps you’re currently in full-blown faith-crisis mode. Perhaps you’re just teetering, pushed to the edge of your spiritual convictions and nauseously anticipating what could be a very long fall.…
When I was a college freshman I took Intro to Modern Western Philosophy. The first book we read was René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. You might not expect a 400 year old philosophy tome to precipitate a faith crisis. I didn’t either, but that’s…
How much anxiety, discomfort and uncertainty can you tolerate? I think this is an important question with regard to faith and faith crises. So many of us seek for certainty, truth and a life free from discomfort that we go to great lengths to avoid…
Dan McDonald is a husband, father, lawyer, author. His book, Gethsemamnesia: Forgotten Lessons From Gethsemane, Golgotha and Beyond, chronicles the lessons he learned while dealing with a life threatening disease. The evolution of his faith has been shaped by his understanding of a savior who doubted and who…
I was recently asked by a coworker if I am LDS. I’m no stranger to this question; after all, I live in Utah. Mormons are thick on the ground here, so inquiry about my membership in the dominant religion is not unheard of. “Yes,” I…
When I first joined the Church as a high school junior, fast and testimony meetings were my favorite. I loved the stream of affirmation that flowed down from the pulpit, assuring me that the tiny seed that had been planted in my heart was known…
I don’t know if there is a God, but I used to. I was born and raised a Mormon, and from a young age, I was taught that if I did all the right things—searching my scriptures, pondering what I learned, praying for a spiritual…
While preparing for this interview with Adam Miller, whom Richard Bushman described as “the most original and provocative Latter-day Saint theologian practicing today,” I was delighted to have my paradigm yanked out from under me again and again to reveal a world much richer and…
The gift of faith has never come easily to me, and from a young age I’ve always had my atheist doubts. Doubts about the existence of God and the inability to replicate spiritual experiences common for other Mormons made the ability to believe an enormous…
Ownership—the legal right of possession. When I was in high school I worked in the mall in an earring shop. I am sure that my aversion to going into Claire’s with my nearly-10-year-old-daughter has something to do with the fact that I have already spent…
We at A Thoughtful Faith are really proud to announce a new ATF project. This Saturday April 6th at 11:00pm MDT, we will launch the all new A Thoughtful Faith Blog. Since the beginning we have been extremely interested in supplementing the podcast with regular…
In 2001 Rebecca Maesato founded a non-profit organization: Foundation for Children in Need. She and her two daughters traveled to Haiti in 2002 to work in orphanages and among the neediest children in the world. This began a journey that would ultimately expand their small family of four…
This is an installment of A Thoughtful Faith that has been a long time in the making. I made contact with Andrea Radke-Moss shortly after we launched the podcast, and we recorded the first part of our interview in October 2012. Due to various circumstances,…
Jay Griffith and I had the chance to sit with James (Jim) W. McConkie and speak to him about his personal history and family. As a nephew of Bruce R. McConkie and Joseph B. Wirthlin, Jim has a unique perspective of the Church and the brethren and…
I recently had the privilege of hearing one of the most concise, respectful, and thoughtful explanations and approaches to Mormon Feminism through this brilliant podcast by our friends at the Feminist Mormon Housewives Podcast. If you are new to the concept of feminism, and particularly…
The theory of Cognitive Dissonance is a well-established concept in the field of psychology that explains why we all experience discomfort and anxiety when we are exposed to new ideas and beliefs or engage in behavior that conflict with our pre-existing views, ideals, and beliefs.…
