Our Favorite Podcasts on Mormonism
A response to ldsdiscussions.com — and the other side of the conversation they forgot to mention
You Have Every Right to Seek Information
The editors of LDS Discussions are correct about one thing: every person who grows up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — or encounters it for the first time — has every right to ask hard questions. The history of this Church is complex. Some of it is difficult. Some of it requires careful, patient study. We affirm that right without reservation.
What we do not affirm is the idea that you have heard “both sides” when you have only listened to one. LDS Discussions maintains an extensive list of podcast recommendations. It is a thorough list, carefully curated, and almost entirely composed of a single perspective: the post-Mormon, faith-critical viewpoint. Mormon Stories. Radio Free Mormon. Infants on Thrones. Year of Polygamy. Mormon Expression. Mormon Discussions with Bill Reel. The list is long, but the direction never changes.
There is a word for a reading list that presents only one side of a contested intellectual question as though the other side does not exist: it is called advocacy, not scholarship. This page exists to offer what LDS Discussions does not: the rest of the conversation.
What Is Missing from the LDS Discussions List
The LDS Discussions podcast page was published in 2019 and has been updated periodically since. In it, the author explains that the list is composed of podcasts found to be “the most helpful” — helpful, that is, for arriving at the conclusion that the Church’s truth claims “do not hold up.” That destination is announced before the journey begins. Every podcast recommended travels in the same direction toward the same predetermined conclusion.
Notably absent from the list: the more than two decades of peer-reviewed scholarship published by faithful Latter-day Saint historians, Arabists, Egyptologists, geneticists, and textual critics who have addressed these same questions and reached different conclusions. Absent as well: the Gospel Topics Essays the author frequently references — which were themselves produced by faithful scholars — and the deep body of faithful scholarly response those essays represent.
This is not a dispute about whether difficult questions exist. They do. This is a dispute about intellectual honesty: a person seeking to understand Latter-day Saint truth claims deserves to hear the best arguments on both sides, not a curated list that presents one side as the obvious, inevitable conclusion of any reasonable person.
A Note on the Podcasts LDS Discussions Recommends
Several of the podcasts on the LDS Discussions list are worth engaging. Bill Reel’s Mormon Discussions is serious and careful in places. John Hamer knows the history of the Restoration movement deeply. The Year of Polygamy series by Lindsay Hansen Park is thorough. Honest engagement with difficult history is valuable, and we do not dismiss these conversations simply because they arrive at conclusions we dispute.
What we do dispute is the framing. Phrases such as “the church knows it” (referring to the Book of Abraham), “apologetics are simply dishonest,” and “this is a must listen to in order to learn about the true story” are not the language of scholarly inquiry. They are the language of conviction. The LDS Discussions list does not present itself as one perspective among several; it presents itself as the conclusion every rational person will reach. That claim is false — and the existence of serious, credentialed, faithful LDS scholars is the evidence that refutes it.
What follows is our list — the podcasts and resources LDS Discussions chose not to include.
Podcasts: Scholarly and Faithful
1. Latter-day Saint Perspectives
Website: ldsperspectives.com
Hosted by Laura Harris Hales with contributors including Eric Huntsman, Grant Hardy, and Matthew Grow, this podcast features conversations with credentialed scholars — historians, linguists, textual critics, and theologians — who engage Church history and doctrine from inside the tradition of faith. Topics include the Book of Abraham, the First Vision, polygamy, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Joseph Smith’s revelations, the Atonement, and biblical scholarship as it intersects with Restoration scripture. This is precisely the kind of serious, academically grounded engagement that LDS Discussions claims does not exist on the faithful side. It does exist. It has existed for years.
Audience: Serious students of Church history and scripture who want scholarly engagement from faithful scholars.
2. Gospel Tangents
Website: gospeltangents.com
Rick Bennett’s Gospel Tangents is one of the most prolific and genuinely balanced LDS history podcasts in existence, with over 1,100 episodes recorded as of 2025. Bennett interviews historians, scholars, and theologians across the full spectrum — faithful, post-faith, and everything in between — and consistently allows guests to represent their own views without editorializing. The result is genuine intellectual breadth: the same topics LDS Discussions covers (polygamy, the Book of Abraham, the First Vision, priesthood restoration) are examined here with input from both faithful and critical scholars, side by side. If LDS Discussions were genuinely committed to helping its readers understand the full scope of historical scholarship, this podcast would be at the top of its list. It is conspicuously absent.
Audience: Anyone who wants to hear from historians on both sides of contested questions, without being told in advance what the “correct” conclusion is.
3. The Latter-day Saint FAIR-Cast
Website: fairlatterdaysaints.org
FAIR — the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, now styled Faithful Answers, Informed Response — is the largest and most established organization dedicated to scholarly Latter-day Saint apologetics. Its podcast, the Latter-day Saint FAIR-Cast, features recorded conference presentations, in-depth interviews with scholars, and episode series tackling the specific claims raised by critics including the CES Letter, the Book of Abraham, DNA and the Book of Mormon, polygamy, and the First Vision. LDS Discussions references FAIR frequently — almost always dismissively. But the actual arguments FAIR makes, advanced by scholars with relevant credentials in Egyptology, Near Eastern studies, genetics, and biblical criticism, are not seriously engaged in the podcasts LDS Discussions recommends. They are waved away.
Audience: Anyone who wants to hear the faithful scholarly response to the specific historical and doctrinal questions raised by critics — from people who have actually studied those questions at a professional level.
4. Scripture Central (Book of Mormon Central)
Website: scripturecentral.org — Podcast on Apple Podcasts
Scripture Central — formerly anchored by its Book of Mormon Central division — publishes KnoWhy articles, podcasts, videos, and an extensive scholarly library addressing questions about the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, the Doctrine & Covenants, and the Bible. Its content is grounded in peer-reviewed scholarship: chiasmus, ancient covenant patterns, Hebraisms, the archaeology of the ancient Near East, and the translation process are addressed not with faith-promoting anecdote but with documented, reproducible research. The KnoWhy podcast series alone constitutes a substantive scholarly counter-resource to every dismissive claim in the LDS Discussions overview that “apologetics simply do not work.”
Audience: Students of scripture and Church history who want well-documented, scholarly analysis of the textual and historical questions surrounding Restoration scripture.
5. followHIM: A Come, Follow Me Podcast
Website: followhim.co
Hosted by Hank Smith and John Bytheway — both credentialed educators with decades of Church teaching experience — followHIM brings in expert scholars each week to illuminate the historical, linguistic, and theological context of whatever passage of scripture is under study. This is not devotional cheerleading. The guests include biblical scholars, historians, and subject-matter experts who bring the same kind of contextual depth to scripture study that the critical podcasts bring to Church history. The difference is that the starting premise is one of faith seeking understanding rather than doubt seeking confirmation.
Audience: Members and investigators who want serious scriptural and historical engagement that strengthens rather than dismantles faith.
6. Saints Unscripted
Website: saintsunscripted.com
Saints Unscripted approaches Latter-day Saint doctrine, history, and culture from inside the lived experience of faith, addressing the common criticisms that members encounter in an accessible, honest, and often candid format. Unlike some of the podcasts on the LDS Discussions list that occasionally resort to mockery or language unsuitable for general audiences, Saints Unscripted discusses difficult topics with genuine respect for the tradition and for listeners who are at various stages of their own faith journey. It is precisely the kind of resource that a person first encountering critical claims about the Church could benefit from before concluding that those claims are settled and uncontested.
Audience: Members encountering criticism of the Church for the first time, and anyone who wants a thoughtful, faith-affirming engagement with common objections.
7. All In (LDS Living)
Website: ldsliving.com/allin
Hosted for nearly eight years by Morgan Jones Pearson, All In is a long-running series of conversations with Latter-day Saints from every walk of life who explore what it means to live the gospel fully. In over 300 episodes, the podcast has addressed faith crises, doubt, historical complexity, personal failure, and spiritual restoration — the full range of lived LDS experience. This is not a sanitized institutional broadcast. Many guests have wrestled deeply with the same questions raised on the LDS Discussions site. The difference is that they remained in the covenant and found ways to integrate difficulty into a living faith rather than allowing it to dissolve faith altogether.
Audience: Anyone who wants to hear from real people who have navigated faith crises, historical difficulty, and personal doubt — and stayed.
Websites and Written Resources
Scholarly Apologetics and Research
- FAIR Latter-day Saints — The most comprehensive database of faithful scholarly responses to critical claims about the Church. Covers every topic on the LDS Discussions site and many more, with citations.
- Scripture Central — Non-profit research organization producing peer-reviewed scholarship on the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, and Restoration scriptures. Home of the KnoWhy series and the Joseph Smith Papers archive integration.
- The Interpreter Foundation — Publishes the peer-reviewed journal Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, featuring articles by credentialed scholars in biblical studies, Near Eastern languages, history, and philosophy. The journal’s peer-review standard is the same standard applied to any academic publication — the standard notably absent from most of the podcasts LDS Discussions recommends.
- The Joseph Smith Papers — The Church’s own multi-decade scholarly project to publish every primary document connected to Joseph Smith, fully transcribed, annotated, and historically contextualized. The critical podcasts frequently cite these documents. You can read them yourself, in full, with scholarly annotation, without a podcast host telling you what to conclude.
- BYU Studies Quarterly — Peer-reviewed academic journal publishing research on LDS history, theology, scripture, and culture since 1959. A half-century of serious scholarship that critical podcasts routinely overlook.
Books That Belong on Any Serious Reading List
The LDS Discussions site focuses almost entirely on podcasts and blog posts. Below are books by credentialed scholars that any honest inquiry into Latter-day Saint truth claims should include.
Essential Faithful Scholarship
- John W. Welch — Chiasmus in Antiquity and related work — Welch’s discovery of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon and his subsequent scholarship on Hebrew literary forms in Restoration scripture constitutes the kind of documented, verifiable evidence that critics rarely address at length.
- Richard Bushman — Rough Stone Rolling: Joseph Smith and the Making of Mormonism — Written by a Columbia University historian and the pre-eminent scholarly biography of Joseph Smith. Bushman does not shy away from difficulty; he is a faithful Latter-day Saint who applies rigorous historical method to every aspect of Joseph’s life and ministry. No serious student of Mormon history should rely on podcasts alone when this book exists.
- Terryl and Fiona Givens — The Crucible of Doubt and The God Who Weeps — The Givenses are among the most important Latter-day Saint public intellectuals of the past two decades. Their work directly addresses the problem of doubt, the nature of faith, and the intellectual case for the Restoration in a way that is honest about difficulty and serious about engagement.
- Kerry Muhlestein — Egypt and the Scriptures — Muhlestein is a credentialed Egyptologist whose work on the Book of Abraham engages the same facsimiles and papyri that critics cite — from inside the field of Egyptology itself. His conclusions differ substantially from Dan Vogel’s. Both deserve to be heard.
- Grant Hardy — Understanding the Book of Mormon — Hardy is a literary scholar whose close reading of the Book of Mormon as a text demonstrates narrative complexity, internal consistency, and literary sophistication that is difficult to attribute to a single undereducated author composing spontaneously. Even a careful reader not fully committed to traditional claims cannot dismiss the textual evidence Hardy documents.
On the Question of “One-Sided” Lists
We anticipate the objection: ldsdiscussions.com never claimed to be a balanced resource. They are providing a counter-perspective to the one-sided correlated Church curriculum.
This is a reasonable argument — but it is also self-undermining. If the critique of correlated Church curriculum is that it presents only one side and discourages inquiry into the other, then a list of podcasts that presents only one side and frames the other as “dishonest” is committing the identical error. The solution to selective information is not more selective information in the opposite direction. It is the full picture.
A person who has listened to Mormon Stories, Radio Free Mormon, and Bill Reel has received a thorough and often well-researched account of the difficulties in LDS Church history. A person who has also read Richard Bushman, engaged FAIR’s scholarly responses, listened to Latter-day Saint Perspectives, and worked through the Joseph Smith Papers is in a position to make an informed judgment. A person who has only done the first part has not.
We are not asking you to dismiss the critical podcasts. We are asking you to hold them to the same standard they claim to apply to the Church: complete information, full context, and the intellectual honesty to engage the strongest version of the opposing argument before concluding it has been defeated.
A Final Word
The restored gospel of Jesus Christ has survived one hundred and ninety-five years of the most sustained critical examination applied to any religious movement in American history. It has survived because the truth claims at its core — the nature of God, the reality of continuing revelation, the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and the divine calling of Joseph Smith — are not demolished by podcasts. They are sustained by faith, by the witness of the Holy Ghost, and by a body of scholarly evidence that continues to grow.
The podcasts and resources listed here do not ask you to stop asking questions. They ask you to ask them more completely.
The editors of ldsdiscussions.info