Mormon Stories Podcast

In Part Two of our conversation with David Ostler (former bishop, stake president, and mission president), Dave continues his story after returning from Sierra Leone. He is called as Director of Historical Sites and with his wife Rachelle oversees the church’s historic sites in Palmyra New York. By this point, Dave is aware of many of the areas of church history that are troubling. While nuanced, Dave still considers able to live a consecrated life, as a faithful and devoted member.

Dave reflects on his evolving understanding of Mormonism, including his work researching why people leave the church and writing Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question. What began as an effort to help church leaders better understand those who doubt eventually led Dave to question whether these issues can ever be adequately addressed by the church. He considers some of the great questions about what it means to be human and through that study, begins to reconsider the framework through which he has understood the world.

Dave and John also discuss religious certainty and Mormon truth claims. Dave sees church patriarchy as harmful and reflects on the negative way it has impacted him. In a similar way, Dave and John discuss the church’s treatment LGBTQ+ people, and the difficulty of building meaningful relationships across differences in belief. Dave describes how he has found purpose and meaning outside of religion and a belief in God.

If you have questions about the episode, you can contact Dave directly at dbostler@gmail.com
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YouTube

At Mormon Stories we explore, celebrate, and challenge Mormon culture through in-depth stories told by members and former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as scholars, authors, LDS apologists, and other professionals.  

Our overall mission is to: 
1. Facilitate informed consent amongst LDS Church members, investigators, and non-members regarding Mormon history, doctrine, and theology
2. Support Mormons (and members of other high-demand religions) who are experiencing a religious faith crisis
3. Promote healing, growth and community for those who choose to leave the LDS Church or other high demand religions

🤝Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today
⁠One-time or recurring donations⁠
⁠Patreon⁠
⁠Venmo ⁠
⁠PayPal ⁠

Our Platforms:
🌐⁠Mormon Stories Blog ⁠
🎙️⁠Patreon ⁠
✳️⁠Spotify⁠
🍎⁠Apple Podcasts⁠
🖼️⁠Instagram ⁠
📱⁠TikTok ⁠
🎮⁠Discord ⁠

Contact us:
📧 MormonStories@gmail.com
📬PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117

Today we sit down with David Ostler, a former bishop, stake president, and mission president, and author of Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question. Raised in a prominent Mormon family in Salt Lake City, Dave grew up surrounded by church leadership and expectations. He served a mission in Japan, married in the temple, and eventually became a bishop at just 33 years old.

Dave reflects on how his upbringing shaped his understanding of faith, authority, and what it meant to be a Mormon man. He shares the challenges of church leadership, including administering discipline and balancing the demands of his calling with family life. At this point, Dave is aware of the humanness of the church’s leaders and its institutional limitations and many challenges of church history, church teachings on race, gender, and polygamy. In nuance he continued along the path he had always understood to be right.

After retiring from a career in business, Dave and his wife Rachelle moved to India to do humanitarian work before being called to preside over the Sierra Leone Freetown mission. There, Dave presided over missionaries and members in mission districts and experienced the church in an entirely different culture with unique and surprising challenges. Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world and they were confronted with its poverty and illiteracy and were confronted with many questions about how the church operates in such a different world.  When the Ebola outbreak forced them to leave their mission early, Dave and Rachelle returned home carrying an experience that would take years to process.

Then, be sure to turn into the next episode to hear where Dave’s story is today. 

If you have questions about the episode, you can contact Dave directly at dbostler@gmail.com
___________________

YouTube

At Mormon Stories we explore, celebrate, and challenge Mormon culture through in-depth stories told by members and former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as scholars, authors, LDS apologists, and other professionals.  

Our overall mission is to: 
1. Facilitate informed consent amongst LDS Church members, investigators, and non-members regarding Mormon history, doctrine, and theology
2. Support Mormons (and members of other high-demand religions) who are experiencing a religious faith crisis
3. Promote healing, growth and community for those who choose to leave the LDS Church or other high demand religions

🤝Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today
⁠One-time or recurring donations⁠
⁠Patreon⁠
⁠Venmo ⁠
⁠PayPal ⁠

Our Platforms:
🌐⁠Mormon Stories Blog ⁠
🎙️⁠Patreon ⁠
✳️⁠Spotify⁠
🍎⁠Apple Podcasts⁠
🖼️⁠Instagram ⁠
📱⁠TikTok ⁠
🎮⁠Discord ⁠

Contact us:
📧 MormonStories@gmail.com
📬PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117

For 30 years, Timmy Gibson preached Christianity with absolute conviction. Raised in a Pentecostal family, he attended Bible college, became a pastor, and built a thriving evangelical church in Kansas City. But after decades of teaching that the Bible was God's perfect Word, Timmy began asking questions he could no longer ignore. Eventually, he faced an extraordinary decision: keep preaching what he no longer believed or walk away from the church he had spent nearly two decades building.

In this episode of Exvangelical Stories, Dr. Todd Phillips sits down with former evangelical pastor and now atheist Timmy Gibson for an honest, deeply personal conversation about religious deconstruction, losing faith, and rebuilding life after Christianity.

Timmy shares how his Pentecostal upbringing shaped his beliefs about speaking in tongues, divine healing, hell, salvation, and God's calling. He describes the people and experiences that challenged his theology, from watching faithful church members suffer despite promises of God's blessings to questioning the morality of eternal punishment. He also explains how reading *Sapiens* transformed his understanding of evolution, human history, and religion.

The conversation explores the painful consequences of leaving Christianity, including closing his church, losing relationships, navigating divorce, and setting boundaries with parents who still fear for his eternal salvation. Timmy also reflects on the religious teachings he regrets, his journey toward atheism, and the freedom, meaning, and authenticity he's discovered outside the faith he once devoted his life to.

What happens when the beliefs that gave your life meaning are no longer believable? And how do you rebuild when walking away means losing almost everything that once defined you?

This is Timmy Gibson's story.

ABOUT EXVANGELICAL STORIES

Exvangelical Stories is hosted by Dr. Todd Phillips in partnership with Mormon Stories Podcast and the nonprofit Open Stories Foundation. Through honest, long-form interviews, the series explores the personal experiences of people questioning, deconstructing, and leaving evangelical Christianity.

Help us continue producing these conversations through the Open Stories Foundation.
Support Exvangelical stories here: https://donorbox.org/exvangelicalstories

CONNECT WITH TIMMY GIBSON
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TimmyGibsonKC

CONNECT WITH DR. TODD PHILLIPS
Decon/Recon | Private Online Community

Questioning Christianity or navigating religious deconstruction? Join a private, supportive community where you can ask honest questions, protect your relationships, and rebuild a meaningful life without pressure to believe or stop believing.

https://www.skool.com/deconrecon/about
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drtoddphillips
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtoddphillips/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Drtoddphillips/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drtoddphillips
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Show Notes
YouTube

At Mormon Stories we explore, celebrate, and challenge Mormon culture through in-depth stories told by members and former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as scholars, authors, LDS apologists, and other professionals.  

Our overall mission is to: 
1. Facilitate informed consent amongst LDS Church members, investigators, and non-members regarding Mormon history, doctrine, and theology
2. Support Mormons (and members of other high-demand religions) who are experiencing a religious faith crisis
3. Promote healing, growth and community for those who choose to leave the LDS Church or other high demand religions

🤝Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today
⁠One-time or recurring donations⁠
⁠Patreon⁠
⁠Venmo ⁠
⁠PayPal ⁠

Our Platforms:
🌐⁠Mormon Stories Blog ⁠
🎙️⁠Patreon ⁠
✳️⁠Spotify⁠
🍎⁠Apple Podcasts⁠
🖼️⁠Instagram ⁠
📱⁠TikTok ⁠
🎮⁠Discord ⁠

Contact us:
📧 MormonStories@gmail.com
📬PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117

Today on the Mormon News Podcast, John Dehlin and Meggan Hayes examine a controversial video from LDS influencer Becky Squire defending bishop interviews with minors, the political landscape in Utah following the midterm elections, and changing university enrollment numbers following the Church's missionary-age announcement. We're also covering Quentin Cook's warnings about anonymity, developments involving Jared Harding Wilson, continued controversy surrounding the Cody Wyoming Temple, and more.
___________________

Show Notes
YouTube

At Mormon Stories we explore, celebrate, and challenge Mormon culture through in-depth stories told by members and former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as scholars, authors, LDS apologists, and other professionals.  

Our overall mission is to: 
1. Facilitate informed consent amongst LDS Church members, investigators, and non-members regarding Mormon history, doctrine, and theology
2. Support Mormons (and members of other high-demand religions) who are experiencing a religious faith crisis
3. Promote healing, growth and community for those who choose to leave the LDS Church or other high demand religions

🤝Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today
⁠One-time or recurring donations⁠
⁠Patreon⁠
⁠Venmo ⁠
⁠PayPal ⁠

Our Platforms:
🌐⁠Mormon Stories Blog ⁠
🎙️⁠Patreon ⁠
✳️⁠Spotify⁠
🍎⁠Apple Podcasts⁠
🖼️⁠Instagram ⁠
📱⁠TikTok ⁠
🎮⁠Discord ⁠

Contact us:
📧 MormonStories@gmail.com
📬PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117

The 2026 midterm elections brought a significant shift toward Democrats across the country, but what happened in Utah and other heavily Mormon communities?

Today on the Mormon News Podcast, John Dehlin and Meggan Hayes explore the election results and what they might tell us about the changing political landscape among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Using analysis from Alex Bass of Mormon Metrics, we’re looking at Utah’s surprising election results, Democratic gains in traditionally Republican areas, and the voting patterns of the 20 congressional districts with the highest concentrations of Latter-day Saints.

We’ll also examine new voter survey data that raises some interesting questions about Mormon political identity. One survey suggests LDS voters split 56% Republican to 44% Democratic, while another puts Republican support closer to 70%. What explains that difference, and what can we actually conclude?

Topics include:

The nationwide blue shift and how Utah compares
Republican underperformance in Utah’s congressional races
Democratic gains in heavily LDS districts across Utah and Idaho
Surprising election results in Provo, Orem, and Weber County
Donald Trump’s approval among LDS voters
New data on Mormon political affiliation and voting behavior
Whether the Republican Party is losing support among Latter-day Saints
What these results could mean for the future of Mormon politics

Election results are still being finalized, and the available surveys offer conflicting estimates. We’ll separate what the data actually shows from what remains uncertain.

Are Mormons becoming more politically moderate, or are they simply participating in the same national shift we’re seeing elsewhere?
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YouTube
Show Notes

At Mormon Stories we explore, celebrate, and challenge Mormon culture through in-depth stories told by members and former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as scholars, authors, LDS apologists, and other professionals.  

Our overall mission is to: 
1. Facilitate informed consent amongst LDS Church members, investigators, and non-members regarding Mormon history, doctrine, and theology
2. Support Mormons (and members of other high-demand religions) who are experiencing a religious faith crisis
3. Promote healing, growth and community for those who choose to leave the LDS Church or other high demand religions

🤝Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today
⁠One-time or recurring donations⁠
⁠Patreon⁠
⁠Venmo ⁠
⁠PayPal ⁠

Our Platforms:
🌐⁠Mormon Stories Blog ⁠
🎙️⁠Patreon ⁠
✳️⁠Spotify⁠
🍎⁠Apple Podcasts⁠
🖼️⁠Instagram ⁠
📱⁠TikTok ⁠
🎮⁠Discord ⁠

Contact us:
📧 MormonStories@gmail.com
📬PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117