Faith Matters

• Why We Love Conspiracy Theories: A Conversation with Sharon McMahon

  You’ve probably heard the old joke—we caught it again recently on Ezra Klein’s show. A conspiracy theorist dies and goes to heaven. At the pearly gates, God tells him he can ask one question—anything at all. The conspiracy theorist says, “Who really killed JFK?” God replies, “Lee Harvey Oswald and he acted alone.” The conspiracy theorist pauses, nods, and says, “Wow. This goes higher than I thought.”The joke captures just how impenetrable conspiracy thinking can be. That’s part of what we’re exploring today with our guest, Sharon McMahon. Sharon is a former high school government teacher turned trusted national educator, bestselling author, and host of the Sharon Says So podcast, known for bringing truth, clarity, and calm to some of the most divisive issues in American public life.Today, Sharon helps us unpack why conspiracy theories can be so compelling, how they spread, and the very human needs behind them—like safety, belonging, and making sense of uncertainty. She also shares deeply practical and compassionate guidance for staying in relationship with someone who’s caught in that mindset, while still honoring your own values and boundaries.In 2020, the Church offered timely guidance in its General Handbook, warning against misinformation that promotes anger, contention, and fear—and encouraging members to be skeptical of conspiracy theories. So we talked with Sharon about the role faith communities can play in building resilience against misinformation—not by controlling ideas, but by fostering connection, curiosity, and critical thinking.Sharon’s clarity, courage, and humor made this one of our favorite conversations and we’re also so excited she’ll be speaking at Restore this year—we hope you’ll join us to see her live.Learn more about Restore at faithmatters.org/restoreGet Sharon's book from Bookshop.orgGet Sharon's book from AmazonCome to our event at The Compass on 9/13

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• Holiness to the Lord: A Conversation with Jonathan Stapley

  We’re excited today to talk about the temple. It’s a topic we love—one that sits at the heart of our faith—but because of its sacred nature, it can sometimes be difficult to explore openly.Our guest today is historian Jonathan Stapley, who has spent the past two decades studying the temple and its role in Latter-day Saint life. His new book, Holiness to the Lord, is coming out this fall, and it incorporates a remarkable collection of never-before-seen archival records.The book explores the temple’s earliest origins and the ways Joseph Smith drew on the book of Revelation and biblical archetypes to transform ordinary people into priests and priestesses through covenant, community, and ritual. Jonathan also documents the generational shifts in temple practice over time and the sacred work the temple has been doing in the lives of Latter-day Saints from the beginning to today.We’re especially grateful that Jonathan was willing to engage some of the harder questions—things that don’t always fit neatly in a Sunday School setting, but that many of us carry quietly. He speaks candidly about temple recommends, garments, and evolving expectations around worthiness. We got to ask him about the temple’s connection to Masonic rituals (how similar are they, really?) and about how we sit with the very real pain that can come with conditional temple participation—especially when its means leaving family members behind for temple sealings.Jonathan brings both deep scholarship and lived faith to this conversation. He helps us see the temple as a living, evolving expression of our faith—one that reflects a divine invitation to connection, transformation, and covenant belonging, and that draws us into Joseph’s bold, sacred project: to bring heaven to earth.Preorder the book from Bookshop.orgPreorder the book from AmazonJoin us for an event discussing the relationship between ancient and modern temples at The Compass Gallery on Sept 21.Read what we've published about temples in our magazine, Wayfare. 

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• That We Might Have Joy: Desire, Divinity, and Intimate Love, a conversation with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

  We’re so happy to welcome back Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife—someone whose voice and work have shaped our thinking in really lasting ways.Today we’re talking with Jennifer about her brand-new book, published by Faith Matters: That We Might Have Joy: Desire, Divinity, and Intimate Love. The book offers an honest look at how sexual intimacy can reveal the truth of a relationship—and how, for those willing to confront that truth, it can serve as the starting point for deep joy, spiritual transcendence, and communion with another soul.It reframes sexual intimacy not as something separate from our faith, but as an integral part of it—a way of knowing ourselves and another person, and of developing fully into our divine potential.In this conversation we explore what intimacy requires, and how it’s not about just saying the right things, playing the right role, or “becoming selfless”—it’s about showing up fully, even when it’s uncomfortable. Jennifer makes the powerful case that true intimacy can’t be faked, and that our bodies and our partners always know when we’re hiding.We talk about the traps so many couples fall into—cycles of accommodation, avoidance, pressure, or silence—and how our hunger for validation often gets in the way of real connection. And, maybe most importantly, Jennifer helps us see that the tension in our relationships isn’t a sign that something’s broken.We loved this conversation and are excited to share it with you. Jennifer’s book will be released September 30, but you’ll be able to purchase advanced copies of the book at Restore in just a few weeks.Preorder the paperbackPreorder the ebookJoin us at Restore

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• A Fresh Look at the Word of Wisdom—a conversation with Ali Essig and Bill Turnbull

  Nearly 200 years ago, Joseph Smith gave us a holistic code of health called the Word of Wisdom. But over the next century, we largely reduced that revelation to a list of don’ts—one that came to define us as a church and serve as a kind of status marker within the Church. As we look ahead to the next hundred years, we’re asking: is it time to rethink how we see this revelation? Today, we face an overwhelming number of choices about what we put into our bodies—some deeply harmful, others profoundly nourishing—and we now understand far more about health, nutrition, and the body itself. Are there principles in section 89 that transcend the context in which it was given? What did we miss when we transformed it from a principle with promise to a set list of prohibitions that defined worthiness? Is our current approach a stumbling block as we take the gospel to people in other cultures? And what about that curious issue of hot drinks? That’s the conversation we’re having today with Bill Turnbull, one of the founders of Faith Matters, and Ali Essig, a nutritionist and founder of PlantWhys. Ali’s journey with the Word of Wisdom began after her husband suffered a stroke at age 37—a moment that launched her into a deep study of Section 89 and a reimagining of what it really means to nourish the body. We’ll also be studying this section in Come Follow Me in just a couple of weeks, and so we hope this conversation adds some depth and energy into your personal study and that you see not a list of rules, but a radical invitation into a path of wisdom and wholeness. In an era in which technology and media seem determined to disconnect us from embodied experience and presence, maybe it’s time to take a fresh look at a 200 year old revelation that challenges us to do exactly the opposite.*The Word of Wisdom in Its First DecadeThe Word of Wisdom: From Principle to RequirementAssociation Between Dietary Fiber and Lower Risk of All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-Analysis of Cohort StudiesHigher-fiber diet linked to lower risk of death

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• Joy is Our Birthright—Astrid Tuminez at Restore

  Today, we’re so excited to share a powerful session from last year’s Restore gathering, given by Astrid Tuminez, president of Utah Valley University.Astrid’s story is truly extraordinary. She was born in a small village in the Philippines and raised in the slums of Iloilo City. Her journey has taken her from Catholic convent schools to Harvard and Wall Street to leading a major public university—and throughout, she’s wrestled with what it means to belong and to find joy.Drawing from the Book of Mormon, Buddhist meditation, and the lives of the people who have shaped her, Astrid invites us into the practices that help her live with joy, even in the midst of complexity and change.We also want to acknowledge that this session was recorded just a few months before Astrid’s beloved husband of 37 years, Jeff Tolk, passed away unexpectedly. Jeff was someone we admired deeply. He had a brilliant mind and a tender heart and we’re holding Astrid and her family in our hearts during this season of unimaginable grief.Listening to this message now, with the weight of that loss, we have even more reverence and gratitude for the wisdom and light Astrid shared with all of us on the Restore stage. We think it’s one you’ll want to revisit again and again.Restore 2025 will be September 25-27 at UVU in Orem, Utah -- you can get tickets to join us at faithmatters.org/restore 

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