Episodes

Is Eve our Heavenly Mother? Tom Bennett of Centennial Park explains fundamentalist views on Heavenly Mothers, women and priesthood, and the second anointing. Check out our conversation… https://youtu.be/Pj8S6jzmCWo Don’t miss our other episodes about Centennial Park! https://gospeltangents.com/denominations/centennial-park/ Copyright © 2025 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission. Heavenly Mothers Mormon fundamen...

Is there a hidden temple theology in the Book of Mormon temple theology waiting beneath the 1830 text? That question, sparked by my friend Boyd in an online forum, turned into a three-part answer, and this is the final installment. While preparing, an AI tool handed me a word I had to look up: palimpsest, a manuscript scraped clean and written over, where the earlier text still shows through faintly. It turned out to be the perfect frame for the debate. https://youtu.be/b2hHdOXPDRA Temple Theo...

This Greg Prince interview is a throwback to 2017, and for the first time the entire conversation is available in one piece. On September 27, 2017, historian Greg Prince was in Salt Lake City to deliver the Sterling McMurrin Lecture at the Salt Lake City Public Library, and before his talk he sat down with me for a long and candid conversation. We originally released it in seven parts. Don’t miss our other conversations with Greg: https://gospeltangents.com/people/greg-prince Copyright © 2026 ...

Raising Kids in Polygamy Raising kids in polygamy comes with a hard truth: many children raised in plural families walk away as adults. Some join the LDS Church, some leave religion altogether. So what do plural families hope for their own kids? In the final part of my interview with Joshua, Charlotte and Melissa Erickson of Lehi, Utah, we talk about their hopes for their children, a new fundamentalist fellowship Joshua leads, and why so many fundamentalists still won’t talk to outsiders. http...

Dallin Oaks BYU: Why Mark Skousen Was Called into His Office Dallin Oaks BYU was a formidable figure, and economist Mark Skousen remembers what happened when a controversial student newspaper editorial brought him face-to-face with the university president. In the final installment of our four-part Gospel Tangents interview, Mark shares some remarkable stories from his years at Brigham Young University, including a confrontation with Dallin H. Oaks, his experiences in student journalism, and h...

Was Joseph Smith a socialist? Economist Mark Skousen was surprised—and more than a little irritated—when he discovered that a BYU economics professor had classified the founder of Mormonism as a utopian socialist. But when I challenged Mark about Joseph Smith’s economic teachings, his answer was more complicated than a simple yes or no. https://youtu.be/J9AVMBliFvo Don’t miss our other conversations with Mark Skousen: https://gospeltangents.com/people/mark-skousen Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tang...

Was Eisenhower Soviet agent? That extraordinary accusation came from John Birch Society founder Robert Welch, who believed President Dwight D. Eisenhower was secretly serving Communist interests. But economist Mark Skousen, nephew of the famous conservative author W. Cleon Skousen, thinks the accusation was outrageous. https://youtu.be/5Hol7hUZExc Don’t miss our other conversations with Mark Skousen: https://gospeltangents.com/people/mark-skousen Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights R...

“Are you the famous Skousen?” Do they mean Cleon Skousen or Mark Skousen? Economist Mark Skousen has heard that question in nearly every ward he’s ever moved into. Usually the person means his uncle, W. Cleon Skousen, the FBI veteran, Salt Lake City police chief and best-selling author of The Naked Communist. When I first saw Mark at the John Whitmer Historical Association meetings, I had the same thought. Put a pair of glasses on him and the resemblance is striking. In Part 1 of my conversation...

Were Joseph and Hyrum’s skulls switched (misidentified) in 1928? Patrick Bishop answers this mystery! https://youtu.be/ZVoXwDdNbVk Don’t miss our other conversations with Patrick: https://gospeltangents.com/people/patrick-bishop/ Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Most of us assume the death mask is the closest thing we have to Joseph Smith’s real face. Just open the eyes, the thinking goes, and there he is. Patrick Bishop thought so too, until 25 years of research changed...

Is this tiny locket the only known Joseph Smith photo? Patrick Bishop, producer of Brother Joseph Again, explains the forensic science behind it.

Community of Christ apostles have undergone one of the biggest leadership shakeups in years. With a new prophet-president and major changes among the church’s top leadership, six vacancies opened in the Council of Twelve. Some apostles retired, while others moved into different leadership positions—and six new apostles stepped into the vacancies. https://youtu.be/y5lKYsFEcnw With a new prophet-president and major changes among the church’s top leadership, six vacancies opened in the Council of...

When a Temple Isn’t a Building at All/Virtual Temples What if you could do a virtual temples at home? Not every branch of the Restoration wanted a temple, and the groups covered in this closing conversation show just how far the idea could stretch — from outright rejection to a virtual temple. https://youtu.be/PEd9KOTjY8U Don’t miss our other conversations with John: https://gospeltangents.com/people/john-hamer/ Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Bickertonites: No Interest...

James Strang is one of the strangest turns in Restoration history, including being crowned as a Mormon King. Historian John Hamer opens part four of this series by explaining just how unexpected his rise was. https://youtu.be/eUVN58NugEg Don’t miss our other conversations with John: https://gospeltangents.com/people/john-hamer/ Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Almost as soon as Joseph Smith died, and right after Sidney Rigdon’s own short-lived church fizzled out, Strang ...

What happened to the Nauvoo Endowment after Joseph Smith’s death? What happens to a temple idea when a group won’t follow Brigham Young west? In this third conversation of the series, historian John Hamer and host Rick Bennett follow two small groups that carried the Nauvoo endowment in their own directions: one that kept it alive in a room above a church, and one that took it to Texas. https://youtu.be/M-I9WmPsu7w Don’t miss our other conversations with John: https://gospeltangents.com/people...

We’re moving beyond LDS Temples and looking at Fundamentalist Mormon temples. Nauvoo gave Latter-day Saints a temple built around Old Testament ordinances, and then the pioneers left it behind. In this second conversation of the series, historian John Hamer and host Rick Bennett follow that inheritance west to Utah, where an Endowment House filled the gap until a real temple could be finished, and then to the more surprising places it landed: the temples of Mormon fundamentalist groups, includin...

Where did Joseph Smith get the idea of temples? It sounds like a simple question, but historian John Hamer’s answer stretches from the Bible to a domed assembly hall in Independence, Missouri, and includes a temple that was called for by revelation, designed by an architect, and never built. In this first conversation of his return to Gospel Tangents, John, a Community of Christ Seventy and co-editor of Scattering of the Saints: Schism Within Mormonism, walks me through the building blocks. ht...

Brigham didn’t dissolve Relief Society! That’s what Katie Rich’s recent article on Brigham Young & the Relief Society claimed. It goes against the historical consensus and won an award at the Mormon History Association. She will explain her reasons here. We’ll also discuss how Exponent II accepts multiple positions on controversial issues. Is it hard to keep disparate opinions together? https://youtu.be/5xqbPUh1Djo Check out this playlist for more info on this topic! https://www.youtube.com/wa...

Over the past three segments, Dr. Thomas Murphy, author of Unsettling Scripture: Iroquois and the Book of Mormon, has walked us through his research connecting Haudenosaunee history to the origins of the Book of Mormon — from the Dartmouth/Moor’s Charity School connection, to the prophet Handsome Lake, to overlooked ties between Native nations and the Revolutionary War era. But all of it has been building toward one question we haven’t asked him directly yet: can the Book of Mormon be both ficti...

Are there echoes of Book of Mormon & Revolutionary War? When we talk about the relationship between early Mormonism and Native American communities, the conversation usually runs in one direction: how indigenous traditions may have influenced Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. But in this segment of our conversation with Dr. Thomas Murphy, author of Unsettling Scripture: Iroquois and the Book of Mormon, we explore something far less discussed — how Haudenosaunee communities weren’t just absorb...

Did Native Americans use seer stones? What if the roots of the Book of Mormon’s narrative trace back not just to revelation, but to a classroom? Book of Mormon Ties to Darmouth? In this second part of our conversation with anthropologist Dr. Thomas Murphy, we explore a detail of Smith family history that rarely gets discussed: Hyrum Smith’s education at Dartmouth’s Moor’s Indian Charity School, where he studied alongside Haudenosaunee students. It’s a small historical fact with potentially lar...

Can rigorous DNA research and religious scripture coexist? Years ago, Murphy’s groundbreaking DNA research directly challenged traditional Book of Mormon claims about Native American origins. It was a stance that put him at odds with his own stake president and nearly cost him his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For many in the Mormon studies world, Murphy’s name has been synonymous with that controversy ever since. Now, Murphy returns to Gospel Tangents with some...

David Nielsen passed away a couple of weeks ago when he fell off a ladder. His death was a very sad surprise. He leaves behind 3 wives, a wonderful family, and a shocked and saddened community of friends. We’re remembering him in this video. He served as an apostle for the Nielsen-Naylor Group. In this 2025 interview, he gives an introduction to this Mormon fundamentalist group. https://youtu.be/vaglaO6_lFk David Nielsen David Nielsen was an apostle for his church. CHAPTERS 0:00 FLDS Splits...

In this engaging temple Q&A session, host Rick Bennett fields questions from a Community of Christ group following a presentation on restoration temples inside and outside the LDS Church. The discussion spans a wide range of captivating topics in Mormon history, theology, and architecture: https://youtu.be/vn7odpxo7Kc Don’t miss our other conversations on temples: https://gospeltangents.com/mormon_history/lds-temples/ Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved What you will discov...

We’re taking a deep dive into Virtual, Vodou, and Fundy Temples. It’s a fascinating look at secret and highly controversial world of divergent temples and modern groups of the Restoration. Following the assassination of Joseph Smith, the temple liturgy fractured like a prism, scattering the sacred rites of the Restoration in vastly different directions. https://youtu.be/L6vQWsbxxaE Don’t miss our other conversations on temples: https://gospeltangents.com/mormon_history/lds-temples/ Copyright ©...