At Last She Said It

If faith is a moving thing, that implies change. To say you're on a journey means you're actively engaged in going somewhere. In the ALSSI community, the word faith often gets paired with the word journey, but also with deconstruction, shift, or transition. None of us are standing still, but it can feel frustrating or even lonely when we're each moving at our own pace. Fueled by recent conversations with listeners, Episode 276 is a check-in with Cynthia and Susan: an honest look at where we've been, where we are, how we've gotten here, and where we want to go.

It's a commonly stated idea that politics and religion don't mix, but for many Latter-day Saints it seems there's no separating the two. And this fuzzy boundary extends beyond the opinions and practices of individual members: While claiming neutrality regarding political parties and candidates, Church leadership sometimes officially "addresses issues it believes to have significant moral consequences." In Episode 274, Cynthia and Susan dip a conversational toe in this charged topic—at last!—with political junkie (and ALSSI team member) Sarah Morse. Grab your popcorn and your ballot ... but also your curiosity, imagination, and personal authority. Let's talk politics!

Dr. Jana Riess of Religion News Service published an article recently asking, "Why are young women leaving Mormonism?" It's a great question, and one we could ask about every age group of Latter-day Saint women. Some answers seem very obvious; some may be harder to pin down. So how many women are actually leaving, and might institutional and/or cultural changes reverse the trend? In Episode 272, Jana joins Cynthia and Susan for a conversation about women and church, touching on 3 potential "P" (problem) areas: politics, purity culture, and powerlessness.

What do women do with Christianity? While some experiences may be specific to Latter-day Saints, when we talk to women in other churches we find a surprisingly big overlap: our sisters from other denominations describe so many common themes and similar challenges in their institutional religious experiences and personal spiritual lives. In Episode 270, Cynthia and Susan welcome Dr. Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Dean of Core Faculty at the Center for Action and Contemplation, for a conversation about women and Christianity. Don't let the "bonus" in the title fool you—this one's a don't miss!

ALSSI doesn't usually focus on church announcements or events, but our conversations about Big Ideas do exist within the current context of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Episode 258, Susan and Cynthia take a beat to discuss a few recent headlines and explore some questions raised by these changes.

Shadow Work is a phrase that gets a lot of airplay, but it can be hard to get your head around exactly what it means or how it can apply in your life. The "shadow" consists of unconscious, repressed, or hidden parts of our personality. So what might it mean to uncover, understand, and integrate our shadow self? How might this work affect our responses and relationships? "The human soul wants belonging, but the ego really doesn't know how to give it to us. It just...helps us fit in. It helps us show up and be acceptable—and it thinks that hiding the shadow is the thing that's going to do it," explains Jana Spangler. In Episode 256, Susan and Cynthia are joined by Jana for a conversation about the potential benefits of bringing the shadow to light through this specific inner work.

Does piety serve anything besides the ego? Is our piety an asset or a liability? And what are we—individually and collectively—getting from it? In Episode 254, Susan and Cynthia consider these questions and more in a conversation examining the piety that is a cultural hallmark of our church. For Latter-day Saints and other Christians, is a focus on outward appearances or superficial "churchiness" sometimes a stand-in for real inner transformation?

Many Latter-day Saint women feel some constraint when it comes to using our voices at church, but it can even be hard to express what we think, feel, and believe in our own homes or personal relationships. Writing down thoughts that don't fit neatly in the box and hitting publish can bring consequences, but once a woman begins to speak, she's likely to find the repercussions she feared were much bigger than the ones she'll actually face. In Episode 252, Susan and Cynthia are joined by writer and independent scholar Katie Ludlow Rich for a conversation about her personal journey to reclaim her voice. It's a story about one woman speaking up, framed within a larger exploration of Mormon women's collective voices as reflected in 50 Years of Exponent II.