About this episode

Jeff Strong discusses the reasons behind Latter-day Saints disaffiliating from the church and shares insights from his book 'Torn'.

Ladies and gentlemen and whoever else is listening, welcome back to the show. CONTENT WARNING - The opinions of the host and our guests have not been sanitized or scientifically tested so please consume at your own risk. Forty percent. That's roughly how many once-active Latter-day Saints have quietly slipped out the back of the chapel over the past quarter century according to one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted on Latter-day Saint disaffiliation, which surveyed more than 20,000 current and former members. It's the kind of statistic that turns Sunday dinners into minefields and makes "how's the family" a loaded question. A few days after his son entered MTC (Missionary Training Center), he'd gotten an unusually timed email from him. Before reading past the first paragraph, he knew that his son was coming home and that the church he'd raised him in was coming home with him. That's the moment that cracked open everything for he and his family. My guest is Jeff Strong, a former LDS (Mormon) bishop, mission president, BYU professor, and a man who spent thousands of hours turning his own family's "tectonic plate shift" into one of the most data-driven looks we have…

People in this episode

Host: Brian Keith Parrish

Guest: Jeff Strong

Topics covered

• Latter-day Saints
• disaffiliation
• family dynamics
• faith
• religion
• self-discovery

Keywords

• LDS
• disaffiliation
• faith
• family
• religion
• Mormon
• Torn
• Jeff Strong

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: LDS, BYU

Books & works: Torn

More episodes of Parrish The Thought

• Episode 205: Cale Strong | When Love Felt Like Judgment: My Painful Journey Leaving the LDS Church · July 12, 2026 · 1h 14m

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