Speaking of Cults...The Violent and Horrible Origin Story of Mormonism

Speaking of Cults...The Violent and Horrible Origin Story of Mormonism

July 11, 2026 · 1h 30m · Episode 524

About this episode

The episode explores the violent and controversial origins of Mormonism and critiques the financial practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

This week I welcome back Bryce Blankenangel and Shannon Grover to help me understand first the financial rapaciousness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an organization that clearly values money over morality or good works. In explaining why this is, Bryce and Shannon break down the violent origin story of the Mormon "faith" and how Joseph Smith went from one calamity to another as he conned people over and over again, committed criminal acts against children and had more than a few "enemies" outright killed. This is not a history anything like the sanitized, whitewashed nonsense the LDS Church publishes and it needs to be heard by a lot more people.

People in this episode

Host: Chris Shelton

Guests: Bryce Blankenangel, Shannon Grover

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

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