Bridges - Ministering to Those Who Question - David Ostler Pt. 1 | Ep. 1177

Building Bridges to Doubt: Why the Church's Response to Questioning Members Still Falls Short

When faithful Latter-day Saint members begin to question core doctrines, whether prompted by historical discoveries, policy changes, or evolving personal convictions, the institutional response often proves inadequate. David Ostler's book Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question, discussed at length on the Mormon Stories Podcast, attempts to address this gap by offering guidance to church leaders and parents navigating the delicate terrain of member doubt. Yet Ostler's own journey to understanding this crisis reveals how isolated mainstream LDS leadership has remained from both the breadth of historical scholarship and the real human toll of faith transitions.

The urgency of this conversation cannot be overstated. According to the Mormon Stories Podcast interview, Ostler's research involving approximately 300 survey respondents found that only about 20 percent of inactive members in his study ward still attended church. That statistic masks a deeper crisis: families fractured by theological disagreement, marriages strained by divergent faith commitments, and individuals suffering depression, anxiety, and alienation when their questions meet institutional dismissal rather than compassionate engagement.

The Leadership Blind Spot: A Lifetime of Institutional Insulation

Ostler's personal biography illuminates how thoroughly disconnected mainstream LDS leaders have been from the intellectual and historical currents troubling the faithful. By his own admission in the podcast interview, he held significant positions, bishop, stake president, and mission president, across multiple continents and decades, yet remained largely unaware of major faith-critical scholarship, historical work, and even the existence of communities like Sunstone until very recently.

He had heard vague references to Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History and the Tanners' historical research during his youth and middle age, but never engaged them seriously. When asked whether he had encountered attempts over the past decade to build compassionate understanding of faith crises, work by scholars like Patrick Mason and Thomas McConkie, efforts on the FAIR-Mormon website, and countless other initiatives, Ostler confirmed he was largely unaware. He did not discover John Dehlin's Mormon Stories Podcas