Bridges - Ministering to Those Who Question - David Ostler Pt. 3 | Ep. 1179

Ministering to Those Who Question: Bridging the Faith Crisis Gap in Modern Mormonism

When a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encounters troubling historical information or doctrinal inconsistencies, whom do they turn to? Increasingly, the answer is not their bishop, it's Reddit forums, podcasts, or private Facebook groups. This reflects a deeper crisis within institutional Mormonism: the church's leadership lacks training and cultural permission to genuinely listen to those experiencing faith crises, let alone minister to them effectively. David Ostler's work on "Bridges, Ministering to Those Who Question" addresses this gap, proposing a framework for local leaders to support doubting members without dismissing their concerns or demanding doctrinal conformity.

The tension Ostler identifies reveals something uncomfortable for the institutional church: many members are asking hard questions, but the organization has historically responded by hiding its history rather than confronting it openly.

The Transparency Problem: Why Members Don't Know What the Church Actually Teaches

The LDS Church's relationship with its own historical record has been fraught for decades. As Ostler notes in his discussion, church leaders have long harbored anxiety that transparency about difficult history would drive members away. This concern crystallized around Leonard Arrington's work as church historian, a period that revealed institutional resistance to candid documentation of controversial practices and doctrines.

In 2013, the church published its "Gospel Topics Essays," a series of official explainers addressing polygamy, race and the priesthood, DNA evidence and the Book of Mormon, and other sensitive subjects. For many members encountering these essays for the first time, the experience proved disappointing rather than clarifying. Rather than representing a watershed moment of honesty, the essays often seemed carefully hedged, acknowledging historical realities while maintaining theological defensibility, a balancing act that satisfied neither critical scholars nor orthodox believers.