OTOS Archive Chris Wei, Michelle Ross, & Blake Wright

We have an important message this week!

Join us as Michelle interviews Chris Smith. Chris grew up as a practicing Pentecostal but eventually left his faith. Hear his fascinating story and his interesting ties to Mormonism.

Lend us you ear as I remember Leonard Arrington with Cristina Rosetti. Cristina is an ethnographer who recently presented at Sunstone about the new Arrington Diaries!

Chris interviews Russell Hatch about his non-religious upbringing in Provo (a town with a large majority of LDS). They discuss exclusion, dogma, the New Atheism, environmental philosophy, and the limits of anthropocentric ethics.

In this 2-part episode, the 3 of us hosts scratch the surface of some of the more indigestible topics from the early latter-days. We try to understand why these topics are triggering and hope to create a space where these topics are not taboo. Don’t forget to watch for Part 2!

Chris Wei interviews journalist Kristina Smith and filmmaker Spencer Allred about their collaborative project, THE HUSHED ONES, a documentary film which examines the issue of sexual abuse in the LDS Church by looking closely at the McKenna Denson story and the #ProtectLDSChildren movement.

They explain some of the decisions they’re making as documentarians with regard to narrative structure, artistic expression, journalistic ethics, and socioreligious activism; they explore the difficulty in digging into systemic issues with nuance and balance; and they discuss generally what they hope to accomplish—and who they hope to reach—with the project.