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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. Please join us for the 2019 FairMormon Conference coming up August 7-9! You can attend in person or purchase the video streaming.
Steve Densley and Geret Giles, Barriers to Belief: Mental Distress and Disaffection from the Church
Transcript available here.
Steve Densley, Jr. is a Utah attorney (J.D., Brigham Young University). He graduated with University Honors from BYU with a combined B.A./M.A. in public policy and political science. He has published articles in the Utah Bar Journal, the Journal of Law and Family Studies, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, and Meridian Magazine. He currently serves as an executive board member of The Interpreter Foundation. He was the Executive Vice President of FairMormon from 2013-15, a recipient of the John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award, and was a producer of FairMormon’s podcast when it twice won the People’s Choice Award for Best Podcast in the Religion & Spirituality category. He has served as an elders quorum president, high councilor, young men’s president, gospel doctrine teacher, and is currently the 1st counselor in his ward’s bishopric. He and his wife Heather have four children and a grandchild on the way.
Geret Giles is a psychologist in private practice since 1995. He has a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. He treats couples, families, individuals, adolescents, and children for issues such as depression, anxiety, and relationship issues. For the past 15 years Dr. Giles has also worked with Utah’s Division of Human Services to provide forensic evaluations when questions arise as to the competence and mental state of criminal defendants. He is married to the former Kelley Clements. Together they have four children—three of whom are married—and three grandchildren. Their youngest is currently serving an LDS mission in Brazil. Geret and his wife are getting used to being “empty nesters” and are finding the transition more delightful than they expected!
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John Lynch is a Silicon Valley sales and marketing executive specializing in high-tech startup ventures. He is a member of the Board of Directors of FAIR and serves as its Chairman. Having served in many missionary callings, including twice as a Stake Mission President, multiple times as a Ward Mission Leader, and having worked at the Provo Missionary Training Center as a teacher and trainer, John has seen the impact of both well-prepared and poorly prepared defenders of the faith.
Taunalyn Ford Rutherford was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. She earned a BA in History and an MA in Humanities from Brigham Young University and served an LDS mission in Stockholm Sweden. Recently she received her PhD in History of Religion at Claremont Graduate University. Her dissertation and her current book project focus on the growth of Mormonism in India. Her work has been published in academic journals and books, but her favorite works are her five children co-authored by her husband Jim Rutherford. She currently resides in Draper, Utah, and is an adjunct professor of religion at BYU.
Matthew McBride is the web content manager for the Church History Department and a graduate student in American history at the University of Utah. He is the author of A House for the Most High: The Story of the Original Nauvoo Temple and coeditor of Revelations in Context: The Stories behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. Matthew has also published in the Ensign and the Journal of Mormon History. He lives in American Fork, Utah, with his wife Mary and their four children.
Dr. Robinson received his Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Brigham Young University. His doctoral dissertation was a qualitative study in of married Latter-Day Saint men with histories of homosexual activity. For the last 25 years he has worked in private practice specializing in assisting individuals experiencing a conflict between their experience of same-sex attraction and their religious beliefs and/or personal values. He has given numerous presentations on the issue of same-sex attraction and has conducted training for therapists and a variety of settings. He and his wife Wendy are the parents of eight children and the grandparents of eight.
Brad Wilcox is a professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University where he also enjoys working with such programs as Especially for Youth, Women’s Conference, and Campus Education Week. He is the author of the book The Continuous Atonement and the BYU devotional “His Grace is Sufficient.” Brad grew up in Provo, Utah, except for childhood years spent in Ethiopia, Africa. He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile and later returned to that country to preside over the Chile Santiago East Mission from 2003 to 2006. He and his family have also lived for a time in New Zealand and Spain where he directed study abroad programs for Brigham Young University. Brad has served as a member of the Sunday School General Board. He and his wife, Debi, have four children and six grandchildren. Reading, writing, teaching, and traveling are some of his favorite things. He loves Peanut M&M’s and pepperoni pizza, but he realizes that doesn’t sound too healthy so he is really trying hard to learn to love salads.
Richard Lloyd Anderson (1926-2018) was a Professor Emeritus of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, and senior research fellow at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at Brigham Young University. More information about him can be found 
A native of southern California, Daniel C. Peterson received a bachelor’s degree in Greek and philosophy from Brigham Young University (BYU) and, after several years of study in Jerusalem and Cairo, earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Peterson is a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at BYU, where he has taught Arabic language and literature at all levels, Islamic philosophy, Islamic culture and civilization, Islamic religion, the Qur’an, the introductory and senior “capstone” courses for Middle Eastern Studies majors, and various other occasional specialized classes. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on Islamic and Latter-day Saint topics–including a biography entitled Muhammad: Prophet of God (Eerdmans, 2007)—and has lectured across the United States, in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and at various Islamic universities in the Near East and Asia. He served in the Switzerland Zürich Mission (1972-1974), and, for approximately eight years, on the Gospel Doctrine writing committee for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also presided for a time as the bishop of a singles ward adjacent to Utah Valley University. Dr. Peterson is married to the former Deborah Stephens, of Lakewood, Colorado, and they are the parents of three sons.