Happy New Year to all the listeners and readers! As we step into 2026, I gave my second annual Gospel Tangents 2025 Book Awards. (Click the link for 2024!) It is the perfect time to look back at the milestones, challenges, and incredible content that defined 2025. While the past year was personally difficult due to several significant health challenges, it was a prolific year for the podcast, featuring 115 episodes!

https://youtube.com/live/Jy-QsGSU4bA

One of the most fascinating aspects of 2025 was seeing which videos resonated most with the audience. Some of the most-watched content actually came from the archives, proving that great history is timeless. This is 4 of my top 10 list.

• Mark Scherer Spike: A 2023 interview with Mark Sheerer saw a massive, unexplained spike in May, gaining tens of thousands of views and becoming the most-watched video of the year. See our conversation on Emma Smith’s 2nd husband Lewis Bidamon.
• The Mormon Cave: A 2021 episode featuring KC Kern and Greg Pavone rediscovering a cave in New York blew up in October. It turns out the surge might have been tied to the property being put up for sale.
• Fired from the First Presidency: The 2024 interview with Matt Harris remained a powerhouse, sitting at number three for the year.
• Sandra Tanner: Her discussion on Joseph Fielding Smith and the “ripped out” 1832 First Vision account was the most popular interview actually recorded in 20256.

The podcast isn’t just about interviews; it’s about highlighting the best scholarship in the field. Here are the standout winners for the 2025 Book Awards:

• Best Book: John Turner’s Rise and Fall of an American Prophet.
• Best Temple Book: Holiness to the Lord by Jonathan Stapley, which offers what may be the best “temple prep” explanation ever written in its first chapter.
• Best Social Science Book: Goodbye Religion by Ryan Cragun, which explores why people are leaving organized religion across various faiths.
• Best Biography: Matthew Bowman’s work on Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian.
• Best First Book: Rich Hanks for To Be a Friend of Christ, a biography of his father, Marion D. Hanks.
• Best Mormon Feminism Work: Katie Rich and Heather Sundal for their work on Exponent II. Katie also won an award for her article on the Relief Society and Brigham Young.

As we enter our 10th year of Gospel Tangents, there are big things on the horizon. There is a second podcast in the works, likely featuring a more informal YouTube Live format once or twice a month.

However, growth comes with its own hurdles. We are currently about 12 months behind on transcripts1 If you are a fan of the show and want to help preserve these histories, please reach out at Gospel Tangents at gmail dot com to assist with transcribing. Your support on Patreon also remains vital to keeping this project running as we balance a busy production schedule. If you can help me with Instagram and Substack marketing, please reach out, knowing that my budget is extremely tight.

Reviewing a year of history is much like excavating a cave; you never know which artifacts will suddenly catch the light and gain new value, but the effort of digging ensures that the story is never truly lost.

Which of these titles did you like best? AI gave me these: