Dialogue Book Club Summer 2025: Dictates of Conscience

What does it mean to be true to yourself when your faith, community, and calling demand something else? In this powerful Dialogue Book Club conversation, recorded live on June 6, 2025, architect and author Laurie Lee Hall joins Dialogue editors and readers to discuss her memoir, Dictates of Conscience: From Mormon High Priest to My New Life as a Woman.

Hall’s remarkable journey—from serving as the chief architect of Latter-day Saint temples to being excommunicated after her gender transition—offers a deeply personal and profoundly spiritual exploration of gender, identity, and revelation. Raised in New England and trained at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Hall spent her life in service to her church before finally accepting the truth she had always known: she is a woman. Her story is one of courage, loss, resilience, and the healing power of authenticity.

This book club episode invites listeners into a rich discussion about the intersections of faith and gender, the cost of living with integrity, and the future of inclusion within Latter-day Saint communities.

📚 Want to join the Dialogue Book Club?
Each year, Dialogue editors select four new release books—fiction, devotional, and scholarly—focused on Latter-day Saint thought and experie,nce.

✔ One book delivered to your door every quarter
✔ Access to author Q&A events like this one
✔ Private Facebook group and exclusive book club podcast episodes

💡 Next up: Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John G. Turner.

Become a part of the conversation at www.dialoguejournal.com/bookclub.