Van Wagoner was a Lehi, Utah, native and a fifth-generation Mormon.
Trained as a clinical audiologist, he began professional practice in 1977 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
[1] Van Wagoner wrote the books Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess and Mormon Polygamy: A History.
[1][2] Van Wagoner was a member of the board of Signature Books, and was described after his death as a "trailblazer in Mormon studies", having published historical articles in Utah Historical Quarterly, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Sunstone.
[2] Van Wagoner died unexpectedly at his home in Lehi, Utah, at age 64.