Faith Matters

This week, we’re sharing a fascinating conversation we had with Josh Coates, a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and founder of the BH Roberts Foundation. The BH Roberts Foundation is the non-profit behind Mormonr, a producer of Latter-day Saint media that tackles hard questions about the faith, as well as "LDSBot," an AI-driven chatbot that is able to handle just about any question about Latter-day Saint culture and theology shockingly well. 

In February of this year, Josh and his colleague, Steven Cranney, published the results of yet another project: a survey of a representative sample of active and former Latter-day Saints that the BH Roberts Foundation conducted. The survey found that among active Latter-day Saints, two "clusters" emerged: 80% of the sample had fairly orthodox beliefs around God, the Church, and the historicity of the Book of Mormon, while 20% expressed more uncertainty and held less traditional views. The survey also integrated questions from Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations theory, which attempts to suss out how different kinds of people build their ethical perspectives. This part of the survey found some really fascinating differences here between active Latter-day Saints and former Latter-day Saints that we think could help us understand each other better.

We spent some time with Josh talking about the different values and gifts these two clusters of practicing members can bring to the Church. In Josh's view, neither group alone can bring to bear the full gifts of the community on its own: cluster one could help our community grow deep, strong roots, while cluster two could help us branch out, expand, and explore. 

We're super grateful to Josh, Steven, and the rest of their team for their work on this survey, and to Josh for sharing more about it with us. There's a lot to dig into here, and as always, we hope that discussing differences can actually help see each other with more empathy and love.

We're so excited to have Sarah and Josh Sabey on the podcast this week. Sarah and Josh are writers, filmmakers, and spouses. Their films cover important issues in non-polarizing ways. Their first film, American Tragedy, reached the top ten most watched films on Amazon Prime. 

Their latest project is called The Book of Mormon Storybook for Little Saints. It's a beautiful 2-volume collection of 50 Book of Mormon stories, adapted for children and their parents. 

They write that the primary goal of this book is not to teach children a summary of events but is rather, the artful retelling of the stories themselves. We love that each chapter is driven by and anchored to their testimonies, which they have condensed into this single sentence: “these are stories about a real God who loves real people.” --People who are complicated, wounded, and trying, who make mistakes again and again but who are never abandoned. This focus on the characters' humanity and core doctrinal principles in the Book of Mormon reveal the book's fundamental message of hope, or as Elder Kearon put it, the reality that "God is in relentless pursuit of you." 

In this conversation Josh and Sarah talk about the ways they imagine shame, fear, and even trauma are at play in the lives of Book of Mormon characters we know so well and they point out the broader story arcs and lessons we can learn about vilification, polarization, and tribalism. We learn a little bit about their experience writing the book and how the kind of intuitive reaching we experience in creativity can be a form of worship. 

You can find The Book of Mormon Storybook for Little Saints at forlittlesaints.com and on audible and we highly recommend them both.

This week we’re joined by our good friend and contributor to Faith Matters, Thomas McConkie, along with his longtime mentor and friend, John Kesler.

In many ways, Thomas and John's paths were mirror images of each other until they eventually collided. John Kesler developed an awareness and life practice called IPP or Integral Polarity Practice that has had a profound impact on Thomas's life. You're going hear a little about polarities or fundamental tensions of human development and how in finding the "still points" in these seeming opposites, we can experience a real relief of that tension and a transcendent peace.

Both Thomas and John believe that one of the gifts of our tradition is that it has the structure and scaffolding that creates rich, fertile ground for genuine development.  And at the same time, they see that at different seasons of our lives we experience struggle, even struggle around belief. And yet, as John says, in those experiences, we learn that "there's something down deep that's there that can hold us and nurture us." And that these depths can bring us not beyond belief but to the source of belief.

This conversation felt so abundant. It felt like a starting place. Thomas and John will be hosting a handful of retreats and events this summer so if you are interested in learning more, you can check out all of those opportunities in the links below.

Transformations of Faith Course

At One Ment: Embodying the Fullness of Human-Divinity,  by Thomas McConkie

7-Day Silent Retreat (August 5-12th, 2024):
https://lowerlightswisdom.org/classes/7-day-august-silent-retreat-scholls-2024
10% Discount Code for 7-Day: FM7DAY

3-Day IPP Facilitation Retreat (Aug 1-3, 2024):
https://lowerlightswisdom.org/classes/3-day-ipp-retreat-2024
20% Discount Code for 3-Day IPP: FMIPP20

Nobody will be turned away for lack of sufficient funds, financial aid available. 

 **Disclaimer that this episode mentions suicide in connection to LGBTQ youth. If you are not in a place to listen right now, you might want to skip this one. If you are, though, we really encourage you to listen on this tough but important topic that impacts so many in our community.**

In this conversation, Dr. Jordon and Liz Sharp from St. George, Utah, shared their remarkable and inspiring story of moving from trauma, confusion, and loss to miracles, enlightenment, and strength as an LDS/LGBTQ family. Several years ago—even before they had thought much about this themselves—a tragic event with some family friends resulted in Liz and Jordon receiving strong promptings that God has a deep and abiding love for LGBTQ individuals  and wants them to thrive. Jordon (Vice President of Marketing & Communication at Utah Tech University) and Liz (a registered nurse) eloquently described the mistakes made, lessons learned, opportunities found, and how their family bonds expanded far beyond their expectations after their son Sam came out at the age of 14.

Due to what he saw as a lack of resources and support in this space, Jordon eventually helped found the Gather Conference, the largest-ever Christ-centered conference for Latter-day Saint LGBTQ individuals and those who love them. To learn more about the Gather Conference and to find resources for LGBTQ/LDS families, visit liftandlove.org.

Liz and Jordon’s family story is near and dear to our hearts at Faith Matters. So often, we don’t have answers to know how we all belong in the family of God; we only have our conviction that we do belong and a willingness to figure it out along the way. Our conversation with Liz and Jordon gets deep into their personal story, including their ongoing spiritual learning and efforts to build conversations about the LGBTQ experience in the Church. We found them to be incredible examples  of how to plow into uncharted territory with humility and a simple trust in one fact — that we are all beloved children of God. 

We’re really excited to share this episode with you. It was with someone we’ve wanted to talk to for a very long time — Deseret Book president Laurel Christensen Day. We knew from afar that she was a trailblazing leader and a thoughtful publisher — and we were not surprised to find that as we got to know her a little bit that she’s a woman of deep faith as well. Uniformly, everyone we have ever spoken with who has had a chance to work with Laurel absolutely loves her.

We’ve always been fascinated by Deseret Book — by the unique place it holds in Latter-day Saint culture and the responsibility it has in creating and distributing content that informs, inspires, and even shapes belief. Walking into a Deseret Book and seeing the art and the books and the scripture sets always seems to make us nostalgic for our own upbringings and tradition, even while we’re living it! And Deseret Book is, of course, much more than just a retailer  — they’re a major content producer with business lines in books, music, art, and events. And of course, it does all of this as a part of the larger organization of the Church.

We thought Laurel’s insights were incredibly perceptive and thoughtful. She shared with us thoughts on what to do when you make a mistake, even as a leader, or perhaps especially as a leader—with openness rather than defensiveness, and with introspection and searching for the truth in criticism. She also shared a little bit about her story, including her journey as a woman navigating her business career—along with some other insights for women and how advocating for yourself could look. And finally, Laurel was kind enough to share some advice for us at Faith Matters.

This week, we’re bringing you an interview with Kurt Francom, author of a new book titled, Is God Disappointed in Me? Removing Shame from a Gospel of Grace. It seems to us that culturally, Latter-day Saints don’t usually imagine an angry vengeful God but we may very well imagine a god who is perpetually disappointed with us when we inevitably fail again to live up to our highest ideals. Kurt’s book unpacks what hurts about the idea of a disappointed God and why this belief can be a real stumbling block to our growth. He explores the ways sin is very often a response to woundedness and how understanding these core vulnerabilities can help us to heal from shame instead of hiding or numbing. 

We've linked to a sweet video Kurt posted of his daughter learning to walk; though she is fumbling and struggling to learn, the video reminds us that as parents, we're not disappointed by this process of growth. Instead, like Kurt's voice in this little video, he was bursting with pride at her growth, joy when she got back up, and excitement that he got to be with her in the journey of learning to walk. Is this what we imagine God -a loving heavenly father and mother feels, when we make mistakes? 

We think these ideas are so transformative. You can find Kurt’s book on Amazon or Benchmark Books. We also invite you to check out Kurt’s “Learning to walk” video with his daughter, which we’ll link to in the show notes. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Is God Disappointed In Me? (on Amazon): https://a.co/d/2soZzs5

Learning to walk video: https://youtu.be/nC9CIIXRJS0

We’re excited to bring you an episode with a genuine ‘lift-where-you-stand story’ of a family in the UK. Sam and Jen Norton have served young people in the church for more than twenty years and most recently as FSY Session Directors in London. FSY stands for “For the Strength of Youth”, and refers to the week-long summer events held for youth around the world.

As FSY leaders, Jen and Sam began facing difficult questions about how to include and support youth with a range of perspectives and lifestyles. They wanted to affirm the wisdom of the standards set by the Church for youth; they also noticed that many youth were driven away  the fear of exclusion they would experience if they fell short. As a result, many youth would drop out of Church activity before giving a chance to learn what it’s really about.

Through prayer, open conversations, deep listening, and creativity, Jen and Sam were taken on a truly transformative journey; they found their way to loving the younger generation more than they thought possible, and learning how to really champion them and their unique spiritual gifts. In short, they believe in believing in the next generation and giving them a more gentle on-ramp to following Jesus and reminds them that perhaps the most important word in the sacrament prayer and baptismal covenant is ‘willing’. Their story will be valuable to anyone working with youth, or who is interested in blending top-down and bottom-up approaches to Church callings.

If you want more of what you hear in this conversation, Sam wrote a book about it called Come as You Are: Creating Space for the Rising Generation to come to Jesus Christ. The book aims to be an accessible guide to parents, leaders and teachers and invites us all to rethink about how we support our young people’s faith discovery.

It’s General Conference weekend! Time to dig up the BINGO cards and park yourself in front of the TV with some cinnamon rolls and a Diet Coke or two, to soak in some inspiration and maybe even encounter some discomfort.

We thought we’d release a re-edited episode with Patrick Mason that feels really timely.

In this conversation with Patrick, we talked about creating what Brian McLaren has called a “four-stage community.”. The “stages” we’re referencing here come from Brian’s book Faith After Doubt, and refer to different stages in which people might find themselves in their journeys of faith. McLaren defines these stages as  simplicity, where faith is straightforward; complexity, where faith becomes somewhat more complicated; perplexity, the stage where questions become more important than answers and previous faith paradigms often undergo massive shifts; and finally, harmony, where the gifts of each stage are finally realized and integrated.

It seems to us that the diverse reactions and feelings engendered by General Conference are often the result of being members of a community in which all four of these stages are manifest. Messages that seem to be tailored to members at a particular stage of faith may not resonate with listeners at a different stage. This can feel like misalignment, and it can sometimes feel jarring.

In this conversation, Patrick points to a couple of practices that have helped us turn that dissonance we sometimes feel into a gift: for one, being intentional about deeply listening to those we might be inclined to disagree with, and orienting ourselves toward generosity, asking what virtues and values might they be speaking from. Patrick also pointed out there’s a real potential for growth when we choose to stay in relationship with people we disagree with. As Eugene England points out in his essay “The Church is As True as the Gospel,” in many ways, that struggle is the point.

Patrick is the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University and the author of several books including Restoration: God’s Call to the 21st Century World. He brought the wisdom, insight, and optimism that he always seems to meld so beautifully. We really hope that you can take what feels valuable in this episode, and use it as we come together in solidarity as a community this weekend, with all our varied life experiences and perspectives to be inspired by and stretched by General Conference.

As Latter-day Saints, we often say that we focus more on Jesus’ resurrection than on His death, and we consider the atonement in Gethsemane as the most sacred event in Jesus’ life. In this episode, we consider a question we don’t think about too often, stemming from this: why have we not cultivated more robust ways to celebrate Holy Week, and all the events leading up to Easter Sunday? Especially when we compare it to all that we do leading up to Christmas? 

We sat down to talk with Eric Huntsman, a professor of ancient scripture at BYU and author of God So Loved the World: The Final Days of the Savior's Life. Eric has done a lot of work as a scholar to understand the events of Holy Week leading up to Jesus’ death on the cross on Friday, his resurrected visitations on Sunday, and where, as Latter-day Saints, we might place the points of emphasis differently than other Christian denominations. His family has cultivated Easter traditions, complete with meals, activities, and scripture readings, to help them really feel and anticipate these events, and invite a deeper witness of the Savior. By getting more creative with our Holy Week traditions, Eric says we can connect ourselves more deeply with the rest of Christianity while immersing ourselves more fully in a scriptural journey.

We hope this episode inspires you to get more out Easter Weekend, which is coming up in just a few days. And for more on this topic, you can check out Eric’s book God So Loved the World at Deseret Book, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.

This week we sat down with Kathy Kipp Clayton and Bill Turnbull to talk about the fascinating chapters they contributed to a new book entitled No Division among You: Creating Unity in a Diverse Church. Bill, and his wife Susan, are two of Faith Matters’ co-founders. Kathy and her husband Whitney have served around the world on Church assignments for the past two decades. Whitney served in the presidency of the Seventy until his release in 2020. They now help supervise and often travel the world with the Tabernacle Choir. Kathy is an author and an education innovator.

In their essays, Kathy and Bill share how the everyday, sometimes uncomfortable situations we find ourselves in at Church can be a profound opportunity to get curious about what others are seeing, especially  when we don’t see eye to eye with them. They talk through their own experiences learning to love people they didn’t expect to love, and finding ways to open themselves to questions rather than fear — to look at differences or aberrations from the norm as ways to connect. 

At a time when in-person gatherings, clubs, and associations are in decline across society, these experiences we have with others at Church might be increasingly rare. We really hope you enjoy this conversation.

As Holy Week and Easter Sunday approach, we thought it would be helpful to visit with someone who could help us reflect on these sacred events in a new way. Our guest today, Dr. Kerry Muhlestein, recently wrote The Easter Connection, which dives into the biblical account of Holy Week and illuminates the theme of eternal unification. In this short book—you could read it in just one sitting—Kerry explores the various ways Jesus’s final week teaches us about disconnection, and the idea that through the atonement of Jesus Christwe  can overcome the separation that seems to be at the heart of our suffering. 

One of the things we appreciated about our conversation with Kerry is that, while his new analysis offers a fresh understanding of the atonement, he also leaves space for the mystery of the atonement, and the ways it surpasses our understanding. Holy Week is a time for contemplation, of sitting with the story of Jesus’ atonement and death on the cross and letting it transform us. While we always hope for new insights that increase our understanding, the magnitude of what we can’t comprehend about the story is part of what keeps us coming back to the story again and again. We appreciate Kerry drawing us to the beauty of mystery in the atonement.

We also appreciated the practical takeaways from Kerry’s book; when we see human suffering and sin as a product of separation and disconnection, it is easier to be merciful with people’s flaws and mistakes, not to mention our own. Kerry helps us see how love and unity are always what we are seeking, deep down.

Kerry’s book, The Easter Connection, is at Seagull, Deseret Book, and Amazon.

Ever since October 7th, we’ve been wanting to better understand the conflict in Israel and Gaza and how we as Latter-day Saints can be good neighbors and friends to everyone impacted by it. We know there are no easy answers. Our guest this week, BYU Hawaii professor Chad Ford, has been working on peacemaking initiatives in the region for several decades and acknowledges the very real fear people involved in this conflict feel: that peace isn’t going to happen in their lifetime.

In the conversation, Chad walks us through a brief history of the conflict in the Middle East and why, at this moment, there is so much suffering and resistance to peace. We talk, as well, about the difficulty of resolving conflict in our personal lives, and how tempting it is to want to justify ourselves and be “right”, at the expense of fostering love in our relationships. We were also really aware of how easy it can be to sit in a position of relative comfort and ease and make pronouncements about what people directly involved should do or think. We tried really hard not to do that and focus more on what we can do to be engaged peacebuilders where we are. As is often the case with difficult conversations, we’re asking for some extra grace because we certainly didn’t handle any of this perfectly.

As challenging as this conversation was, we also found much of it invigorating. Chad has spent years thinking through passages of scripture that seem to justify war and how Christ’s overarching message counteracts them, reminding us that it is more important to be “right” before our brethren than it is to hold the “right” position. He reminds us, as well, that as Latter-day Saints we have one of the most compelling examples of peacemaking in our scriptural canon, in the story of the Anti-Nephi Lehites who set down their weapons of war out of commitment to God. Chad shares unforgettable stories about peacemakers in Israel and Gaza who have used their faith, creativity, and commitment to loving their neighbor to find ways for Israelis and Palestinians to connect and form awareness of their common humanity. Most of these people, he says, are not giving up, even with the situation as dire as it is.

If you want to hear more from Chad, we encourage you to check out Chad’s book, Dangerous Love: Transforming Fear and Conflict at Home, at Work, and in the World. We should mention that Chad is one of the most fascinating people we’ve ever interviewed; he seems to have lived many lives in one. He not only holds a degree and has decades of experience in conflict resolution, but he has a law degree and had a whole other career as a writer and analyst at ESPN—you’ll hear in the episode how that side of him has tied into his peacebuilding work. Later this year, Chad is relocating from Hawaii to Utah to join the faculty in religious studies with the Haravi Peace Center at Utah State University. 

Book of Mormon scholar Grant Hardy knows that there are lots of different views about what The Book of Mormon is—how it came to be, how credible its origin story and originator are, and what its value is to Latter-day Saints, and to the world.

Though he himself falls firmly on the side of belief, he believes the approach of the Book as sacred text asks its reader to consider that “every word or phrase may hold existentially significant meaning” — regardless of exactly how one views the Book’s origins and historical value.

That’s the perspective that he brings to a newly produced work, The Annotated Book of Mormon, a remarkably thorough and rich exploration of The Book of Mormon which is the first “fully annotated, academic edition of the Book… in its 200-year history,” and which was published by Oxford University Press.

We loved talking with Grant, and for us, some of the most powerful moments of the conversation were his reflections on how the Book of Mormon is calling us, as a people, to hold up the mirror and ask what we can do better. You’ll hear Grant specifically bring up the topic of how we as a church use and disclose our financial resources. We want to note that this part of the conversation is challenging—and while the views Grant shares, like those of all guests we have, are his own, we really appreciate his vulnerability and willingness to engage these tough issues. We know not everybody’s going to agree on this, and we’re very aware of our inadequacy in navigating difficult topics. We hope that one thing we can do at Faith Matters is to help keep conversations going in good faith, and that’s what we tried to do here, however imperfectly.

We really encourage you to pick up the Annotated Book of Mormon, which does an amazing job of making this text easier to study and understand by reformatting it with headers, punctuation markers, and paragraph styles in line with modern bible translations. Grant is donating all royalties for the book to the Humanitarian Aid Fund of the LDS Church.

Grant is a Professor of History & Religious Studies at UNC Asheville, where he’s taught since 1994. We think that this is a special episode with a remarkable person and message, and we really hope you enjoy this conversation with Grant Hardy.

When Lenore Skenazy’s son was nine, he asked her repeatedly if she would let him have a solo adventure in their hometown of New York City. Her son had a specific plan for this adventure: he wanted her to take him somewhere new in the city and then let him find his own way home. Lenore took the leap of faith, and when her son burst into their apartment later, he was practically “levitating with pride and joy” at what he had accomplished.

Lenore then wrote an article in the New York Sun called “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” — and a media firestorm ensued. We’ll let Lenore share more about that particular time, but she realized then how radical and important an idea it was for modern parents to “let go.”

In 2017, Jonathan Haidt, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind reached out to Lenore with two others, all of whom shared concerns about the increasing fragility they’re seeing in young people in America, and the poor outcomes that follow. They went on to launch Let Grow, a non-profit organization that promotes childhood independence.

Lenore’s message is that parents can sometimes become compulsive about protecting children from every possible danger, but blind to the trade-offs: decreased independence, resilience, social skills, and creativity, and increased anxiety and depression.

But this message also has broader implications for our lives and our faith: while we often tend to try to micromanage everything with the mistaken belief that we can prevent anything bad from happening, deep faith can help us see that there’s Something Bigger going on — and we don’t always need to be in control.

We found Lenore to be delightful—she’s sharp, funny, and has profoundly important things to say for anyone interested in helping our next generations to be resilient and happy. We really hope you enjoy this conversation with Lenore Skenazy.

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Today we’re sharing with you an episode from a brand new podcast that Faith Matters is co-sponsoring in collaboration with Mormon Women for Ethical Government, called Proclaim Peace. This podcast is hosted by Jennifer Thomas, Co-Executive Director of MWEG, and Patrick Mason, Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, and longtime friend and advisor of Faith Matters. 

In this first season, these two will be exploring with guests a “peaceful reading of the Book of Mormon.” In the episode we’re sharing, they have a fascinating conversation with Jennifer Finlayson-Fife on some of the tension-filled early chapters of The Book of Mormon. They dive deep on the conflicts that Lehi’s family couldn’t seem to escape—what was done well and what might have been different—and how the unhealed rifts in this family eventually had existential societal consequences. 

We’re proud to be a part of this effort that we see as a hopeful and faith-filled response to President Nelson’s prophetic call to “follow the Prince of Peace, [and]... become His peacemakers.”

You can subscribe now by searching “Proclaim Peace” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

We’re back sharing a favorite session from last year’s Restore Conference. In this session, Adam Miller retells the parable of the prodigal son and a highlight from the Children’s book series, 'Frog and Toad", to re-examine our relationship to love. It is our nature to think we have to work hard to earn love, and we constantly tell ourselves stories about what we have to do to earn it. But if God’s love is constant, then these stories are elaborate distractions. We feel guilt and shame whenever we try to earn love that is already given. 

We always appreciate Adam for his wisdom, but also for the way he presents it. This session feels like a meditation that allows us to see the worries we carry that we are unworthy of love and release them, which God invites us to do. And, as Adam ends his session, “While [this] is still very hard work, it is work of an entirely different kind.” 

A little less than two decades ago, you might walk past a bookstore and see The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins featured among the bestsellers. The mid to late 2000’s were the heyday for the New Atheists, a small cohort of scientists and philosophers who were convinced religion was both untrue and a bad influence in the world. At the time, it was easy to see the rise of the New Atheists as the latest peak of secularism, a sign that public belief in religion was long gone, and there was no going back.

Where we sit now in 2024, we can see that the New Atheist movement fell apart due to internal disagreement and concern about its own influence on the world. According to our guest Justin Brierley, public opinions towards religion are complex and mixed, not nearly as negative as the New Atheist movement would have anticipated. In fact, there are many signs that a Christian renewal is underway. From notable conversions of high-profile individuals to the rise of secular thinkers defending Christianity to the increasing skepticism that science and atheist worldviews can answer our most important questions, Justin observes that the Christian story is far from dead.

Justin Brierley is a writer, speaker, and podcaster committed to building dialogue between Christians and non-Christians. His first book was titled Unbelievable? Why, after ten years of talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian and in September 2023 he published his second book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God.

Zach interviews Justin in this episode, and the conversation ends with several fascinating questions: will there be a renewal of Christianity and belief in God? If so, are the churches prepared for it? How can the Christian world transcend tribalism and culture wars to welcome a new batch of seekers?

In 2018, Pete Davis was graduating from Harvard Law School and was chosen to give a commencement address that ended up going unexpectedly viral, having now been viewed over 30 million times.

The thesis of Pete’s speech was that our culture has entered what he calls “infinite browsing mode”—with so many options to choose from, and devices that present those options to us literally endlessly—we can become paralyzed by choice and inadvertently live out our lives without ever dedicating ourselves to something. And this lack of choosing and committing over the long haul has real consequences, Pete argues — it prevents us from finding the meaning and impact that we’re longing for.

Pete’s ideas eventually crystallized into a really incredible book—Dedicated—which explores these ideas in depth. We loved this book and found it to be so relevant to conversations we seem to always be having. In this conversation, we were able to talk with Pete about many of the reasons we might fear committing to something, including the fear of missing out, the fear of regret, and the fear of association with something with which our values aren’t totally aligned. But, Pete argues, commitment in the face of those fears is what leads us to long-term purpose and impact, real community, and connection with something truly transcendent.

We can’t emphasize enough how important and relevant we found this book, and how infectious we found Pete’s enthusiasm for these deeply resonant ideas. We are so excited to share this episode with you, and we really hope you enjoy the conversation with Pete Davis.

Today we’re sharing another fantastic session from our Restore Conference last October, this time from Lisa Miller. Lisa is a clinical psychologist and professor at Columbia University who specializes in the science of spirituality. She’s also the author of the popular 2021 book The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life.

We often think of science and spirituality as separate ways of knowing that don’t really speak to each other, where science focuses on what we can see and empirically observe, while spirituality focuses on the unseen. Lisa’s research bridges these worlds, building an empirical case for the reality of spirituality and its benefits across the lifespan, and showing how science can be a “witness” to spirituality. She believes we all have an innate, in-born capacity for spirituality, or “relational, transcendent awareness”. Individuals who cultivate a strong spiritual core are less likely to experience despair, addiction, and depression throughout the life course, and a spiritual core is correlated with growth and resilience after facing challenges.

We really loved Lisa’s session as well as her beautiful spirit. As we got to know her in person at Restore, we realized what a special person she is and felt the love she has for our community. We think you’ll be able to feel that as you listen to her talk. 

We’re excited to share with you this interview with George Handley, a professor of humanities at BYU. George recently published a fascinating and moving intellectual biography of Lowell Bennion. As we’ve learned more about Bennion, he’s begun to loom large for us as a truly inspiring figure who models some of the best of what our faith tradition has to offer. He was an educator, humanitarian, and practical philosopher who had an outsized impact on the Church in the 20th century, even if few might recognize his name today. 

Lowell Bennion was both committed to intellectual integrity and to prioritizing people over ideas. In the interview, George walked us through how this dual commitment led Lowell to a heart-led vocation that refused to compartmentalize the gospel—to separate it from either intellectual inquiry or from the practical, everyday needs of society. It also allowed Bennion to navigate the tricky, bumpy moments in relationship with other thinkers and educators in the Church with love and integrity.

His list of projects is truly extensive, but among the most memorable are his founding of the Institute of Religion next to the University of Utah, and of a boys ranch in Idaho—the Bennion Teton Boys  Ranch—where George spent time as a boy. As an educator, Bennion took an expansive view of the gospel that sought to blend itself with secular learning and embrace all truth. Even on the occasions when those who disagreed with his approach made decisions that cost him professionally, Bennion was committed to seeing these events as part of the adventure of life.

The topics that came up in this episode really struck home with us. Lowell Bennion’s life invites us to consider not just what the right ideas are, but what ideas are for, and how they can be turned to the service of humanity. We’re thankful to George for taking the time to bring this impactful, if understated, thinker to our attention through this book. 

To kick off the new year, we recently had the privilege to speak to academic duo and long-time friends, Adam Miller and Rosalynde Welch about the new book they co-authored together, titled Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon. 

Their book examines the many ways that Christ shows up in the lives of individuals in the Book of Mormon, including Nephi, Abinadi, Abish, and others. Like the New Testament gospels, these distinct witnesses both affirm and challenge each other, showing how Christ’s message for each of us intimately reflects our personal questions and circumstances.

This episode not only guides us through these distinct witnesses but also describes the close reading process that allowed Adam and Rosalynde to observe such differentiation in the first place. By slowing down with the scriptures and zooming in on details—even supposedly mundane ones like punctuation and phrasing—scripture can teach us things we don’t expect to learn. Just as there are a multiplicity of witnesses of Christ in the Book of Mormon, Adam and Rosalynde make a case that our scriptural canon is a springboard to endless interpretations that speak to us according to our spiritual needs.

For those who don’t yet know these two, Adam is a professor of philosophy at Collin College, and Rosalynde is the Associate Director and Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute. Adam and Rosalynde are two of the brightest minds in Latter-day Saint studies, so to have them team up on a book is a special privilege, and we loved talking with them, as we always do.

Today we’re sharing a conversation that we had a lot of fun with, along with an exciting announcement about the work we’re doing at Faith Matters.

Our guest was our friend Jared Halverson. Few people we know exude as much enthusiasm for scripture—the Latter-day Saint canon in particular—as Jared does. He’s someone who clearly loves and cherishes these holy texts, and has taken the best they have to offer to heart. He’s as genuine, loving, and big-hearted as they come.

So we felt Jared would be the perfect person to talk to to kick off this year’s study of The Book of Mormon, the book Joseph Smith called “the keystone of our religion.” In our discussion with Jared, we talked about how we might be able to gain something from engaging with the Book, regardless of where our faith is at; how scriptures are the means, not the end, and how they’re not frozen in time—they’re part of an ongoing conversation that we’re a part of.

With all that said, we could not be more excited to tell you that Faith Matters is formally teaming up with Jared to bring his podcast, Unshaken, one of the most widely engaged scripture study podcasts out there, into the Faith Matters network of podcast and YouTube shows. We’ll have more to share about that in the future as that network expands and grows. For now, it means that Jared will continue to bring his signature blend of scholarly rigor and devotional reflection to his discussions of scripture that move with the Come Follow Me curriculum. But whereas in the past, Jared’s podcast episodes have been deep dives of 3-5 hours per episode, the new Unshaken format will shoot for an hour or so to make them a bit more digestible.

Unshaken will continue to operate on its own Youtube and Podcast channels, while the Faith Matters podcast will continue to operate on this one. If you’re interested in Jared and his work based on what you hear today, we’d highly recommend you head over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube to subscribe.

For those unfamiliar with Jared, he’s an associate professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, and has taught religion courses at the high school and college level since 1998. He studied history and religious education at BYU and earned a PhD in American religious history at Vanderbilt University.

This week, we’re sharing another session from our Restore conference, this time featuring a scholar most of you will be familiar with: our long time friend and advisor Terryl Givens.

Terryl’s heartfelt session explores what he finds to be the “peaceable things” of Christ, referred to in scripture. An unsettling experience at the age of sixteen led Terryl to confront the inherent risk and uncertainty of our choices in life. And while life may not always be “peaceful,” Terryl says, we can always access “peaceable things”, which he anchors in the Restoration’s understanding of God.

If you know Terryl’s work, you know of his gift for illuminating gospel truths gleaming quietly throughout Christian history. Terryl guides us through three names of Christ–Creator, Emmanuel, and Paraclete–that show God to be relational, loving, and open-hearted. This God doesn’t seek to judge or condemn, but to invite us at their table as peers and mutual witnesses of each other’s inherent goodness.

We hope you enjoy this hopeful message that cuts straight to the heart of the fear and uncertainty that so many of us feel, day to day. 

Nearly everything we do in the Church — from missionary work and ministering efforts to baptisms and temple work — hinges on an underlying question: who is the Church for? Is the project of the Restoration to find and shepherd the elect of God to exaltation in the next life, or is it to create a Zion community here that strives to include those on the margins, the way Jesus ministered? Should it be one or the other?

It’s seemed to us that there’s an implicit discourse around this question playing out on social media, in Church meetings, in books and articles, on podcasts — and even in forums like General Conference.

And it has significant implications — the answer holds real weight as for we participate in the work of the Restoration, but not just that — what does it say about the nature of God?

This past conference, Pres. Dallin H. Oaks declared “the purpose of this restored Church is to prepare God’s children for salvation in the celestial glory and, more particularly, for exaltation in its highest degree.” In theory, that destiny is available to all God’s children. But what about the multitudes of God’s children who may seem to be left behind-–those for whom any quest for exaltation seems buried under conditions like grinding poverty, mental illness, abuse, or other serious obstacles to thriving. Is the restored church for them too?

We thought it could be important and helpful to have an explicit conversation around this question that’s often felt more than heard. And, we think we ended up with the perfect conversation partner, and someone we know many of you love and admire as much as we do — Patrick Mason.

Patrick helped us walk through some of this tricky territory with his signature blend of love for the Church, enthusiasm about the restoration, and clear-eyed realism about where we are as a community and tradition — and where we could hope to go. 

Patrick Mason is the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, has been a frequent guest on this show and is long-time friend and advisor to Faith Matters.

Buy Melissa’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Struggle-Seeking-Christ-Resistance/dp/1639931872/

As we’ve gotten to know her over the past few years, we’ve noticed that Melissa Inouye, in any group, has a remarkable way of reorienting a conversation. She tends to be the one with the eyes to see “the least of these.” She has a profound and sincere empathy for those who are in deep struggle, those on the edges, the marginalized, the looked-over, the passed-by. When these people and their difficulties are invisible to others, she gently call others’ attention to them as well. 

That uniquely empathetic perspective she brings has found a beautiful expression in her new book Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance. It’s a “treatise on trials” — one in which Melissa asks the deepest, most difficult questions without shying away from them, including those around her own experience with cancer.

The book, and the conversation we had with Melissa, deal with struggle itself, but also with its second-order effects: how can struggle be alchemized into connectedness — into Zion — instead of driving us apart? Who gets to assign meaning to struggle? Is there a way to avoid pain in a community, or is it built into the experience?

Melissa received her Ph.D. from Harvard in 2011 and became a Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She’s now working as a historian for the Church History department.

We were grateful, as we always are, to benefit from her deep wisdom born of lived experience.

Professor Eric Huntsman has an infectious enthusiasm when he talks about Christmas. He’s up for the fun, the decorating, the shopping, the lights, and the gift-giving. He also has a deep intellectual curiosity and many years’ academic research into the historical development of this holy day. And of course, most importantly, he has a profound devotional attachment to the holiday’s namesake, Jesus Christ. 

So it’s only natural that he would spend years developing ways to help his family, students and community find more meaning throughout the Christmas season. One way that he’s done that is through the observance of Advent. Much more than just the calendar many of us think of checking off the days in December leading up to Christmas, Advent is a traditional Christian season that’s been observed for at least 1500 years and is marked by the four Sundays prior to Christmas, each of which celebrates a theme of Christ’s birth: hope, love, joy, and peace. 

In today’s conversation, Eric shared with us the background and purpose behind Advent and some of its symbolism, how he celebrates it, and what he recommends for anyone looking to observe Advent as part of creating their own traditions or rituals.

Resources:
Good Tidings of Great Joy: An Advent Celebration of the Savior's Birth (Eric's book): https://www.amazon.com/Good-Tidings-Great-Joy-Celebration/dp/1606416596/r

Come, Lord Jesus: An Advent Invitation (Wayfare Magazine): https://www.wayfaremagazine.org/p/come-lord-jesus

Celebrating Advent: https://huntsmanseasonal.blogspot.com/2013/11/celebrating-advent.html

First Advent: https://huntsmanseasonal.blogspot.com/2013/12/first-advent-hope.html

Christmas Resource Guide (Daily December devotionals): https://huntsmanseasonal.blogspot.com/p/christmas-resource-guide.html

Advent Carols: https://www.amazon.com/Advent-Carols-Countdown-Stories-Christmas/dp/1639930477

A few weeks ago, Faith Matters released a video we called “Why Church?” It features several of our favorite people, who gave really thoughtful answers to that question that is present for so many. 

Today, we’re sharing Tom Christofferson’s Restore talk, which addresses the next question: “How Church?” Tom describes in poignant and sometimes hilarious detail his experiences joining a new ward where so many people are so unlike him, and, in the end, found that that was kind of the point. 

For us, this was one of the very most memorable sessions at this year’s Restore. We love Tom deeply and know he has so much to teach us. When he talks, we always stop to listen.

For those of you who don’t know, we’ve decided to release all of this year’s Restore sessions on YouTube totally free of charge. If you’d like to watch them, just head to YouTube and search “Faith Matters”  — you’ll see our channel pop up and you can subscribe there.

Our guest today is a long-time friend and collaborator, and an incredibly unique voice in the Latter-day Saint tradition: Thomas McConkie. Thomas is an author, developmental researcher and meditation teacher who has been practicing under masters in the traditions of Sufism, Buddhism and Christian contemplation, among others for over 25 years. Thomas is the founder of Lower Lights School of Wisdom, and is is currently researching and writing on transformative spiritual practice at Harvard Divinity School.

He’s also the author of a brand new book published by Faith Matters Publishing called At-One-Ment: Embodying the Fullness of Human-Divinity. This is, in our opinion, a monumentally important work, and one that has the capacity to powerfully change the way we see the world.

The book reminds us that much of Christianity has spent centuries focusing on what to believe. Thomas redirects this conversation to the simple but potent practices we can engage in body, heart, mind and spirit to awaken us to a greater measure of the Sacred right here and now. “At-one-ment” becomes a spiritual reality in which we can all participate, not just a historical event in which a select few believe.

In our conversation, we covered some important themes of the book, including how we can all at once seek transformation and already feel whole; how we are both individuals and yet deeply connected to everything and everyone around us, and how the mind, while indispensable and so prominent in our modern society, is far from the only way of knowing.

We really encourage you to pick up this book — it’s available now on Amazon and we think it makes a great gift as well.

And, as a note for those interested: Thomas will also be leading a 3-day retreat in Salt Lake City in May 2024, diving deeper into the concepts of At-one-ment. Additional details can be found here:

https://lowerlightswisdom.org/classes/the-art-and-practice-of-becoming-one-retreat-may-2024

We’re very excited about this week's episode. In early 2021, in the wake of January 6th, McKay Coppins contacted Mitt Romney with a bold request: he wanted to write a biography about him. But McKay had stipulations: not only would he have full access to the Senator  — he’d also retain full editorial control. To his surprise, Romney agreed, and shortly had given him stacks of journal entries, emails, and texts. They met over 45 times over the coming years for lengthy interviews, and McKay also interviewed many of Romney’s closest friends, family, and colleagues.

That unprecedented access has now turned into a book called Romney: A Reckoning, which just debuted at #3 overall on the New York Times Bestsellers list. 

We hoped that this interview would offer a unique take on this subject, and we spent some real time on questions of integrity, culpability, and faith. McKay brought not only deep insight into the psyche of one of the most fascinating—and in some cases polarizing—political figures of our time, but he also brought really clear-eyed discernment of his own. He helped us work through some other fascinating questions: what does it take to live on the edge of inside, and what does it cost? Is it possible to stave off cynicism while remaining pragmatic about having impact for good?

McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers politics, religion, and national affairs. He’s a former visiting fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and has won the Aldo Beckman Award from the White House Correspondents Association for his coverage of the Trump presidency and the Wilbur Award for religion journalism. 

Organized religious communities have seen steep declines in participation in recent decades and the rise of the “nones,” those who have no particular religious affiliation, is a well-rehearsed story. But that story isn’t just about loss and lack. New forms of spiritual life and meaning-making are emerging that seek to fill the universal longings of the human heart: belonging, transformation, and love. Casper ter Kuile has studied this horizon of spiritual frontier for many years. 10 years ago, he and fellow Harvard Divinity School classmate Angie Thurston wrote a report called "How We Gather", which looked at how millennials were seeking spirituality in seemingly secular communities like crossfit, soul-cycle or social justice movements.

Since that report, Casper has continued to explore the changing spiritual practices of young people. He started a very beloved podcast called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, wrote a book called "The Power of Ritual" and has recently launched a new project called The Nearness, which is an online space to explore life’s big questions in small communities.

In this conversation, Zach Davis talks with Casper about what he’s learned in his years studying and working on the edge of America’s evolving spiritual landscape.

This week, we’re sharing with you one of sessions we had to kick off our Restore conference, which featured Utah Governor Spencer Cox along with Judge Thomas Griffith.

Before we get going, we’re very excited to announce that we’ve decided to give free digital access to all of our Restore recordings! Although we were joined by 3500 of our closest friends, we know there were so many who wanted to join us but couldn’t for a variety of reasons, so we decided to make all of the sessions available, free of charge. Please head to our YouTube channel and subscribe in order to make sure you see them when they drop in the next week or two.

Gov. Spencer J. Cox is is Utah’s 18th governor and is serving as the  2023-2024 chairman of the National Governors Association. He is developing a national reputation as both a bridge-builder and as a tenacious fighter against social media companies and their effects on teen mental health. That bridge-building is also the foundation of his NGA Chair’s Initiative called “Disagree Better.”

After Governor Cox’s initial remarks, you’ll hear him be joined on stage by Thomas Griffith, who was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit from 2004-2020. Currently, he is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, a Fellow at the Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University, and Senior Policy Advisor to the National Institute for Civil Discourse. Judge Griffith is also a trusted advisor and friend of Faith Matters. 

These two were passionate in their advocacy for disagreement with civility and kindness, and we thought did an amazing job pointing a path forward in all areas of society where we find ourselves opposite someone else on an important issue. We really think this one’s memorable. Thanks as always for listening, and with that, we’ll jump right into the session.

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing a conversation we had originally released almost three years ago — before many of you had started listening to the podcast! It’s the discussion we had with Fiona and Terryl Givens about the ground-shifting book they published in 2020 through Faith Matters Publishing, called All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between.

When this book was first published, we knew it had the potential to truly change lives, and change how Latter-day Saints see the world. It certainly did for us. The book starts by tracing the roots of our religious vocabulary and shows how many fundamental gospel concepts and words have become  unmoored from their original foundations and in many cases, can get us stuck in a gospel of fear that places limits on God’s love and grace.

Fiona and Terryl show us how we can renovate that vocabulary to embrace a gospel of hope where there is no final buzzer or sad heaven, because in their words, "Salvation and heaven are not rewards that God can dispense, or that we can earn. Relationships are forged. Life is the school of love, and our growing capacity for love constitutes the bricks out of which the heavenly Zion will be constructed."

In the book, and in our conversation, Terryl and Fiona address everything from our concepts of heaven, sin, salvation, exaltation, and family togetherness in the eternities. We found the work they do in this important book to be immensely healing and hopeful.

In July of 2022, Rosalynde Welch had a distinct impression while cleaning her house — that she should reach out to Kate Holbrook and ask how she could help share more of Kate’s own writing and thinking with the world.

As many of you know, Kate was a historian, scholar, and a light in so many lives. Kate had been previously diagnosed with a rare eye cancer, which had just entered a terminal phase. As she cleaned, it struck Rosalynde that Kate had spent so much time promoting others’ voices, particularly the voices of women, that the insights Kate herself needed to share were preserved. She reached out immediately, and Kate responded gratefully. Rosalynde, and a few others who she mentions in the episode, began an urgent work of gathering, compiling, and filling in gaps to complete what is now a brand new book of Kate’s writing: Both Things Are True, which is part of the BYU Maxwell Institute’s Living Faith series. Kate, tragically, would pass away only a few weeks after this work began, in August of 2022.

And we want to be really clear about this  — this is a really special book. What comes shining through so clearly is Kate’s gentle nature alongside her “backbone of steel” (as Rosalynde puts it), and perhaps more than anything, her authentic discipleship. As the book’s title indicates, it wrestles with what Joseph Smith called contraries: how the church can be both true, and open to further truth; how revelation can be, how what Kate calls “the crucible of housework” can bring about a sense of both inadequacy and divinity. And, true to Kate’s hope that she’d be remembered for her recipes, the book ends with Kate’s own recipe for what she calls “the perfect chocolate bundt cake.”

Our guest, Rosalynde, is an incredibly insightful scholar who currently works as a Senior Research Fellow at the Maxwell Institute. She has also hosted the Maxwell Institute podcast since March of this year, a resource which we can’t recommend strongly enough, especially with Rosalynde at the helm.

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing one more talk with you from our Restore gathering in 2022. This was one of our absolute favorite sessions, and it was the final presentation, right at the end on Saturday afternoon. We were privileged to hear from Brian McLaren, who shared his simple and incredibly resonant framework for faith development. It’s one that we’ve referenced before on this podcast, and we think you’ll love hearing Brian teach it. Brian does a beautiful job emphasizing that the point isn’t to get everyone to a particular “stage” of faith — rather, it’s creating a Church and a community where each stage is welcome and included.

First, you’ll hear Brian give his presentation, and afterward, Tim and Aubrey sit down for a live Q&A with him. We think Brian brought really key insights to both parts of this session. When we listened back, there was so much there that we hadn’t fully absorbed, and even if you were with us at Restore last year, we think this one’s really worth a listen.

For those of you who haven’t heard Brian from before, he’s a bestselling author, speaker, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for a Christianity that is just, generous, and works with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a core faculty member of  The Living School and podcaster with Learning How to See, which are part of the Center for Action and Contemplation. His newest books are  Faith After Doubt, released in 2021, and Do I Stay Christian?,  which was released in 2022.

Dacher Keltner is a scientist who has been studying happiness and well-being for decades. He writes that he’s taught happiness to hundreds of thousands of people around the world and that twenty years into teaching happiness, he’s actually found an answer to how to live the good life: find awe.

To that end, he’s written a new book called Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life.

The book was not only moving, fascinating and thoroughly researched, it also raised lots of really important questions for us. Among the most important was what implications his research on awe has for religious people. It seems like what Latter-day Saints call “feeling the Spirit” has a strong connection to what Dacher refers to as awe, and we were able to ask Dacher about that. While he’s not a traditionally religious person himself, his exploration of awe has led him to believe that there is a realm of understanding and human experience that is beyond scientific explanation.

On a really practical level, Dacher’s book, and the conversation with him, helped us understand how we can integrate awe into our everyday lives, and illustrated the astounding benefits that an “awe” practice can have for each of us.

Dacher received his PhD from Stanford University in 1989 before joining Berkeley’s psychology department in 1996, where he’s been ever since. Over 500,000 people have enrolled in Dacher’s EdX course, The Science of Happiness, and he’s the host of the podcast also called The Science of Happiness.

When therapist Bonnie Young was a teen, the subject of sexuality was for her, “drenched in fear.” And many of us can probably relate. For many Latter-day Saints growing up in a sexually conservative culture and with a strict law of chastity — for all of the goods those things can bring — feelings of anxiety, fear, and shame around sexuality may be more the rule rather than the exception.

Bonnie’s on a mission to change that, and we think she’s done really important work to do so with her new book, Sex Educated: Letters from a Latter-day Saint Therapist to Her Younger Self. As the title implies, the book is structured as a series of letters, from Bonnie, to herself at various ages, starting as young as ten. It serves as a really useful retrospective, to get into our own minds at various stages of development, and helped remind us that there are really good, constructive, healthy ways to talk about sexuality to kids of any age.

That “talk” — the one that can produce so much anxiety among both kids and parents — is one of the main subjects of our conversation with Bonnie. She also had amazing insights around the difference between lust and arousal, about healthy sexual relationships between committed partners, and how this all fits beautifully into the theology of the Restoration.

Bonnie Young is a licensed marriage and family therapist, frequent presenter and podcast guest, and published author of several academic articles and essays on religion and mental health. She is the founder of Azure Counseling, an online mental health clinic focused on treating clients with anxiety, religious OCD / scrupulosity, and sexual disorders. Bonnie holds a bachelor’s degree in history with an emphasis in Mormon women’s history and a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, both from Brigham Young University. She’s currently completing her doctoral studies at Utah State University in marriage and family therapy. Her dissertation work explores questions about women’s experience with power dynamics in Latter-day Saint marriages.

This week, we’re excited to share with you another gem from our Restore gathering last year. This is a presentation by Jeff Strong.  Now his name may sound familiar to you because Jeff also came on for an incredible episode called “Getting Real About Missionary Work” last year- episode #124, which we highly recommend. That episode is one of Faith Matters’ most listened to of all time.

But in today’s episode, you’re going to hear about Jeff’s experience as a mission president of the Bentonville, Arkansas Mission where he and his wife led a phenomenally successful pilot program with his missionaries. I’ll let Jeff fill in the details — but for us, the story of the Bentonville, Arkansas mission has totally revolutionized the way we imagine missionary work and we can’t wait for you to hear about it.

There are some really interesting visuals in this presentation you may want to see so you can also go to our YouTube channel to watch the video there.

To tell you a little bit about Jeff, in addition to serving as a mission leader with his wife Sara from 2018- 2021 in the Bentonville, Arkansas Mission, Jeff has been a senior level executive at several multinational companies, and has spent almost 3 decades in management. He’s also worked as a consultant and private equity advisor and has served as a special project director at BYU’s Marriott School of Business, where he led the startup of the Marketing Lab. 

Today we talked with Ben Behunin, and we think when you hear him, you’ll feel immediately what we felt: this is someone who is absolutely full of pure, good energy who has been able to fully align his own gifts to serve in the world.

Ben is a full-time artist, potter, and writer who makes his living through creativity. He’s also a stake president in downtown Salt Lake City. 

In our conversation with Ben, he talked about his mission experience and conversion to the Church  — his story is incredibly moving and illustrates in a powerful way that God seems to be working through good people in every tradition and culture.

Ben also shared a lot about how his creativity plays into his role as a leader in the Church, and it was inspiring to hear how innovative he is in his stewardship and work to serve and bless others. Ben also shared what he believes are the gifts that Latter-day Saints, in particular, have to share with the world. 

All in all  — this is a special one that we really think you’re going to want to hear. We can’t wait to introduce you to Ben. You can find out more about his pottery, writing, and other work at potterboy.com.

Links:
https://www.potterboy.com/
https://www.instagram.com/protopiansunited/
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ben-Behunin/author/B00J428YU8

This week we’re sharing something really special  — it’s Terryl Givens’ talk that opened last year’s Restore gathering. In it, Terryl gets more personal than we’ve ever heard him, telling a dramatic story about nearly drowning off the West coast of Africa and how the experience has helped him frame key aspects of his faith.

Terryl also shares some other really meaningful moments from his life and career. In one of our favorite moments, he says "I have come to know the love of God as it is manifest in a community of people working to keep one another from drowning."

We imagine that almost all of you know Terryl by now, but as a reminder, he’s a Neal A. Maxwell Senior Research Fellow at BYU’s Maxwell Institute. He formerly held the Jabez A. Bostwick Chair of English and was Professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond. He is the author of many books about Latter-day Saint history and culture, including, along with his wife Fiona, All Things New, which was published by Faith Matters in 2020.

Religion in America is undergoing a revolution. In 1972, 90% of Americans were self-professed Christians. Now, that number is about 64%. There are now large and growing populations of non-Christians, as well as many who have no particular religious beliefs. Such a time of change has made it an exciting time to be a scholar of religion, charged with making sense of the shifting landscape of American religious experience.

For today’s conversation, Zach Davis sat down with one of those scholars, Charles Stang, the Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Zach went to grad school at HDS and Charlie was one of his very favorite professors.

In the conversation, Charlie discusses his life as a scholar of religion, the path his own spiritual life has taken and shares details about the exciting new research initiative he is leading at Harvard called Transcendence and Transformation.

Charles M. Stang is Professor of Early Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and the Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions. His research and teaching focus on the history and theology of Christianity, in particular asceticism, monasticism, and mysticism in Eastern Christianity. His most recent book, Our Divine Double, was published in 2016 by Harvard University Press.

Before we get started, we just wanted to give you a quick note that this episode does contain frank discussion about sexuality, so you can determine if it’s appropriate for anyone listening in.

For this conversation, we were really happy to bring on our good friend and one of our favorite people, Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, and we know many of you are fans of her of her work, too.

For a long time, we’ve wanted to have a discussion with Jennifer about the concept of modesty—something that anyone who’s grown up in our tradition is intimately familiar with, and which has certainly driven lots of opinions over many years. And we were really glad to be able to talk through several aspects of this topic with her, including the different experiences for men and women, how our cultural definition for modesty can often be too small, and the principles behind the practices.

But once the conversation got going, as it always does with Jennifer, it led back to something bigger — about how all of this, including our sexuality, points toward the ability to have deeper embodied joy, and how there is a real wholeness waiting behind a developmental process that each of us need to go through, including with our own sexuality.

Jennifer is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with a Ph.D in Counseling Psychology from Boston College, where she wrote her dissertation on LDS women and sexuality. She leads both in-person and online courses, workshops, and retreats helping people increase their capacity for deeper emotional and sexual intimacy. You can find her podcast “Conversations with Dr. Jennifer,” on major podcast platforms, and find out more about her work at finlayson-fife.com.

We should also mention that Jennifer will be presenting at this year’s Restore gathering in October.

We’re super grateful to Jennifer for coming on, and really think you’re going to enjoy this episode. 

In recent months, Governor Spencer J. Cox  of Utah has been in the news for the passage of two new state laws: one that puts strict limits on access to social media for teens, and another that would prohibit social media companies from using designs that are addictive to teens. 

Governor Cox believes that social media and smartphones really are the culprit behind a teen mental health crisis that has manifested, for example, in a skyrocketing rate of depression among teen girls. That rate has doubled since 2010, when the smartphone began mass adoption. With this in mind, Governor Cox has made Utah the first state to act in such a direct way.

In this conversation, we asked Governor Cox about the rationale behind these laws, the pushback he expects, and what he thinks the long-term legislative vision should be when it comes to teens and social media. Governor Cox argues that In any other context, if we saw the statistics we're seeing about social media, we would drop everything to fix it. Given these drastic and unprecedented changes in mental health, it seems this is a crucial issue for our young people and that all people of faith should be engaging with this issue that is so important for kids and for the connective tissue of society.

We also want to mention that Governor Cox will be appearing at our upcoming Restore Gathering in October; in that presentation, he’ll be talking about his new initiative as incoming chairman of the National Governors Association: to help Americans “disagree better.” 

We hope that regardless of the side of the political aisle you find yourself on, you can help us engage with the important ideas and issues Governor Cox is bringing to the forefront. As he might say, though we certainly won’t all agree, we can all benefit from learning to do it better.

The Gospel Topics essay titled “Mother in Heaven,” on churchofjesuschrist.org states “The doctrine of a Heavenly Mother is a cherished and distinctive belief among Latter-day Saints.”

It’s with this in mind that three Latter-day Saint women — McArthur Krishna, Ashli Carnicelli, and Trina Caudle, have curated a new collection of writing, poetry, and art called Cherish: The Joy of Our Mother in Heaven.

We were lucky enough to bring McArthur on, along with another one of the book’s contributors, Michal Thomas. We thought that those two women were the perfect pair to come on and speak with us.

Among the subjects we discussed was Elder Dale G. Renlund’s April 2022 General Conference address on the subject of Heavenly Mother — McArthur described the joy she felt when she heard Elder Renlund address the topic in General Conference, in her mind, effectively ending the speculative taboo that Church members shouldn’t even talk about Heavenly Mother. Of course, Elder Renlund did call for an end to “speculation” about Heavenly Mother, and McArthur and Michal fully endorse that idea. As McArthur explains in the episode, it appears that it was unfounded “speculation” by a seminary teacher that led to the half-century-plus “sacred silence” around Heavenly Mother.

These two emphasize that there is so much we can do with our existing beautiful doctrine; everyone should be able to see deity in their own image, and women, in particular, can better understand their own nature by understanding the nature of a Mother in Heaven. And because Heavenly Mother is infinite, there are infinite ways to connect with Her. McArthur and Michal explore that in this conversation, and of course, this new book is a great example of how many are doing it.

We’re really grateful to McArthur and Michal for coming on and having this discussion with us. You can find this new book, Cherish, on Amazon.

This week we are covering the Enneagram, a fascinating topic and a tool that we’ve found to be very helpful and deeply meaningful over the past few years. For this conversation, we were lucky enough to bring on one of the world’s foremost proponents and teachers of the Enneagram  — Ian Morgan Cron.

Ian is a bestselling author, psychotherapist, Enneagram teacher, Episcopal priest, and the host of the podcast "Typology," which has over 20 million downloads. His books include the Enneagram primer The Road Back to You, which has sold over 1,000,000 copies, and the book we based today’s conversation on: The Story of You: An Enneagram Journey to Becoming Your True Self (December 2021).

For those unfamiliar with the Enneagram, at its most essential it is a personality typing system identifying nine types of people and how they relate to one another and the world. But it’s intended to be much more than that  — not just a typing system, but in Ian’s words, “a prescription for deep change.”

In this conversation, Ian does an overview of the nine basic Enneagram types, and you’ll probably see yourself in at least one of them. But he also goes deeper  — Ian says that we all have stories we tell ourselves, and the Enneagram can help us see them, recognize when they’re unhealthy, and start to rewrite them. As we continue on that path, Ian says, we’ll begin to “wake up,” as the mystics have said — and find that everything is brimming with God’s presence.

Over the years, much of the work that we’ve done at Faith Matters has tried to take into account much of the wisdom and research that’s been done in the field of faith and adult development. It’s also been important to us to share and discuss some of the existing models, including Brian McLaren’s four-stage framework, and the “creation, fall, atonement” framework that our amazing friend Jared Halverson has spoken about at Restore and on this podcast.

All that said, we’ve never done a deep dive into the model that deserves as much or more credit than any other for helping people think along these lines in the first place, and that’s James Fowler’s Stages of Faith. Fowler published a book by that title in 1981 that laid a real foundation for understanding faith development systematically. So we’re delighted that in this episode, we finally got a chance to talk about Fowler’s work specifically and in a Latter-day Saint context, and to do that, we brought on our good friend Jana Spangler.

And to be super clear upfront, and this comes out in the episode — it would be a misuse of any stages model to paint a given stage as “better” or “worse,” than others — what matters is not so much the stage we’re in, but how we approach the world around us as we see through the lens of that stage. As Jana says, each stage has its gifts and shortcomings. What these frameworks can do is help give each of us the humility to recognize that there is another way to see things, and to give ourselves enough grace to accept the stage we’re in and confidently live through it thoroughly, and without fear.

Jana Spangler is a Certified Integral Professional Coach at Symmetry Solutions, and member of the International Coaching Federation. She is an alumnus of The Living School where she studied contemplative spiritual traditions and the work of transformation under the direction of Fr. Richard Rohr. Jana’s professional and personal experience combined with her training makes her an expert in the field of faith transitions. She is a sought-after podcast guest, speaker, presenter, and retreat leader. 

In May of this year, the news program 60 Minutes aired a segment exploring the finances of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. David Nielsen, a former portfolio manager at Ensign Peak, the investment arm of the Church, alleged that the Church had been operating improperly as a tax-exempt organization and called for that tax-exempt status to be revoked. 60 Minutes also interviewed W. Christopher Waddell, first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, who denied Nielsen’s claims. Near the end of June, the Wall Street Journal published an article of its own, again emphasizing the size of the Church’s assets and the opulence of its temples.

This is an issue with an extraordinary amount of complexity, and significant moral weight. Though the Church hasn’t publicly disclosed the value of its assets, estimates place it at over $100 billion — put in context, that’s about double the size of Harvard’s endowment, making the Church one of the wealthiest religious institutions, or non-governmental organizations of any kind, in the world.

The questions this raises are clear: how did the Church acquire this much wealth? Is it reasonable to see assets of this size as a “rainy-day fund,” even for a religion with a name attesting that we live in the last days? Is tithing simply “God’s money” and a matter of faith alone, or should members have insight and transparency into Church finances, and how their donations are used? And of course  — what good could be done in the world with $100B or more?

We felt like it was the right time to explore these questions on Faith Matters, and we brought on Aaron Miller to help us sort through some of them. Aaron is a Teaching Professor in BYU’s George Romney Institute for Public Service and Ethics, where he teaches classes on business ethics and nonprofit structure and finance. Though he’s quick to point out that he doesn’t have privileged insight into Church finances, he was able to walk through these issues in a really detailed but understandable way, and to us, he represented extraordinarily clear, objective, and open-hearted thinking on this subject. Aaron also hosts a really cool podcast called “How to Help” that presents conversations and ideas about living a life of positive impact on the world and the people around us. You can check it out wherever you listen to podcasts.

We’re really grateful that Aaron would come on and discuss this tough but important issue. As is the case with all sensitive topics, we’re sure we got something wrong here. Our goal is always to explore tough issues with as expansive a lens as possible, and explore arguments on both sides charitably. No doubt we did that imperfectly, but we hope you know that is our intention.

A few weeks ago, we released a conversation with Terryl Givens about the life of Eugene England. England’s work on atonement theology had felt like it necessitated another conversation, but it was too big to fit into the first one. So this week, we brought Terryl back to talk not just about England’s views, but about atonement generally.

The conversation starts with the fascinating premise that our faith doesn’t actually have an official theology of Atonement. What is clear, doctrinally, is that Christ brought about something of universal importance: as the Book of Mormon says, "we talk of Christ, rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, (and) we prophesy of Christ." (2nd Nephi 25:26) We accept Christ as both savior and healer — but that doesn’t mean that we’ve achieved a consensus understanding of how Christ’s atonement actually accomplished those goals of “saving” and “healing.”

So in this conversation with Terryl, we discussed various atonement theories — what some of the greatest Christian and Latter-day Saint thinkers have posited over the years about how the atonement works; why it’s necessary, and how it can apply in real life. It seemed to us that there was something to value in nearly all of these explorations, and it was fascinating to see how those views have evolved over time.

And, as it always does, conversation with Terryl brought us back to what’s really important: how Christ’s atonement can bring less retribution and more healing to society, and how we can participate in that work. Terryl reminded us that Atonement is about reintegration into loving relationship — not just vertically with God, but horizontally with those around us.

For this week’s episode, we were honored to bring on Alice Faulkner Burch, General Editor of Deseret Book’s new collection of essays by Black American Latter-day Saints: My Lord, He Calls Me. The title of the book comes from an early Black American spiritual called “Steal Away to Jesus.” The book shares contemporary experiences of Black Americans in the Church, and stories from every era of the Restoration.

The essays found in the book are extremely personal — the type of stories you’d only hear as a trusted friend. Alice says that these stories are offered “as a gift for Black Americans and an invitation to white Americans.” In the interview, she shared really important perspectives on not just the experience of Black Americans in the Church, but what it means for each of us to be part of the body of Christ, and how we can more fully embrace the gifts of the Spirit, even “charismatic” ones like those shared in some of the remarkable stories in this book.

Alice was baptized into the Church in July 1984. She served as the first African American in the Chile Santiago South Mission from 1987 to 1988, and in 1989 she was called as the first African American ordinance worker in the Salt Lake Temple. She has served the community as secretary of the Utah Chapter of Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society, secretary for the Utah Black Roundtable, and a member of the annual Utah Juneteenth Committee.

In September of 1857, one of the greatest atrocities in the history of Mormonism was carried out. Now known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, a group of Latter-day Saints led a siege in Southern Utah against a wagon train of emigrants on their way from Arkansas to California. After the siege had dragged on for several days, and under the guise of a truce, leaders of the Mormon party lured the emigrants out of their protective circle of wagons and marched them a short distance across the valley before turning on them in surprise and slaughtering at least 120 unarmed men, women, and children.

The details of this evil are difficult to talk about at all — much less dive deep on — but at the same time, historians Richard E. Turley and Barbara Jones Brown believe that it’s important that we confront history, even its most difficult episodes, with as much honesty and depth as we can.

Rick has served in many roles at the Church over many years, including as managing director of the Family and Church History Department, and managing director of the Public Affairs Department. Barbara is the director of Signature Books Publishing and former executive director of the Mormon History Association.

Together they are the authors of a new book called Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and its Aftermath, which is the second in a two-volume series of exhaustively researched masterworks on the subject. The first book, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, on which Rick was one of the authors and Barbara was a content editor, was published in 2008, and this second volume is the culmination of over 18 years of research, writing, and editing by countless contributors. Though brilliant historians have written about the Massacre before, these books include new research from documents and records that have never before been available.

As we spoke with Barbara and Rick, we were struck by not just their comprehensive knowledge of these tragic events, but by the depth of their empathy for the victims, and insights about how knowledge of difficult history can be part of a larger story of healing and reconciliation. They and many others have been important in spearheading efforts in recent years to allow for that healing, including working with the Church itself and organizations of victims’ descendants.

In fact, Henry B. Eyring credited the work done on the first book in 2007 in an official statement given at the site of the massacre on its sesquicentennial. As part of that statement, he said, “What was done here long ago by members of our Church represents a terrible and inexcusable departure from Christian teaching and conduct. We cannot change what happened, but we can remember and honor those who were killed here…We express profound regret for the massacre carried out in this valley 150 years ago… and for the undue and untold suffering experienced by the victims then and by their relatives to the present time."

What we hope for this episode is what we think Barbara and Rick hope for their book: that it can promote the same work of at-one-ment that is at the core of the Gospel by fully acknowledging the sins of the past, actively listening and working toward healing in the present, and looking forward to a future of deep relationship and connection.

It isn’t easy to be born into a famous family with big expectations. And there’s few families more famous or with bigger expectations than the Kennedys. Tim Shriver’s immediate family includes not only a former US president, a US Attorney General, and a US Senator, but his parents, Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver, founded global humanitarian organizations like the Special Olympics, The Peace Corp, and more. But Tim has risen to the challenge in every respect and is adding a new aspect to the legacy.

In this week’s conversation with Zach Davis, Tim shares what it was like to grow up in his remarkable family, the motivation behind the important initiatives he is currently leading, and how his deeply-held Christian faith shapes all aspects of his life.

Tim serves today as the CEO of  Special Olympics and is also the founder of Unite, a national grass-roots organization dedicated to transcending seemingly intractable difference. He is also a leading researcher focusing on the social and emotional factors in learning and has also produced six films, including Amistad and The Loretta Claiborne Story. He is the author of Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most, and co-editor of The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening. Tim and his wife, Linda Potter, reside in the Washington, D.C area and have five adult children.

For this week's episode, we spoke with Brooke Romney, a guest that had been recommended to us over and over — and we were so happy we were able to connect with her.

Brooke is a writer who began her career on Capitol Hill and whose work has appeared in many publications, including in the Washington Post. She now spends much of her time writing and speaking, particularly on the subject of parenting, but also on social media, connection, and faith. 

In 2021, she published 52 Modern Manners for Today’s Teens, which reached #1 on Amazon’s bestselling Parenting books list, and climbed as high as #29 in its entire catalog of 38 million books. She’s also published I Like Me Anyway: Embracing Imperfection, Connection & Christ.

In our conversation with Brooke, we did talk a lot about parenting, but so many of the principles were broadly applicable. Specifically, we spent time on creating connection with all the people around us, including our children — we talked about some of the habits that are so easy to slip into that can be disconnecting and simple things we may not have thought of that can create moments of connection.

We also talked about “living from our values,” and being willing to be misunderstood and receive feedback when we’re doing so — as Brooke says, listening to other perspectives, even if it’s difficult, is how we get better.

We were so grateful Brooke took the time to come on the podcast, and we really think you’re going to enjoy hearing from her. To follow Brooke and her work, you can head to her website at brookeromney.com and find her books on Amazon. She’s also on Instagram at @brookeromneywrites 

For today’s episode, we were honored as always to bring back one of our favorite people and conversation partners, and likely one of yours: Terryl Givens.

We spoke with Terryl about a book he released in 2021, a biography called Stretching the Heavens: The Life of Eugene England and the Crisis of Modern Mormonism.

Terryl’s work on this biography led to a fascinating portrait of a man many of us look up to, and someone we truly wish we could have met (England died in 2001 at the age of 68). His legacy has proven to be both broad and enduring — in addition to a long and storied career in academia, he was a founder of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and of the Association for Mormon Letters. His writing continues to move and inspire Latter-day Saints today, including through essays that have become classics like Why the Church is as True as the Gospel.

In our interview with Terryl, we talked not just about the arc of Eugene England’s life, but about the principles that arose from the insights he shared and some of the struggles he faced. In particular, we talked through some of the issues that came up for him as a man striving to be both true to his own conscience and to the authority of an institution he fully believed in and loved, when the two didn’t fully align. 

In many ways, this seems to be the conflict at the heart of discipleship and even of Christianity’s creation story. Regardless, we felt like exploring it through the lens of Eugene England’s life was both relevant and poignant.

This book, Stretching the Heavens, was published by UNC Press and is available on Amazon and Audible.

This week’s episode is with an incredible Latter-day Saint poet, Darlene Young. Darlene has just released a new book of poetry, called Here, and published by BCC Press. It’s an honest, vulnerable, relatable, and incredibly approachable book that we laughed and cried our way through.

In our conversation with Darlene, she talked about the value of poetry itself  — how it can be a “dance” to prose’s “walk,” and help us to see life as “more abundant,” and show the moments we might see as mundane in a more poignant and meaningful light.

Darlene also reminded us that in order for art to really affect us, it has to tell the truth — telling the truth is the beginning of healing, and we’ve rarely encountered Latter-day Saint poetry that does this as well as Darlene’s.

And, knowing that we’re releasing this episode Mother’s Day weekend, we also talked with Darlene about her poetry that speaks to the struggles and beauties of motherhood, parenting and the bittersweetness of it all.

Her poetry really does have a way of giving life to feelings that for many of us, may have previously been somewhat indescribable.

In the end, it seemed like “bittersweet” is the word that we kept coming back to when we talked with Darlene and encountered her work. It doesn’t shy away from the difficult, the annoying, or the tedious aspects of our lives — but in a really beautiful way, as faith at its best does, it paints them as part of a fuller picture of beauty and purpose.

Darlene received her BA and MFA from BYU, and has taught English and Writing as adjunct faculty there. If you want to pick up Darlene’s book, again, it’s called Here and published by BCC Press and you can pick it up on Amazon.

For this week’s episode, we’re bringing you a conversation with Jason Whiting, a Professor and Program Director in the Marriage and Family Therapy program at Brigham Young University. ​Jason received his PhD from Michigan State University, and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. He’s also the author of Love Me True: Overcoming the Surprising Ways We Deceive in Relationships.

Jason’s primary research centers around the love lives of couples, and it was fascinating, as a married couple ourselves, to have a marriage and family therapist on the podcast. We found Jason to be extremely personable, insightful, and fun to talk with. 

We were able to ask him several questions that have come up in our marriage, as well as some that we’ve heard from others. Some of our favorite topics of discussion included the Gottman Ratio (the famous research that has been done showing that healthy and lasting relationships often have at least 5 positive interactions for every one negative one), some of his favorite marriage advice, how to have conflict in a healthy way, and what are some signs that he sees commonly in marriages that last.

We’ve been really excited to share this week's interview with you. Our guest was Astrid Tuminez, President of Utah Valley University. Astrid is an absolute delight to talk with and listen to. She’s full of stories, humor, and deep insights that made our time with her pass way too quickly.

This interview actually came about because Astrid wrote an essay in Melissa Inouye and Kate Holbrook’s new book Every Needful Thing. We loved Astrid’s essay and knew we wanted to get to know her better.

Astrid has an absolutely fascinating and unique story. She grew up in the slums of the Philippines, but along with her siblings, was discovered to have an exceedingly bright intellect and was offered a free place at one of the most prestigious and expensive Catholic schools in the area. As a child, she was, religiously, a Catholic, but felt that she was always brimming with questions that were being hushed. When she eventually met the Latter-day Saint missionaries, it was a different experience — they gave her a new framework to think about the world, and weren’t afraid to at least try to answer her questions.

Astrid’s pursuit of education eventually took her to the United States, where she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in international relations and Russian literature from Brigham Young University. She later earned a master's degree from Harvard University in Soviet Studies and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in political science. Before becoming President of UVU, Astrid spent many years in leadership in the corporate, non-profit, and academic worlds.

What we maybe loved most about Astrid was that her unique perspectives make the world of faith and intellect seem expansive, exciting, and adventurous — even full of mystery. She’s found spiritual insight and even practice well outside of Mormonism while simultaneously keeping that “fixed foot” in the Restored Gospel. In a real way, she’s living Joseph Smith’s injunction to “receive truth, let it come from whence it may.”

We’re super excited to share this week’s episode with you. Our interview was with Dan McClellan, a Bible scholar who began sharing his insights and scholarship on TikTok in 2021, and immediately began racking up millions of views and hundreds of thousands of followers.

One of the reasons people seem to resonate with Dan’s content is that he makes traditionally difficult and obscure topics extremely accessible — if you watch any of his videos, you’ll see what we mean, but even those who are pretty unfamiliar with the worlds of the Old or New Testaments will be able to immediately gain helpful and fascinating new understanding from Dan’s videos.

In our interview, Dan shares a bit of story about how he got started, including that one of the reasons he began sharing content on social media was that he saw that people would use outdated or incorrect assumptions about the Bible, or the interpretation of scripture generally, to justify power dynamics that placed themselves at the top. Dan believes that scripture should never be weaponized — and that good scholarship can help us understand how to use scripture in a healthier way.

For those that wonder why we might want to learn the details of the Bible if we primarily want to engage it devotionally, Dan gives an intriguing answer — the more we learn, the more foreign we’ll realize the Bible is, and the more uncomfortable we’ll become. And the more uncomfortable we are, the more we’re forced to grapple with problems and contradictions — something we’ve found can be a truly meaningful struggle that takes one “further up and further in” to a life of deep faith.

Dan received his bachelor’s degree from BYU in ancient Near Eastern studies, then received a masters in Jewish studies at the University of Oxford, a masters in biblical studies in 2013, and a PhD in religion and religious studies from the University of Exeter. From 2013 to 2023, Dan worked as a scripture translation supervisor for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, before leaving to focus on creating more original audio and video content.

You can find Dan’s TikTok channel at @maklelan, or check out his brand new podcast, Data over Dogma, on all the major podcast platforms.

In June 2015, a white supremacist entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and murdered 9 members of the church during a Bible study. During the first court hearing, a number of family members of victims said that they forgave the murderer, Dylann Roof. This act of forgiveness shocked many people. Some people were shocked by witnessing such an act of Christian charity. Others were shocked because they thought expressing forgiveness for such an act, especially so quickly, was wrong, and was only perpetuating the violence on the community under attack. 

In his new book, Forgiveness: An Alternative Account, Harvard minister Matthew Potts draws upon this event and others to explore the deep complexity and transformative power of forgiveness. As he shares in today’s conversation with Zach Davis, forgiveness is less about settling debts of harm and more about learning to move forward in new life, even if our wounds never fully heal.

Matthew Potts is the lead minister at Harvard University’s Memorial Church and the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School. His research and teaching focuses on sacramental and moral theology, religion and literature, and preaching. He is the author of two books, Cormac McCarthy and the Signs of Sacrament and Forgiveness: An Alternative Account. He is also co-host of the podcast "Harry Potter and the Sacred Text".

For today’s episode, we thought we’d bring you a really special story that we think we can all learn from, especially during this Easter season as we ponder concepts like redemption and new life.

Our guest was Dave Durocher, the Executive Director of The Other Side Academy in Salt Lake City. If you’re an especially up-to-date listener, or you went to Restore last year, you’ve heard a little bit about The Other Side’s story from Joseph Grenny, Dave’s partner and the Academy’s Chairman.

But with Dave, you’ll get to hear about “the other side” of The Other Side. By the time he was 38, Dave had been to prison four times for a total of 15 years. Not long after his release, Dave was arrested again and facing a 29-year prison sentence — but there was one last chance to turn his life around.

We’ll let Dave tell the rest of the story, but we can tell you that it’s just as wild and inspiring as you are imagining.

Dave’s story seems to teach us that while we like to tell dramatic stories of conversion and change, the reality is that there are many lives in which God seems to be doing slow, patient, redemptive work. The manner in which it happens and the timeline it’s on can be as surprising as Jesus’s resurrection was to his disciples; the journey can be excruciating, but as Terryl and Fiona Givens are so quick to point out — God never seems to give up on anyone.

It’s clear that Dave is now doing exactly what he was meant to do all along — and there may have been no other way to get there. Also, quick note about this episode- there's actually a little bit of swearing. So if you are sensitive to that or have little ears who may be listening with you, we just want to make sure you have a heads up. 

This week we’re bringing you a conversation with Rachel Rueckert, a really amazing young writer who recently published a memoir called East Winds: A Global Quest to Reckon with Marriage.

Rachel’s story is a fascinating one. Perhaps due to a highly tumultuous home life as a child, she inherited her suspicions about marriage early. Growing up in the Church, there was a constant drumbeat about marriage and eternal families, but those lessons always seemed to raise more questions for her than they did answers.

Eventually, Rachel met her husband-to-be, Austin, and soon found herself on the adventure of a lifetime — a year-long backpacking trip on a shoestring budget that would serve as a honeymoon and bring her face to face with marriage in its stark reality. In between an escape from rabid dogs in the Amazon, accidentally stumbling upon democracy protests in Hong Kong, and a 500-mile trek through Spain in sandals, Rachel found a way to finally confront her deepest questions. This book is the incredibly insightful and beautifully written result, and we feel lucky to have, in a sense, gone in this journey with her.

In our conversation with Rachel, we were able to explore her “quest to reckon with marriage” as well as some other fascinating themes in the book: how does one learn to trust their intuition, or recognize the Spirit? How should life’s biggest decisions get made? And at Church in any community, how can we truly practice being brothers and sisters when we all have such different perspectives?

We’re so excited to share this conversation with you, and are confident in saying that you really need to pick up Rachel’s book. It was published by BCC Press, and is available online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

When BYU professor Eric Huntsman was growing up, he spent time among Catholics in Pittsburgh and Baptists in Alabama and came to love the different ways other Christian denominations worshiped Jesus. And one of his favorite ways that other Christians worshiped was during Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter Sunday. Over the years, Eric began incorporating many Holy Week traditions into his spiritual practice and found it helped him connect more deeply with the Savior and his atoning sacrifice. 

To help other Latter-day Saints who may be interested in learning more about Holy Week and developing ways of celebrating it, Eric, along with co-author Trevan Hatch, has recently published a book called Greater Love Hath No Man: A Latter-day Saint Guide to Celebrating the Easter Season. 

In today’s conversation, Zach Davis spoke with Eric about his journey as a disciple and scholar of Jesus, what traditional Holy Week commemoration looks like, and how Easter is a time when we can connect with our fellow Christian brothers and sisters.

Eric Huntsman is a professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU. In April of 2023, Eric began a two and a half year appointment of the BYU Jerusalem Studies Program, from where he joined us for this conversation. After initially researching Roman history, Eric’s scholarly efforts have focused on the life and ministry of Jesus in the New Testament Gospels, especially the Gospel of John.

This week we’re sharing with you one of the most popular presentations from our Restore gathering that happened last October  — a talk by Joseph Grenny called “The Other Side.”

As a young father, Joseph was determined to have the perfect family. All of kids would be active, go on missions, go to BYU and be stalwart. But that dream was shattered when two of his sons got involved in drugs and crime. Eventually, one son overdosed and almost lost his life. 

As a result of that grief and helplessness, Joseph began a spiritual journey that transformed his understanding of God, the atonement and the path to peace. 

He eventually felt called to put these principles into action by creating a school for former felons seeking to transform their lives. Called The Other Side Academy, it is a remarkable organization and community located in downtown Salt Lake City that provides miraculous and life-changing hope and healing. 

This was an absolute highlight for us at Restore and we’re so happy to share it with you. If you’d like to see Joseph’s presentation visually which is probably what we’d recommend since his slides are so compelling, you can head to the Faith Matters website or YouTube channel. 

Joseph Grenny is a New York Times bestselling author of eight books, including the leadership and communication classic Crucial Conversations. He is a co-founder of Unitus Labs, an international nonprofit that has helped over 15 million of the world’s poorest to move toward self-reliance. And in 2015 he and his colleagues started The Other Side Academy, a 2 and a half year school for those with long histories of crime, addiction and homelessness.

For this week’s episode, we’re bringing you a story that we really think will uplift and inspire you. Our guest was Liz Shropshire, the founder of Peace Through Music.

In our interview with her, Liz tells the story of how she got started teaching music to children in Kosovo who had been affected by the war and ethnic cleansing that took place there in the 1990s. She knew just two things: she could teach music, and she wanted to help: so she got on a plane and made her way to a refugee camp where she began teaching her first group of kids. There was no way Liz could foresee the broad and deep impact that this inspired work would eventually have — and she’ll share some of that with you today.

Liz had tons of great insights to share, but one of the most memorable was that the environments in which children grow up can give them dramatically different worldviews. Liz has found that when a child grows up in war and without meaningful work or learning, the message they learn implicitly is that nothing matters. But by giving children ways to volunteer and serve, they can become leaders in their communities and begin to see that they can make a real difference for people.

Liz also shared insights on how each of us can find our own unique ways to lift and serve in the world, and her advice boils down to something simple: just get to work, and trust that God will step in if we’re heading in the wrong direction.

We want to send Liz a special thank you for coming on and sharing her inspiring story. If you’d like to contribute or help in some other way, check out Liz’s organization's website at https://www.peacethroughmusicinternational.org

Several years ago, Matthew Holland, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s son, was on a sabbatical at Oxford University. One day, he passed by a door that said “Chaplain.” Intrigued, he decided to knock. Thus began a remarkable relationship with Andrew Teal, an Anglican priest and lecturer in theology at Pembroke College, Oxford. Since then, Andrew has developed a close friendship with Elder Holland, attended General Conference, given a BYU devotional address and is currently partnering with BYU to establish a center for faith and reconciliation at Oxford.

In this episode, Zach Davis spoke with Andrew about his ongoing journey of friendship with the Latter-day Saint community, how we can build truly meaningful relationships with those who are different than us, and why, for Andrew, God’s infinite love for us remains inconceivable. 

Andrew Teal is a chaplain, fellow and lecturer in theology at Pembroke College, Oxford University. He writes and teaches in many areas, including Historical & Systematic Theology, Early Christianity, and the arts. He is the author of many publications, including the 2013 book, The God-Man: Athanasius in Early Christianity.

** To help, head to https://www.toukrainewithlove.org **

It’s been exactly a year since the world received the shocking news that Russian troops had invaded Ukraine, and exactly a year since the lives of millions of Ukrainian people changed forever.

As news of troop movements, cities under siege, refugee crises and all kinds of geopolitical saber-rattling has come to those of us outside Ukraine, many of us have gone through varying stages of shock, dismay, and fear. But what have been harder to come by than news are stories: the stories of families whose lives have been upended, of women and men who have displayed true heroism, and of the bright light of miracles, big and small, shining through the darkness of war.

And today, we’re bringing you a few of those stories, starting with the story of Svitlana Miller and her remarkable organization, To Ukraine With Love. This is an organization we’ve gotten to know over the past several months and have been astounded at the sheer effectiveness of the work they’re doing: providing immediate needs like food, sleeping bags, and generators — even building homes for people displaced by the war. We’ve been stunned by the impact of each dollar they’ve raised, all of which goes 100% to direct aid in Ukraine, not to wages for team members or any other expense.

Svitlana Miller is a native Ukrainian who founded To Ukraine With Love  once she saw the immediate the needs of her friends, family, and country. She had been running an international education agency from the United States since 2009, and with her team and contacts in Ukraine, Svitlana was able to mobilize aid in a remarkably short amount of time.

Svitlana was joined in this conversation by her team member Nancy Cadjan, who has over a decade of experience working with the Global 500 C-Suite and the heads of HR in the biggest organizations in the world. She lived in Russia in the 1990s and has been connected to Eastern Europe for the past 30 years and immediately jumped in to help with both feet when this crisis began.

We were honored to have these two on, because they’ve been instrumental in helping us be more connected to Ukraine. Through them, we’ve met families whose homes have been literally destroyed in a moment by direct missile hits, and we’ve been able to learn from and connect with on-the-ground heroes who have changed everything about their work and lives to help relieve suffering.

We really believe that these two, and this organization, are remarkable in the work that they’re doing and the impact they’re having. If you listen to this episode, and feel moved to help, you too can be a part of their direct relief efforts, getting food on tables and roofs over heads. You can find out how to help or get in touch at toukrainewithlove.org.

Today, you’re going to hear a really special episode. It’s a conversation with Melissa Inouye and Kate Holbrook that took place last summer, not long before Kate’s passing in August 2022. We spoke with Kate and Melissa about an amazing new book that they co-edited called Every Needful Thing: Essays on the Life of the Mind and the Heart.

In their book, Kate and Melissa gathered so many remarkable Latter-day Saint women who are true leaders in their fields, including academics, psychology, medicine, law, and many more. These women also represent countries around the world; it’s a truly diverse book and gives wonderful insight into how broad the definition of “Latter-day Saint” can be.

Kate and Melissa talked through so many important questions with us, including how we can belong exactly as we are and how we may have more choice in the matter of belonging than we think we do; how it’s important to be thoughtful as we think about change and progress in a global Church; and perhaps most importantly, how we can reconcile both mind and spirit as we live our lives. As the book’s description puts it: “Instead of pushing us to choose between faith and reason, love and law, truth within the restored gospel and truth in the wider world of God’s children, these writers urge us to seek ‘anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report’ and learn to live in a world of complexity and abundance.”

Melissa received AB and PhD degrees from Harvard University. She is a senior lecturer in Asian studies at the University of Auckland and a historian at the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Kate received a BA from Brigham Young University, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD from Boston University. At the time of her death, Kate was the Academic Outreach Director at the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where she focused on women’s history.

We’re really grateful that we got to hold this conversation with these two, especially at the time we did. Kate was an influence for beauty, truth, and goodness wherever she went, including on us at Faith Matters. And for those interested in furthering Kate’s work — when she passed away, a scholarship was set up in her honor, which anyone can donate to at  https://www.kateholbrook.org/scholarship/

This new book, Every Needful Thing is available on Amazon and at Deseret Book.

This week, we’re sharing another one of our favorite presentations from our Restore conference, given by Jennifer Finlayson-Fife and called Developing Sexual Wholeness.

In her talk, Jennifer brilliantly laid out human sexuality in terms of development, in the same way we might talk about adult development or spiritual development. Jennifer teaches that in its earliest stages, our sexuality is egocentric and focused on ourselves; eventually, moves into a social stage with deeper awareness of others and concerned with belonging, and finally, into a self-authoring stage, where we both know our own mind and move beyond self-preoccupation and into expansive love.

Jennifer is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with a Ph.D in Counseling Psychology from Boston College, where she wrote her dissertation on LDS women and sexuality. She teaches online courses and live workshops to individuals and couples seeking to develop their capacity for deeper emotional and sexual intimacy.  Additionally, she offers limited private and group coaching services to individuals and couples who have benefitted from her podcasts and courses and are looking for more direct input on improving their lives and relationships.  She is frequent contributor on the subjects of sexuality, relationships, and spirituality to many Latter-day Saint themed blogs, magazines, and podcasts. You can find her podcast “Conversations with Dr. Jennifer,” on major podcast platforms, and find out more about her work at finlayson-fife.com.

This week's guest is Richard Bushman, who is simply one of the most important scholarly voices ever in the Latter-day Saint tradition.

Of course, Richard has been interviewed many times over the years, and we wanted to make sure that we covered new ground while asking for his perspective on some of the questions that have propelled and perplexed us throughout our faith journey.

So in this very wide-ranging conversation, Richard spoke about his own early journey from agnosticism to faith; why learning history, and learning from history, are so important; the revelatory process, including his experience giving many patriarchal blessings; the legacy of Rough Stone Rolling, and even why he wants to live in a world where there could be such a thing as gold plates.

Richard received his AM, AB, and PhD in the history of American civilization from Harvard University. Through the years he has taught at Harvard, BYU, Boston University, the University of Delaware, and Columbia. He married his wife, Claudia Lauper Bushman, in August 1955, and together they have four sons and two daughters. He’s written many books, including, of course, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, which has been called “the crowning achievement of the new Mormon history.” Richard served a mission New England and Atlantic Canada, and his Church callings over the years include seminary teacher, bishop, stake president, and stake patriarch.

Richard is also the co-founder and Chairman of Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, a project that is incredibly important to him; you’ll hear him discuss in the episode why he believes that art is the next frontier for the Church, and why he’s so excited about what’s to come. The Center will be having a large festival in 2024; to stay up to date with that project or to donate, head to centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org.

For today’s episode, we were honored to bring back the inimitable Terryl Givens. Terryl and his son Nathaniel have recently released a new book, called Into the Headwinds: Why Belief Has Always Been Hard  — And Still Is.

This is a remarkable book and addresses some of life’s most profound questions, especially as they pertain to the modern world. Terryl and Nathaniel argue that though many of us see faith as “hard” in our scientific and rational age — but the reality is that for many years faith may have been too easy. People of faith, and Christians in particular, have long benefited from being a part of the in-crowd—since Rome adopted Christianity as its official religion, it’s been quite comfortable to call oneself a Christian. But Terryl and Nathaniel say that that may have produced a more fragile discipleship, and one that focused more on how we believe than on how we live.

So in this conversation, we dived into all of this with Terryl — including how he defines faith, the limits of agency, how reckoning with our own biases is key to our own spiritual life, and how we can look well outside our own tradition to find examples of true discipleship.

We’re sure that most of you know Terryl, but just in case: Terryl Givens is a Neal L. Maxwell Senior Fellow at Brigham Young University. He formerly held the University of Richmond's Jabez A. Bostwick Chair of English, where he was professor of literature and religion. He is the author and coauthor of numerous books, including All Things New, The God Who Weeps, and The Crucible of Doubt.

Nathaniel Givens, Terryl’s co-author on this book, has been published in First Things, the Deseret News, and RealClearReligion on the topics of faith and politics. With graduate degrees in economics and systems engineering, Nathaniel works as a data analyst and entrepreneur.

For today’s episode, we spoke with Kristian Heal.  BYU’s Maxwell Institute has just released an amazing new volume of research called Ancient Christians, that offers remarkable insights into Christianity’s earliest centuries. It’s intended for Latter-day Saints, but based on the best scholarship available to give us a glimpse into what these ancient Christians believed,  how they worshiped, and the ways in which they saw and experienced the world.

Kristian Heal was one of the editors of this volume, and wrote the chapter that we spoke with him about, called Preaching Christ. In his chapter, Kristian explores several fascinating topics that we got to ask him about, including the ritual of baptism, and what were referred to as “the deep mysteries of baptism,” what sabbath worship looked like early on, and how he deals with the concept of “apostasy” and “restoration,” including how we can view the evolution of Christianity without seeing it through an “us vs. them” paradigm.

And for those of you just being introduced to Kristian and his work: he’s a Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. He received a BA in Jewish History and Hebrew from University College London, an MSt in Syriac studies from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in Theology from the University of Birmingham.

As we study the New Testament this year, we actually hope to bring you more of the insights that the Maxwell Institute has shared through this book.

This week, we’re excited to share with you another presentation from our Restore conference, and one that we think was super memorable to everyone who attended. It was given by our friend Jared Halverson, and called “Don’t Let a Good Faith Crisis Go to Waste.”

In it, Jared shares his experiences as a scholar, teacher, mentor, and person of faith who’s been through — and helped others work through — faith crises and faith journeys of all types. And what we loved about it was he completely removes “fear” from the experience of faith crisis — for Jared, not only is faith crisis “ok,” it’s actually a sacred space that many people have even found necessary for their own continued progress on the path of faith.

While honoring many of the developmental faith frameworks that have helped so many, Jared brings his own to the table: a simple 3-stage model that he calls “creation, fall, atonement.” As you listen, you’ll hear the depth of this framework and understand why it can be such a useful map for many people as they experience shifts in their faith. Tim and I really related to what Jared had to say here, especially because we consider our own faith crises gifts we wouldn’t give up for anything — and Jared honors the “crisis” part of it while pointing to something even more beautiful on the other side.

Jared is an associate professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, and has taught religion courses at the high school and college level since 1998. He studied history and religious education at BYU and earned a PhD in American religious history at Vanderbilt University, focusing on secularization, faith loss, and anti-religious rhetoric. He is frequently involved with interfaith dialogue, has been a featured speaker in both devotional and academic settings across the country. He also hosts a popular YouTube channel and podcast called “Unshaken.”

This week, we’re bringing back a couple of our favorite guests and close friends, McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding. McArthur and Bethany have just released a new book titled: In the Image of Our Heavenly Parents: A Couples’ Guide to Creating a More Divine Marriage.

Bethany and McArthur have done super interesting and important work with this book — it uses the model of “divine partnership,” based on the doctrine of Heavenly Parents, to inspire couples to create powerful and fulfilling partnerships in their own marriages. They do so in each chapter with sections that they call “prophetic counsel,” mining the rich resources we have from Church leaders that point to true equality and partnership in marriage, as well as “professional expertise,” allowing marriage and family therapists to help couples find practical ways to make that ideal a reality.

The book also functions like a workbook with lots of practices that help us understand our own values and goals for our relationships: we really think it’s something lots of Latter-day Saint couples would enjoy going through together.

It really is something special that they’ve put together, and we’re grateful they sat down with us to talk about it.

McArthur Krishna has a master’s degree in communication from BYU, and also co-owned Free Range, which is an award-winning marketing business focused on telling social justice stories. In 2011, she moved to India and started writing books, which she’s been doing ever since.

Bethany Brady Spalding has a Master of Public Health from the University of London, and has worked for both large, international organizations and small, local non-profits to advance children’s health and wellness in South Africa, India, and the USA. She calls Richmond, Virginia home where she runs school gardens, writes books, and raises three girls.

This book was published as an e-book and can be purchased at dstreetpress.com.

This week, we were honored to bring on a guest we’ve hoped to have on for years — Susan Cain. In 2013, she released her book Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking.  But today, we brought Susan on to talk about her new book, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, another masterwork that reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and has been praised by Brene Brown, Glennon Doyle, and Adam Grant. This book touched us deeply with its key truth: that somehow, feelings of deep pain and deep joy are often intimately linked. In Susan’s words, “Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of long­ing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute aware­ness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired.”

In this conversation with Susan, we talked about how sadness may be the strongest agent available to us for connection to others, how embracing bittersweetness may be the antidote to toxic perfectionism, and how longing is the very essence of faith.

Susan’s books have been translated into 40 languages, and spent over eight years on The New York Times best seller list. Fast Company magazine has named Susan one of its Most Creative People in Business.

Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her TED talks on the power of introverts and the hidden power of sad songs and rainy days have been viewed over 40 million times. She is an honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School. She lives in the Hudson River Valley with her husband, two sons and golden doodle, Sophie. You can find out more about Susan and her work at susancain.net.

Check out Susan's 30-day “Bittersweet: Practices and Reflections course” at courses.susancain.net.

As we imagine many of you have, we’ve been thinking a lot about Jesus these last few weeks. From the nativity we set up in our living room to the movies we’re watching to the hymns we’re singing in Church, this is a time that in so many beautiful ways, makes him more prominent in our lives and minds.

And one question naturally comes up from there: when we imagine Jesus, what do we see? For many of us, it’s probably heavily influenced by the art we grew up with. If you’re like us, you might even be imagining the famous Del Parson painting, featuring the red-robed Jesus with piercing blue eyes.

But as today’s guest, Esther Candari, points out, some of this imagery strays quite far from what Jesus, a middle-eastern man born 2000 years ago, probably looked like. But she’s also quick to point out that historical accuracy may not be the point either — none of us do know what Jesus looked like. And if Jesus is the Savior of the World, then couldn’t there be room for diverse images Jesus in religious art that allows members of a similarly diverse, worldwide Church to resonate deeply and personally with it?

That’s what we spoke about with Esther in today’s episode, and we found her perspectives fascinating. To give you just a bit more about her background, Esther Hi’ilani Candari is an Asian-American artist and educator from Hawai’i. She has an BFA from BYU-H, an MFA from Liberty University, studied at the New York Academy of Art, and interned with Joseph Brickey. One of her favorite projects so far was working on the Rome Temple Visitors Center mural with Joseph. Her work can be found in galleries and bookstores across Utah including Deseret Book. In addition to her studio work, she teaches art courses for Southern Virginia University, manages programming for Writ & Vision Gallery, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Dialogue Foundation. In her ward she serves as the first counselor in the Relief Society Presidency. 

 —

Lee Correia is the artist we mentioned: https://ascartistry.myshopify.com/products/heavenly-mother-print

Tips from Esther:

• You choose what is displayed in your lessons and homes. We are a home centered church. Teaching the Savior’s Way, the current official teacher’s manual for church curriculum, urges instructors to, “Consider how using music, stories, pictures, and other forms of art can invite the Spirit, clarify gospel principles in memorable ways, and help learners relate the gospel to their everyday lives.”
• Buy from artists directly.
• Always credit art when you repost it and if you are using it for any materials/products, even if it is just for church. Check with the artist first.
• Find ways to support artists of color! It doesn’t just have to be cash. Personal example, giving educational information and experiences freely. If you know them personally, offer to watch their kids if they are a mom artist. Donate supplies. Volunteer what skills/resources you have to help them promote their work. 
• Volunteering to support group activities like I AM.
• If you are an artist, create art that is genuine to your personal experience.
• Deseret Books functions as a business, vote with your dollars.
• Write letters to decision making entities, such as the president of Deseret Book, or members of the temple art committee. Include notes on what was done well as well as what needs to improve. A little bit of strategy can go a long way and sometimes people who haven’t done the work that you have to see biases in art need to be shown where they got it right and where they got it wrong so they know what to aim for more frequently. 
• Have open conversations with your ward/stake leaders about what art is selected for church buildings.

Meetinghouse Mosaic: https://meetinghousemosaic.com/

Today we’re sharing with you one of our absolute favorite presentations from our Restore gathering that happened in October  — a talk by Patrick Mason that he called “Envisioning the Restoration’s Third Century.”

As we prepare for our Church to enter into this next era, it’s become increasingly clear that something fundamental has changed; people inside and outside the Church are seeing the world and their place in it in different ways. Patrick points out that the world itself is rapidly becoming more secular, or, at the very least, less religious. The response of some of our Christian brothers and sisters has been to advocate for a withdrawal from the world, the creation of a religious counterculture set up opposite mainstream secular society.

But Patrick advocates for something different here — he says that even if that were possible, it’s probably not a good idea, and it’s certainly not what Jesus asked us to do. Not only did Christ’s incarnation set a literal example of going “into the world,” he also told his disciples explicitly to do so in his great commission. 

Patrick also reminds us that we’re to do that Christian work not with fear, but with a spirit of love — following Christ’s example again by ministering to the broken-hearted, the betrayed, and the marginalized — and to those affected by war, poverty, racism, or any other type of prejudice or violence. That’s how Patrick believes we can truly fulfill our mission as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and participate in the audacious work of “saving the world.”

You’ll also hear Dawn Dimick, who’s recently become the first woman to be approved by the Church to be an army chaplain, ask some really insightful follow-up questions to Patrick after his presentation.

This was an absolute highlight for us at Restore and we’re so happy to share it with you. If you’d like to see Patrick’s presentation visually, along with his slides, you can head to the Faith Matters YouTube channel. And of course, digital access to our entire Restore gathering is available for purchase at faithmatters.org/restore.

In Japanese culture there is a beautiful practice called Kintsugi, which translates roughly to “golden repair”. This is how it works: when a piece of ceramic breaks, like a teacup or plate, instead of gluing the broken pieces back together so that the cracks are hidden, a special gold or silver adhesive is used so that the fractures are emphasized and even celebrated. 

In this episode, Zach Davis spoke with Makoto Fujimura, an artist and writer who has reflected deeply on the meaning of kintsugi and more broadly about the relationship of art and faith. In their conversation, they explore how beauty can help us draw near to God, the role of creativity in bridging our differences, and how we can live with hope even in times of despair.

Makoto Fujimura is a leading contemporary artist whose art has been described by David Brooks of New York Times as “a small rebellion against the quickening of time”. Fujimura is also an arts advocate, writer, and speaker and was recently awarded the Kuyper prize for his religious engagement in matters of social, political, and cultural significance. He is the author of several books, including Art+Faith: A Theology of Making.

We couldn’t be more excited about today’s episode, and it’s with someone we’ve wanted to get on the podcast for years — Peter Enns. 

Pete is a well-known bible scholar and is the Abram S. Clemens professor of Bible Studies at Eastern University in Pennsylvania. 

In recent years, Pete has become well known for several highly popular books, including How the Bible Actually Works, The Bible Tells Me So, and the book we discussed with him today: The Sin of Certainty.

In addition to his research and writing, Pete co-hosts the podcast The Bible for Normal People.  

In The Sin of Certainty, Pete opens up about his own faith journey, including what he calls “uh-oh” moments — those moments that, as Pete says, “wreak havoc with our neatly arranged thoughts of God, the world, and our place in it.”  He makes the argument that a faith preoccupied with correct thinking can quickly become exhausting as we try to fit our “uh-oh” moments into our previous ways of thinking and believing. Pete insists that there’s a different way — the way of listening to our “uh-oh” moments and learning from them, even letting them change us  — and finding our faith transform from a rigid certainty about God to a radical trust in God.

We really think you’re going to enjoy this conversation, and we’re super grateful to Pete for coming on.

Everything seemed to be going right for Jason Portnoy. While studying engineering at Stanford, his career took a sharp and unexpected turn upward when he met the CEO of a new startup — a company that became PayPal. He was soon offered a job, jumped on the rocketship and didn’t look back. The years that followed led him to success after success, and Jason became a prominent figure in the high-flying worlds of tech and venture capital. The money and opportunities were endless. In the meantime, Jason got married and had his first child. He was living the dream.

But not everything was as it seemed. In fact, Jason was living a secret double life; one that had started with online pornography and led to a dark world of lies, deceptions, extramarital affairs, envelopes full of money, and casual hookups. Eventually, the two worlds collided, causing Jason to rethink everything: where he was, how he got there, and where he was going.

Jason has since turned his life completely around — largely influenced by his life coach, Jason learned that shame thrives in secrecy, that taking radical responsibility for one’s life really can change everything, and that in very literal ways, the truth really does set us free. He’s emerged with a new sense of spirituality and mission, and finds himself on a quest to live a life full of love and service.

Jason recently released a new memoir called Silicon Valley Porn Star, a deeply vulnerable and moving book. And in this episode, he joined us to tell his story. We’re deeply grateful to Jason for his willingness to share what he’s been through and what he’s learned. 

This episode is being released jointly with Jody Moore from Better Than Happy, and was co-hosted by Jody and Tim.

A few years ago, we were invited by some good friends to see a Christmas concert their kids were participating in. We were happy to be invited, and of course, wanted to support our friends and their kids! So we headed to Salt Lake City expecting a fun evening.

But when we walked into Abravanel Hall, we knew something was going on that we didn’t understand. The place was buzzing — it was packed full of people, with a tangible excitement in the air. We took our seats, and when the lights went down, nearly 1000 musicians flooded the stage and filled the balconies around us. When the music began, we were hit with a wall of sound unlike anything we’d ever heard. The quality of instrumentation, singing, and arrangement was truly incredible — by the time the concert was over, it felt like every person in attendance had been profoundly moved.

That was our first introduction to Millennial Choirs and Orchestras, known as MCO, founded in 2007 by Brett and Brandon Stewart — and now home to over 4,000 musicians in five different chapters.

Brett and Brandon are brothers, both with incredible musical resumes. Brett received a doctorate degree in choral conducting with cognate studies in composition from the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music, a master’s degree in choral conducting from California State University, Long Beach, and a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from BYU. All in all, he’s been teaching music for nearly three decades, and is an accomplished conductor, composer, pianist, and vocalist.

Brandon received a bachelor’s degree from BYU before going on to receive a Master’s Degree from Juilliard, and being invited to complete a doctorate program and teach at Juilliard — before choosing to instead join his brother Brett and found MCO. In addition to his talents as a conductor, composer, and vocalist, Brandon has been second-prize winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition and the first prize winner of the MTNA national collegiate piano competition.

Brett and Brandon tell the  founding story in the episode itself, but here we’ll just say that these two have felt guided each step of this journey over the last fifteen years, including in some difficult moments that have turned into remarkable blessings for the choir and for audiences around the world.

We’re releasing this episode this week because over the next few weeks, MCO will be conducting its Christmas Concert series, with concerts in Utah, Arizona, California, Texas, and Idaho. You can still find tickets to the concerts and we can promise that you won’t be disappointed. To get those tickets, head to millennial.org.

You can also find a book about the MCO story, called Divine Orchestration,  written by our friend Greg Trimble and available on Amazon.

*This discusses the topic of sexual abuse and prevention of sexual abuse. Please use discretion in determining whether or not this is a suitable episode for you or for anyone listening in.*

Sexual abuse and sexual violence are shockingly prevalent. In the United States, about 1 in 4 girls, and 1 in 13 boys experience child sexual abuse. In their lifetimes, over half of women and 1 in 3 men will experience sexual violence. And it’s remarkably common for child sexual abuse to go undisclosed for decades: One study showed that the average age at the time of reporting child sex abuse was 52 years old.

As Latter-day Saints, we’re encouraged, to “do everything we can to prevent abuse and to protect and help victims,” Pres. Nelson re-emphasized this in his conference talk last month. we hope this conversation can help us all do that more effectively. 

Our guests are Sage Williams and Rebecca Bettilyon (please listen to the podcast intro to find out more about Rebecca and Sage).

With Sage and Rebecca, we cover issues like the prevalence of abuse, who perpetrators often are, how to recognize abuse, the body's autonomic response system and how we could teach the law of chastity to prevent feelings of shame, and how our communities can be one of the best tools we have in preventing abuse.

All of us recognize that our comments in the conversation today are raw, real, imperfect and incomplete. We’re all still learning how to articulate our thoughts and feelings on these difficult topics in public, and together with Rebecca and Sage, we ask for some grace and understanding of our intent to inspire healing for everyone impacted by sexual abuse.

NOTES:

• CDC statistics for adults and children
• Policy Brief, including average age of disclosing sexual abuse)
• Shame vs guilt
• Reference to children getting sex education from pornography
• Conversation prompt to prepare children for an encounter with pornography:
• Reference for the quote on forgiveness:
  Neil L. Andersen, The Divine Gift of Forgiveness, Deseret Book Co., 2019, p. 225. 
• Abuse.churchofjesuschrist.org
• Liahona articles on consent, sexual assault
• For the Strength of Youth article on relationship boundaries:
• Friend article on body safety: 
• The Mama Bear Effect

In 1945 fifty-two papyrus texts were found concealed in an earthenware jar buried in the Egyptian desert. They turned out to be early Christian writings, some dating all the way back to the first few centuries AD. Elaine Pagels, a historian of religion at Princeton university, has dedicated her life to studying and interpreting these texts and it turns out that there are some surprisingly powerful connections between some of the teachings in these ancient texts and the doctrines of the Restored Gospel. 

In this episode, Zach Davis spoke with Elaine about her life and research, the importance of wrestling with the big questions of existence, and how religion can open transformative new relationships and perspectives.

Elaine Pagels is a historian of religion and the Harrington Spear Paine Professor at Princeton University. Her ground-breaking books include The Gnostic Gospels, The Origin of Satan, and the New York Times best-seller Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. Her most recent book tells her own story and why she loves investigating the history of religion: Why Religion? A Personal Story.

This week, Faith Matters is bringing you a story that defies expectations so completely that you really have to hear it straight from the source. Our guest was Daryl Davis, who’s easily one of the most fascinating and inspiring people we’ve ever met.

Daryl has spent his career as a professional musician, including decades playing alongside rock and roll legends Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. He’s a master of multiple instruments, but specializes on the piano, where he blends unbelievable talent, skill, and passion to create truly incredible music. Make no mistake however, there's much more to Daryl than just music.

Daryl first experienced anti-Black racism from strangers as a young boy, and it inspired a lifelong question: “how can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” Over many years, that question eventually led him to not just meet, but befriend members and leaders of Ku Klux Klan: as those friendships have blossomed, love and respect have grown in the place of hate. Daryl now estimates that he’s been instrumental in persuading over 200 white supremacists to leave their hate groups. 

Along with his story, Daryl shares a provocative message: that we should continuously allow people with incorrect or even abhorrent viewpoints to air their opinions. In Daryl’s view, ignorance is the root of fear, hate, and destruction. And only by remaining together in the same cultural spaces, and even actively seeking out and conversing with those we disagree with, can we counter the root cause — ignorance — with education and exposure to better views. That’s how Daryl says we can then eliminate the symptoms of fear, hate, and destruction.

Daryl has told his story on platforms like The Joe Rogan Experience and TedX, where he’s garnered tens of millions of  views and downloads. 

We want to thank the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, known by their acronym “FAIR,” who introduced us to Daryl and made this interview happen. FAIR is nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing civil rights and liberties for all Americans, and promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity. Daryl is a Senior Fellow and Advisory Board Member at FAIR, and you can find out more about their foundation at fairforall.org. 

For this episode, we were happy to bring on someone that’s been on our list for a long time  — scholar and writer James Goldberg.

James is a fascinating person and Latter-day Saint, and brings a truly unique perspective to our faith. In his words, his family is Jewish on one side, Sikh on the other, and Mormon in the middle. He works as a historian at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is also a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, documentary filmmaker, scholar, and translator. He’s won the Association for Mormon letters awards in both the Drama and Novel categories, for different works, and has been a finalist in the Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Criticism categories. He’s also one of a rotating cast of scholars on BYUtv’s Come Follow Up series. 

Our conversation was wide-ranging and it turns out James has interesting insights to share on just about anything — so we covered several topics, including how Latter-day Saints can approach the Old Testament, wrestling with other difficult scripture or history, and the virtue of the slow, distilled process of creating poetry. We also discussed James’s book of poetry, Let Me Drown with Moses and its provocative title, including the virtue of choosing faith in a chaotic world while maintaining our own moral compass.

We’ve been thinking and talking a lot recently about a phenomenon that sometimes happens and that we’ve occasionally felt ourselves — something you might call a “spiritual whiplash.” It can happen when we’re really uplifted by something: maybe a book we’ve read, an inspiring group of people we’ve been around, or even a transcendental experience in nature. We’re feeling fed, and our cup is full… but then, we come back down to earth. We’re faced with the realities of the mundane, and the imperfections and humanity of the people all around us, including ourselves. 

So — what are we supposed to do when this happens? Is it realistic to expect to stay in this spiritually uplifted state all the time? What about when even our Church meetings don’t feel like they’re recharging our batteries, but instead are draining them? When we’re feeling fed by something, how do we take that feeling with us to share in our everyday settings and communities, rather than resenting the contrast between them? How can we look at members of our communities as God might, rather than judging them for not meeting our standards — or even judging them for what we perceive as them judging us?

To discuss these issues, we brought back a trusted friend and mentor, Patrick Mason. Patrick is the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, and a frequent guest on this show and advisor to Faith Matters. He’s spoken and written quite a bit on this topic, including in his book Planted. He was an amazing conversation partner as we worked our way through some of these questions. We can’t thank him enough for coming back on.

As a note, we referenced our recent Restore gathering several times in the conversation, including presentations that were given by Brian McLaren, Jared Halverson, and Jody Moore. We also reference a few faith development frameworks that you’ll hear, including Brian’s which you can learn more about in his book Faith After Doubt.

In this episode, we were honored to bring back our friend Brian McLaren to talk about his brand new book, Do I Stay Christian?

In this new book, Brian addresses a real question which underlies a startling sociological truth: people are leaving Christianity at a rapid pace. In fact, Pew Research shows that today, about 64% people in the US identify as Christian, after falling rapidly from a high of 90% just a few decades back.

Brian’s book takes an unflinching look at the reasons people might leave Christianity, before spending a lot of time on why someone might choose to stay, as Brian has. But you won’t find any “apologetics” here — rather, Brian looks at staying as part of a broader faith journey — one that can take us out of a simple world of black-and-white into a new “stage” of our faith: one filled with paradox, mystery, and love. In one of the most compelling and memorable parts of the book, Brian asks “What if you’re really trying to change stages, not religions?”

While truly not prescribing any particular path for readers, Brian shows how all people of good will — including those with doubts, questions, and criticisms — can do so much to benefit their institutions and traditions if they choose to stay. We think this book does so much good work to paint compelling reasons for doing so, and to help illustrate a path forward.

Brian McLaren an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a faculty member of The Living School and podcaster with Learning How to See, which are part of the Center for Action and Contemplation. We’d also recommend going back and listening to Brian’s first appearance on the Faith Matters podcast in episode #67, where we discuss his book Faith After Doubt.

In this episode, we got to speak with Carol Lynn Pearson about her new book, The Love Map: Saving Your Love Relationship and Incidentally Saving the World.

Carol Lynn has been a powerful and well-known voice in the Latter-day Saint community for many years. She’s the author of several remarkable works, including the memoir Goodbye, I Love You, and the book of poetry Finding Mother God: Poems to Heal the World. Her full catalog of works is too impressive to list here, but one other highlight is that she wrote one of our very favorite primary songs: I’ll Walk with You, which was published as a children’s book in 2020.

Carol Lynn will also be speaking with us at Restore, our upcoming gathering in Salt Lake City.

Carol Lynn’s new book is a remarkable work of fiction, that, as Carol Lynn says, is also true. It’s the story of a young woman whose fraught relationship with her husband is reaching a breaking point just as she suffers traumatic injuries in a terrorist attack. But a vision she experiences while recovering gives her something remarkable and unexpected — a “map” that will serve as a guide to healing her most intimate relationship, and allow her to see each person in her life as God does.

Though the book is intended for an audience much wider than just Latter-day Saints, its message resonated deeply with us, and Carol Lynn’s hard-won wisdom and remarkable gifts an artist were abundantly apparent throughout the book.

We’d strongly encourage anyone hoping for healing in their relationships to pick it up — we really think you won’t regret it. You can find the book available on Amazon now.

We want to extend a sincere thanks to Carol Lynn for coming on, and we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

The Restoration occurred in a fascinating and complex religious and historical moment in American history, and knowing more about that context can help us more deeply appreciate the blessings and beauty of the Restored Gospel.

One person at the forefront of expanding our knowledge of early American religious history is David Holland, a professor at Harvard Divinity School and also the son of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. 

In today’s episode Zach Davis and Terryl Givens visited David in his Cambridge office to discuss a range of topics, including how to discern the hand of God in history, whether there’s something about Calvinist theology worth celebrating, and how the experience of being a parent might be the best insight of all into the nature of God. 

David Holland is a Professor of New England Church History at Harvard Divinity School and a renowned scholar of American religious history. He earned a BA in history from BYU and a PhD from Stanford University. He is the author of Moroni: A Brief Theological Introduction, published by the Maxwell Institute and Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America, published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

For today’s episode, we were really excited to bring on Jason Olson, who, along with James Goldberg, is the author of a new memoir called The Burning Book.

Jason’s story is truly fascinating: he was born into a reform Jewish household with a Jewish mother and a Christian father. As a child and young person, he was always drawn to God and to religion, and found himself very involved in both study and practice in his faith. After his Bar Mitzvah at age 13, he eventually encountered some Latter-day Saint friends who, after many hours of religious discussions over a long period of time, offered him a copy of The Book of Mormon with no real expectations.

Afraid of what his family would think if they saw the book at home, and afraid of what his friends would think if they saw him carting it around, unread, he decided the best option would simply be to burn the book and  destroy the evidence. But just as he was about to do so, Jason had a moment of remarkable spiritual insight — and that’s where his truly unique story begins.

Now a defense diplomat and policy officer with a Ph.D. in Near Eastern and Judaic studies, Jason came on with us to share his remarkable insights about faith, religious conversion, and God’s expansive plans across all faiths and religions.

The Burning Book was published by BCC Press, and you can find it on Amazon.

2023 Update: The Burning Book won the 2022 Association for Mormon Letters award in creative nonfiction.

For today’s episode, we were lucky enough to bring back Latter-day Saint philosopher and theologian Adam Miller to talk about his new book, Original Grace. Of the many incredible books we’ve read from Adam, this one, we think, might have the most potential to really change the way we engage God and the world.

We’ll let Adam explain the major theses of the book, but we’ll just say that in many ways it entirely upends traditional understandings of concepts like justice, suffering, mercy, punishment, and, of course — grace. For anyone that has ever felt that they simply aren’t good enough, Adam mines Latter-day Saint scripture and teachings to show that it was never our job to “save ourselves.” As he puts it, “grace-filled partnership with Christ” was the plan all along.

Adam even shares some recent scholarship that shows that one of our faith’s foundational scriptures about grace  — “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” — has been misread and misunderstood so widely, and for so long, that its original meaning has been almost reversed.

Adam Miller earned a BA in Comparative Literature from Brigham Young University and an MA and PhD in Philosophy from Villanova University. This book, Original Grace, was published by BYU’s Maxwell Institute and Deseret Book. Adam is the author of several others, including some of our favorites like Letters to a Young Mormon and An Early Resurrection.

In the past few decades, scholarship on the New Testament has opened up exciting new ways of understanding the context of the early followers of Jesus and has enabled new interpretations of the texts they wrote. 

One of the leading scholars advancing our knowledge of early Christianity is Laura Nasrallah, a professor at Yale who specializes in New Testament texts and archaeology. In this conversation, Zach Davis and Terryl Givens visited Laura in her New Haven office to discuss topics like the role of women in the early Christian church, how to discern God’s hand in the messy complexity of history, and New Testament practices like speaking in tongues and baptism for the dead. 

Laura Nasrallah is a Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University. Her research and teaching engage issues of gender, race, colonialism, status, and power and bring together New Testament and early Christian literature with the archaeological remains of the Mediterranean world. She is the author of the book Archaeology and the Letters of Paul.

The Faith Matters family lost a dear friend this week. Kate Holbrook passed away after a long battle with cancer. Kate was a graceful light in our lives. Her strength, her courage, her wisdom, her intelligence and her gentle manner will be with us forever. Our thoughts, prayers and determined support go out to our good friend Sam Brown, Kate’s forever companion, and to their three daughters.

In Kate’s memory and honor, we’re sharing this conversation that she had with Terryl Givens in 2018. The video was called “extraordinary women in Mormon history,” and Kate, of course, is one of them.

As managing historian of women’s history at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints history department, Kate wrote, studied, and interpreted history full-time. Her major research interests were religion, gender, and food. Her primary professional activity was to discover, encourage, and celebrate women’s flourishing in the scholarly and spiritual realms.

We’d encourage everyone who’d like to honor and further Kate’s legacy to donate to a scholarship fund that has been set up in her honor, and that was established by her, together with her family. It was Kate’s wish as she departed mortality that these funds serve to help the women of the Church to flourish in their scholarly and spiritual lives. Kate herself benefited from a similar gift (from Ruth Silver of Denver, Colorado) early in her scholarly career, when she and Sam had minimal financial resources, and she needed time and money to devote to the study of women and religion. She hoped that such giving would become more and more common over time.

To contribute, please head to kateholbrook.org/scholarship.

We love you, Kate, and we miss you.

Today, we’re bringing you a really amazing story that we can’t wait for you to hear. It’s the story of Sam Chiou — a remarkable young man who is nonspeaking and autistic, and who was totally unable to communicate for the first fifteen years of his life. His family was unaware that despite being nonspeaking, he was hearing and understanding everything they were saying — and had so much that he wanted to share.

We don’t want to tell the whole story here, but after this long period of struggle — and largely through the faith and determination of his mother, Mindy — Sam and the Chiou family had a real breakthrough that allowed him to begin to communicate for the first time through the use of a letterboard. Sam’s wisdom and insights — what he’s been thinking all along, but never been able to say — are truly moving.

On this podcast, you’ll hear the voices of Sam’s mom, Mindy, and his sister, Julia, who help tell the story. Sam was also present for the interview. We also had the privilege of sending questions to Sam beforehand, which he took the time to answer and you’ll hear those near the end of the episode.

For those that are watching on YouTube, you’ll be able to see what the use of the letterboard looks like in a brief segment after the episode ends. For those currently listening on audio, just head to our YouTube channel if you’d like to see that.

We want to send a huge thanks to Sam, Mindy, and Julia for coming on and telling this remarkable story.

For decades, our understanding of how the brain works has advanced dramatically. Using new theories, methods and tools, like fMRI technology, scientists are beginning to reveal the mysteries of this truly remarkable and complex organ.

One scientist on the cutting edge of this research is Michael Ferguson, a BYU grad who is now researching and teaching at Harvard. 

For Michael, the most exciting result of all this new knowledge of the brain is how it might transform our spiritual lives and help us connect more fully to the divine. He is a pioneer in a field called neurospirituality and his research has been in part inspired by Latter-day Saint theology, in particular the idea that spirit and matter are on a continuum, not radically different substances. In this episode, Michael was interviewed by Zach Davis and Terryl Givens about these fascinating subjects, and the most important insights he’s gained from his research.

Michael is an Instructor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, a Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, and a neuroscientist at the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He earned his Doctorate in Bioengineering at the University of Utah, after which he completed post-doctoral fellowships at Cornell University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

In this episode, we spoke with Allison Dayton from Lift and Love, an organization that focuses on strengthening Latter-day Saint LGBTQ families.

We met Allison not long ago and were so impressed by the spirit and love she brings to every interaction. She tells her story in the episode itself, but she’s been deeply involved with the LGBTQ community for many years, first through her older brother Preston, and later through her son. In those interactions she’s lived through the deepest of tragedies, as well as the joy of love, acceptance, and unity.

Because of the journey she’s been on, and the blessings that she says have come into her life because of her LGBTQ child, she wanted to do more to help other families, wards, and leaders support these remarkable children of our Heavenly Parents. That’s why she started Lift and Love, which has grown into a podcast, meetups, retreats, social media accounts, and even an online store where you can find lots of unique, simple and affordable ways to signal love and support to the LGBTQ community. You can find all of that at liftandlove.org.

For us, Allison’s most resonant message was that an LGBTQ child, sibling, or family member of any kind is a true gift: there are so many blessings that come from having these amazing individuals in our lives and communities. That said, Allison expresses this message much better than we could, so we encourage you to listen to her share her feelings in the conversation!

For today’s episode, we’re really excited to bring on Jared Halverson.

Jared shares with us a really important concept he calls “proving contraries,” —something we’ve talked a little bit about on the podcast before using the term “polarities.” He spoke with us about how recognizing these polarities can help us understand our own strengths and weaknesses, how attributes that are positive, taken too far, almost always become problematic, and how wrestling with contraries is essential in a life full of growth and meaning.

Jared Halverson is an associate professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, and has taught religion courses at the high school and college level since 1998. He studied history and religious education at BYU and earned a PhD in American religious history at Vanderbilt University, focusing on secularization, faith loss, and anti-religious rhetoric. He is frequently involved with interfaith dialogue, has been a featured speaker in both devotional and academic settings across the country. He also hosts a popular YouTube channel and podcast called “Unshaken.”

We’re also really excited that Jared will be speaking at Restore, Faith Matters’ gathering taking place in October. You can find out more about that at faithmatters.org/restore.

For this episode, we spoke with Jeff Strong about the experience of missionaries in today’s mission field, including the unique challenges and opportunities they face. This conversation was based largely on a document Jeff wrote, called “What One Mission President Would Tell His Own Grandchildren About Serving a Mission.” Jeff wrote this document after his experience as the mission president of the Bentonville, Arkansas Mission.

We found Jeff’s reflections on missionary work to be refreshingly candid and deeply insightful. He illuminated how in many ways, our culture can be afraid to share honestly what a mission can be like. It’s not “all roses,” as he says — and talking openly about the thorns doesn’t have to be a bad thing; not only can we be more honest about the mission experience, but we can honor the difficult parts of it that cause the most growth.

Jeff also emphasizes that not every missionary, or every young person, is the same — and that’s ok. He shares several experiences that show how God works differently in different lives, including different types of missions and different lengths of service — including the choice not to go, or not to stay.

Jeff has worked as a senior level executive at several multinational companies and has spent 28 years in management. He’s also worked as a consultant and private equity advisor, in addition to serving as a special project director at BYU’s Marriott School of Business, where he led the startup of the Marketing Lab. In 2018, he and his wife Sara were called to the Bentonville, Arkansas mission, where Jeff served as President until 2021.

Be 100% Responsible — Lynn G. Robbins Talk

With all the exciting things happening at Faith Matters, we thought it would be a good time to step back, take stock of what we’ve done, and share more about where we’re going. 

So in this episode, Tim and Aubrey were joined by one of Faith Matters’ founders, Bill Turnbull, as well as Faith Matters’ new Executive Director, Zach Davis, to discuss how our organization began, answer common questions we get from listeners, and share more about our purpose and approach. 

This episode was also a chance to announce Restore: A Faith Matters Gathering. Occurring over two days on October 7-8 in Salt Lake City. Restore brings together the best minds exploring the biggest questions as we look forward to the Restoration’s third century. Featuring speakers such as Terryl Givens, Jody Moore, Brian McLaren, Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, and Patrick Mason and musical performances from groups such as the Debra Bonner Unity Gospel Choir, our hope is that this gathering will restore your hope, your curiosity, your connection and your faith. 

We have been so grateful to you for listening and reading and supporting the work we do at Faith Matters and we are excited to have the chance to gather and connect with you in person. We really hope you can join us. 

To learn more and register, visit https://www.faithmatters.org/restore

Under the Banner of Heaven is a recent 7-part dramatized series aired on Hulu by about the horrific 1984 murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty by brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty. Like the book it’s based on, the series paints a very grim portrait of Latter-day Saint faith and culture, and has been both praised and panned by critics. 

In this episode, McKay Coppins and Patrick Mason join Bill Turnbull to explore why the series has had such widely divergent receptions and discuss the validity of Jon Krakauer’s fundamental thesis: that religion and violence go hand in hand. 

McKay Coppins is a staff writer for The Atlantic who writes frequently about faith and politics; he published a superb piece about the series at the request of his editor at the magazine.

Patrick Mason is the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University — he’s also a frequent and valued guest on this show and advisor to Faith Matters.

**A MONUMENT HONORING AFRICAN AMERICAN PIONEERS**

We wanted to let you know about an exciting event that’s being organized by our friend, previous guest, and Faith Matters advisor, Mauli Bonner. At 10am on July 22, at This Is The Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, there will be a dedication of a new monument honoring enslaved pioneers, including Green Flake, who drove the first wagon as part of a vanguard group through emigration canyon on July 22, 1847. This will mark the 175th anniversary of that historic moment. We think that this will be an unforgettable event and will help all of us remember and honor the vital role early Black pioneers played in our faith and community. We expect government and Church leaders will be in attendance, and you can find out all the details at greenflakemovie.com. 

The twin challenges of the pandemic and political polarization have caused widespread anxiety and even despair. And yet, as Christian disciples, we are called to plant seeds of hope in even the most seemingly barren soil.  

For this episode, Zach Davis invited Anne Snyder to discuss her experiences planting such seeds of hope in her capacity as a prominent Christian editor and writer. Their conversation touches on how to cultivate hope in times of fear and anxiety; how to reknit relationships that have been damaged by mistrust and pain; and how encounters with the spirit can sustain and transform us.  

Anne Snyder is the editor-in-chief of Comment magazine and co-editor of the book, Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year, published in January 2022. In her work as a writer and convener, she is committed to exploring questions of class and culture, moral beauty and a redemptive faith. You can learn more about Anne’s work at annesnyder.org.

In so many domains of our lives, we are encouraged to think and act in a transactional, cost-benefit way. But Latter-day Saints are called to transcend this logic and follow the law of love, which Steve Young defines in his new book as “loving as God loves, seeking another’s healing, and expecting nothing in return.”

Living the law of love can help us focus less on acquiring religious merit badges and more on becoming extensions of Christ’s healing hands to bind up the brokenhearted.

Steve Young is a 3-time Super Bowl champion with the San Francisco 49ers, a two-time NFL MVP, and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. When he retired, Steve was the highest-rated quarterback in NFL history and was the only quarterback in league history to win four consecutive NFL passing titles.

Steve is currently Partner and Chairman of Huntsman Gay Global Capital and the founder and chairman of the Forever Young Foundation, an organization focused on passing on hope and resources for the development, strength, and education of children. Steve also serves on the Faith Matters Advisory Board. His new book is called The Law of Love, published by Deseret Book.

Noah Feldman is one of the most fascinating and engaging public intellectuals in the world. He’s also had a long and rich relationship with the Latter-day Saint tradition. Terryl Givens and Zachary Davis recently stopped by Noah’s office in Cambridge for a wide-ranging conversation on faith and religion. 

Some of the topics discussed include: how young people are experiencing religion and spirituality today; why living a life of faith helps make sense and meaning of life; and Noah’s thoughts about the unique gifts Latter-day Saints can offer the world.

Noah Feldman is a Harvard law professor, ethical philosopher & advisor, religious scholar and historian. He is host of the Deep Background podcast, writes a column on policy and public affairs for Bloomberg, and is the author of 10 books on a variety of topics. You can learn more about Noah’s work at noah-feldman.com.

As many of you know, at the beginning of May, the United States Supreme Court experienced an unprecedented leak of a draft opinion on the Dobbs v. Jackson case currently being adjudicated by the Supreme Court. The opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito Jr., and, if it ends up reflecting the Court’s decision due this month,  would overturn nearly 50 years of abortion law under the landmark Roe v. Wade case, which ruled that many then-current restrictions on abortion were unconstitutional, and guaranteed nationwide access to abortion through the first two trimesters of pregnancy. Roe, and the subsequent Casey v. Planned Parenthood have paved the way for laws that in many states, allow abortion very late into pregnancy.
 
Abortion is a very tricky topic, and a very sensitive one for people on all sides of the issue. But we feel like we have a duty as citizens to become educated on important matters like this, and our faith must have something to say on issues in which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are at stake.  Elder Oaks recently stated: "On contested issues we seek to moderate and unify."
 
In that spirit, we explored the issue from several angles, starting from a factual perspective — diving into the specifics of what’s going on and what the practical stakes are, then moving into what our faith might be asking of us as we seek to create a world that is just and equitable; one that honors both agency and life. I’m sure we weren’t perfect as we navigated this territory, but we did the best we could to show respect to the values and humanity that inform people of good faith on either side.
 
This conversation comes in two parts; in the first, we spoke with Sherif Girgis, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, who also clerked for Justice Alito of the U.S. Supreme Court as well as for our friend Thomas B. Griffith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. When we asked Judge Griffith who would be the most qualified voice we could bring on the show, he unhesitatingly recommended Sherif. Sherif earned his J.D. at Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal, and is currently completing his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton. Sherif helped us understand the current state of abortion law in the US as well as what it could look like after a decision is made on Dobbs. 
 
After speaking with Sherif, we spoke with Latter-day Saint scholars Justin Collings and Jenet Erickson. 

Justin Collings is ​​Associate Dean for Faculty and Curriculum at BYU and a Professor at the J. Reuben Clark School of Law at BYU, where he’s been since 2013. He is a scholar of constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, and constitutional history, and received his law degree  and his PhD in History both from Yale.

Jenet Erickson is an associate professor in the Department of Church History and Doctrine in BYU Religious Education. Her research has focused on maternal and child well-being in the context of work and family life, as well as the distinct contributions of mothers and fathers in children's development. She is a research fellow of both the Wheatley Institution and the Institute for Family Studies and has been a columnist on family issues for the Deseret News since 2013.

Justin and Jenet brought this conversation home in terms of what it means for Latter-day Saints. We found them incredibly insightful and empathetic, and helped us see this issue in new ways — we think they’ll do the same for you. The conversation with Justin and Jenet led to some really spirit-filled and practical takeaways for Latter-day Saints who want to be thoughtful, engaged, and loving on this issue. We’re deeply grateful to them for coming on.

Joseph Smith taught that faith is a “principle of action.” Although the world is full of crises and challenges, as Latter-day Saints, we are called to care for those in need with love and courage. 

In this week’s episode, Fiona Givens and Britta Ellwanger share stories from their recent efforts to put their faith into action. When Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, Fiona felt an inspired pull on her heart to help this situation however she could. That led her to catalyzing prayer and relief efforts in her ward and beyond, and then, in the last two weeks, journeying to Ukraine to join Britta and deliver humanitarian aid directly to those who need it.

Fiona Givens is the author of several books, including All Things New which was published by Faith Matters last year and The God Who Weeps, both co-authored with her husband Terryl. 

Britta Ellwanger has been living, working, and investing in Ukraine for ten years. Britta’s organization, forPEACE, focuses on the frontline needs of this war because it is the first piece in the domino effect that leads to the refugee crisis. 

Britta’s written an article on Faith Matters’ website that gives a really up-to-date synopsis about the situation on the ground, and gives actionable ways to help the effort on the front lines. You can find that article, and our other published material on the war in Ukraine, at faithmatters.org/ukraine.

Memorial Day reminds us to turn our attention and our hearts back to those who have gone before us and who have made our lives possible. It’s a time to contemplate Malachi’s prophecy of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.

How might this turning of hearts actually look in our personal lives. We invited two incredibly insightful and wise people, Linda and Richard Eyre, to our guide an exploration of this timely topic. As usual, Linda and Richard share very practical and fun ideas for developing and maintaining a strong family culture. And they have great advice on how to avoid guilt as we inevitably notice our own inadequacies in striving to live up to our family responsibilities. We were also able to explore some of the themes of their important book  The Turning: Why the State of the Family Matters, and What the World Can Do About It.

Linda and Richard Eyre are New York Times #1 bestselling authors whose writing career has spanned four decades and whose books have sold in the millions and have been translated into a dozen languages. They spend much of their time speaking to audiences throughout the world on family, parenting, and life-balance, along with keeping up with their own nine children and an ever-increasing number of grandchildren.

Are we at the leading edge of a resurgent interest in religion and spirituality in the academy? Quite possibly. And not just as a curiosity. 

This week, Faith Matters begins a series of conversations with prominent scholars from outside our faith. What are we learning about the nature of spiritual experience and the value of a religious life?  In coming weeks, we’ll be traveling to some of America’s top universities—starting with Harvard, Yale and Princeton—to sit down with thinkers deeply engaged in this fascinating topic.

We’ll start this week with Dr. Lisa Miller, a Professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Columbia University, where she founded the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program in spirituality and psychology. Dr. Miller will share insights from her recently published book The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life. In her words, Lisa “takes the lens of science and focuses it on the impact of spirituality in human life,” with some surprising results. She talks about the truly remarkable real-world  benefits of a personal spirituality that leads to a lived relationship with the divine, and calls for a spiritual renaissance to help solve some of our society’s most troubling issues.

Dr. Miller's research has been published in top-tier psychiatric journals, and she is the Editor of the Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality and the Founder of the American Psychological Association’s journal, Spirituality in Clinical Practice. After finishing her undergraduate work at Yale, she received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

This conversation also introduces a new member of the Faith Matters team, Zachary Davis. We’re extremely excited to be joining forces with Zach, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, where his work focused on intellectual history and philosophy of religion. Previously, Zach has been a producer at HarvardX where he built open online courses in the humanities. He’s  also a highly experienced podcaster and host of  shows like Ministry of Ideas and Writ Large.

For this episode, Faith Matters is honored to bring on our good friend, Richard Ostler. 

Richard is a former YSA Bishop whose ministry has focused on all types of Latter-day Saint journeys, and especially on those of people who have felt marginalized in any way. In addition to his podcast, he’s now written two books, both under the title Listen, Learn, and Love: the first is subtitled Embracing LGBTQ Latter-day Saints, and the second Improving Latter-day Saint Culture. Both are available at Deseret Book, and were published by Cedar Fort.

Our conversation with Richard was about his second book, which was recently released. In it, he addresses questions around cultural issues like emphasis on callings, women’s experience, mental illness, length of missionary service, the repentance process, and the experience of those with doubts and questions.

We felt like this was a really helpful discussion, and Richard’s unique gift of empathy and his love of the Church combine to give really powerful insights into how we can all contribute to improving Church culture. We were grateful to spend this time with Richard, someone who’s shown such Christlike love to us and so many others.

Link to Richard’s books: https://deseretbook.com/t/author/richard-h-ostler?ref=product-producer-list

For today’s conversation, and on this Mother’s Day weekend, we’re releasing a classic episode that was done with McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding. They’re the authors of several incredible books, including The Girls’ Guide to Heavenly Mother, The Boys’ Guide to Heavenly Mother, and the Girls Who Choose God series.

In this conversation, Bethany and McArthur addressed specifically where the longstanding myth comes from that we shouldn’t talk about Heavenly Mother, as well as pointing out why it’s important for girls to have a divine role model, and the importance of expressing this unique doctrine through art, which they do so well in their books.

Since the time of the original conversation release, these books have all been picked up by Deseret Book, and are available both in Deseret Book retail stores and online. The books have tended to go quickly, so if you go to a local Deseret Book and they’re sold out, you can always check them out at the publisher’s website, dstreetpress.com

And to introduce you again briefly to McArthur and Bethany: 

McArthur has a master’s degree in communication from BYU, and also co-owned Free Range, which is an award-winning marketing business focused on telling social justice stories. In 2011, she moved to India and started writing books, including those we talk about in this episode.

Bethany has a Master of Public Health from the University of London, and has worked for both large, international organizations and small, local non-profits to advance children’s health and wellness in South Africa, India, and the USA.  She calls Richmond, Virginia home where she runs school gardens, writes books, and raises three girls. 

The third volume of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days,  was published this week by the Church.

The Saints project has gained widespread popularity because of its accessibility—it’s written in a narrative format—as well as its assiduous adherence to documented history. It is an enormous endeavor led by a very able group of scholars. We invited one of the leaders of this project, Dr. Lisa Olsen Tait, to come on our podcast to tell us what’s in this volume and how it came together. It was a very engaging conversation.

We know that some Latter-day Saints have had a complicated relationship with Church history. It can be alternately incredibly inspiring, confusing, uplifting and at times disturbing.  And as Lisa put it, “There’s a history to the Church’s relationship with its history.” For those who have longed for an official history that is more open and accurate than what the Church has published before, Saints seems a huge step in the right direction.

This volume of Saints is titled Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, and covers the time period 1893 to 1955. It’s a really fascinating period, one in which the Church underwent extensive transformation. In many ways, this is the period during which the Church transformed from the “pioneer Church” into the beginnings of the Church we would recognize today.

The digital version of this volume of Saints is available for free on the Church website and in the Church History section of the Gospel Library app. Print copies will be available in coming weeks in the Church’s online store and at retail outlets.

Lisa Olsen Tait is a historian, writer, and specialist in women’s history at the Church History Department. She is a general editor on the Saints series and, on volume 3, contributed subject-matter expertise in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century and on many aspects of women’s history. She is also a co-chair of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team (MWHIT), an independent group that fosters scholarship and networking in the field. Lisa earned a PhD from the University of Houston, studying American Literature and Women’s Studies, and she taught religion classes at BYU Provo for three years before joining the Church History Department in 2013.

*** Links to buy "The Mother Tree" ***

Softcover version: https://faithmatters.org/themothertree

Audible and Kindle version: https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tree-Discovering-Wisdom-Divine/dp/B09YCDHTDZ/

Today, we’re excited to announce the latest offering from Faith Matters Publishing, following our previous books All Things New by Terryl and Fiona Givens, Restoration by Patrick Mason, and Better Than Happy by Jody Moore.

This book is called The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom  of Our Divine Mother, and was written by Kathryn Knight Sonntag. It is a truly beautiful book and a great read.

The timing of this release is interesting. First, we’re coming up on Mothers Day and we love that this book is a profound recognition of  our Divine Mother. Second, Elder Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recently gave an important talk to the women of the church on the doctrine of Heavenly Mother. While celebrating with us this unique doctrine, he also had words of caution about demanding further revelation on Heavenly Mother theology, among other things. 

Though this book was obviously completed well before that recent address, it strikes us as very much in the same spirit. It is a celebration of our unique doctrine, which is beautifully outlined in the church’s Gospel Topics essay on Heavenly Mother. But the book values experiencing her presence in the world and in our lives over theological speculation. It is about how accessing different ways of knowing–through the languages of art, nature, poetry and stillness–can lead to a personal relationship with our Divine Mother. And it points to surprising ways in which, as the Church’s essay points out, She has always been there in our scriptures.

So today we spoke with the author of The Mother Tree, Kathryn Knight Sonntag. Kathryn’s book of poetry The Tree at the Center was a 2019 Association for Mormon Letters Awards finalist. Her poetry and essays have appeared in many publications including Colorado Review, Rock & Sling, and Dialogue. She holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture and environmental planning, and works as a landscape architect and freelance writer in Salt Lake City.

Just a note on where you can purchase the book. As of today, the Kindle version is available on Amazon but the print version is just coming off the press. It will be a few weeks before you can buy it on Amazon. Since we know that many of you will want a physical copy of the book for Mother’s Day, we’ve set up a special shipping operation where you can buy the book and have it shipped to you right away. In order to do that, head to faithmatters.org/themothertree. You’ll be sent straight to a product page where you can buy the book, and Faith Matters is paying the cost of shipping for all US customers so that nothing gets in the way if you’d like to have this book as a gift in time for Mother’s Day.

As Christians, we look forward to resurrection after death into a state of wholeness and joy. 

But understanding resurrection as occurring only in the next life can prevent us from experiencing the fullness of life that Christ offers us here and now. What if we looked at resurrection as a process that can begin now as we allow Christ to live in and through us?

This week, we invited our friend Adam Miller to talk about his book An Early Resurrection: Life in Christ Before You Die.  In this inspiring, profound little book, Adam shows us how, in a very real sense, Christ can start this process of rebirth now, in ways that can radically change how we experience even the most ordinary and mundane things in life.

Adam Miller is a professor of philosophy at Collin College near Dallas, Texas. He also wrote the remarkable book Letters to a Young Mormon.

As we celebrate Easter, we hope these ideas about resurrection can give you new perspective on the words of the Savior: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

There is almost certainly someone in your life who is struggling with OCD, and it could be much more severe than you might imagine. OCD is a serious mental illness, and it’s very common for OCD sufferers to experience severe depression and even suicidal thoughts. In a religious setting, it is quite common for OCD to manifest in extreme and very unhealthy scrupulosity. 

In a previous Faith Matters podcast episode, podcast host Tim Chaves shared some of his own very painful struggles with OCD and scrupulosity. We were amazed by how many people  reached out to us to share their own experiences with OCD. Some had been diagnosed and knew what to call it, but others hadn’t replied that what they were suffering from during their lifetime was OCD. Latter-day Saints often start by explaining its symptoms in religious language, or looking only to religious solutions to solve it.

This week, we share a truly illuminating conversation we recorded with Paul Peterson, CEO of the OCD and Anxiety Treatment Center.

If you know someone who may be suffering from OCD, please feel free to share this episode with them. We want to spread as widely as possible any information that can lead to diagnosis and treatment.

This is part of an ongoing conversation Faith Matters is sponsoring about mental health challenges faced by so many of our brothers and sisters, friends, and family members. 

Find an OCD therapist:

https://iocdf.org/find-help/

The OCD and Anxiety Treatment Center (Paul’s organization):

https://www.theocdandanxietytreatmentcenter.com/

Single Saints Summit:

https://ss.leadingsaints.org/single-saints-registration

Mentally Healthy Saints Summit:

https://mhs.leadingsaints.org/mental-health-landing48113181

We talk a lot about the “self” in our culture, and in our faith. We use terms like selfish, selfless, true self, false self, self care, authentic self, etc. Many social commentators observe that the modern era (and maybe particularly the post-modern era) has produced a pervasive secular “cult of the self.” The advent of social media in the past decade has only fanned the flames of a preoccupation with self, complete with the “selfie.”

So we decided to host a conversation on what a healthy sense of “self” might look like.

We invited Dr. Julie Hanks to our podcast studio to explore this topic. Aubrey Chaves explores with Julie things like: why it's important to have a healthy sense of self, the difference between selfishness and self-care, and even what to do when our internal authority finds itself at odds with external authority. 

Julie Hanks is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist, owner of Wasatch Family Therapy clinics in Utah, and host of the Ask Dr. Julie Hanks podcast. She has nearly 30 years of clinical experience, and has created a robust library of online resources that empower women to prioritize their dreams, revolutionize their families and personalize their faith.  

Our conversation was structured around a guide Dr. Hanks calls “10 signs of a healthy self." You can download a pdf of that list here.

We hope you enjoy this fascinating “exploration of self."

The perennial struggle to read and understand the Hebrew Bible--that strange and wonderful collection of books we call the Old Testament--has captured our collective attention this year as we dive back into its pages. The text presents profound challenges and questions to Christians and to people with modern sensibilities generally. Among those challenges are stories and accounts of what seem to be divinely sanctioned violence.

To get some perspective on these challenges, and on how broader Christianity has faced these same challenges, we decided to bring writer, teacher and public theologian Brian McLaren into the conversation by inviting him on our podcast. Brian is well-known within evangelical Christianity. Once a prominent pastor, in 2015 he was named by Time Magazine as one of evangelicalism’s most influential figures. He became a leader in the “emerging church movement.” These days, in addition to his speaking and writing, he works with Father Richard Rohr at the Center of Action and Contemplation.

For McLaren, as for many Christians, his relationship with the Bible itself has been an integral part of his faith journey. We were curious to hear how that relationship has changed over time, how he reads the Bible differently than when he was younger, how he sees people sometimes abuse the Bible (especially the Hebrew Bible), and where he continues to find beauty and inspiration in its pages. He explains how much of the Christian world arrived at the idea of Biblical inerrancy, and why we need not just re-translation but continuous re-interpretation of the text. 

We found his thoughts on the creation narrative of Genesis particularly fascinating. He even shared his thoughts on a famous story from the Book of Mormon. We think you’ll enjoy this conversation with a wise and good soul, our friend Brian McLaren.

Among Brian’s outstanding books are Faith After Doubt: Why your beliefs stopped working and what to do about it and The Galapagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey. You can check out all his work at brianmclaren.net. 

Fundraiser details here:  https://www.facebook.com/donate/281102717479491/

We’ve been working hard to gather voices that could help us process the ongoing atrocities that the Russian government has inflicted upon the people of Ukraine. Like you, we’ve wondered what the reality is like on the ground in Ukraine right now, how we can help, and if our faith might have something to offer in terms of how we approach what’s going on, both in our hearts and with our hands.

We were able to assemble a great line-up of people to help answer some of those questions for our podcast audience. We spoke to Yarsolav Chernyuk, a Church member who’s living and serving in Kyiv right now; Austin Walters, who served a mission to Ukraine and has been leading a wonderful fundraising effort for humanitarian relief; Mariya Manzhos, a Ukrainian currently living in the US who helped her parents flee from Kyiv, and Patrick Mason, a professor of history and scholar of violence and peacebuilding.

Yaroslav Chernyuk is a Church member who was able to speak to us briefly from his home in Kyiv, where he is doing incredibly brave and difficult work providing aid to families in need.

Austin Walters served a mission in Ukraine, and after completing an MBA at Harvard Business School, got into the world of fundraising and venture capital. He’s turned those skills, over the past few weeks, into fundraising for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Here’s the link if you seek to help relief efforts in Ukraine.

Mariya Manzhos is a freelance journalist based in Boston, whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, The Boston Globe, and other publications. She is married to Zach Davis, a member of the Faith Matters executive team. At the time we spoke with her, her parents were en route to the United States after fleeing their home in Kyiv; you’ll hear her speak a little about this journey. Thankfully, we can update you now to let you know that her parents have arrived safely and are with Mariya’s family in Boston.

We brought our friend Patrick Mason into the conversation to help us think through some of the philosophy and theology of war and conflict. Many of us have had our easy notions about peace and violence challenged in the face of such naked aggression. We explore what the scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ have to say about this situation.

To all of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters: we see you, we hear you, we’re praying for you, and we’re doing our best to bear this burden with you. 

As parents, how can we help our children find and cultivate their inner compass? We often do a pretty good job of giving our kids an idea of what God and others expect from them. But nurturing an enduring love of things like truth, beauty and goodness and helping them engage their world from a deep sense of their true identity is the great challenge of parenting. How can we help our children become a beautiful expression of their spiritual natures? 

This week, we invited to our podcast studio Jon Ogden, one of the founders of Uplift Kids, a really wonderful program that integrates both ancient wisdom and modern science to help parents build values in the home. Uplift Kids is a program designed for families to systematically, step-by-step help children develop that inner compass.  

In two of the most popular episodes we’ve ever released, numbers 85 and 86, Michael Wilcox joined us to talk about “God’s Many Voices” — how God has communicated through many different people, all throughout time and space. One of the things we love most about Uplift is the way it pulls together so many of those voices in a way that’s really digestible for both kids and adults

Jon Ogden’s university training was in literature and he earned a masters degree writing, with an emphasis on research and ethics. Jon has worked as a university instructor, instructional designer, and writer. He’s coupled that work with a decades-long study of the world’s wisdom traditions. He co-created Uplift Kids along with Amanda Suarez, Drew Hansen, and Michelle Larson.

Like you, we’ve been watching in horror as Ukraine has been faced with a brutal and unprovoked invasion. We’re in awe of the courage of the people of Ukraine and stand firmly with them as we pray that freedom and peace will prevail. We are working on bringing together some voices  to help us think through these events in the very near future.

In the meantime, we thought we would share a recent conversation we had with our good friend Terryl Givens about his new book, The Doors of Faith, which comes from a series of very popular campus-wide lectures Terryl delivered at Brigham Young University.

Many of you are familiar with Terryl’s long career as an expansive thinker and theologian in our faith. He is a frequent contributor to the Faith Matters podcast, both as host and guest, and is always fascinating.

Terryl is a New York native who did graduate work in intellectual history at Cornell, and in comparative literature at UNC Chapel Hill. Prior to his current position as Senior Research Fellow at BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute, he was the Jabez A. Bostwick Chair of English and a Professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond. 

Prior to releasing The Doors of Faith, Terryl has published over twenty other books. He and his wife, Fiona, are the co-authors of four books:  The God Who Weeps, The Christ Who Heals, The Crucible of Doubt, and, of course, All Things New, which was published by Faith Matters Publishing.

Many people were disturbed by the remarks of Brad Wilcox, a member of the Young Men General Presidency, given at a recent tri-stake fireside in Alpine, Utah. In addition to denigrating other religions, whom he characterized as “playing church,” his remarks on the history of denying the priesthood to Black members shocked many listeners. Brigham Young University quickly condemned his comments and Wilcox issued a public apology.

While it is admirable to see church institutions and officials take responsibility and face issues like this head-on, the incident itself points to persistent issues in the Church that deserve our attention in our ongoing efforts to create Zion. 

We invited Mauli Bonner to our podcast studio this week to address this timely topic, and also to tell us about his remarkable new film His Name is Green Flake. We felt like Mauli showed how to confront difficult issues like race with realism, but also with an abundance of faith, hope and charity. His honest and moving response to this recent incident shows the way to create a path forward toward Zion.

Mauli has had a long and successful career in the entertainment industry, and is the writer, director, and producer of this extraordinary film. The movie tells the story of an enslaved Black man, Green Flake, who was also a member of the Church and immigrated from Nauvoo to Utah as part of the vanguard group that prepared the trail to Salt Lake for other Saints. His Name Is Green Flake has been awarded Best Film in ten different festivals, including the Venice Film Awards, the London Independent Film Awards, and most recently, the LA Film Awards.

Mauli lives in Southern California where he serves in a ward bishopric. He is a member of the well-known Bonner family of musicians. 

As we have collectively turned our attention to the study of the Hebrew Bible, what is known to most Christians as the Old Testament, we at Faith Matters turn our attention to a perennial question: Who actually wrote these books?

We plan to have at least a few conversations in the coming year on how to engage the Hebrew Bible. To kick it off, we invited Terryl Givens to our studio to help us frame some of the big-picture issues, for example:  

Who wrote the Bible? 

How should we read it? 

What theological and ethical dilemmas does it force us to confront?

How is it relevant today? 

As you might expect, it was a candid and fascinating conversation. We hope you’ll leave this conversation asking better and deeper questions as you engage the books of the Hebrew Bible.

In this episode, we’re diving into one of the questions from our Big Questions series: Terryl Givens invited Joseph Spencer, a philosopher and professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, to talk about the question of Book of Mormon historicity. 

The claim that the Book of Mormon is a translation from ancient plates written by Hebrew people who immigrated to the American continent has been challenged from its first publication, and conclusive confirming evidence has been equally controversial. So what is at stake in either affirming or questioning the historicity of the Book of Mormon as the modern translation of an ancient record? Could it be some other form of inspired writing? Or must we accept the book as being exactly what it claims to be? How do we deal with seeming challenges to its historicity?

Joseph Spencer is prominent among a new generation of Book of Mormon and Biblical scholars. He is the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and the author of eight books, including “1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction” published in 2021 by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute.

You can find more from our Big Questions series by clicking on “Big Questions” from the main navigation menu  — and watch out for much more Big Questions content as we move throughout the year.

Thanks as always for listening, and we really hope you enjoy this conversation with Terryl Givens and Joseph Spencer.

For this week's episode, we brought on Carl Youngblood for a truly enlightening conversation we’ve been wanting to have for a long time. 

Carl has spent most of his life helping to build and operate technology companies and has done a lot of deep thinking and writing about how technology is shaping our reality and our future—including how it will affect what it means to be human. Digital technology companies, including behemoths like Facebook, are staking their futures on pushing the boundaries of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Their project is to create a new reality for human beings—what has come to be called the "metaverse."

We brought Carl on to talk about what all this means. What are the implications for our families and institutions? What are the implications for our faith? How might the theology of the Restored Gospel inform how we move into this new reality? 

And what about technologies that may offer the possibility to dramatically extend our lifespans? What does a faith that honors the centrality of God’s creation and that honors death as an essential part of a foreordained plan have to say? 

These are huge and sobering questions, but they’re also exciting to explore. Bill Turnbull, one of the founders of Faith Matters, also joined us for this conversation.

Carl is a co-founder of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, an organization founded to consider the intersection between our faith and the frontiers of technology. The MTA is hosting a conference in Provo this spring, on Saturday, March 19, at which nationally-recognized experts on things like blockchain, crypto and Web 3 will address the implications of these technologies for our society and, by extension, for our faith. Registration info for this conference can be at the end of the episode. Faith Matters has no affiliation with MTA and offers no opinion on their approach, but we acknowledge their efforts in addressing some of the biggest questions of our day.

This week, we were lucky enough to spend some time with Melinda Wheelwright Brown, to talk about her book Eve and Adam: Discovering the Beautiful Balance, which was published by Deseret Book.

We thought it would be great to start the year diving right into the first pages of the Old Testament — the chapters that we usually refer to as the story of “Adam and Eve.” Of course, as you’ve probably already noticed, Mindy’s book re-titles that story, and you’ll hear why she did that right near the beginning of the podcast. 

The book does an amazing job of getting into the details of what we learn in the Bible, in the Pearl of Great Price, and from other sources, and shows us how unfortunate misunderstandings, or worse, have led many over the centuries to relegate women into a place of submission or even contempt. Not only does Mindy show that Eve is very much Adam’s equal, but that she deserves her own special place of honor and respect — one that the restoration does much to bring back.

To give you just a bit more about Mindy, she is a respected teacher and public speaker who’s been heavily involved in the non-profit world, including with organizations like Fight the New Drug, Days for Girls, Better Days 2020, Big Ocean Women, and the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, where she currently serves on the board. Mindy and her husband, Doug, are the parents of four children and have recently became grandparents.

As always, thanks so much for listening, and a huge thanks to Melinda Wheelwright Brown for coming on. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

Find Mindy on Instagram @brave.like.eve: https://www.instagram.com/brave.like.eve/

Links to Mindy's book, "Eve and Adam":
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Eve-Adam-Discovering-Beautiful-Balance/dp/1629727288/
Deseret Book: https://deseretbook.com/p/eve-and-adam-discovering-beautiful-balance?variant_id=179985-hardcover

For this week’s episode, we’re releasing a classic conversation between George Handley and Terryl Givens — one that was released very early in the life of this podcast, and that many of you may not have yet heard.

The first chapter of Genesis says: “In the beginning, God said let there be light, and there was light.” God created this extraordinary world, the scriptures tell us, through the power of his Word.

It makes all the more sense, then, that a Professor of comparative arts and letters, like George Handley, would spend so much time thinking about, and enjoying creation. After serving as Associate Dean of the College of Humanities from 2015 - 2018, George was appointed Associate Director of the Faculty Center at BYU.

He’s also the author of several books, including Home Waters, the novel American Fork, and two Maxwell Institute “Living Faith” books: If Truth were a Child, and, most recently, The Hope of Nature. In this conversation, George speaks with Terryl about connecting with the divine through nature, about being a good steward of the earth; about the tragic death of his brother; and the history of a river. He’s consecrated his life and talents to discovering and sharing what is good and beautiful.

We’re so happy to be able to share this classic episode of the podcast with all of you, and we hope you enjoy Terryl’s conversation with George Handley.

For this conversation, we were lucky enough to bring back Richard Eyre for a second episode, this one focusing on his book, The Happiness Paradox. We loved the book and thought this discussion would be really timely for the new year, since many of us are hoping to find new paradigms that might help us live in a healthier, happier way. We believe that Richard’s book does just that. 

For those unfamiliar with Richard from our last episode with him, he’s had an extraordinary career as an author, consultant, entrepreneur, and speaker. 

He is the author of more than fifty books, many written along with his wife, Linda. Richard and Linda are among America’s most prominent voices on the subject of parenting, and together, they wrote Teaching Your Children Values, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller. They and their work have appeared on Oprah, the CBS Early Show, Today, Good Morning America and many other national media outlets.

Richard has also experienced wide-ranging church service, including serving as the president of the England London South mission, and he and Linda served as external advisors to the Church on Family. They are also the parents of nine children. He considers his family his greatest achievement.

Richard’s book taps into some of the most counterintuitive and vital ideas from the great wisdom and religious traditions of the world (including our own!). We are thankful to him for coming on and spending some more time with us, and we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

Many of you are familiar with Thomas Wirthlin McConkie. For those of you who are not, here’s a very cursory thumbnail sketch of his story:

Coming from a very prominent Latter-day Saint family (with apostles on both sides of the family), Thomas left the Latter-day Saint faith as a teenager, eventually moved to China and for two decades deeply immersed himself in Buddhism. Eventually, he found his way back to the his native Latter-day Saint faith, and today finds himself integrating ideas and practices from both  traditions  in remarkable and important ways.

If you’d like to hear the story of Thomas’s journey in more detail, you can listen to a fascinating multi-episode deep dive on the Faith Matters podcast starting in episode 15.

Thomas has just created a truly beautiful online course called Gospel Meets Dharma. The course description says it this way: “Gospel Meets Dharma represents a sacred encounter between Christianity and Buddhism, two traditions that have shaped and formed countless millions of minds and souls over the millennia. In this ‘interspiritual dialogue’, the unique fruits of each path come into clear relief, while also giving rise to a Beauty that transcends and includes them both.”

We invited Thomas back to our studio this week to talk about what inspired him to create this course and to explore some of its key themes. As always, we loved our conversation with Thomas and imagine you will as well.

By the way, you can find the course at  gospelmeetsdharma.com.  Thomas is offering a 20% discount on the course to the Faith Matters audience. Just type the code  LAUNCH20 when you enroll. 

As we approach the portion of the Come Follow Me curriculum that addresses Official Declaration 2, we thought we’d re-release a classic episode of the podcast that many of our newer listeners may not have heard — a conversation between Terryl Givens and Paul Reeve that explores the history of the Church’s priesthood-temple ban that concluded in 1978.

In this episode, Paul and Terryl go both wide and deep on the priesthood-temple ban. Among other historical details, they discuss how the church was broadly criticized as being too inclusive in its early years—critics claimed that it wasn’t “white” enough. This became a factor in Brigham Young’s 1852 decision to ban Black people  from the priesthood and temple. 

They also explore some of the explanations that developed in the church to explain the ban during its 126 year duration—and how each of these explanations have since been rejected and disavowed by the church.

Paul Reeve is the Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies  at the University of Utah. His award-winning book, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, is considered by many the best book written to date on the subject.

Dr. Reeve has also written a fantastic essay that addresses how to make sense of our history of denying priesthood and temple blessings to our Black brothers and sisters. It’s a fascinating read—and you really shouldn’t miss it.

We think this is an incredibly important and insightful episode. We suspect you’ll enjoy it.

Paul Reeve's essay: https://faithmatters.org/making-sense-of-the-churchs-history-on-race/

This week, Faith Matters was delighted to welcome Dan Vallone, the US Director for More in Common, a nonprofit foundation whose mission is to build a more united and inclusive America that is resilient to the profound threats posed by our country’s polarization.

Dan has a super impressive background, including serving six years active duty as a US Army infantry officer, with one tour in Afghanistan. He is a graduate of West Point and earned a Master’s degree from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore on a Fulbright Scholarship, and later an MBA from Harvard Business School. He also spent time as a special advisor on innovation to the US Department of Education. 

In this conversation, Dan spent time helping us understand why it seems we have become so divided politically in the United States. He shared some really interesting research that shows that the large majority of Americans are proponents of listening, compromise, and good-faith engagement with those on the other side of the aisle. 

Dan left us with several practical takeaways about how we can be active healers in our communities, and how faith institutions like the Church can play vital roles in helping us come together.

We want to extend a huge thanks to Dan for his thoughtfulness and leadership on this issue and hope you enjoy!

For this episode, we spoke with Patrick Mason and David Pulsipher about their new book, "Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict". The book was recently published by BYU’s Maxwell Institute.

"Proclaim Peace" begins with the premise that even though we live in a world that is plagued by violence, that peace really is possible. For Patrick and David, the Gospel of Jesus Christ lays out a unique theology which can help us become peacemakers in our communities and society at large. Their book also addresses really important questions that many people have about scriptural violence, and helps show that active and lasting peace really is a divine goal.

Returning to the podcast, Patrick is the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture, and an associate professor of religious studies and history, at Utah State University. 

Joining Faith Matters for the first time is David, a professor of history at Brigham Young University–Idaho where he teaches courses on citizenship, civil discourse, peace-building, and nonviolence.

For this episode, we got to speak with Richard Eyre, a man whose career has spanned a number of roles, including that of an author, consultant, entrepreneur, and speaker.

We got to speak with him about a variety of topics,  focusing on how we can contribute to society as a faith with a lot to offer even while our members are relatively few in number. We also discussed how we can make difficult decisions which seem to have an outsized impact on our lives, as well as whether there’s room for optimism as we engage the world around us.

Richard is the author of more than fifty books, many written along with his wife, Linda. Together, they are among America’s most prominent voices on the subject of parenting, such as their co-authored volume, Teaching Your Children Values, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller. They and their work have appeared on Oprah, the CBS Early Show, Today, Good Morning America and many other national media outlets.

Richard has also experienced wide-ranging church service, including serving as the president of the England London South mission. He and Linda also served as external advisors to the Church on family. They are also the parents of nine children.

For this episode, we’re doing a follow-up to our interview with Jody Moore about her new book published by Faith Matters, Better Than Happy. If you haven’t heard that episode yet, we’d recommend going back and listening first to that episode, which was released as #92.

This episode is not in our standard interview style  — instead, it’s a live coaching experience, where Jody works with Lindsay Broadbent and Andrea Weaver through real-life issues. We thought it was hugely helpful, because we’re able to hear Jody put the principles of the book directly into action. We want to give Lindsay and Andrea a huge thanks for coming on and being so open.

And to remind you a little bit about Jody, she has a BA in Communications and an MA in Adult Education, along with 15 years of experience as a Corporate Trainer and Leadership Coach, and is a Certified Life Coach. She’s also the host of the incredibly popular podcast Better Than Happy with Jody Moore.

For today’s episode, we’re announcing the next book published by Faith Matters Publishing called Better Than Happy  by Jody Moore.

Jody has become something of a phenomenon in recent years—especially among Latter-day Saint women—due to her fantastic insights about how we can better deal with difficult relationships, create and meet goals, and live more fulfilling and happy lives. She has a BA in Communications and an MA in Adult Education, along with 15 years of experience as a Corporate Trainer and Leadership Coach, and is a Certified Life Coach. She’s also the host of the incredibly popular podcast Better Than Happy with Jody Moore.

Jody’s new book teaches how our unconscious thought patterns determine our relationships, our spiritual life, and our connection to God to a much greater extent than we know. Even though that can sound intimidating, Jody teaches that the subconscious mind is something that you can access and train to radically change the way you live. 

To join us as additional guest hosts for this conversation with Jody, we brought on Lindsay Broadbent and McKinzie Hancock. We loved hearing Jody touch on the principles in the book,  which you can order it now on Amazon and Audible (just search “better than happy” and you’ll find it).

As an aside, for our next episode which will be released as number 93, we recorded a live coaching session with Jody where she tackles some real-life issues to give an example of how the model and principles taught in the book can have a real and immediate impact. Be sure to keep an eye out for it!

To give a little background on today’s episode, we recently read the book A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck, who is a professor of biology and bioethics at BYU and an award-winning fiction author. The book is a remarkable and frankly terrifying exploration of a concept of “hell” that calls into question the very natures of eternity, meaning, and relationship. 

As we talked with each other about this book, we realized that exploring the Latter-day Saint concept of “hell” in relationship to other hell theologies would be fascinating. But more importantly, as Steve’s book indicated, it would provide an opportunity for us to dive deep on what we mean when we say eternity, and what our unique faith tradition has to teach us and share with the world about the nature of an endlessly loving God, life after death, and human potential.

So we asked Steve to join us to talk a bit about his book, and brought in Terryl Givens as an additional conversation partner to round out some of these concepts, especially in light of Christian and Latter-day Saint tradition.

And yes, if you’re wondering, we thought that Halloween was the perfect day to release this episode ;)

This week, Tim and Aubrey Chaves of Faith Matters welcomed back Charles Inouye. When they first spoke with Charles a couple months ago, he mentioned that he had prepared some thoughts on living a life free of racism. Given President Nelson’s recent call for members of the Church to “lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice,” we wanted to get him back on as soon as we could so he could share his impressive insights.

We knew that Charles would have a unique perspective to share on this topic. As the son of Japanese parents who were held in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming internment camp during World War II, he grew up as part of the only Japanese family in the small town of Sigurd, Utah. 

Charles spent much of his youth working on his family’s farm in Sigurd, but eventually served a mission in Japan. He later went on to earn degrees from some of the world’s most prestigious universities, including a BA from Stanford and a PhD from Harvard. He’s now a Professor of Japanese Literature and Visual Culture at Tufts University.

For this conversation, we spoke with Greg McKeown, the New York Times-bestselling author of the books Essentialism and Effortless, the latter of which was just released earlier this year. When we read both Essentialism and Effortless, we knew we wanted to have Greg on the podcast. Everything he wrote in these books seemed immediately applicable; not just in our lives or careers, but even towards our membership in the Church.

Greg is also a Latter-day Saint, and he was able to talk with us about how the concepts of his books apply to issues that are often on the minds of fellow church members—things like callings, raising families, and managing work/life balance.

Greg’s writing has appeared or been covered by The New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune, HuffPost, Politico, Inc. Magazine, and the Harvard Business Review. He’s also appeared on many television and radio programs, including NPR, NBC, and Fox. Greg is originally from London, England, and now lives in Calabasas, California with his wife, Anna, and their four children. He did his graduate work at Stanford University.

For this episode, we were excited to talk with John Hilton III. John is the author of the new book Considering the Cross, which was published by Deseret Book earlier this year. We loved this book and John’s really thoughtful approach to this topic, which helped us see how bringing Christ’s crucifixion, and even the symbol of the cross, more prominently into our discourse and culture could really enhance and broaden our faith.

To give you a little bit more on John’s background, he’s an associate professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University. Prior to BYU, John worked with the LDS Seminary and Institute program for eleven years in a variety of capacities. John has a Masters degree from Harvard and a Ph.D from BYU, both in Education. John and his wife Lani have six children.

It can be delicious sometimes to just sit and listen to two great minds musing on some of the great questions of life. Even when their conversations feel a bit beyond our grasp, they point to deeper realms and invite us to journey with them into a richer intellectual life.

That’s exactly what we have for you today. Two of the great intellectuals in the Latter-day Saint world, Terryl Givens and John Durham Peters, invite us to drop in on a conversation between good friends—a conversation that ranges across a variety of fascinating topics.

John Durham Peters (born 1958) is Professor of English and Professor of Film & Media Studies at Yale University. A media historian and social theorist, he authored the acclaimed book Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. His other books include Courting the Abyss, and The Marvelous Clouds.

This is part 2 of our discussion with Michael Wilcox that we’re calling God’s Many Voices. If you haven’t heard part 1 yet, we’d encourage you to go back and listen to that episode, which was released last week as episode #85. In it, Brother Wilcox shared with us why he’s spent so much time with the ideas and in the holy books of other religions.

In this part, we actually got to dive into a few of these books, and he shared several of his favorite passages with us. Some of the books we got to spend a little bit of time in were the Analects of Confucius, the Bhagavad Gita, the Qur'an, the Dhammapada, and the Tao Te Ching.

It was so fun to get to spend this time with Brother Wilcox and to hear some specifics of what he’s learned from various faith and wisdom traditions around the world. We were reminded of Joseph Smith’s words: “one of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.” 

This week, we were honored to bring back Michael Wilcox for one of the most interesting discussions we’ve ever had. We’ve discovered, as we’ve gotten to know him, just how well-versed he is in all world religions, not just in Latter-day Saint theology.

We’re breaking this episode into two parts — in this first part, Brother Wilcox explains why it is that he’s spent so much time with the ideas and in the holy books of other religions. To give you a little preview, in his words: “God has been speaking to his children all the time. Every way he can, everywhere…I can hear (his voice in) the voice of a sage, or a philosopher or a poet or playwright. God's voice is like an orchestra. We believe in a God that is speaking all the time, everywhere, every way he can.” 

And in the second part, which we’ll air next week, we actually get into some of his favorite ideas and passages from books like the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and several others  — it’s remarkable to see how some of the most beautiful ideas really echo so strongly in some of our own cherished beliefs.

Many of you are already familiar with Brother Wilcox, but to just give a little background — he received his PhD from the University of Colorado and taught for many years at the LDS Institute of Religion adjacent to the University of Utah. He has spoken to packed crowds at BYU Education Week and has hosted tours to the Holy Land, China, Church history sites, and many others. He’s written several books and he and his late wife, Laurie, are the parents of five children.

Faith Matters has teamed up with Leading Saints to produce a new "virtual summit" focused on the experience of single adult members of the Church.

Though we would love for any single adult to attend, this isn't what you might think of as a "single adult conference" — the intended audience is anyone who loves someone in their life who is a single adult!

Kurt Francom joins us briefly to explain what this summit is, and why you'll want to tune in.

Register here:  https://leadingsaints.org/singleadults

Today’s episode was a tough one, to be honest. In the aftermath of a speech that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave recently to faculty and administration at BYU, we try to explore and understand why the message created such a firestorm. Among other things, the speech raised anew the Church's longstanding challenge in speaking to LGBTQ issues. 

If you aren’t familiar with the speech that we’re talking about, don’t worry — we give a little more context once the discussion starts. The full transcript and video of the speech are available on the Church Newsroom website.

Most of the work we do in this podcast and at Faith Matters, generally, is to provide a forum where difficult issues can be explored in expansive ways through real dialogue and understanding, in a spirit of generosity. Doing that can be tricky on topics which feel particularly polarizing and raw. 

Faith Matters is really trying to “broaden the circles” of our culture and community to help them become as expansive and inclusive as they can be—both for those who already feel super comfortable at Church, and for those that are trying to find a place to fit in. We definitely don’t always do this perfectly, and we’re sure we didn’t in this episode — so we really appreciate the grace we hope you’ll extend as we navigate this tricky territory.

As conversation partners, we brought on Patrick Mason and Tom Christofferson, both of whom have been close friends and advisors to Faith Matters for a long time. We felt like their perspectives would really help to round out both the theological and personal aspects of this issue, and we weren’t disappointed. We found their insights both realistic and reassuring, and as always, they modeled a Gospel and a Church that we’re proud to be a part of.

For today’s episode, we speak with Charles Inouye. 

Charles is a truly remarkable person—the son of Japanese parents who were held in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming camp during World War II. He grew up in the small town of Sigurd, Utah. 

He spent much of his youth working on his family’s farm in Sigurd, but eventually served a mission in Japan. He then went on to earn degrees from some of the world’s most prestigious universities, including a BA from Stanford and a PhD from Harvard. He’s now a Professor of Japanese Literature and Visual Culture at Tufts University.

In our discussion, we talked with Charles about his most recent book: Zion Earth Zen Sky—which is a really remarkable and unique work among Latter-day Saint literature. For one thing, its prose is interspersed with haiku which for us brought a totally new and welcome feel to the book. We’ve really never read anything quite like it, and Charles’ deep understanding of and appreciation for Zen Buddhism brings insights to life as a Latter-day Saint that we’d never considered.

Charles was kind enough to make time for us in-studio on a recent trip from Boston to Utah, and we were so glad we got a chance to talk to him—we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

Neylan McBaine’s book "Women at Church" started a lot of conversations and challenged many of our assumptions around how women can participate and lead in their wards and stakes. Seven years later, we thought it might be interesting to explore with Neylan how far we have come and where that future might lead.

Neylan founded Better Days 2020, and has become a leader in speaking and writing about women's leadership and the U.S. suffrage movement, with a specific focus on Utah and the West's early role in that movement. Neylan previously founded the Mormon Women Project, a wonderful digital library in which hundreds of Latter-day Saint women from around the world share their experiences of life in the Church.

In 2020, Neylan was named “Extraordinary Woman” of the year by the YWCA of Utah. Her book "Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of Suffragists in Utah and the West" won the Freedoms Foundation National Award. 

Neylan grew up in New York, is a graduate of Yale University, mother to three daughters, and lives in Salt Lake City. She shared much of her personal story in a previous Faith Matters conversation with Terryl Givens in 2019. 

In this episode, we spoke with Ganel-Lyn Condie, a popular motivational speaker, author and podcast host. She’s written several books and currently hosts two podcasts: “Real Talk - Come Follow Me” and “The Middle”.

We spoke with her about a couple of topics that she’s spoken and written about recently  — first is her concept of “stewardship vs. ownership,” which is a really great insight into facing challenges without letting them become an identity. Secondly, we discussed the concept of “letting God prevail,” which was the focus of President Nelson’s October 2020 General Conference address.

We loved talking with Ganel-Lyn and found her to be extraordinarily authentic and approachable. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.

Show notes:
"Joy Even in Loss" with Lisa Valentine Clark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmH6n96SdE4

Ganel-Lyn’s website: https://www.ganellyn.com

Terryl and Fiona Givens most recent book, All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation and Everything in Between has received a remarkable amount of positive attention since it was published by Faith Matters a few months ago. We’ve been delighted to see that it’s resonated with so many people. Because of its bold scope, it has also sparked some wonderful debate. 

In this week’s podcast episode, we collected some challenging questions from readers and posed them to Terryl. What followed was a really illuminating exploration of the book’s main ideas. As you might expect, Terryl had some really good answers to some really challenging questions. 

Fiona is in Guam visiting her daughter’s family and was not able to join the conversation, but Terryl was as articulate, well-versed, and insightful as always. Enjoy this conversation with one of today’s most brilliant and engaging Latter-day Saint scholars.

For this episode, we talked to Dr. Robert Rees. Bob has fit enough into his life to fill several lifetimes, so we can’t talk about everything he’s done, but we’ll give you some highlights here. 

Bob has taught in humanities and Mormon Studies at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and several  other institutions. He’s also been the editor of Dialogue, former Chair of the Sunstone Foundation, and has published a wide variety of scholarly articles, personal essays, editorials, and poetry. Bob is the editor of a book series called Why I Stay, which compiles essays by some really remarkable Latter-day Saints; the latest edition, Why I Stay 2, which contains essays from Carol Lynn Pearson, Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, Phil Barlow, and others, was just released in April.

Bob is also one of the founders of The Bountiful Children's Foundation, whose mission is to nurture the potential of infants and toddlers to lead healthy, productive, and self-reliant lives by eliminating malnutrition.

We spoke with Bob about how we as Latter-day Saints can engage fully and faithfully with a world that’s in need of imaginative and optimistic discipleship. He embodies that ideal so perfectly, and we came away so inspired by his energy and enthusiasm for making the Church and the world better places.

For today’s episode as June and Pride month come to a close, we brought on two really special guests, Ben Schilaty and Charlie Bird. Charlie and Ben are both gay Latter-day Saints as well as authors published by Deseret Book.  They host a podcast together called Questions from the Closet.

In this conversation, Ben and Charlie share a little bit about their backgrounds and faith, what “pride” really represents and why it’s important to them, their thoughts on the process of coming out to faithful friends and family, and how leaders, friends, and loved ones can be effective allies to the LGBTQ community.

To give you just a little bit more background on these two: Ben works as an Honor Code administrator at BYU and as a therapist at Family Services in Provo, Utah. He holds three degrees from BYU and a PhD in second language acquisition and teaching from the University of Arizona. He serves as a high councilor in his stake.

Charlie was Cosmo the Cougar at Brigham Young University from 2016 to 2018 — and was the Cosmo from the original viral dance with the Cougarettes that was viewed over a billion times across social media platforms. He graduated from BYU in 2018 and is an active LBGTQ advocate, involved with multiple nonprofit LGBTQ organizations nationally and across Utah.

We are super grateful to Ben and Charlie for coming on, and learned so much from them. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

In this second episode about political tribalism and its effect on Latter-day Saint congregations, we invited Mesa, Arizona Councilwoman Julie Spilsbury and her husband Jeremy Spilsbury to talk specifically about their own challenging experiences in their local ward and community.

Jeremy was serving as their ward’s bishop until his term expired a few weeks ago. Their story is fascinating and illustrates both the challenges and the opportunities we face in creating Zion.

In this conversation, the Spilsbury's share the very personal spiritual experiences that led them to engage in the political sphere from a strong sense of compassion. Not surprisingly, given the political environment in our country, and particularly in Arizona, that decision was not universally appreciated. But love can be an irresistible force over time, and healing the inevitable result.

We recently read a wonderful book by S. Michael Wilcox called What Seek Ye? How the Questions of Jesus Lead Us to Him. In each chapter of the book, Brother Wilcox explores a question Jesus asked in the scriptures. One in particular stood out to us; it was the question “Why weepest thou?” and in the corresponding chapter, Brother Wilcox explores the role that trials play in our lives. He sat down with us to talk about that chapter, and shared what he’s learned as he’s gone through his own adversities, including the deeply felt loss of his wife, Laurie.

To give you just a little more background on Brother Wilcox — he received his PhD from the University of Colorado and taught for many years at the LDS Institute of Religion adjacent to the University of Utah. He has spoken to packed crowds at BYU Education Week and has hosted tours to the Holy Land, to China, to Church history sites, and many others. He’s written several books and he and his late wife, Laurie, are the parents of five children.

We felt honored to share this time with Brother Wilcox, and we hope you get as much out of this conversation as we did.

The political climate in Arizona has been unseasonably warm recently, frequently making national news. And it seems political tribalism has even caused division in some Latter-day Saint wards and stakes. 

It raises the question that many of us have started asking  — could political identity begin to eclipse religious identity in some parts of the church? 

In part one of a two-part series on the church in Arizona, Bill from Faith Matters sat down with Mesa Arizona Mayor John Giles and Councilwoman Julie Spilsbury about division that erupted around an LGBTQ non-discrimination ordinance.

Today, we’re doing something a little different  — we’re going to be sharing a chapter from Patrick Mason’s new book, Restoration. The chapter we’re sharing lays out Patrick’s thesis for what the word “restoration” meant in its original sense  — and how that meaning is incredibly relevant for the many members of the Church who are longing to engage with the world and lift up its most marginalized and vulnerable. 

We’ll get right to it and turn it over to Patrick, but we wanted to wish everyone a happy Memorial Day weekend, and we hope you enjoy this chapter from Restoration.

If Faith Matters’ content is resonating with you and you get a chance, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on — it really helps get the word out about Faith Matters, and we really appreciate the support.

Thanks again for listening, and as always, you can check out more at faithmatters.org.

Earlier this month, we reached out to our followers on social media to get their thoughts and questions about returning to a full church meeting-schedule after a year of home-centered worship and gospel study. We weren’t entirely surprised that there is a high level of interest in the subject. Many of the questions seemed to hinge on the tension between belonging and boundaries. 

It inspired us to reach out to Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife. What ensued was an incredibly insightful and refreshing conversation. Jennifer’s emphasis on agency and choice when it comes to how we engage with church, and her thoughts on finding real connection through honesty and vulnerability, while maintaining healthy boundaries, feels like a wise and expansive invitation.

Jennifer is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with a Ph.D in Counseling Psychology from Boston College. She has a private counseling and coaching practice in Chicago, and is frequent contributor on the subjects of sexuality, relationships, and spirituality to many Latter-day Saint themed blogs, magazines, and podcasts. You can explore her work at www.finlayson-fife.com.

The disrupted church schedules we’ve experienced over the past year have taught us all a lot about our worship practices, our church relationships, and ourselves. Now that many of us are starting to get back to a more standardized, full-meeting schedule, there are as many different feelings as there are people: some are excited and can’t wait to go back, and others are more reluctant.

We asked our community on social media what their thoughts, questions, or concerns about this are, and were flooded with responses. We want to thank everyone that spent the time to comment for being open and vulnerable with what you’re feeling. We read every question and did our best to encapsulate what was expressed as we worked through this episode.

For this conversation, we spoke with Terryl Givens, and specifically spent some time discussing Eugene England’s classic essay, "Why the Church is as True as the Gospel". Terryl is particularly well-suited to talk about this — his new biography of Eugene England, "Stretching the Heavens", is being released in just a few weeks. If you haven’t read England’s essay, please don’t let the title put you off just yet — you might be surprised by what he meant, and encouraged by what he had to say.

***UPDATE: McArthur and Bethany's books are now available at Deseret Book: https://deseretbook.com/t/author/mcarthur-krishna?ref=product-producer-list***

This week, we’re excited to celebrate Mother’s Day in a way that’s a bit unique to our tradition by talking a bit more about our Heavenly Mother.

We are grateful to McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding for joining us in this timely conversation.

Bethany and McArthur have written several books that we are sure you'll love as much as we do, here at Faith Matters. One of their most recent works is called “A Girl’s Guide to Heavenly Mother,” which highlights our wonderful and unique doctrines around the feminine divine in a manner which is super approachable for children. In addition to being full of wise and loving words, their books also contain amazing and unique art that you really need to see.

McArthur has a master’s degree in communication from BYU, and also co-owned Free Range: an award-winning marketing business focused on telling social justice stories. In 2011, she moved to India and started writing books, some of which we talk about in the course of this interview.

Bethany is equally fascinating, and has founded programs that promote health and nutrition in the US, South Africa, and India. She currently leads a regional coalition in Richmond, Virginia to create a healthier food environment for at-risk children.

We hope you enjoy! Happy Mother's Day!

Those fortunate to have come into the orbit of Tom Christofferson have found a wise, genuine and compassionate friend. His first book That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith and Family was instrumental in healing many hearts and building many bridges. 

In his new book A Better Heart,  Tom dives deeper into his journey toward the kind of Christ-like love to which we aspire as disciples. 

Tom sat down with Aubrey and Tim Chaves this week to talk about the spiritual  journey that led to his latest book.

This is part 2 of our last episode on President Dallin Oaks’ recent conference address, in which  spoke passionately about the U.S. Constitution, and ended with an urgent admonition to end political tribalism and division.

We collaborate in this episode with Kurt Francom of Leading Saints, which is a really remarkable organization that helps Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. 

In this episode, Thomas Griffith, Kurt Francom and Bill Turnbull explore how we can have a conversation about Pres. Oaks’ challenge in our local wards and stakes, and how to ensure we live up to that challenge.

Our guest, Thomas Griffith, has broad experience in both church leadership and public service. He has served as chief counsel for both the U.S. Senate and for Brigham Young University, and was appointed to a judgeship by George W. Bush on the D.C. Court of Appeals, from which he recently retired. He now practices law in DC and teaches at Harvard Law School.

President Dallin H. Oaks delivered a landmark address at our church’s most recent General Conference. He spoke passionately about the U.S. Constitution, and ended with an urgent admonition to end political tribalism and division, insisting that we address this in our wards and stakes.

In this episode, Faith Matters co-founder Bill Turnbull reached out to his good friend, Thomas Griffith, an expert in constitutional law, to explore not just Pres. Oaks address, but what lies behind it—the rapid erosion of good will and trust in the American body politic—including among Latter-day Saints. Griffith sees the  possibility of a cataclysmic crisis in the not-too-distant future, and believes Latter-day Saints can and must play a critical role in healing today’s divides.

Thomas Griffith has served as chief counsel for both the U.S. Senate and for Brigham Young University, and was appointed to a judgeship by George W. Bush on the D.C. Court of Appeals, from which he recently retired. He now practices law in DC and teaches at Harvard Law School.

In this conversation, we spoke with Brian McLaren about his new book, Faith After Doubt. Brian is a former evangelical pastor, bestselling author, speaker, and podcast host, whose ideas we found to be extraordinarily resonant for our own faith tradition.

In this most recent book and in the interview, Brian shares his own experience passing through periods of deep doubt and shares how those experiences have been key for him to unlocking a greater sense of simplicity, integration and harmony in his life.

We want to make clear that we recognize that the word doubt has different meanings to different people. To some, it means an attitude of cynicism some bring to questions of faith. To others it means an open and honest questioning without a predetermined outcome. It’s really that latter definition of doubt that Brian examines in his book. And we know that this kind of questioning can be profoundly disorienting. But, according to  Brian, it can also result in a new kind of faith that leads to a deep and abiding love between ourselves, others, and our world.

And while this episode is in many ways for those who have experienced deep periods of doubt, it’s also for those who want to stand in love and solidarity with those who have. We really think there’s something for everybody here.

For this Easter holiday, we wanted to do something a little different — so today, we’re sharing a chapter from the audiobook version of Fiona and Terryl Givens’ new book, All Things New, which was published by Faith Matters. The chapter is titled “Atonement: From Penal Substitution to Radical Healing.”

It may be the most important chapter in the book. They walk us through the history of poorly translated texts and a medieval worldview that really emphasized a jealous, angry, and retributive God, and then Fiona and Terryl show how we’ve been passed this conception of Atonement that focuses on being “saved,” rather than being “healed.”

By looking at more appropriate translations, restoration doctrine, and the details of Jesus’s life, they show that an emphasis on healing can emerge and, in the words of theologian Delores Williams, give “humankind new vision to see the resources for positive, abundant relational life.”

Happy Easter to each of you, and we really hope you enjoy this excerpt from All Things New.

In this episode, we talked about OCD and scrupulosity. OCD is a difficult subject because the term is often thrown around as an adjective to describe perfectionistic tendencies. But true obsessive compulsive disorder is so different than the stereotypes may lead people to believe, and it can be a really serious mental health issue  — one that is undoubtedly affecting someone you know and love. It can also be especially hard on missionaries.

So many people who have OCD—especially religiously-themed OCD—don’t know what to call their pain and often have only religious language or explanations for what they’re feeling.  That can lead to years of deep and unnecessary suffering. 

And that gets to the primary reason we’re doing this episode — we hope that listeners who are suffering from OCD, or their loved ones, will hear this and recognize something in themselves that they didn’t quite understand. We really want them to know that they’re not bad or corrupt or evil, and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Bonnie is a marriage and family therapist, mother of two, and author of several academic articles on religion and mental health. She has a bachelor’s degree in history with an emphasis in Mormon women’s history and a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, both from BYU. Bonnie’s currently based in Seattle, and specializes in treating clients with anxiety, religious OCD / scrupulosity, and sexual disorders.

Bonnie was amazing, and she really helped articulate some of the most difficult challenges that OCD presents, and ways to start addressing it.


—Recommended Resources—

Self-help:

“The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD,” which you can find on Amazon.

“Brain Lock,” by Jeffrey Schwartz, also available on Amazon

Children:

“What to do when your brain gets stuck”, workbook for kids which again, you can find on Amazon.

Hey Warrior, by Karen Young, great illustrations, our kids love this one. 

Podcasts:

Bonnie recommended “The OCD Stories.” 

Richard Ostler has also done several podcasts related to OCD, and you can go to listenlearnandlove.org and head to the mental health section.

Parenting Survival Podcast by Natasha Daniels focuses on kids with OCD

Educational videos:

“Madeofmilllions.com”

“Nathan Peterson OCD.” has a series of educational vioeos on OCD

We also loved the movie about OCD for kids called “Unstuck,” which you can find at “ocdkidsmovie.com”

And for conferences, camps, and other general resources, the International OCD Foundation has it all. 

Perhaps most importantly, you can find a therapists who specialize in OCD in your city on their website @ iocdf.org

This is an episode we’re really excited about. When we heard Terryl’s conversation with Claudia Bushman a few weeks ago, it sparked some ideas that we thought really needed to be explored further, particularly around what Latter-day Saint women can do here and now to vitalize the feminine divine in their own lives and in the lives of their daughters.

Aubrey took that idea and really ran with it. So for this episode, she brought on Carol Lynn Pearson, Jana Spangler, and Becky Edwards. They explore how the unique doctrine of a Heavenly Mother can play a foundational role in allowing women to embrace creativity when developing spiritual practices. They also get really specific on ideas for ritualizing and celebrating milestones for women throughout their lives.

To give you just a brief background on each of our guests — Carol Lynn Pearson is the author of "Goodbye, I Love You", "Finding Mother God", and the primary song "I’ll Walk With You", and many other books and poems. She’s been a powerful voice in the Latter-day Saint tradition for many years.

Jana Spangler is a Faith Transitions Coach at Symmetry Solutions and graduate of The Living School, a 2 year program under the direction of Fr. Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation.

Becky Edwards is a faith-based mentor, blogger, author, and speaker, who’s presented at many events including BYU Women’s Conference.

In this episode, Terryl Givens speaks with Dr. Laura Bridgewater, a molecular biologist at Brigham Young University. In their conversation, they explore the cutting edge of genetic science, and how it can both challenge and transform our beliefs.

One of the most interesting parts of their conversation centered on how an understanding of evolutionary biology might challenge our beliefs around agency — we’ll let Laura explain in the episode, but rather than being threatened by the scientific reality, she sees it as an invitation to judge others less harshly.

Laura and Terryl also discuss CRISPR, the nobel-prize winning gene-editing technology, and talk about the ethical issues that arise from it — for instance, CRISPR could insulate us against hereditary diseases, but could also empower us to genetically engineer our children.

We loved hearing all of Dr. Bridgewater’s perspectives, and want to give her a special thanks for coming on to talk with Terryl. We really hope you enjoy this conversation.

In this episode, Terryl Givens speaks with Claudia Bushman. Claudia is truly an original. She’s fearlessly straightforward and has an incredible passion for discovering and passing on the stories of Latter-day Saint women. She’s been the animating force behind several landmark publications and projects in women’s history. 

In their conversation, Claudia urges women in the church to be similarly bold and creative in asserting their place and bringing their gifts to the faith. This is a delightful conversation with one of the most remarkable Latter-day Saint women of our time, and we hope that you enjoy it.

Today we’re doing something a little different, and sharing a really fascinating conversation between Thomas McConkie and Adam Miller, a popular author and professor of philosophy.  It’s taken from Thomas’s online course, Transformations of Faith.

As a part of the course, Thomas and Adam recorded a series of conversations that take a deeper dive on several of the ideas and principles Thomas teaches in the course, and each of the conversations is really enlightening in its own way.

In this particular conversation, Thomas and Adam explore the idea of repentance and forgiveness in the context of spiritual growth and transformation, and it’s a very different take than you might expect in a typical “gospel doctrine class” discussion.

We hope it provides a unique perspective on this subject that we spend quite a bit of time thinking about and talking about as Latter-day Saints. And of course, to hear all of the conversations, or to learn more about the course, you can head to transformationsoffaith.org to sign up.

Ben McAdams has had an unusual life in public service. Running as a moderate Democrat in a very conservative Republican state, he managed to be elected as a State Senator, then as Salt Lake County Mayor, and then as a Utah Congressman. 

Concern for the disadvantaged among us has been a driving force in his public life. Tasked as Mayor with helping to solve problems with Salt Lake City’s homeless population, he decided to spend a few days and nights living incognito with on them on the streets of the city. He needed to understand the issues first hand.

In 2020’s politically polarized elections, McAdams was narrowly defeated. In this conversation with Terryl Givens, McAdams reflects on the disturbing power of tribal political loyalties. Does political identity now hold greater sway in our lives than our identity as disciples of Christ? 

Givens explores McAdams’ personal life as well as his public life, and they touch on what may be next for this unique public figure.

***
"Restoration" is available in every format, including Audiobook, from Amazon, Apple Books, and Deseret Book:

https://deseretbook.com/p/restoration-gods-call-to-the-21st-century-world?ref=Grid%20%7C%20Search-10&variant_id=190930-paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Restoration-Gods-Call-Century-World-ebook/dp/B08PKKCVJ3/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15402VNGHO8W3&dchild=1&keywords=restoration+patrick+mason&qid=1612652298&sprefix=restoration+%2Caps%2C211&sr=8-1

***

In this episode, we got to speak with Patrick Mason about his new book, Restoration, which was published by Faith Matters Publishing. When we started the Faith Matters Publishing project, one of our goals was to explore what Restoration really means as the church moves into its third century, and that’s exactly what Patrick does in his book.

In the interview, we got to ask him about the origins of the book, its most important ideas, and what he hopes for the Church in the coming decades. One of our favorite insights from Patrick in this episode has to do with the meaning of the word restoration itself — he explains that the phrase “restored Church” doesn’t even appear in any recorded sermons until well into the 20th century, and that its original meaning might be really be seen as a call to reach out to the most marginalized and vulnerable in society. That insight alone has changed the way I see our Church membership, but we’ll let Patrick connect the dots as you listen.

Obviously, we can’t recommend the book strongly enough, and we hope that you’ll pick it up and even share it with others. It’s available at Deseret Book, Amazon, Audible, and Apple Books. The book itself has so much more than we were able to cover in this one conversation — it’s a brief but powerful read packed with stories and insights that we really think you’ll love.

A huge thanks to Patrick for coming on to speak with us, and for all the effort he put into writing what we think is an incredibly important book.

One of John Curtis’s first votes after winning reelection as a U.S. Congressman in 2020 was one of the toughest decisions of his life—whether or not to impeach Donald Trump for instigating a mob attack on the US Senate during its vote to ratify Joe Biden’s election as the next U.S. President.

In this conversation with his longtime friend, Terryl Givens, Curtis talks about that vote, the current political climate in America and how we might heal the divisions in our country. They also talk about what role Curtis’s deep personal faith plays in his public life, first as Mayor and now as a U.S. Congressman. He explores this and more in this very personal conversation with Terryl Givens.

In this episode, we spoke with Fiona and Terryl Givens about their new book, "All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between."

This book has the potential to really change lives. In it, Fiona and Terryl trace the roots of our religious vocabulary and show how many of these words have been unmoored from their original foundation — and how so many traditions that have been carried forward from hundreds, or thousands of years ago are still damaging us today. They then dive into specific ideas for how we might reformulate our language in healthy and inspiring ways.

This book is healing and hopeful, even paradigm shifting and we believe you won’t be able to put it down. You can pick up a copy for yourself, or for family and friends at Deseret Book, or on Amazon, Audible, and Apple Books. We’re so grateful for Terryl and Fiona and the amazing work they’ve done here.

Our conversation with them was really inspiring for us as well, and we loved hearing more about how the idea for the book originated and what Fiona and Terryl hope people get out of it. We hope you enjoy this conversation!

In this latest installment of Conversations with Terryl Givens, Terryl is joined by McKay Coppins, a highly respected young political commentator and writer, widely known for his back-and-forths with Donald Trump over the past several years. 

Coppins recently published a truly remarkable piece in The Atlantic titled “The Most American Religion” which is both a retrospective on the place of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in American consciousness and a look forward to the third century of the Church and its place in American culture. As part of writing the piece, Coppins was granted a rare face-to-face sit down with Pres. Russell M. Nelson to discuss a wide range of topics.

We think you’ll enjoy this conversation between two very insightful Latter-day Saint thinkers.

*** Find out more at transformationsoffaith.org ***
In this episode, we spoke with Thomas McConkie about something really exciting that he’s been working on over the past year in partnership with Faith Matters.

Thomas has created an online course called Transformations of Faith. Many of our listeners are familiar with Thomas’s unique story. He’s a mindfulness teacher and practitioner of over 20 years, a committed and thoughtful Latter-day Saint, and a researcher and teacher in the field of adult development. In Transformations of Faith, Thomas draws on all three of these perspectives to create some truly transformative insights and practices.

It’s an extraordinarily rich course with over 10 hours of teaching and guided meditations by Thomas, plus some fascinating conversations between Thomas and Adam Miller in which they dive deeper into the ideas in the course. Faith Matters is a non-profit organization, but we’ve made a substantial investment to produce this course because we believe what Thomas has to share  will be life-changing for many people. For that reason, the course is the first product we’ve made available for purchase through Faith Matters. We’re offering a discounted price of $98 for the first 100 purchasers. We’ve also decided to make financial aid available for those who can’t currently afford it — we don’t want money to be the reason anyone misses out on the course.

Subscribers will also be able to access an audio-only version of the course on a private podcast channel.

For those of us who have taken the course, it’s been a subject of constant conversation. Many of the ideas and practices Thomas shared have truly been life-changing and opened up new awareness for both of us about ourselves and others around us that we simply couldn’t see before. We expect we’ll be back to it over and over again to process and uncover new layers of meaning. We think it could be particularly helpful if you feel spiritually or emotionally stuck or stagnant, or if you struggle with anxiety.
You can head to transformationsoffaith.org in order to see more detail about the course, watch a sample video, and enroll. 

We had a ton of fun talking with Thomas about some of the most interesting and impactful moments in the course for this episode of the podcast. We can’t wait for you to listen and hope you enjoy the conversation.

In this episode, we got to speak with Carol Lynn Pearson about her new book, "Finding Mother God: Poems to Heal the World."

Carol Lynn has been a powerful and well-known voice in the Latter-day Saint community for many years. She’s perhaps most well known for her memoir "Goodbye, I Love You," about her marriage to and care for her husband Gerald, a gay man who died of AIDS in 1984. Her full catalog of works is too impressive to list here, but one other highlight is that she wrote one of our very favorite primary songs: "I’ll Walk with You," which has recently been published as a children’s  book. 

Carol Lynn’s new book of Poetry, "Finding Mother God," is incredibly moving — Carol Lynn found a way to somehow simultaneously mourn and celebrate the way we interact with Heavenly Mother, both personally and in community. We found ourselves both laughing, crying, and everything in between as we read — and we can’t recommend the book highly enough.

Carol Lynn was kind enough to read several of her poems and discuss them with us — we were only able to get through a few of our long list of favorites, but we think you’ll find her words and insights inspiring, and hope you pick up the book to find your own favorites.

Thanks so much to Carol Lynn for coming on, and we hope you enjoy this episode.

Finding Mother God: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1423656687

11:11 Asking Father

21:06 Before Prayer

29:08 Jesus Remembered

36:36 What to Do

40:04 Imagine

42:17 A Motherless House

46:07 First Thought of Me

In this episode, we spoke with Jane Clayson Johnson about a really tough and important topic.

Jane is an award-winning journalist widely known for her work at CBS News, ABC News, and on the nationally syndicated NPR program, On Point. At CBS News, Jane was co-anchor of The Early Show, a regular correspondent for 48 Hours, and an investigative reporter for “Eye on America” segments for the CBS Evening News.

We spoke with Jane about her 2018 book Silent Souls Weeping, an incredibly important book that addresses depression, specifically within a Latter-day Saint context. In our discussion, Jane shared her own moving story about her struggle with depression, along with insights about how depression relates to missionaries and missionary work, a culture of perfectionism, social media usage, suicidality, and the stigma that still remains around mental health issues.

We’re so grateful to Jane for coming on and for her vulnerability and openness. If you or anyone you know struggles with depression, we invite you to listen to Jane’s message of hope, survival and resilience.

11:24 Depression and Feeling the Spirit

22:01 Finding Traction When Depressed

26:51 Having OCD While Serving a Mission

36:36 Dealing With Toxic Perfectionism

47:22 Returning To Our Wards During A Pandemic

This episode is part 2 of our mini-series we’re calling “The New Normal.”

We spoke in Part 1 with Ashley Mae Hoiland a few weeks back. For this episode, we spoke with Melissa Inouye.

Melissa’s been on our podcast before, and is one of our very favorite guests and people. After receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard in 2011, Melissa became a Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She’s now working for the Church History Department, and last year published a new book called “Crossings."

In this conversation, Melissa shared with us her reflections on the crazy year we’ve had so far. The discussion we had was wide-ranging, and includes reflections on lockdown, home church, parenting, and even how we can use a lack of stability as a transformative experience.

We’re really grateful Melissa came on the podcast and are excited to share her insights. We hope you enjoy the conversation!

In this episode, Terryl Givens and Paul Reeve explore the history of the Church’s priesthood-temple ban that concluded in 1978.

Paul is the Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies  at the University of Utah. His award-winning book, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, is considered by many the best book written to date on the subject.

Dr. Reeve has also written a fantastic essay that addresses how to make sense of our history of denying priesthood and temple blessings to our Black brothers and sisters. It’s a fascinating read—and you really shouldn’t miss it. You can view it on our website here:

https://faithmatters.org/making-sense-of-the-churchs-history-on-race/

In this episode, Paul and Terryl go both wide and deep on the priesthood-temple ban. Among other historical details, they discuss how the church was broadly criticized as being too inclusive in its early years—not white enough. This became a factor in Brigham Young’s 1852 decision to ban Black people  from the priesthood and temple. 

They also explore some of the explanations that developed in the church to explain the ban during its 126 year duration—and how each of these explanations have since been rejected and disavowed by the church.

We think this is an incredibly important and insightful episode. We suspect you’ll enjoy it.

In this episode, we speak with two amazing guests, Kimberly and Matt Teitter. 

Matt and Kimberly have been married for ten years. Kimberly is a clinical psychologist at the Utah Center for Evidence Based Treatment, and Matt is an assistant principal, and Bishop of their ward in Salt Lake City.

In this episode, they discuss their experience as an interracial couple in the Church, their experience of privilege in the different roles they have, what it’s been like navigating local leadership right now, and how we can make our spaces safer for minorities of any kind

Even with their extremely busy schedule, Kimberly and Matt were kind enough to join us for a late night conversation. We just wanted to preface that they have two adorable kids, and in the podcast, you’ll hear some family sounds in the background as we talk. If you’d like to read a transcript of the conversation, head to the website at faithmatters.org and click on the post with this conversation.

We’re so grateful that Matt and Kimberly came on the podcast, and hope you enjoy the conversation.

In this episode, we speak with Joanna Brooks, author of a new book exploring the Church's problematic history on the issue of race. Joanna holds a Ph.D. in English from UCLA. She’s the Associate Vice President for Faculty Advancement at San Diego State University, and has written or edited ten books on race, religion, gender, social movements, and American culture.

As we all continue to grapple with issues of race not just in America but in our own faith, we thought it was important to understand how we got where we are. Joanna helps us explore the history of the Church as it relates to race  — she illustrates where we could and should have done better in addition to telling the stories of heroes who stood up against racism even at great personal cost.

We’re really grateful to Joanna for coming on the podcast, and for her willingness to share what she’s learned over many years of research. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Resources:

Mormonism and White Supremacy, Joanna Brooks:
https://www.amazon.com/Mormonism-White-Supremacy-American-Innocence-ebook/dp/B08761ZHCP

The Color of Money, Mehrsa Baradaran
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076526LW5/

The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness-ebook/dp/B086CFB2NT/

13th
https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741

When They See Us
https://www.innocenceproject.org/central-park-five-tragedy-reframed-in-netflix-series-when-they-see-us/

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nahisi Coates
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SEFAIRI/

In this episode, we speak with two amazing guests, LaShawn Williams and Yahosh Bonner.

In addition to the work they do in their communities, LaShawn is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Utah Valley University and Yahosh is the Athletic Director at American Heritage School and host of BYUtv’s Family Rules.

LaShawn and Yahosh discussed with us what it’s like to be a Black person in America and in the Church today, how we can healthily engage in introspection to find our own biases and shortcomings, and how we can move from listening and understanding to making a difference in our communities.

We’re so grateful that LaShawn and Yahosh came on the podcast, and hope you enjoy the conversation.

The global Covid-19 pandemic has caused a huge amount of suffering and death. It’s disproportionately afflicted vulnerable and minority populations, and its second-order effects have destroyed livelihoods and wreaked economic havoc on society.

All of that remains true, and truly awful. But there has been an unexpected silver lining for many of us in which we’ve discovered new things about ourselves and our lives that only surfaced due to such an intense disruption.

In this episode, and a short series of episodes, we’ll be discussing the New Normal — we’re hoping to to find ways to take what we’ve learned and, as society begins to reopen, make sure we’re living intentionally and incorporating the best of what this period of stillness has brought us.

This first conversation is with Ashley Mae Hoiland, author of “One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly” and several other books. We’re really grateful that Ashmae came on — she shared some fantastic insights, and we hope you enjoy the conversation.

Links referenced:

Free prayer writing course and written prayer collection: https://ashmae.teachable.com/p/prayerwriting
Ashmae’s other work: https://minetotell.com/
Ashmae’s books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ashley+mae+hoiland

In this episode, we have a conversation with our friend Jeralee Renshaw about what it means to be “on the edge of inside.”

In Richard Rohr’s wonderful essay on the topic, he says that one who lives on the edge of inside is “not an outsider throwing rocks, not a comfortable insider who defends the status quo, but one who lives precariously with two perspectives held tightly together.” 

In referencing Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonnhoeffer, Dorothy Day, and others, Rohr says: “they tend to be, each in their own way, orthodox… conservative, intellectuals, believers, but that very authentic inner experience and membership allows them to utterly critique the systems that they are a part of. [They] critiqued Christianity by the very values that they learned from Christianity.”

We’re really grateful Jeralee came on the podcast to discuss this important topic with us, and hope you enjoy the conversation.

01:58 What is the edge of inside?

14:30 Value(s) in discomfort 

17:58 How to find belonging in church

24:37 The importance of local leadership

29:56 Patience in waiting it out

39:22 Drawing circles like Christ

This episode is part of our Big Questions project, and in it, we discuss our Big Question #12 - “In what way is our church the true church?”

For this conversation, we asked Patrick Mason to come back on — Patrick is the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. Bill Turnbull, one of the founders of Faith Matters, also joined us for the conversation.

We know that this is a really big question for many Latter-day Saints, ourselves included — and if you’d like to explore more of what we’ve published on this subject, you can check out our website here: 

https://faithmatters.org/the-big-questions-project/

Thanks so much, as always, for listening, and we hope you enjoy the conversation.

4:22 Is the concept of a “one true church” still relevant?

12:00 The problem with total exclusivity 

18:12 In what sense is the Church true?

27:18 The Body of Christ today

31:29 A Methodist reads the Book of Mormon

38:01 The Gift of Saving Ordinances

43:58 Why the Church is as True as the Gospel

Deseret Book recently published a remarkable book titled “The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints.” Mindfulness practices like meditation have become central to an emerging spirituality in the broader world. Latter-day Saints are busy people; we're doers. Our lives and our faith seem to keep us constantly in motion. But our souls yearn for stillness. This book explores how to infuse our daily lives and our spiritual and religious practices with a quality of mindfulness.

We think this is an incredibly important book. So we invited one of its authors, Ty Mansfield, to explore this topic with us at a gathering in February. He was wonderful, so we decided to share it with you. Ty is a marriage and family therapist at the Marital Intimacy Group and teaches at Brigham Young University. We hope you enjoy this episode. 

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Stillness-Mindful-Living-Latter-day-ebook/dp/B083LFZBD7

We know it’s been an eventful, and uncertain, and even scary couple of weeks for everybody. We’ve been grappling with our “new normal,” just like everyone else, and have been feeling the anxiety, uncertainty, and isolation that we know a lot of people are. 

We asked Thomas McConkie to come on the podcast and share the way he’s thinking about what’s been happening; Thomas always seems to have an ability to find the calm in the middle of a storm, and we think everyone that takes a moment to listen will really benefit from what he shares. As we spoke with him, he really helped us gain some insights that we think are transcendent but also practical.

Thomas is continuing his community mindfulness practice at Lower Lights School of Wisdom, which normally meets in person but has moved online — you can see the upcoming event dates at lowerlightswisdom.org. 

He’ll also be starting the upcoming season of his podcast, Mindfulness+, a bit early in light of our current situation, and is anticipating releasing his first episode on Wednesday, April 1, so make sure to go subscribe if you’re interested in hearing more insights from Thomas

Lower Lights: https://lowerlightswisdom.org/
Mindfulness+: https://mindfulnessplus.org/

02:36 What is Alembic?

08:16 Getting on the path we would like to be on

13:27 Dealing with the anxious mind

22:42 A mindfulness exercise led by Thomas

39:18 Finding the gold in mindfulness practice

Steven C. Harper is a Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University, and author of the new book, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins. Steve has also served as the Managing Historian and General Editor of Saints, and as a Volume Editor of The Joseph Smith Papers. President Nelson declared 2020 a bicentennial year to commemorate Joseph Smith's first vision, and invited us to study the first vision in advance of General Conference. There's no one better to talk with about this subject than Steve. Reading his book completely changed our perspective on the First Vision itself, and he explains why it was never a given that the First Vision would become the seminal story of our faith. This was an absolutely fascinating conversation and we hope you enjoy it.

06:43 How Memory Impacts the First Vision
19:50 The First Vision and the Early Church
36:03 The First Vision and Missionary Work 
43:52 The First Vision as an Identity Marker
55:36 Historical Criticisms of the First Vision
01:05:52 Which First Vision Account is True?

In this episode, Terryl sits down with his good friend, Judge Thomas Griffith. Thomas has had a fascinating career in the highest levels of power in Washington, D.C., but politics takes a back seat as Terryl and Tom explore what really matters most. Their conversation covers a lot of interesting ground, and we hope you enjoy it.

01:01 - Tom Griffith’s Career and Conversion
11:34 - How History is Invaded By God
22:43 - How Tom’s Religious Background Informs His Faith
26:03 - What Deficiencies May Exist in Our Spiritual Foundations
34:15 - Christ as Our Healer
44:54 - A Mormon Approach to Politics

In this episode, we speak with Jana Spangler about how to live a contemplative life that's also full of compassionate action. As we've brought more contemplative practices into our own lives, we've found many benefits -- but have wanted to make sure we don't lose any of that drive for compassionate service that our faith has done such a good job teaching us.

07:26 The contemplative tradition of Joseph Smith

12:46 What is the ego?

18:35 Working with those who question

23:21 Moving beyond body and mind

29:20 Serving those who are down

34:57 Combining contemplation and action

43:01 Christ as Healer

Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen died on January 23, 2020, and he left a remarkable legacy. He was a monumental figure in both the business and academic worlds, as well as in the Latter-day Saint community. He was the father of five children and author of at least eleven books. But to those who knew him, Clay wasn’t just a thought leader or a world-renowned professor or an influential Church member — he was a mentor, confidant, and friend unlike any other.

In this episode, we spoke with Efosa Ojomo, Kyle Welch, and Barbara Morgan Gardner to share thoughts and memories of Clay.

Efosa first met Clay during his time as an MBA student at Harvard. Along with Karen Dillon, Fos was the co-author of Clay’s final published book, The Prosperity Paradox. 

Next, we talked to Kyle Welch, a Professor in the business school at George Washington University. Kyle became close with Clay well during his time at Harvard as a doctoral student from 2009 to 2014. 

Our final interview is with Barbara Morgan Gardner, a Professor at Brigham Young University, and author of the book The Priesthood Power of Women. She got to know Clay when she did post-doctoral work at Harvard and as she served as an Institute Director in Boston.

00:57 How Efosa met Clay
11:42 How did Clay share his faith?
22:25 How Kyle met Clay
30:36 Kyle’s favorite stories from Clay
34:30 How Barbara met Clay
42:47 Clay’s lasting impact

In this episode, we speak with Thomas McConkie on the subject of prayer.

Thomas brings a unique perspective, one that fuses a traditional idea of prayer with a more contemplative practice. He shares his insights on finding real connection to God through prayer, on the intersection of acceptance and seeking for specific outcomes, and perhaps most importantly, on how contemplative connection with God can help us rid ourselves of the "wrong ideas" that cause us pain. 
 
We hope you enjoy this conversation!

12:38 Prayers, Now and Then
18:10 Intentionality in Prayer
26:06 How to Develop Spiritual Habits
34:56 Prayer as Conversation
40:30 Thoughts on Fasting
46:13 The Role of Prayer in Faith Crisis

In this episode, we speak with Adam Miller on the subject of sin. Adam has a really unique perspective on this — to quote his book, he says “God’s work in your life is bigger than the story you’d like that life to tell. His life is bigger than your plans, goals, or fears. To save your life, you’ll have to lay down your stories and, minute by minute, day by day, give your life back to him. Preferring your stories to his life is sin.” 

We dive deep on those ideas with Adam, one of our favorite Latter-day Saint thinkers and authors. Adam is Professor of Philosophy at Collin College in McKinney, Texas, and author of several books, including Letters to a Young Mormon, published by Deseret Book.

08:36 How does Adam Miller define sin?
20:37 How should we navigate obeying the law and loving others? Are they at odds?
28:10 What roles can guilt and shame play?
34:43 How does sin relate to punishment?
39:02 Thoughts on prayer, ego, and the stories we tell
51:36 How can I teach my children these things in a healthy way?

This week, we are sharing a conversation with Valerie Hudson Cassler. Valerie is a distinguished professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M. She formerly taught at BYU, and has been an influential thinker and writer on Latter-day Saint issues. 

Valerie was in Provo not long ago and sat down for a very intriguing conversation Aubrey Chaves, Cami Frost and Lindsay Broadbent of Faith Matters. 

We should note that since this conversation was recorded before the October 2019 General Conference, some of the issues on which Dr.  Hudson was suggesting change have now been addressed.

See Valerie's essay, The Two Trees, here: https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2010/the-two-trees

Barbara Morgan Gardner, associate professor of church history and doctrine at BYU, has written a powerful and insightful book called The Priesthood Power of Women, published by Deseret Book. We highly recommend it as a stocking stuffer for the women (and men) in your life.

In the book, Dr. Gardner points out how our lack of understanding of Priesthood has limited its power in our lives. 

She carefully lays out the difference between  what she calls the “eternal familial priesthood”  in which women and men are full partners, and the more temporary “hierarchical priesthood” concerned with church administration. She argues that our tendency to focus on the latter when talking about priesthood  has been the cause of some confusion and has kept women from experiencing and realizing their own priesthood power and authority.

She points out how top church leaders have moved to clarify this in recent years, and have invited women to begin claiming their spiritual inheritance as priestesses of God.

Faith Matters has exciting plans for its podcast in 2020. In addition to more excellent Conversations with Terryl Givens, we'll be expanding our reach with episodes hosted by Faith Matters executive team members Tim and Aubrey Chaves,  exploring our faith with some of its most compelling thinkers.

We think you might enjoy getting to know our new hosts: in this episode, we share a podcast originally aired by Richard Ostler's excellent podcast, "Listen, Learn and Love." In it, Richard interviews Tim and Aubrey about their personal journey of faith, doubt, and striving for belonging.

We hope you enjoy this conversation, and look forward to sharing much more in the coming year.

In this second episode of our mini-series we’re calling “Gems of the Restoration,” we talk with Patrick Mason, Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. We got to talk with Patrick about his background, his testimony and conversion, the things that get him excited about where our faith and church are headed, and things we could still do better. We hope you enjoy this conversation!

In this episode, we talk with Fiona Givens about the beauty inside the restored gospel tradition. Fiona is a convert to our faith, and in this conversation, she talks about what drew her to the Church, what has kept her here, and why she feels hopeful about the future. Fiona is the co-author of the Crucible of Doubt, the God Who Weeps, and The Christ Who Heals.

Thanks for listening to the Faith Matters podcast  — if you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to help out by subscribing or leaving us a rating on Apple Podcasts. You can find more content, including essays, podcasts, and videos from our Big Questions project, on faithmatters.org.

Why would one be religious but not spiritual? What are some obstacles that stand in the way of faith? Terryl Givens and Rosalynde Welch have written and spoken on these questions, and each of them bring interesting perspectives to the discussion.

Conversations with Terryl Givens are special podcast and videocast episodes of the Faith Matters Podcast, hosted by Terryl Givens and created in collaboration with the Maxwell Institute of Religious Studies.

Rosalynde Frandsen Welch is an independent scholar in St. Louis, Missouri and a member of the Maxwell Institute’s advisory board. She is working on a book about Ether for the Institute’s Brief Theological Introductions series on the Book of Mormon.

In Part 2 of their conversation on evolution and the gospel, Terryl Givens and Dr. Heath Ogden delve further into the question of why it matters. What’s really at stake in whether a person of faith accepts the science of evolution? How might it affect our views of God and how he acts in the world? How might it affect how we view ourselves, the world around us, and the universe?

Is there a conflict between the science of evolution and the gospel? Can accepting and understanding evolution actually enhance our faith and our understanding of how God works in the world? In this two-part conversation, Terryl Givens sits down with Dr. Heath Ogden, professor of evolutionary biology at Utah Valley University, to explore this Big Question together. 

This episode is a front row seat to a conversation between two of the great intellectual figures in the Latter-day Saint community, Samuel Brown and Terryl Givens. Enjoy the feast and prepare to be challenged in all kinds of good ways. 

Often, the conversation takes unanticipated turns toward the realm of experience “beyond thought.” Brown and Givens touch on the conversion experience that compelled Brown to leave the atheism of his youth behind, on the nature of beauty and its place in our spiritual lives, on embodied spiritual practices, on kin identity vs. category identity and more. 

Sam lays out in his own unique, disarmingly honest way his own discipleship and challenges.

SAMUEL M. BROWN is a medical researcher, intensive care unit physician, and historian of religion and culture. He is author of First Principles and Ordinances, part of the Maxwell Institute’s Living Faith book series, and a number of other titles including In Heaven as it is On Earth and Through the Valley of Shadows: Living Wills, Intensive Care, and Making Medicine Human, both from Oxford University Press.

In this fascinating conversation, Rosalynde Welch speaks with Linda and Richard Eyre about the issue of patriarchy in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and in the lives of its members.

They cover the history and culture of patriarchy in the Church, the swinging pendulum of feminist progress, and one of the Church's most visible and controversial documents -- The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

Rosalynde Welch holds a PhD in early modern English literature from the University of California at San Diego. She is an independent scholar writing for academic journals in the areas of Mormon theology, literature, and culture. She also writes for popular audiences at Times & Seasons, Patheos, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Linda and Richard Eyre are the authors of over a dozen books -- several of them bestsellers -- with a focus on families and parenting. They have nine children and have lived in Washington, D.C. and Salt Lake City.

helping LDS women recognize and bring their gifts to the community. Neylan has founded or helped create the Mormon Women’s Project, Better Days 2020, and even the “I’m a Mormon” campaign. She has been instrumental in shaping today’s conversation about women in the church -- past, present and future.

In this episode, Melissa Inouye and Jana Riess discuss what research and experience have taught them about why young Latter-day Saints become disaffected from the church, either temporarily or permanently, and how we might best respond to and support them during this process. Jana Riess is an independent researcher and author — her latest book, The Next Mormons, explores this big question. Melissa Inouye is a professor of Asian Studies at Auckland University in New Zealand.

Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye is a scholar of Chinese history and global religious movements at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. Her book, Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman Scholar’s Ventures through Life, Death, Cancer, and Motherhood (not necessarily in that order), is available from Amazon and Deseret Book.

In this episode, Melissa Inouye talks with David Ostler about why people leave the Church, and the role members have to play when loved ones leave.

David Ostler has lived and served on four continents as a bishop, stake president, mission president, and as a director of a Church historical site and visitors’ center. He has served three full-time and two church service missions, most recently in his home stake working with ward and stake leadership to understand why people no longer believe or no longer attend. With his wife, they have six wonderful children—some of whom no longer hold basic Latter-day Saint beliefs. He has written Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question, a book about how to minister to those who question which will be released in July 2019. He is a contributor to Faith Matters and Leading Saints.

Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye is a scholar of Chinese history and global religious movements at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. Her book, Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman Scholar’s Ventures through Life, Death, Cancer, and Motherhood (not necessarily in that order), is forthcoming from Deseret Book in June 2019.

In this conversation, Bill Turnbull from Faith Matters sits down with Tom Christofferson and Patrick Mason to discuss the Church’s reversal of its controversial November 2015 policy regarding LGBTQ couples and their children. They discuss what we know about the origins of the policy and its reversal, as well as the implications of those actions for both gay and straight Latter-day Saints, and for our understanding of how revelation occurs on important Church matters.

Tom Christofferson is a devout, gay Latter-day Saint, and brother of Elder D. Todd Christofferson. Tom is author of “That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith and Family” published by Deseret Book.

Patrick Mason is the Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies and Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at Claremont Graduate University. He was recently named Leonard Arrington Chair of the Mormon Studies program at Utah State University. He’s also the author of “Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt,”  co-published by BYU’s Maxwell Institute and Deseret Book.

Thomas Wirthlin McConkie was born into a prominent American Latter-day Saint family, but the faith didn't resonate with him as a teenager. He disconnected from the Church and began exploring the wider world's faith traditions. He followed a thread through eastern religion and philosophy, and was surprised when that thread guided him all the way back to the faith of his youth. As a specialist in meditation and adult psychological development, Thomas Wirthlin McConkie appreciates how connecting with his past opens a new vision of the future. 

In Part 7, Bill’s final interview gives voice to how his native religion has “become new” for Thomas, and how it might become new for all of us. Thomas gives detailed examples of how his study in Buddhism and travels around the world offer a connection to greater wholeness, and magnifies simple practices in Mormon tradition. He shares his observation of specific gifts the Mormon tradition offers from an “outsiders” perspective, and how each one of us can reconnect to something we may have lost. Their conversation helps one to see the worth of Mormonism’s concrete call to action, and how this action can shift to create true healing in one another’s lives. They talk about how we might create greater space in our communities for people to show up as their whole selves, and the possibility of accepting people in their growth, rather than drawing stark lines of where they “should” be, giving room for imaginations to grow together and create a genuine Zion community. 

Thomas and Bill explore the question “Is Mormonism a good place to grow?” How well does our faith community nurture individual growth  across the whole spectrum of development? They discuss the value of staying grounded in concrete practices as we grow spiritually. Their conversation explores a developmentally-informed  understanding of things like restoration, testimony and commandments.

This conversation centers around the cultivation of creativity and imagination, and how this cultivation improves our ability to “transcend and include” as we grow. Thomas and Bill talk about our instinctive movement towards higher meaning as human beings, and what roadblocks might halt this instinct. Thomas shares his “return to Jesus” after distancing himself from Christianity for many years. Through his story, he teaches how practices within the LDS tradition can move from concrete to symbolic to transcendent. His explanation offers generous permission to our changing faith and testimony as we develop through life.

In this episode, Thomas shares more about his life story, describing his experience as an outlier to his devout Mormon family. Sharing intimate encounters with his grandfather (and Apostle) Thomas B. Wirthlin, he illustrates how important it is to trust in each other’s goodness and give space for our own unique paths. Bill and Thomas explore how stagEs of development are reflected in the evolution of a religious community, particularly the LDS church and culture.

Thomas and Bill share a deeper discussion around mindfulness and meditation, and how this practice can help us connect with our true nature. This is a discussion about “waking up.” They explore how we can experience gospel principles such as obedience, service and charity in a mindful, integrated way.  When we can move from “achievement” to “embodiment”; from checklists, to presence, we have the opportunity to bring our full selves. 

To this episode, Thomas lets us experience meditation through a guided experience.

Bill and Thomas dive into the field of adult development, explaining the potential perspectives one might experience as a growing Latter-day Saint. Through the lens and insight of "adult developmental psychology," the restored gospel of Jesus Christ can take on new meaning and depth, supporting healthy progress while steering away from shame or division. To quote Thomas, "The world we will create will be informed by the perspectives we’re able to take, and the possibilities that come from that...which helps us be more creative in a very deep way."

Thomas shares significant experiences from adolescence which caused a fracture with his family and native faith and began his exploration beyond his family’s devout Mormon heritage. He gives an overview of  his 18-year spiritual pilgrimage and his ultimate return to the faith of his youth, bearing gifts from his journey. Weaving what he had learned about eastern philosophy, mindfulness and adult developmental psychology into his LDS faith, Thomas  explores ways to inhabit new perspectives with compassion and curiosity. 

"Catholics teach that the Pope is infallible, but nobody believes it. Mormons teach that their prophet is fallible, but nobody believes it."

In this conversation for the Faith Matters Big Questions series, we speak with Patrick Mason (Dean of the School of Arts & Humanities and Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate University) about the role of prophets and church leaders as divinely called yet imperfect men and women.

We cover topics like the priesthood-temple ban, Prop 8, the role members play in affecting the Church as part of the body of Christ, and a faithful but discerning approach to sustaining church leaders while following one's own conscience. We hope you enjoy this conversation! For more Patrick, check out his book Planted on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2XEIeW4

In this Faith Matters Big Questions conversation, Faith Matters team members Kate Hargadon and Bill Turnbull speak with BYU humanities professor George Handley and planetary scientist and BYU professor Jani Radebaugh.

They discuss, among other things, the integration of faith and science as pertaining to the earth and its creation, as well as our relationship to the earth and the responsibilities that we have to it as its stewards and as God’s children. We hope you enjoy this conversation!

Few scholars have the expertise, let alone the confidence, to embark on a new translation of the New Testament for Latter-day Saints. Fortunately, Thomas Wayment has enough of both. When Wayment sat down for this conversation with Terryl Givens, he was a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, but has recently moved to teaching classical studies at the university. His new translation was published by Deseret Book and the BYU Religious Studies Center—just in time for the church’s 2019 focus on the New Testament. This conversation focuses on his new translation and new perspectives he gained during the process, including some surprises.

Margaret Blair Young is an American author and filmmaker. She also taught for thirty years at Brigham Young University. She’s written with Darius Grey about early black Latter-day Saints and her latest project is a film about more recent black converts in Africa. The film is called Heart of Africa.

Young is also a swimmer. And swimming has become a powerful metaphor for her life.

Fresh off the plane after her most recent stay in DR Congo, Blair sits down with Terryl Givens to talk about the Church in Congo, faith transformation, spiritual healing, and more.

In this episode, Terryl Givens sits down with LDS artist Brian Kershisnik.

Risk-taking Discipleship | Thomas Rogers - Audio

The God Who Marvels | Steve Peck - Audio

For George Handley, both our physical and spiritual natures are inseparably connected with the natural world. An important aspect of the Restoration, according to Handley, is restoring our awareness of this connection, treasuring that connection in our hearts and minds and allowing it to heal us.

In his memoir Home Waters,  Dr.  Handley writes of his passion for creation this way: “Earth is an odd place to find myself, and this oddness is precisely what makes it so intoxicating. This is a onetime affair, never to be repeated again, and I want all of it.”

In this Conversation, Terryl Givens and George Handley explore how we can enrich our spiritual lives as disciples of Christ through love and care for the natural world that surrounds and supports us.

A popular Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brigham Young University, George B. Handley’s creative writing, literary criticism, and civic engagement focus on the intersection between religion, literature, and the environment.

Links:

American Fork (novel by George Handley)

Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River (George Handley)

What do Mormons Believe about Caring for the Environment? (Mormon Newsroom)

Elder Marcus B. Nash’s address on Environmental Stewardship

Kate Holbrook is known to friends, neighbors and family first as a wonderful cook and gentle
friend. In the intellectual world, she is know as an accomplished historian and author. She
earned her master’s degree in world religions from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD in
religion and society from Boston University. She was voted Harvard College’s Teaching Fellow
of the Year for a course she designed on global values. She now serves as managing historian
for Women’s History for the LDS church.

In this wide-ranging conversation with Terryl Givens, Kate talks about her faith and her personal story. She highlights the importance of telling the LDS story from the perspective of its women. Does discipleship look different from a woman’s perspective than from a man’s? She talks about her heroes, including Ardith Kapp. And she talks about the effect the Relief Society (“God’s quorum for women”) has had in shaping the church.

LDS church history “needs to be told in a way that integrates what men were doing with what
women were doing,” Holbrook says.

And not just what Mormon women were doing, but what they were teaching and preaching. Kate recently co-edited an extraordinary volume titled “At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women.” “At the Pulpit” features 54 speeches by LDS women over the entire history of the church, complete with important historical context provided by Holbrook and fellow co-editor Jennifer Reeder.

“After years of basso profundo comes another sound out of the Mormon tradition, the voice of
women preaching. It is a pleasure to hear…” writes Mormon scholar Kathleen Flake.

Darius Gray is an author and historian who has had a wide and varied career in television broadcasting, publishing, business management and church leadership. 

Raised in a devout Christian home, Gray converted to the LDS faith during the time of the Priesthood ban for black members. His commitment to a church that for years denied him full participation is a story of testimony, hope, courage and perseverance.  Working with other pioneering black Mormons and with LDS Apostles, Gray helped found the Genesis Group in Salt Lake City, the church’s official congregational unit for black Latter-day Saints. For many years, he served as its President. 

As a historian and genealogist, Darius Gray headed up the massive Freedmen’s Savings and Trust research project, which yielded the records of nearly half a million individuals, mostly African Americans. These names were then made available for temple ordinance work. 

Darius sits down with Terryl Givens to tell these and other remarkable stories in this conversation.

During his 24 years as a beloved LDS General Authority and Official Church Historian, Elder Marlin K. Jensen presided over an historic shift toward greater openness in the LDS church’s approach to its history. In this Conversation with Terryl Givens, we get an intimate glimpse into Elder Jensen’s personal life and thoughts, including:

• How loving and serving his older brother instilled a determination to include “those who are different”
• The spiritual experiences that led him to consecrate his life to serving in the church
• His wish for more “overtly spiritual” church experience
• How our spiritual lives can be enriched by people, practices and writings from other religious traditions
• The challenges and the fruits of complete openness and transparency in telling the history of the church
• The urgent need to embrace those who are different or “don’t meet the norm” in the church
• His stirring witness of Christ

An attorney by profession who is more at home on the ranch, Elder Jensen became one of the public faces of Mormonism during what came to be called the “Mormon Moment.” He was featured prominently on the 2007 PBS series The Mormons. 

Under his direction as church historian, dramatic advances were made in church history, including creation of the Joseph Smith Papers project, construction of the new Church History Museum next to Temple Square, and greater access to scholars on a number of fronts. Terryl Givens once wrote of Elder Jensen: "Marlin Jensen has done more to further the cause of Mormon history than any person of the current generation."

Christ the Healer:

Judgment as Prelude to Eternal Progress

Tom Christofferson’s journey through life has been anything but ordinary. On the surface, it
began as a typical Mormon story. He grew up in a close gospel-centered LDS family and went
on to serve a faithful mission. But during these years, he was also trying to deal with an
inconvenient truth: He was gay.

Although his life and family had been firmly rooted in the church (his older brother Todd was
eventually called as an LDS apostle), Tom came to a point at which he could no longer envision
a place for himself in the church, and he left. He went on to become an accomplished
businessman on the east coast and created a good life with his partner of nearly twenty years.
Later in life, however, Tom felt strongly called to return to his LDS faith and community. His new book “That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith & Family” (Deseret Book) includes his story of making a spiritual home in a faith that often may not feel like home to its gay members.

Tom Christofferson sat down with Terryl Givens in the studios of Faith Matters Foundation
(faithmatters.org) for this extraordinary, personal conversation.

Links:

That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith and Family