Today is the start of this year’s Restore! We look forward to seeing those of you who are attending! This week we’re departing from our normal format and sharing a recent conversation of the MormonLand podcast, between the Salt Lake Tribune’s Peggy Fletcher Stack and David Noyce and our executive director, Zach Davis. The conversation focused on the origin and vision of Faith Matters, the questions we are wrestling with, and what to expect at this year’s Restore. We think you’re really going to enjoy this conversation and with that we’ll hand things over to Peggy, David and Zach.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

This week, we’re sitting down with our good friend Patrick Mason for a conversation that is as deeply challenging. Patrick recently returned from a transformative trip to Rwanda, where he was confronted with the enduring impact of the 1994 genocide. In our discussion, Patrick shares his reflections on witnessing both the unimaginable horrors of the past and the remarkable steps toward reconciliation and peace that are happening today.

We also dive into the hard questions: Where is God in the midst of such suffering? How can communities possibly recover from such deep wounds? And how do we respond to scripture that seems to contradict our understanding of a loving God? Patrick draws on his experience as a peacebuilder, scholar, and a person of faith to address these issues, and we explore how the lessons from Rwanda resonate with us here and now in conflicts within our own communities.

This conversation is a compelling reminder that each of us has the power to create real change in our own communities, and it urges us to confront the urgent need for peacebuilding in a world increasingly divided. Lastly, we’re thrilled to share that Patrick will be speaking at the upcoming Restore conference along with his co-host for the Proclaim Peace Podcast, Jennifer Walker Thomas. You can get your tickets at faithmatters.org/restore to join us on September 5-7th. And with that, we'll jump right in. I also wanted to mention that Patrick wrote about his experience in Rwanda for the Faith Matters magazine, Wayfare. You can go to wayfaremagazine.org to subscribe. And with that we'll jump right in.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

This is part two of our conversation with Michael Wilcox, and if you haven’t heard part one yet, it helps set up some important context for this episode. This is really not an interview so much as a story Michael tells: the story of his father, who navigated life in the mid-20th century as a gay man and a Latter-day Saint.

This story delves into the messy and painful predicaments his family faced, when reality failed to fit the predictable ideal. It also offers a glimpse into the experience of an LGBTQ member of the church several decades ago, before we became accustomed to talking about it as a community. And we want to emphasize that we’re not sharing this story because of its outcome, and in fact, quite the opposite: we found in this story the beautiful insight that we can release ourselves completely from judging others and love without an agenda—and it’s the relationships free of judgment and agendas that become celestial in and of themselves.

We want to thank Michael for being incredibly honest and vulnerable here, and for coming on to share so generously with us again.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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!

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

This week, we're thrilled to welcome back Dr. Michael Wilcox to the podcast. Michael is an esteemed author and longtime Institute teacher, and his previous episodes, which we released in two parts as "God's Many Voices" in episodes 85 and 86, have been some of the most listened to in Faith Matters' history. It's been three years since we last had him on, and we're excited to dive into another meaningful conversation.

In this episode, Michael shares his profound insights on the topic of the marginalized, particularly focusing on the experience of the LGBTQ community. Michael's wisdom draws from his own life experiences, wisdom traditions he deeply loves, and great literature. 

Michael also addresses the challenge of navigating differing beliefs and values, urging us to avoid calling down "fire from heaven" on those who worship on different mountaintops. He speaks about the importance of forgiveness, and what he calls the "Lazarus Law," reminding us that every individual has a name and a story, deserving of respect and compassion.

Throughout the conversation, Michael's anecdotes and reflections encouraged us to approach the marginalized with love, humility, and a genuine desire for understanding. We found Michael, as always, to be filled with transformative insights that we thought could really help us build more inclusive and compassionate communities.

We’re also releasing an additional conversation as a companion to this episode. In it, Brother Wilcox shares a really personal story that highlights some of these principles, and if you’d like to hear more from Brother Wilcox, it’s on the feed right now. 

Thanks so much as always for listening, and with that, we’ll jump right in.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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. 

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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 thoughtfu

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

This week, we are honored to share with you a conversation with Rabbi Sharon Brous, author of the The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World. From the moment we started reading Sharon’s book, we knew that she had a special message, and that she would be an incredible guest. Sharon’s book is a beautiful blend of ancient Jewish wisdom, contemporary science, and deep personal experience that shows how humans throughout history have taken up the responsibility to sit with each other as sacred witnesses to life’s most vulnerable and most joyous moments.

Sharon makes the case that when we sit with each other in “celebration, sorrow, and solidarity,” we are connecting in ways that not only forge deep and lasting relationships, but contribute to a larger healing in our communities and in the world. One of the things we loved about Sharon’s book and the conversation with her was that she shared experience from her own life in which she’s succeeded here as well as where she’s failed. None of us do this perfectly, and so often we feel like we don’t even know how to—Sharon was wise and generous in giving herself and all of us grace for now always showing up for people the way we could have, but also practical advice that help us see how we can do this better.

Sharon’s speaking from the perspective of a Jewish Rabbi, but her work reminds us of our own sacred texts and our promises to be willing to “mourn with those that mourn.”  We loved that Sharon explained that these principles of connection and solidarity really are universal, and we all get at them in our own languages and through our own rituals and traditions.

This episode cuts straight to the heart of what it feels like to be human; it was impossible for it not to get personal, since we all know grief, joy, and connection intimately. We absolutely loved talking with Sharon and consider this a special episode. We hope that you enjoy it as much as we did!

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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. 

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

*** 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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.”

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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."

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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. 

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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. 

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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

In this episode, Patrick and Jennifer chat with Eboo Patel, the founder and president of Interfaith America and a powerful bridge-builder in the United States. Eboo has spent a lifetime trying to harness the passion and loyalty people feel towards their religions and use it for good by encouraging interfaith collaboration and civic engagement. He shares with us some of his insights from several decades of speaking with religious and civic leaders across many different faiths, and some of the special opportunities he sees for our Latter-day Saint community.

We encourage you to subscribe to Proclaim Peace to hear fascinating conversations with Latter-day Saint bridge builders and peacemakers working all over the world in creative, gospel-inspired ways. We’d also love for you to register for Restore, which will be held on September 5-7 at the Mountain American Expo Center, where Eboo will be, in-person, along with Patrick, Jennifer, and many other incredible speakers for a weekend of spiritual rejuvenation. You can register at faithmaters.org/restore

We hope you’ll join us! In the mean time, please enjoy this episode of Proclaim Peace with Eboo Patel.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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. 

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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. 

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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/

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

This week we’re bringing you a conversation on a subject that we’re always thinking about, but that has taken on a special urgency over the last two months—the role of women in the Church. 

A large survey recently released showed a societal shift with regard to women and religion. In a reversal of trends from prior generations, young women are now leaving religion at significantly higher rates than men. Social issues and patriarchal structures are oft-cited reasons. Are there signs of trouble within our own faith? 

To explore this question, we invited two brilliant women; Neylan McBaine and Bethany Brady Spalding. Neylan is the author of Women at Church, which turns ten years old this summer. Bethany is the co-author of the Girls who Chose God series, which highlights the powerful stories of women in scripture and Church history. 

First, a little background on things we reference in this conversation.

In  March, the Church’s Instagram account posted a quote from a talk by Anette Dennis, of the Relief Society general presidency.  The post claimed, “There is no other religious organization in the world, that I know of, that has so broadly given power and authority to women.” This one post generated 18 thousand comments, mostly from Latter-day Saint women pushing back against this claim and expressing how their own experience feels quite different.  

We also reference something that happened a few months prior when a church area authority in the San Francisco area instructed stakes and wards to discontinue their long-standing practice of having some women leaders sit on the stand during sacrament meetings. Over 3,000 women and men signed an open letter to the general women’s leaders of the church in protest. 

We make brief reference in the conversation to a book by BYU Religion Professor Barbara Morgan Gardner, The Priesthood Power of Women published by Deseret Book. Gardner distinguishes between the temporal ecclesiastical priesthood to which now only men are ordained and the eternal familial priesthood, to which both men and women are ordained, and in which they act as full partners.

We tried to get honest about the tension, while approaching some potential paths forward. Is this just about the Priesthood, or is there something deeper going on? What  practical things can both women and men can do to allow women and their spiritual gifts to shine? Does it require “change from the top” or is there an inner work that anyone could choose to do to change the experience just as profoundly? What might it look like for women to truly act as priestesses in their homes, whether as a single person or side-by-side with a spouse?

This is all tricky territory. Some will worry that we can’t consider how to improve women’s experience in the Church while sustaining Church leaders, while others believe that pushing until there is change is the only way forward. We hope this conversation honors all of those voices. We have deep love and empathy for our community and our leaders. 

We’re grateful if you choose to spend your time with us on this topic. With that, we’ll jump right in.

Why Heavenly Mother is Essential for Women Understanding their Eternal Destiny by McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding

“This Is a Woman’s Church”

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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!

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

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.

Order That We Might Have Joy anywhere books are sold! Available as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook.