Faith Matters

Latest Episodes:

151. When Faith is Hard — A Conversation with Terryl Givens Jan 29, 2023

Show notes

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.

The Christmas issue of Wayfare is now available to preorder! Order your copies (bulk discounts are available—it's the perfect gift!) or become a paid Wayfare subscriber by October 31 to receive them by the first Sunday of Advent, and get a look inside the issue here!

150. How Are We Like the Ancient Christians? — A Conversation with Kristian Heal Jan 22, 2023

Show notes

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.

149. Don't Let a Good Faith Crisis Go to Waste — Jared Halverson Jan 15, 2023

Show notes

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.”

148. Equal Partnership in Marriage — McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding Jan 07, 2023

Show notes

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.

147. Bittersweet - A Conversation with Susan Cain Jan 01, 2023

Show notes

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.

146. Savior of the World - A Conversation with Esther Candari Dec 24, 2022

Show notes

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/

145. Envisioning the Restoration's 3rd Century — Patrick Mason Dec 18, 2022

Show notes

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.

144. The Art of Transformation — A Conversation with Makoto Fujimura Dec 11, 2022

Show notes

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.

143. The Sin of Certainty — A Conversation with Peter Enns Dec 04, 2022

Show notes

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.

142. The Truth Will Set You Free — A Conversation with Jason Portnoy Nov 27, 2022

Show notes

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.

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