Faith Matters

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**Faith Matters**

Faith Matters offers an expansive view of the Restored Gospel, thoughtful exploration of big and sometimes thorny questions, and a platform that encourages deeper engagement with our faith and our world. We focus on the Latter-day Saint (Mormon) tradition, but believe we have much to learn from other traditions and fully embrace those of other beliefs.

Latest Episodes:

112. The Mother Tree — A Conversation with Kathryn Knight Sonntag Apr 22, 2022

Show notes

*** 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.

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!

111. An Early Resurrection — A Conversation with Adam Miller Apr 16, 2022

Show notes

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.”

110. The Silent Sufferers of OCD — A Conversation with Paul Peterson Apr 09, 2022

Show notes

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

109. 10 Signs of a Healthy Self — A Conversation with Dr. Julie Hanks Apr 02, 2022

Show notes

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."

108. Embracing and Challenging Scripture — A Conversation with Brian McLaren Mar 25, 2022

Show notes

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.

107. Ukraine: Bearing Burdens, Bearing Witness Mar 19, 2022

Show notes

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.

106. Cultivating a Child's Inner Compass — A Conversation with Jon Ogden Mar 12, 2022

Show notes

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.

105. The Many Doors of Faith — A Conversation with Terryl Givens Feb 26, 2022

Show notes

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.

104. Green Flake, Brad Wilcox, and a Path to Zion — A Conversation with Mauli Bonner Feb 19, 2022

Show notes

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.

102. So Who Wrote the Bible? — A Conversation with Terryl Givens Feb 05, 2022

Show notes

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.

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