Monthly Archives: August 2011

49: Mormonism’s Messages about Motherhood

August 30, 2011
By
49: Mormonism’s Messages about Motherhood

This panel discussion examines the wonderful gifts of Mormonism’s strong emphases and teachings about the divine role of motherhood as well as the external and internal pressures that come with these messages and how they sometimes work against the more basic gospel goal of helping women fully flourish and grow in godlike qualities. In this far-ranging and insight-packed conversation, panelists Chelsea Fife, Chelsea Strayer, and Jennifer Finlayson-Fife all maintain the utmost gratitude for their own role as mothers and for church emphases on motherhood’s many joys while also examining ways we as Latter-day Saints might change some of our...

Read more »

48: Mormonism and Evolution

August 23, 2011
By
48: Mormonism and Evolution

This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the controversies over the study and teaching of evolution at Brigham Young University that resulted in the resignations or firing of three of Brigham Young University’s prominent faculty members and a significant blow to the university career of another. This Mormon Matters episode tells key elements in the story of those 1911 events, but it primarily uses them as a launching pad for a tour of the history of LDS views and approaches to evolution from then to now, as well as more specific reflections on the various tensions between Mormon...

Read more »

47: When Worldviews Go Haywire: Breivik, Jeffs, and the Religion/Mental Health Matrix

August 16, 2011
By
47: When Worldviews Go Haywire: Breivik, Jeffs, and the Religion/Mental Health Matrix

The recent tragedy in Oslo and the Warren Jeffs trial provide two recent examples that remind us of the way various personality traits and/or mental issues coupled with isolation and the refusal to allow one’s own ideas to be challenged can lead to horrific acts of violence and depravity that the perpetrators claim to view as righteous. In this podcast, Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon and panelists Joanna Brooks and Natasha Helfer Parker examine various angles into how distorted worldviews like these take hold, the influence of nature and nurture (including religious factors), as well as some of the...

Read more »

46: In Memoriam—Sister Chieko Okazaki and Elder Marion D. Hanks

August 10, 2011
By

The first week of August 2011 saw the passing of two giants in the Mormon universe: Sister Chieko Okazaki, a former counselor in the Relief Society general presidency and beloved author and speaker, and Elder Marion D. Hanks, a long-time general authority who many looked up to as one of Mormonism’s greatest champions for love, equality, and Christian service. This episode is a celebration and appreciation of their lives through conversation with intimate friends. Mormon Matters host, Dan Wotherspoon, first interviews Sister Aileen Clyde, who served from 1990 to 1997 as a fellow counselor with Sister Okazaki in the...

Read more »

45: The Mormon Practice of Bearing Testimony

August 2, 2011
By
Testimony image

In this episode, Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon and panelists Brent Beal, Brian Johnston, and Jana Riess explore various aspects of one of Mormonism’s most regular (and sometimes it seems regulated) rituals: the monthly opportunity for church members to bear testimony. The discussion ranges from the nature of the expectation that those bearing testimony, including children, will focus on particular truth claims, to the peculiar way Mormonism encourages members to extrapolate from experiences of feeling “the spirit” within a gospel context to conclude that all other LDS claims are therefore true (and even that this is the “one and...

Read more »