Posts Tagged ‘ mormon ’

174–175: The Chaplains on . . . Suffering

May 20, 2013
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174–175: The Chaplains on . . . Suffering

When we meet someone who is suffering, whether physically or emotionally, we naturally want to be of service to them. Sometimes our fears overcome us, and we avoid opportunities we’re presented with to “bear one another’s burdens” or “mourn with those who mourn” (Mosiah 18:8–9). Other times we step in but viscerally feel our inadequacies. Sometimes we realize our good intentions have gone wrong, and we have said something or done something that has caused even greater pain. Sometimes this happens without our even realizing it. Even with its many challenges, we are all called to learn compassion, to be…

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172–173: Proactive LDS Parenting

May 3, 2013
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172–173: Proactive LDS Parenting

Most Latter-day Saints who are negotiating a faith transition, including developing a new relationship with God and the church in which they were nurtured, naturally hope to create a smoother road for their children than they have had themselves. For those who find themselves in this new faith terrain and who still have a strong desire to stay active and raise their children within the Mormon fold, key tasks emerge. How do we parent in such a way that our children will come to feel a rich connection with their faith tradition? How do we help them develop a true…

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170–171: Toward Expanding and Improving LDS Discourse about Sexuality

April 22, 2013
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170–171: Toward Expanding and Improving LDS Discourse about Sexuality

So often in Mormon discourse, the term “virtue” is treated almost exclusively as relating to sexual purity, chastity, and virginity, completely missing its much broader and wonderfully expansive meanings. Similarly, most talk about “morality,” “passion,” “modesty,” and “sensuality” are spoken about almost solely in terms of sexuality. We receive, without careful parsing, statements about how molestation and rape victims have been deprived of “that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue” (Moroni 9:9). Messaging and publications for youth still put forth the idea that sexual sins are “next to murder” in seriousness, never…

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166–169: The Couplet (and Teachings about Theosis) in Today’s Mormonism

March 29, 2013
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166–169: The Couplet (and Teachings about Theosis) in Today’s Mormonism

The 2013 LDS Priesthood and Relief Society manual, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow, features a lesson, “The Grand Destiny of the Faithful” (Chapter 5) in which one of President Snow’s most famous teachings makes a fresh appearance. Often referred to as “The Couplet,” it states: “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”Encountering this teaching in an official Church publication has been surprising to many Church watchers who have noticed in the past couple of decades a dramatic drop off in LDS comfort levels with the teaching that we human beings…

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164: New Version of the LDS Scriptures

March 15, 2013
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164: New Version of the LDS Scriptures

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has just announced the online release of a new edition of the LDS scriptures, with physical copies to be made available beginning in August. Although the new version includes some spelling and punctuation changes along with minor tweaks to fonts and layout, the vast majority of the changes are to study materials, including to chapter headings and introductions to the various texts—some of them quite substantive, especially when seen as signals to an increased openness to admitting historical and doctrinal development. In this episode, panelists Gina Colvin, Charley Harrell, and Ben Park…

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159–163: An Easter Primer

March 12, 2013
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159–163: An Easter Primer

One of Mormon Matters podcast’s most popular episodes explored Christmas through a close examination of scriptural narratives and traditions related to the Nativity as they unfolded through the centuries of Christian history. One of the reasons for this episode’s popularity was the information it provided for Latter-day Saints about many aspects of Christmas celebrated and explored in wider Christianity that never fully became part of Mormon traditions. We’re at it again, this time focusing on Easter. With a forty-day Lenten season that flows to a conclusion in Holy Week and its beautiful rituals, for many Christians, Easter (even more than…

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157–158: C.S. Lewis and Mormonism

March 4, 2013
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157–158: C.S. Lewis and Mormonism

C.S. Lewis is a towering twentieth-century figure, known especially as an author of fiction and meditations on Christianity and the work of God in human lives. His own life journey—he was born and raised within a Christian home and was a highly imaginative child who loved literature and mythology but later rejected both Christianity and theism only to, in his twenties and thirties, begin to feel “stalked” by Spirit and eventually convert back to a belief in God and, later, Christianity—makes him especially compelling for those with intellectual proclivities. How could this towering intellect begin to believe again? What is…

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155–156: LDS Military Chaplains

February 21, 2013
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155–156: LDS Military Chaplains

This two-part episode offers a wonderful peek into military chaplaincy, a career unlike any other, and, in particular, experiences of LDS chaplains. Two active duty LDS Army chaplains—Nathan Kline and Jason Unsworth—and one retired LDS Air Force chaplain—Phil McLemore—share the history of chaplaincy and how it has evolved since even before the beginning of the American Revolution, what it takes to become a chaplain today, the many roles chaplains play, the particular pressures they face, as well as the incredible opportunities it provides for unique service and spiritual vistas. This conversation describes first hand what is sometimes called a “ministry…

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153–154: Integrity with Self and Family: Parents on Sharing Their Faith Transitions with Their Children

February 14, 2013
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153–154: Integrity with Self and Family: Parents on Sharing Their Faith Transitions with Their Children

This episode continues a series of conversations about parents and children communicating about changes in faith perspectives. Episode 146 featured faithful, committed Latter-day Saint parents whose children shared with them their movement away from their earlier firm beliefs in Mormon truth claims. This current episode also features LDS parents, this time, however, the parents are the ones undergoing a faith transition and are wrestling with (or have already) how much of that change to share with their faithful, committed Mormon children. The three parents featured here—Carey, Jeff, and Gail—have each approached these questions differently. We learn about their own faith…

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151–152: Short Takes—Adventures in Spirit

February 7, 2013
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151–152: Short Takes—Adventures in Spirit

We are experimenting with a different type of show this time. Instead of diving into a single huge topic, this show features short takes: thoughts, stories, and combination of ideas that have been important to each participant, that have stuck with them, that have caused them to feel more oriented in the cosmos. As it turned out in this first episode of this sort, we, not with any real planning for it to go this way, asked four folks to be on who, it turns out, truly are what one might call “spiritual adventurers.” Each has explored religion and the…

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149–150: Near-Death Experiences

January 29, 2013
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149–150: Near-Death Experiences

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) fascinate. Most share similar features that suggest the existence of a spirit or consciousness separate from the body that can continue to exist after the body and brain have ceased functioning in ways generally thought to be necessary for “life.” Those who have experienced a NDE also often undergo changes in worldview and personality traits, including a greater sense of compassion, less desire to judge others harshly, a sense of one’s own importance (even divinity), and peace amid life’s chaos that stems from a feeling that no matter what, everything has purpose and all will work out…

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147–148: LDS and Pacific Islander Layers of the Manti Te’o Saga

January 24, 2013
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147–148: LDS and Pacific Islander Layers of the Manti Te’o Saga

Very little coverage of the story of the cruel hoax perpetrated on Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o has focused on aspects of the Mormon and Pacific Islander cultures that helped shape him and how these might help illuminate and give context to what seems so baffling to so many: how Te’o could be as trusting and naïve as he would have to be to be so victimized, as well as why he might be extra hesitant to share the story earlier than he did. In this podcast, panelists Anapesi Ka’ili, Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, and Stephen Carter, along with Mormon Matters…

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146: Relationships First: Mormon Parents Face Their Child’s Faith Transition

January 21, 2013
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146: Relationships First: Mormon Parents Face Their Child’s Faith Transition

In this important episode that affirms love and clear vision, three LDS parents—Jeralee, Jim, and Teri—share their experiences in meeting the challenging situation of an adult child’s faith transition that leaves uncertain whether or not their future will include Mormonism in a significant way. In addition to sharing the outlines of their conversations and experiences with their children (in these cases, three grown sons), they discuss ideas and shifts of perspective that have helped them find peace about what is happening. Note: This episode uses the real names of both parents and children, but it foregoes last names in order…

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144–145: The Kingdom of God is Within You—Believing It, Trusting It, Accessing It

December 17, 2012
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144–145: The Kingdom of God is Within You—Believing It, Trusting It, Accessing It

As we mature spiritually and are ready for deeper and more expansive experience, so much that religion focuses on—propositional statements of belief and messaging that leads us to believe “If we do this practice or that amount of good, we will be ‘saved’”—can begin to hinder our connection. Using the phrase attributed to Jesus that “the kingdom of God is within [us]” (Luke 17:21) as an entry point into a discussion of deeper forms of spirituality taught in and urged by the scriptures, as well as the inner call of our own spirits, this two-part episode focuses on the vitality…

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142–143: Process Theology and Mormonism

December 10, 2012
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142–143: Process Theology and Mormonism

The term “process theology” refers to a system of thought that emerged in the early twentieth century and is based primarily upon the reflections of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Both its name and its scope, however, engage questions that date to the beginning of formal philosophical thought about the nature of reality and whether it is best thought of in terms of “Being” or “Becoming,” as primarily static and unchanging or dynamic and constantly in process. As a theological system, process thought is characterized for its strong divergence from many elements of classical theism, rejecting such ideas of…

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140–141: A Christmas Primer: Exploring the Nativity in Scripture, Legend, History, and Hearts (Encore Presentation)

November 26, 2012
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140–141: A Christmas Primer: Exploring the Nativity in Scripture, Legend, History, and Hearts (Encore Presentation)

This is an encore presentation of a December 2011 podcast episode examining the Christmas story as it traditionally gets told—looking closely at what the scriptures actually say and do not say about the birth of Christ and all the pieces of this familiar story? How do the Matthew and Luke accounts differ—even irreconcilably? What motives are behind the Gospel writers’ decisions to shape the stories the way they do? What about the Jesus’s place of birth and the reason the family was in Bethlehem (if they were)? Was there a great tax and registration? What about “no room at the…

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139: A Beautiful Vision of Mormonism

November 14, 2012
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139: A Beautiful Vision of Mormonism

This episode was planned to be an exploration of the joys and perils of being a public face of Mormonism, especially as a woman, and in particular as women who write and speak about Mormon theology. What it ended up being is a rich, wise, affectionate, celebratory, pragmatic exploration of LDS theology, community life, and connections with ideas and people that truly are among the lovely and of good report in wider religious discourse. Using the jumping off point of Fiona and Terryl Givens’ new book, The God Who Weeps: How Mormons Make Sense of Life, Fiona Givens, Joanna Brooks,…

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137–138: Science and Religion

November 5, 2012
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137–138: Science and Religion

What is science? What is religion? What are the methods/disciplines and underlying assumptions that animate each? What does each investigate? What practices and institutions does each have in place that lead to self-correction and ensuring that they truly are working for truer, deeper understandings of the universe? Should science and religion remain separate from each other? How much can each say fruitfully about the other’s “realm”? Can science teach us how to live more richly? Can religion be trusted as a guide in any way to how the universe “works”? In this episode, Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon is joined…

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135–136: Racism and the Book of Mormon

October 28, 2012
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135–136: Racism and the Book of Mormon

This episode examines the status of the claim that the Book of Mormon teaches that dark skin is a curse from God, that because of their wickedness God cursed a group of people and actually brought about a miraculous change in their skin color so as to make them seem “loathsome” and not enticing to a more righteous group with whom they were in conflict. This claim relies upon a literal reading of various passages in the Book of Mormon that seem to draw this conclusion, as well as an extremely strong view about prophetic and scriptural inerrancy. But is…

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133–134: LDS Spiritual Supplementing

October 21, 2012
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133–134: LDS Spiritual Supplementing

Studies are showing a huge increase in the number of people who claim hybrid spiritual identities, in which their religious lives include a combination of practices and emphases from different traditions. Mormons are no exception, with many, and for many reasons, supplementing their LDS lived religion with meditation, energy work, channeling, nature spirituality, participation in Freemasonry, and with many more things. In this two-part episode, we discuss with Doe Daughtrey her research into LDS women who, to use a term coined by Janet Bennion, “double dip”—that is, they draw on resources in both Mormonism and another tradition in their quest for spiritual…

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