Faith Matters

Today, you’re going to hear a really special episode. It’s a conversation with Melissa Inouye and Kate Holbrook that took place last summer, not long before Kate’s passing in August 2022. We spoke with Kate and Melissa about an amazing new book that they co-edited called Every Needful Thing: Essays on the Life of the Mind and the Heart. In their book, Kate and Melissa gathered so many remarkable L...

This week, we’re sharing another one of our favorite presentations from our Restore conference, given by Jennifer Finlayson-Fife and called Developing Sexual Wholeness. In her talk, Jennifer brilliantly laid out human sexuality in terms of development, in the same way we might talk about adult development or spiritual development. Jennifer teaches that in its earliest stages, our sexuality is egoc...

This week's guest is Richard Bushman, who is simply one of the most important scholarly voices ever in the Latter-day Saint tradition. Of course, Richard has been interviewed many times over the years, and we wanted to make sure that we covered new ground while asking for his perspective on some of the questions that have propelled and perplexed us throughout our faith journey. So in this ver...

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 s...

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 t...

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...

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 partners...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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-flyin...

A few years ago, we were invited by some good friends to see a Christmas concert their kids were participating in. We were happy to be invited, and of course, wanted to support our friends and their kids! So we headed to Salt Lake City expecting a fun evening. But when we walked into Abravanel Hall, we knew something was going on that we didn’t understand. The place was buzzing — it was packed ful...

*This discusses the topic of sexual abuse and prevention of sexual abuse. Please use discretion in determining whether or not this is a suitable episode for you or for anyone listening in.* Sexual abuse and sexual violence are shockingly prevalent. In the United States, about 1 in 4 girls, and 1 in 13 boys experience child sexual abuse. In their lifetimes, over half of women and 1 in 3 men will ex...

In 1945 fifty-two papyrus texts were found concealed in an earthenware jar buried in the Egyptian desert. They turned out to be early Christian writings, some dating all the way back to the first few centuries AD. Elaine Pagels, a historian of religion at Princeton university, has dedicated her life to studying and interpreting these texts and it turns out that there are some surprisingly powerful...

This week, Faith Matters is bringing you a story that defies expectations so completely that you really have to hear it straight from the source. Our guest was Daryl Davis, who’s easily one of the most fascinating and inspiring people we’ve ever met. Daryl has spent his career as a professional musician, including decades playing alongside rock and roll legends Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. He’...

For this episode, we were happy to bring on someone that’s been on our list for a long time  — scholar and writer James Goldberg. James is a fascinating person and Latter-day Saint, and brings a truly unique perspective to our faith. In his words, his family is Jewish on one side, Sikh on the other, and Mormon in the middle. He works as a historian at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint...

We’ve been thinking and talking a lot recently about a phenomenon that sometimes happens and that we’ve occasionally felt ourselves — something you might call a “spiritual whiplash.” It can happen when we’re really uplifted by something: maybe a book we’ve read, an inspiring group of people we’ve been around, or even a transcendental experience in nature. We’re feeling fed, and our cup is full… bu...

In this episode, we were honored to bring back our friend Brian McLaren to talk about his brand new book, Do I Stay Christian? In this new book, Brian addresses a real question which underlies a startling sociological truth: people are leaving Christianity at a rapid pace. In fact, Pew Research shows that today, about 64% people in the US identify as Christian, after falling rapidly from a high of...

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 H...

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...

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...

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 way...

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 conversat...