A Thoughtful Faith Podcast

Conversations about the religious and spiritual life on the other side of fundamentalism
 
A Thoughtful Faith Podcast

243: Listening For God: Prof. Nancy Ross

“There’s no point at which we can say, ‘I’ve got it.’   Always and forever, mystery gets you.  Our searching for God is a search for symbols, analogies and metaphors.  All theological language is an approximation, offered tentatively in holy awe.  That’s the best human language can achieve.

We must, absolutely must, maintain a fundamental humility before the great mystery.  If we do not, religion always worships itself and its formulations, and never God.”

So says Fr. Richard Rohr, and thus contemplates art historian and medievalist Professor Nancy Ross.  Nancy reflects on the place of art as an approximation of the Christian faith in the West.  She offers a heartfelt reflection on how art has shaped her own understandings of the divine and her faith development.

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242: Interrupting General Conference with a Reflection on Holy Week: Bob Rees

General Conference is often scheduled at the same time as Holy Week.  While there is much in LDS History to suggest that the formal organisation of the church occurred not coincidently with Holy Week of …

241: Revisiting Fowler’s Stages from 0-6: Stage 2: Myths and Symbols: Sara Hughes-Zabawa

Sara Hughes-Zabawa returns to discuss Fowler’s Stage Two: The Mythic Literal stage. We discuss the power of story and mythology as important tools of meaning meaning-making.  Rather than see them as inducements into lives of …

240: A Feminist Response to Church Sexual Abuse: Staheli-Hanks & Brown Edmunds

Mormon feminist writers and commentators Sara Katherine Staheli-Hanks and Tresa Brown Edmunds respond to the MTC President sex-scandal, and generally to the problem of sexual abuse in the LDS Church.

239: Improving Women’s Ministry in the LDS Church: Dipadova-Stocks, Otteson, Hall

Laurie Dipadova-Stocks, a former Stake Relief Society President; Royleane Otteson, a former Ward Relief Society President, and Laurie Lee Hall a former Stake President and now an excommunicated transwoman attending Relief Society discuss women’s ministry …

238: How we ended up living in Warren Jeff’s house: Glyn & Jena Jones

A couple of years ago Jena and Glyn Jones sold up everything they had and went on the road on a hunch that God had a mission for them.   On their last dollars, and to …

237: Finding Jesus All Over Again: Hagen & Otteson: The Lent Series

Faith change or Impasse is often met with a resistance to our early life stories of the Divine. In this Lent series episode #3 Katie Hagen and Steve Otteson talk about rediscovering Jesus, finding new …

236: Hope and Change for the Church: Is it all worth it? Jana Spangler and Peter Bleakley

In this episode, Jana Spangler (Salt Lake City) and Peter Bleakley (London) have a hard conversation about what is troubling the LDS Church and they seek to grapple with these questions:   Is there any hope …

235: When Forgiveness is More: The Lent Series

Thomas Merton poses a question for Lent, “Where do we turn for Forgiveness?” In this panel discussion from the ‘Mormon Lenten Study Group’, Jennifer Koski, Sara Bybee Fisk and Elisabeth Boothe join me to revisit …

234: The Plural Marriage Revelation and its Nauvoo Context: William V. Smith

William V. Smith joins me to discuss his forthcoming book, ‘Textual Studies of the Doctrine and Covenants:  The Plural Marriage Revelation.’ Section 132 continues to be a thorn in the side of the LDS church, …