This week on In Good Faith, host Steve is joined by Melissa Inouye and David Peters. Both guests discuss the idea of Sacred Struggles: trying times with a higher emphasis and draw to God. They also both draw parallels between the Christian Crucifixion and their own lives. Inouye and Peters are both published authors on the topic and we loved speaking to and learning from them.

Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye is a scholar of modern Chinese history and religion and works as a historian at the Church History Department of The Chur of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the author of China and the True Jesus; Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church and Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman scholar’s ventures through life, death, motherhood, and cancer (not necessarily in that order). Melissa’s new book is called “Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance.” She enjoys hiking and digging in the dirt with her husband, four children, and Labrador-cattle dog cross, Bertie.

David W. Peters served as an enlisted Marine and Army Chaplain, who deployed to Iraq in 2005. He is the author of several books, notably Death Letter: God, Sex, and War and Post-Traumatic God: How the Church Cares for People Who Have Been to Hell and Back. Today he serves as the vicar of St. Joan of Arc Episcopal Church, a new church plant in the diocese of Texas.