Many of you are familiar with Thomas Wirthlin McConkie. For those of you who are not, here’s a very cursory thumbnail sketch of his story:

Coming from a very prominent Latter-day Saint family (with apostles on both sides of the family), Thomas left the Latter-day Saint faith as a teenager, eventually moved to China and for two decades deeply immersed himself in Buddhism. Eventually, he found his way back to the his native Latter-day Saint faith, and today finds himself integrating ideas and practices from both  traditions  in remarkable and important ways.

If you’d like to hear the story of Thomas’s journey in more detail, you can listen to a fascinating multi-episode deep dive on the Faith Matters podcast starting in episode 15.

Thomas has just created a truly beautiful online course called Gospel Meets Dharma. The course description says it this way: “Gospel Meets Dharma represents a sacred encounter between Christianity and Buddhism, two traditions that have shaped and formed countless millions of minds and souls over the millennia. In this ‘interspiritual dialogue’, the unique fruits of each path come into clear relief, while also giving rise to a Beauty that transcends and includes them both.”

We invited Thomas back to our studio this week to talk about what inspired him to create this course and to explore some of its key themes. As always, we loved our conversation with Thomas and imagine you will as well.

By the way, you can find the course at  gospelmeetsdharma.com.  Thomas is offering a 20% discount on the course to the Faith Matters audience. Just type the code  LAUNCH20 when you enroll. 

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

As we approach the portion of the Come Follow Me curriculum that addresses Official Declaration 2, we thought we’d re-release a classic episode of the podcast that many of our newer listeners may not have heard — a conversation between Terryl Givens and Paul Reeve that explores the history of the Church’s priesthood-temple ban that concluded in 1978.

In this episode, Paul and Terryl go both wide and deep on the priesthood-temple ban. Among other historical details, they discuss how the church was broadly criticized as being too inclusive in its early years—critics claimed that it wasn’t “white” enough. This became a factor in Brigham Young’s 1852 decision to ban Black people  from the priesthood and temple. 

They also explore some of the explanations that developed in the church to explain the ban during its 126 year duration—and how each of these explanations have since been rejected and disavowed by the church.

Paul Reeve is the Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies  at the University of Utah. His award-winning book, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, is considered by many the best book written to date on the subject.

Dr. Reeve has also written a fantastic essay that addresses how to make sense of our history of denying priesthood and temple blessings to our Black brothers and sisters. It’s a fascinating read—and you really shouldn’t miss it.

We think this is an incredibly important and insightful episode. We suspect you’ll enjoy it.

Paul Reeve's essay: https://faithmatters.org/making-sense-of-the-churchs-history-on-race/

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

This week, Faith Matters was delighted to welcome Dan Vallone, the US Director for More in Common, a nonprofit foundation whose mission is to build a more united and inclusive America that is resilient to the profound threats posed by our country’s polarization.

Dan has a super impressive background, including serving six years active duty as a US Army infantry officer, with one tour in Afghanistan. He is a graduate of West Point and earned a Master’s degree from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore on a Fulbright Scholarship, and later an MBA from Harvard Business School. He also spent time as a special advisor on innovation to the US Department of Education. 

In this conversation, Dan spent time helping us understand why it seems we have become so divided politically in the United States. He shared some really interesting research that shows that the large majority of Americans are proponents of listening, compromise, and good-faith engagement with those on the other side of the aisle. 

Dan left us with several practical takeaways about how we can be active healers in our communities, and how faith institutions like the Church can play vital roles in helping us come together.

We want to extend a huge thanks to Dan for his thoughtfulness and leadership on this issue and hope you enjoy!

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

For this episode, we spoke with Patrick Mason and David Pulsipher about their new book, "Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict". The book was recently published by BYU’s Maxwell Institute.

"Proclaim Peace" begins with the premise that even though we live in a world that is plagued by violence, that peace really is possible. For Patrick and David, the Gospel of Jesus Christ lays out a unique theology which can help us become peacemakers in our communities and society at large. Their book also addresses really important questions that many people have about scriptural violence, and helps show that active and lasting peace really is a divine goal.

Returning to the podcast, Patrick is the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture, and an associate professor of religious studies and history, at Utah State University. 

Joining Faith Matters for the first time is David, a professor of history at Brigham Young University–Idaho where he teaches courses on citizenship, civil discourse, peace-building, and nonviolence.

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

For this episode, we got to speak with Richard Eyre, a man whose career has spanned a number of roles, including that of an author, consultant, entrepreneur, and speaker.

We got to speak with him about a variety of topics,  focusing on how we can contribute to society as a faith with a lot to offer even while our members are relatively few in number. We also discussed how we can make difficult decisions which seem to have an outsized impact on our lives, as well as whether there’s room for optimism as we engage the world around us.

Richard is the author of more than fifty books, many written along with his wife, Linda. Together, they are among America’s most prominent voices on the subject of parenting, such as their co-authored volume, Teaching Your Children Values, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller. They and their work have appeared on Oprah, the CBS Early Show, Today, Good Morning America and many other national media outlets.

Richard has also experienced wide-ranging church service, including serving as the president of the England London South mission. He and Linda also served as external advisors to the Church on family. They are also the parents of nine children.

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

For this episode, we’re doing a follow-up to our interview with Jody Moore about her new book published by Faith Matters, Better Than Happy. If you haven’t heard that episode yet, we’d recommend going back and listening first to that episode, which was released as #92.

This episode is not in our standard interview style  — instead, it’s a live coaching experience, where Jody works with Lindsay Broadbent and Andrea Weaver through real-life issues. We thought it was hugely helpful, because we’re able to hear Jody put the principles of the book directly into action. We want to give Lindsay and Andrea a huge thanks for coming on and being so open.

And to remind you a little bit about Jody, she has a BA in Communications and an MA in Adult Education, along with 15 years of experience as a Corporate Trainer and Leadership Coach, and is a Certified Life Coach. She’s also the host of the incredibly popular podcast Better Than Happy with Jody Moore.

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

For today’s episode, we’re announcing the next book published by Faith Matters Publishing called Better Than Happy  by Jody Moore.

Jody has become something of a phenomenon in recent years—especially among Latter-day Saint women—due to her fantastic insights about how we can better deal with difficult relationships, create and meet goals, and live more fulfilling and happy lives. She has a BA in Communications and an MA in Adult Education, along with 15 years of experience as a Corporate Trainer and Leadership Coach, and is a Certified Life Coach. She’s also the host of the incredibly popular podcast Better Than Happy with Jody Moore.

Jody’s new book teaches how our unconscious thought patterns determine our relationships, our spiritual life, and our connection to God to a much greater extent than we know. Even though that can sound intimidating, Jody teaches that the subconscious mind is something that you can access and train to radically change the way you live. 

To join us as additional guest hosts for this conversation with Jody, we brought on Lindsay Broadbent and McKinzie Hancock. We loved hearing Jody touch on the principles in the book,  which you can order it now on Amazon and Audible (just search “better than happy” and you’ll find it).

As an aside, for our next episode which will be released as number 93, we recorded a live coaching session with Jody where she tackles some real-life issues to give an example of how the model and principles taught in the book can have a real and immediate impact. Be sure to keep an eye out for it!

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

To give a little background on today’s episode, we recently read the book A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck, who is a professor of biology and bioethics at BYU and an award-winning fiction author. The book is a remarkable and frankly terrifying exploration of a concept of “hell” that calls into question the very natures of eternity, meaning, and relationship. 

As we talked with each other about this book, we realized that exploring the Latter-day Saint concept of “hell” in relationship to other hell theologies would be fascinating. But more importantly, as Steve’s book indicated, it would provide an opportunity for us to dive deep on what we mean when we say eternity, and what our unique faith tradition has to teach us and share with the world about the nature of an endlessly loving God, life after death, and human potential.

So we asked Steve to join us to talk a bit about his book, and brought in Terryl Givens as an additional conversation partner to round out some of these concepts, especially in light of Christian and Latter-day Saint tradition.

And yes, if you’re wondering, we thought that Halloween was the perfect day to release this episode ;)

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

This week, Tim and Aubrey Chaves of Faith Matters welcomed back Charles Inouye. When they first spoke with Charles a couple months ago, he mentioned that he had prepared some thoughts on living a life free of racism. Given President Nelson’s recent call for members of the Church to “lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice,” we wanted to get him back on as soon as we could so he could share his impressive insights.

We knew that Charles would have a unique perspective to share on this topic. As the son of Japanese parents who were held in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming internment camp during World War II, he grew up as part of the only Japanese family in the small town of Sigurd, Utah. 

Charles spent much of his youth working on his family’s farm in Sigurd, but eventually served a mission in Japan. He later went on to earn degrees from some of the world’s most prestigious universities, including a BA from Stanford and a PhD from Harvard. He’s now a Professor of Japanese Literature and Visual Culture at Tufts University.

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

For this conversation, we spoke with Greg McKeown, the New York Times-bestselling author of the books Essentialism and Effortless, the latter of which was just released earlier this year. When we read both Essentialism and Effortless, we knew we wanted to have Greg on the podcast. Everything he wrote in these books seemed immediately applicable; not just in our lives or careers, but even towards our membership in the Church.

Greg is also a Latter-day Saint, and he was able to talk with us about how the concepts of his books apply to issues that are often on the minds of fellow church members—things like callings, raising families, and managing work/life balance.

Greg’s writing has appeared or been covered by The New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune, HuffPost, Politico, Inc. Magazine, and the Harvard Business Review. He’s also appeared on many television and radio programs, including NPR, NBC, and Fox. Greg is originally from London, England, and now lives in Calabasas, California with his wife, Anna, and their four children. He did his graduate work at Stanford University.

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts.