In Good Faith

Join BYU Law online or in person on June 15 for interfaith discussions. We are excited for senior producer Heather and host Steve to lead a panel featuring guests from the American-ish Show, Mommying While Muslim, and the Three Black Men Podcast.

You can find the Religious Freedom Conference online at religiousfreedom.byu.edu to attend either in person or watch plenary sessions. The event is free for BYU faculty, staff, and students.

In this book club episode, Steve talks with guests Steven Nordstrom and Sydney Ballif about Richard Rohr's book, "The Universal Christ." The book explores Christ's influence across time. Rohr implores readers to see Christ in their everyday lives, including the mundane.

Steven Nordstrom is a fellow pilgrim on the Way, a student of the vast expanse of human experience who strives to build up communities centered upon love and care. He works as a financial analyst supporting hospitals in Utah County, but previously spent seven years as a librarian. Steven has made his spiritual home with the congregation of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Provo for the past 10 years.

Sydney is a native Southern Californian, a graduate from BYU in interdisciplinary humanities, and number five of the children. Currently, she hopes to get a PhD in philosophy, with a special emphasis on the philosophy of love and forgiveness.

Our guests this week, Rainn Wilson and Brent Plate, discuss the need for spirituality and how to bring it into our lives.

Steve and Rainn discuss Rainn's experience finding religion again and his hopes for his son's experience with the sacred. Rainn Wilson is an Emmy nominated and SAG award-winning actor, writer, and producer. Wilson's book, "Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution," explores the benefits spirituality gives us in creating solutions for an increasingly challenging world. Wilson co-founded SoulPancake, a digital media company designed to celebrate humanity and champion creativity.

Heather chats with Brent about the physical objects that create spiritual experiences. Professor Rodriguez-Plate has traveled the world studying ways that people practice and/or fight against religious traditions. Convinced that religion has less to do with belief than with bodies, Rodriguez-Plate investigates the ways people connect with physical objects through sense perception: the things we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch are what gives us our spiritual dimension, ideas captured in "A History of Religion in 5½ Objects: Bringing the Spiritual to Its Senses".

00:00:00 - Rainn Wilson

00:27:32 - S. Brent Plate

Read Richard Rohr's "The Universal Christ" with us before Book Club on May 28!

Steve discusses The Stewardship Principle with author and podcast host Ganel-lyn Condie in the first half of the show. Her recent book examines how people can face challenges and thrive, without taking ownership, but instead turning to God.

In the second half of the show, Steve interviews Marian Edmonds-Allen, who worked with Utah legislators to protect homeless LGBTQ teens and shares how she's learned to solve issues facing our community.

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:03:47 - Ganel-Lyn Condie

00:28:30 - Marian Edmonds-Allen

Steve discusses homeland, holocaust, and humanity in the first half of the show with Americanish podcast hosts Adela Cojab & Mariam Wahba, learning about their experiences finding friendship with each other. Both women are from the Middle East: Mariam is a Coptic Christian and Adela a Syrian Jew; both are working to foreground faith in America.

In the second half of the show, Steve chats with his dear friend Asker Ashkenazi, who discusses the Israeli high school tradition of a field trip to Auschwitz. When these field trips were canceled during the global COVID-19 shutdowns, Asher made sure to take his son on his own.

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:02:27 - Adela Cojab & Mariam Wahba

00:32:11 - Asher Ashkenazi

Steve and the production team discuss the new season, starting in May. We'll be back with a new format, some fascinating guests, and a book club episode discussing Richard Rohr's The Universal Christ.

Steve speaks with Brian Tanner, producer of Kaboom, an Apple Seed podcast from BYUradio. Aimed at middle-schoolers and their families, Kaboom offers whiz-bang audio adventures to those seeking tight stories, high-production values, and a glimpse into fantastical other realities. Available where ever you listen to your podcasts. Subscribe today.

Before going off-air for the month of April, the In Good Faith podcast is foreshadowing their future episode format. With two guests per episode and an intermediate producers chat, you can expect great things! In this episode, Steve talks with Lucy Bregman and Howard Wettstein. Intermittent thoughts are offered by senior producer Heather Bigley and student producer Lia King.

Lucy Bregman received her B.A. from Brown University, her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School and taught at Temple University’s Religion Department in Philadelphia PA until her retirement in 2019. She taught a course on “Death and Dying” for undergraduates, and mentored graduate students to teach in this area.

Howard Wettstein holds a B.A from Yeshiva University and a Ph.D. from City University of New York. He is currently a Professor of Philosophy at UC Riverside. His main research areas are the philosophy of language and the philosophy of religion.

00:00:00 - Lucy Bregman

00:25:32 - Howard Wettstein

Steve talks to Mathew Schmalz about the different ways suffering enters our lives and how God's presence can heal and teach us.

Mathew Schmalz is a professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross, and founder of the "Journal of Global Catholicism". His publications engage global Catholicism (particularly in South Asia), Catholic theology and spirituality, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He has written a personal spiritual memoir, "Mercy Matters: Opening Yourself to the Life Changing Gift". He is also co-author with Alonzo Gaskill (BYU) of the forthcoming "Understanding our Catholic Neighbors: A Guide for Latter-Day Saints". He lives in Worcester, Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters.