This short episode announces two projects I’d love to work on with collaborators from the Mormon Matters listening community. The first is for stories that would become part of a podcast episode, or a series of episodes, and possibly also a book (or series of books). Right now I want to call this project "Good Shepherds." It will be stories of LDS leaders--bishops or bishopric members, Relief Society presidents/presidencies, Young Women’s and Young Men’s presidencies and advisors, visiting teachers, home teachers, stake leaders, others--who in the capacity of their callings have been amazingly open, creative, loving, welcoming, concentrating on building community and fellowship rather than being narrow in doctrine or policies that can divide and make folks feel unwelcome, unwanted, or somehow "less than." Listen to the podcast for more details, but, in short, if you have a story of someone like this you’d love to share about, please write me, Dan Wotherspoon, at mormonmatters at gmail dot com and we will set up a time to record with you. I’ll then gather yours and other stories together for release as a podcast episode or series. And I’ll later talk with contributors about possibly writing up their stories as essays for a book. The second project does not yet have a name, and it is also far more complex but really exciting, I think! It is a call for collaborators who would like to be part of a team to contribute to a book(s) and app that would help open up Sunday or other church-related discussions to greater depth, life, insight, spirit, and that might help us find ways we can share our insights in discussions that often feel like they are operating on a different wavelength than we are, using language and speaking from frameworks that perhaps don’t match where our spiritual journeys have taken us. It is too complex an idea and project to write up here, so please listen to here, so please listen to the episode and then write me if you would like to be in on the fun and (I think, rewarding) work it would entail.

We think we know what it means to "believe" or to "have faith." But do we? Has the current ways we use these terms remained stable throughout history? No, says Frances Lee Menlove in an important essay in her new book, The Challenge of Honesty: Essays for Latter-day Saints. She argues further that these changes have had a large negative impact for many Christians today, but she hopes that through better understanding of these shifts and opening ourselves to the terms original meanings we might begin to undo some of the damage that has been done--damages done by anti-intellectualism, dogmatism, the invention of the idea of "heresy," and all other things that keep us from uniting in fellowship with each other, which Menlove suggests is the call of both original Christianity and early Mormonism. Another place of strain for many Latter-day Saints today is the seeming devaluation of testimonies that assert "faith" in gospel teachings rather than a "knowledge" that they are true. It has come to the point that many who don’t’ feel they "know" this or that is true feel out of step, or less "acceptable" as a Mormon than those who claim sure knowledge. Can this be another area where more examination can help relieve some pressure--much to the good of the overall church and culture? In this episode, we are thrilled to have as panelists two important voices in the history of free and unfettered discourse about Mormonism--Frances Lee Menlove, one of the five founders of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon History, and D. Jeff Burton, author of the seminal book, For Those Who Wonder, and author of nearly fifty "Beyond the Borderlands" columns in Sunstone magazine--to talk about these important subjects. Both guests teach powerfully through by word and example, and we are sure you will be well-rewarded by listening in on the great conversation we had with them.

Over the course of its run, Mormon Matters has received emails from non-LDS persons who have become regular listeners to the podcast, as well as participants in online LDS "Bloggernacle" groups and other discussions about Mormonism. This episode features four of them--three in person, Bridget McGregor, Karrie Higgins, and Les Gripkey, and one who sent in her story, Bryony Leech--who share why they engage to the strong degrees they do with Mormonism. They each also weigh in with views of what Mormon ideas or aspects are most appealing to them, where Mormonism is strongest or should step forward even more, as well as areas where it frustrates or should consider its way of interacting with the world. Each of the panelists’ stories is fascinating, as are the insights and perspectives they offer as friendly outsiders. Among the topics getting good attention are LDS emphases on the family and ideas such as baptism and temple work for the dead, community structures, including the influence of the way Salt Lake City is structured on one’s experiences, Mark Hofmann, the Ordain Women movement and how change comes about within Mormonism, LDS history and how it is presented, and the fears that many Latter-day Saints have about authentic sharing of their experiences (too often falling back on the "LDS script").

The texts that Latter-day Saints and other Christians call the Old Testament (differing from scholars, who use Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) is both wonderfully rich and very problematic scripture. Its richness derives from its status as an account of how ancient persons saw the world, the nature of God, and the human condition. These venerable writings contain great wisdom and insight, as well as wonderful plays on words and intricate literary forms. They also contain differing viewpoints from different sources that redactors (editors) placed side by side, unafraid that readers would encounter diverse accounts of everything from the Creation to Hebrew law and God’s actions among human beings. Through the centuries, however, because we in the western world encounter them through translation rather than in their original languages, and because we are largely unfamiliar with the wider traditions of the ancient Near East upon which many of the accounts draw for elements of the stories they tell, we have allowed layers and layers of interpretation to build up, and these additions and attempts to systematize or harmonize with our preferred views have become the dominant forces driving how we read these texts. And most often, we just don’t realize that this is what we are doing. This has led, in some cases, to extremely problematic renderings that lead people to reject important truths discovered by science, to blame women for the negative conditions of this world, or to beliefs about black skin being a curse from God, etc. Or, even if not quite so harmful, it has led to quite tortured attempts to make the books seem inerrant and without disagreement with other parts of the texts, or leading some into numerology or other searches for hidden patterns within the writings that unlocks for them some types of secret knowledge. If these later overlays were removed as much as is humanly possible, what would we find that the texts reveal about themselves and the worldviews and intentions of the original writers? Would we still find these scriptures as meaningful as we do now due to the assumptions we bring and interpretations we add? Could our relationship to these scriptures change in a positive way if we were to let them speak for themselves and allow the genuine distance between us and these ancient writers to truly become clear to us, giving us breathing room to see that these writings are not "history" in the sense we use that term today, that these are not (nor were they intended to be) scientific texts describing cosmos, earth, nature, or human origins? In this four-part podcast, two wonderful guides to the Hebrew Bible, David Bokovoy and Tom Roberts, join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for the first of an occasional series approaching these important texts, concentrating in the early episodes on Genesis and its key (and most problematic) stories. Episode 197 continues with the J account, covering the curses God places on the humans, on the ground, and on Cain following his murder of his brother, Abel.

The texts that Latter-day Saints and other Christians call the Old Testament (differing from scholars, who use Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) is both wonderfully rich and very problematic scripture. Its richness derives from its status as an account of how ancient persons saw the world, the nature of God, and the human condition. These venerable writings contain great wisdom and insight, as well as wonderful plays on words and intricate literary forms. They also contain differing viewpoints from different sources that redactors (editors) placed side by side, unafraid that readers would encounter diverse accounts of everything from the Creation to Hebrew law and God’s actions among human beings. Through the centuries, however, because we in the western world encounter them through translation rather than in their original languages, and because we are largely unfamiliar with the wider traditions of the ancient Near East upon which many of the accounts draw for elements of the stories they tell, we have allowed layers and layers of interpretation to build up, and these additions and attempts to systematize or harmonize with our preferred views have become the dominant forces driving how we read these texts. And most often, we just don’t realize that this is what we are doing. This has led, in some cases, to extremely problematic renderings that lead people to reject important truths discovered by science, to blame women for the negative conditions of this world, or to beliefs about black skin being a curse from God, etc. Or, even if not quite so harmful, it has led to quite tortured attempts to make the books seem inerrant and without disagreement with other parts of the texts, or leading some into numerology or other searches for hidden patterns within the writings that unlocks for them some types of secret knowledge. If these later overlays were removed as much as is humanly possible, what would we find that the texts reveal about themselves and the worldviews and intentions of the original writers? Would we still find these scriptures as meaningful as we do now due to the assumptions we bring and interpretations we add? Could our relationship to these scriptures change in a positive way if we were to let them speak for themselves and allow the genuine distance between us and these ancient writers to truly become clear to us, giving us breathing room to see that these writings are not "history" in the sense we use that term today, that these are not (nor were they intended to be) scientific texts describing cosmos, earth, nature, or human origins? In this four-part podcast, two wonderful guides to the Hebrew Bible, David Bokovoy and Tom Roberts, join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for the first of an occasional series approaching these important texts, concentrating in the early episodes on Genesis and its key (and most problematic) stories. Episode 196 explores the second creation account, attributed to the J writer. How is God different in this story from the God of the first account? How does this writer see the origins of human beings and why God created them? Does this writer see the snake that tempts Eve as (or under the influence of) "Satan," as so many have interpreted it to be?

The texts that Latter-day Saints and other Christians call the Old Testament (differing from scholars, who use Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) is both wonderfully rich and very problematic scripture. Its richness derives from its status as an account of how ancient persons saw the world, the nature of God, and the human condition. These venerable writings contain great wisdom and insight, as well as wonderful plays on words and intricate literary forms. They also contain differing viewpoints from different sources that redactors (editors) placed side by side, unafraid that readers would encounter diverse accounts of everything from the Creation to Hebrew law and God’s actions among human beings. Through the centuries, however, because we in the western world encounter them through translation rather than in their original languages, and because we are largely unfamiliar with the wider traditions of the ancient Near East upon which many of the accounts draw for elements of the stories they tell, we have allowed layers and layers of interpretation to build up, and these additions and attempts to systematize or harmonize with our preferred views have become the dominant forces driving how we read these texts. And most often, we just don’t realize that this is what we are doing. This has led, in some cases, to extremely problematic renderings that lead people to reject important truths discovered by science, to blame women for the negative conditions of this world, or to beliefs about black skin being a curse from God, etc. Or, even if not quite so harmful, it has led to quite tortured attempts to make the books seem inerrant and without disagreement with other parts of the texts, or leading some into numerology or other searches for hidden patterns within the writings that unlocks for them some types of secret knowledge. If these later overlays were removed as much as is humanly possible, what would we find that the texts reveal about themselves and the worldviews and intentions of the original writers? Would we still find these scriptures as meaningful as we do now due to the assumptions we bring and interpretations we add? Could our relationship to these scriptures change in a positive way if we were to let them speak for themselves and allow the genuine distance between us and these ancient writers to truly become clear to us, giving us breathing room to see that these writings are not "history" in the sense we use that term today, that these are not (nor were they intended to be) scientific texts describing cosmos, earth, nature, or human origins? In this four-part podcast, two wonderful guides to the Hebrew Bible, David Bokovoy and Tom Roberts, join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for the first of an occasional series approaching these important texts, concentrating in the early episodes on Genesis and its key (and most problematic) stories. Episode 195 delves into the first of two separate creation accounts in Genesis 1-3, attributed to the P writer. What is this author’s view of God, the cosmos, and the ordered world and how it came to be?

The texts that Latter-day Saints and other Christians call the Old Testament (differing from scholars, who use Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) is both wonderfully rich and very problematic scripture. Its richness derives from its status as an account of how ancient persons saw the world, the nature of God, and the human condition. These venerable writings contain great wisdom and insight, as well as wonderful plays on words and intricate literary forms. They also contain differing viewpoints from different sources that redactors (editors) placed side by side, unafraid that readers would encounter diverse accounts of everything from the Creation to Hebrew law and God’s actions among human beings. Through the centuries, however, because we in the western world encounter them through translation rather than in their original languages, and because we are largely unfamiliar with the wider traditions of the ancient Near East upon which many of the accounts draw for elements of the stories they tell, we have allowed layers and layers of interpretation to build up, and these additions and attempts to systematize or harmonize with our preferred views have become the dominant forces driving how we read these texts. And most often, we just don’t realize that this is what we are doing. This has led, in some cases, to extremely problematic renderings that lead people to reject important truths discovered by science, to blame women for the negative conditions of this world, or to beliefs about black skin being a curse from God, etc. Or, even if not quite so harmful, it has led to quite tortured attempts to make the books seem inerrant and without disagreement with other parts of the texts, or leading some into numerology or other searches for hidden patterns within the writings that unlocks for them some types of secret knowledge. If these later overlays were removed as much as is humanly possible, what would we find that the texts reveal about themselves and the worldviews and intentions of the original writers? Would we still find these scriptures as meaningful as we do now due to the assumptions we bring and interpretations we add? Could our relationship to these scriptures change in a positive way if we were to let them speak for themselves and allow the genuine distance between us and these ancient writers to truly become clear to us, giving us breathing room to see that these writings are not "history" in the sense we use that term today, that these are not (nor were they intended to be) scientific texts describing cosmos, earth, nature, or human origins? In this four-part podcast, two wonderful guides to the Hebrew Bible, David Bokovoy and Tom Roberts, join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon for the first of an occasional series approaching these important texts, concentrating in the early episodes on Genesis and its key (and most problematic) stories. Episode 194 concentrates on background into the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, the history of scriptural scholarship and approaches to the texts, including the theories emerging from "source criticism" that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) combine the writings of four different authors or groups--abbreviated as J, E, P, and D--that long after they were written were pulled together into one big text by redactors, as well as the climate within Mormonism and wider Christianity for information of the nature that is being shared in this series.