Podcast
Faith Matters
Hosted by Faith Matters Foundation · EN
Faith Matters offers an expansive view of the Restored Gospel, thoughtful exploration of big and sometimes thorny questions, and a platform that encourages deeper engagement with our faith and our world. We focus on the Latter-day Saint (Mormon) tradition, but believe we have much to learn from other traditions and fully embrace those of other beliefs.
31episodes
Episodes
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Declare Independence from Enmity: Patrick Mason at Restore 2025
Yesterday00:31:24Summary readyAs we approach America's 250th birthday, we're reminded that every generation inherits the responsibility of shaping the nation's future. At a moment marked by fear, division, and distrust, the invitation to become peacemakers has never felt more urgent.Today, we're sharing a powerful message from Patrick Mason, that he shared at our Restore Gathering at Utah Valley University last year, just two weeks after the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk on the same campus. Speaking only a few hundred yards from the memorial, Patrick reminds us that violence is never the end of the story. The gospel invites us to answer fear with courage, suspicion with curiosity, and enmity with love.We love Patrick's conviction that peacemaking is the work of discipleship. It is the work of Zion. And as we prepare to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he invites us to declare our own independence—from the politics of fear, from contempt, from tribalism, and from the habits that keep us divided. Instead, he calls on all of us to join "a revolution of friendship and civility."When he finished speaking at Restore, the room erupted. There was a palpable sense of hope and energy— that ordinary people really can help heal a divided world. As you celebrate this Independence Day, we hope you'll be filled with that same conviction.Tickets for Restore 2026 are now available, and we have a new format we think you're going to love. Get details here!
SummaryRobin Ritch: Using Friction to Grow
1w ago00:46:54Summary readyToday we're delighted to share a conversation with Robin Ritch about her new book, Using Friction to Grow: Stories of Strength and Resilience.Many of us spend our lives trying to avoid friction. We want our faith to feel clear, our communities to feel supportive, and our spiritual lives to move forward without too much tension or uncertainty. But today Robin's asking, "What if our deepest growth comes not in spite of friction, but because of it?"And that's at the heart of her book. Through interviews with a remarkable generation of Latter-day Saint women—many of them grandmothers now—Robin uncovers stories of faith, resilience, and spiritual maturity that feel so relevant today. These women faced difficult questions, competing loyalties, and real tension between their deepest convictions and the world around them. Yet rather than allowing that friction to diminish their faith, they used it to deepen their relationship with God and expand their capacity to serve.Robin herself has spent a career building and leading transformative organizations, including at Microsoft, Intel, and most recently as President and Publisher of Deseret News. But this book grew out of a lifelong fascination with women's spiritual lives and the wisdom that can be found in their stories.Whether you're currently navigating friction in your own faith journey or simply looking for examples of courage and grace, we think you'll find this conversation both reassuring and inspiring.You can buy your copy of Using Friction to Grow on Bookshop.org!Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
SummaryWitnesses from the Margins: Tom Christofferson and Darius Gray
2w ago00:26:11Summary readyToday we’re sharing a special conversation courtesy of our friends at Lift+Love. This is a conversation recorded at their first ever Gather Conference in 2023, the world’s largest Christ-centered gathering of LGBTQ Latter-day Saints and those who love them.In this session, two men sat down together: Tom Christofferson and Darius Gray. Both are devoted Latter-day Saints who know what it is to love the Church while also having experienced real marginalization within it.Darius Gray is a Black Latter-day Saint who was baptized on December 26th, 1964 — fourteen years before the revelation that lifted the priesthood and temple ban. He entered the waters of baptism knowing he could not hold the priesthood, and he built his faith anyway. He helped found the Genesis Group, he waited, he worked. And on a day in June 1978, everything changed.This June, we’re sitting with what that means.There is something powerful in Darius’s story—his rootedness, his patience, his refusal to let institutional limitation become the ceiling of his faith.Tom Christofferson, as a gay Latter-day Saint, knows something about that too.What you’re about to hear is a conversation between two men who have walked and who are walking long roads, who are holding hard questions, and who are bearing witness to a God whose work continues to unfold in their lives.It is warm and honest and full of hope. We think you’ll find, as we did, that it stays with you.Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
SummarySacred Stories: Three Gay Latter-day Saints, Three Paths | Alisha Anderson, Steven Kapp Perry, & Ben Schilaty at Restore
3w ago00:31:52Summary readyToday we’re honored to share a special session from Restore 2025 featuring Steven Kapp Perry, Alisha Anderson, and Ben Schilaty—three gay Latter-day Saints who have each taken different paths, and who share a deep commitment to following God with honesty, courage, and faith.In this on-stage conversation, Steve, Alisha, and Ben share personal and vulnerable reflections on what it means to seek God when the road ahead feels uncertain, and the courage it takes to keep moving forward in faith. They explore belonging, revelation, and the complexity of spiritual life as they describe discerning and following paths that looked very different from one another’s and the ones they once expected—often amid the pain of being misunderstood.This session was a powerful reminder that God is at work in every life, and that each person's journey is sacred. As Ben shares near the end of the conversation, "The stories that truly matter are the stories of the LGBTQ people that you know in your lives." That's our invitation this month. We hope this conversation opens the door to deeper connection with people in your own life whose paths may look different than your own.We’re grateful to Steve, Alisha, and Ben for their vulnerability and wisdom.You'll hear Steve mention a short film at the beginning of this session that tells more of Alisha’s story. It’s beautiful and moving, and you can watch it here. You can also watch a video recording of this session, including a musical performance from Steve and his wife, on our YouTube channel or Substack. You can order Ben's book A Walk in My Shoes here.Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
SummaryJudge Thomas Griffith: Is the Constitution Hanging by a Thread?
May 2800:40:13Summary readyThis week, wards across the United States will be having a really unique 5th Sunday discussion centered on the Constitution, moral agency, and peace-building. So today, we wanted to reshare a conversation that originally aired in 2021.In this episode, Faith Matters co-founder Bill Turnbull joins Judge Thomas Griffith, an expert in constitutional law, to explore the Constitution and the rapid erosion of goodwill and trust in American politics, including among Latter-day Saints. Judge Griffith sees the possibility of a serious crisis and believes that Latter-day Saints can and must play a critical role in healing today’s divides.We’ve also compiled lots of additional resources that we hope will help as you prepare for this special Sunday lesson—you can find those on our website (faithmatters.org), and you can always find links to dig deeper into each episode in our free weekly newsletter. Thanks so much as always for listening, and we hope you enjoy the episode.Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
SummaryThe Earth Wants to Heal You: Karl Ebeling
May 2400:41:30Summary readyThey call him the Mr. Rogers of farming, and I think you’ll understand why. Karl Ebeling spent 33 years as a chemical engineer before feeling an undeniable pull back to the land and to a childhood love of farming that had never really left him. He combined his love of the earth with desire to help and heal and founded Eden Streets in 2020, a community farming initiative that helps individuals relaunch their lives and cultivate community through farming. Karl has watched first hand as the earth does her healing work in the souls of men and women experiencing homelessness, addiction, or disconnection. Today, he joins us to talk about the gifts of creation, and what it might look like to, in Elder Causse’s words, “grow, enhance, and improve upon” them, and what that kind of stewardship does for our own souls.I was deeply moved by Karl’s grounded wisdom, his reverence for the Earth and by the lessons he’s learning from the natural world about rhythms, relationship, belonging, and peace. With planting season upon us, we hope this conversation inspires you to step outside, put your hands in the dirt, and experience the way the natural world is reaching out to heal you.You can find more from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on caring for the Earth here.Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
SummaryTish Harrison Warren: What Grows in Weary Lands
May 1700:53:21Summary readyToday, we’re honored to share a conversation with Tish Harrison Warren on her beautiful brand new book, What Grows in Weary Lands.From the very first pages of this book, Tish gives us language for something so familiar. She writes about aridity—those seasons of spiritual drought, exhaustion, or distance from God, when prayer feels flat, faith feels heavy, and the life we once found nourishing suddenly feels barren. Then she also introduces us to the ancient idea of acedia—what the Desert Fathers and Mothers sometimes called “the noonday demon.” It’s that restless belief that life with God would be easier somewhere else, sometime else, with different work, different people, a different church, or a new set of circumstances. It’s a restlessness that wants to escape the ordinary demands of love in search of some imagined future where spiritual highs are constant and faith feels effortless. But Tish says these experiences of aridity and acedia aren’t signs that something has gone wrong, in fact, they are experiences that Christians throughout time have understood to be a normal—even necessary—part of spiritual maturity.In this conversation, she helps us see that the invitation in these weary seasons is not to force our way back into those spiritual highs, but to stay with prayer, to stay with the ordinary practices that have formed disciples for centuries, often staying with imperfect communities and relationships even after the shine has worn off and the brokenness becomes visible.She makes the case that that maturity often looks less like finding the perfect place, and more like learning how God meets us in imperfect places through patience, repair, and the slow work of love.Tish is an Anglican priest and author known for her award winning books Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night. Her new book, What Grows in Weary Lands, was released this week and is available on Bookshop.org, Amazon, or wherever books are sold. We are so grateful to Tish for coming on the podcast and we hope that you enjoy this conversation.Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
SummaryRitual, Wisdom, and our Divine Mother: Kathryn & Bob Sonntag
May 1000:54:42Summary readyToday, as we celebrate our mothers and motherhood, we’re exploring the symbols of our Divine Mother hidden throughout ancient Christianity, and what it might mean for each of us—men and women—to cultivate and integrate divine femininity into our own souls.Our guests are Kathryn and Bob Sonntag, who joined us at Restore last year for a powerful session on ritual, wisdom, and our Divine Mother. Today, we’re bringing that conversation to everyone.Together, we explore where the symbol of the Mother appears in ancient Christian traditions and grapple honestly with what divine femininity and divine masculinity look like when we strip away the stereotypes that can become rigid and prescriptive. As Kathryn says, the feminine is, by its nature, subtle and hidden—something that has to be cultivated with intention. And when souls or systems overdevelop the masculine and lose touch with feminine wisdom (or vice versa), something essential goes missing. Neither the masculine nor the feminine can truly flourish without the other.We spend time on practical integration. Bob says that ritual is the way we translate meaning into action—the way spiritual truths become lived realities. And he says that ritual isn’t reserved for temples or holy days, but is available in the texture of ordinary life—in hospitality, shared meals, and the quiet rhythms of each day. When we bring intention to those moments, the mundane becomes sacred, and the deeper work of integration and transformation can take root.This one is for Mother’s Day, and for anyone ready to engage in this deep inner work. We hope you enjoy this conversation with Kathryn and Bob Sonntag.You can read more from Kathryn in her book, The Mother Tree, which is available on Amazon and at wayfaremagazine.org. You can read more from Bob at WayfareMagazine.org.Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
SummaryTorn: A Conversation About Who We're Losing and Why, with Jeff Strong
May 301:19:54Summary readyToday, we’re really excited to share a special episode with Jeff Strong on his new book, Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn From Them.Research suggests that roughly 40% of formerly active, faithful members have stepped away from the Church in the last twenty-five years—and the pace is accelerating. Jeff Strong is asking why. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, he’s found that, again and again, disaffiliation is rooted in unmet spiritual needs, strained trust, and experiences of exclusion or spiritual starvation. Jeff’s book is unflinchingly honest—and genuinely hopeful, because if culture is part of the problem, there’s also something all of us can do to help.In this conversation, Jeff really challenges the assumption that people leave casually. His data shows that, on average, most people wrestle for nearly a decade before stepping away. These are sincere, often private, and deeply painful journeys that deserve to be understood with care.Jeff says that what we need are not more gatekeepers, but more gardeners. He suggests our role isn’t to monitor who’s in or out—or how “in” or “out” anyone is—but to tend the kind of soil where faith can grow: in our homes, our wards, and our relationships.He helps us recognize when that soil has become compacted or depleted of spiritual nutrients, and offers practical, grounded ways for everyday members and leaders to cultivate something more nourishing—a more Christ-centered culture where more people can grow and flourish.We are so excited for you to read this book and hear the conversation. You can buy the book on Bookshop.org, Amazon, or wherever you buy books. You can read the introduction and first two chapters, check out the appendix, and learn more about the research on Jeff’s website, tornbyjeffstrong.com.Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
SummaryLearning to Trust Your Own Inspiration: Deidre Green
Apr 2600:47:43Summary readyHey everyone, this is Aubrey from Faith Matters. Today’s episode is a personal one for me—and probably for many of you—especially if you’ve ever found yourself deferring to someone else’s inspiration, or noticing a tendency to believe that someone else’s knowing is more trustworthy than your own.Our guest, Deidre Nicole Green, is a professor at Graduate Theological Union and a theologian and scholar whose work explores gender, faith, and the Christian life. The starting place for this discussion was Deidre’s just-released Wayfare Magazine article called "Envying Hannah".At the center of the conversation is a concept called epistemic confidence—a trust in our capacity to receive and recognize truth for ourselves. And while this shows up differently for each of us, research suggests it doesn’t fall evenly. Women, in particular, are often more likely to feel that their knowing needs to be confirmed or mediated by someone with more authority before it really counts.Deidre helps us see how quickly this gets complicated, especially at church—where the line between agency and people-pleasing can blur without us even realizing it. She invites us to ask harder questions: when does deference begin to erode our connection to the divine? When are we silencing something sacred within ourselves?And maybe most importantly, what becomes possible when we show up differently—when we act with courage, claim our spiritual authority and sacred agency, and allow ourselves to be fully seen and known… even if it means risking being wrong?You can read Deidre's piece, "Envying Hannah: Risking Respectability for Spiritual Fidelity" in Issue 7 of Wayfare or online at WayfareMagazine.org now, and you can get a sneak peek inside the issue (including two more essays!) here. You can also read "Finding Truth Together: Epistemic Humility in the Book of Jacob," an excerpt from Deidre's book "Jacob: A Brief Theological Introduction" on WayfareMagazine.org. You can find all these links and more in our weekly newsletter at faithmatters.org. Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.
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