A Thoughtful Faith - Mormon / LDS
Mormonism has the potential to bring people together to have powerful and profound conversations, and both as Gina Colvin's bishop couple while Gina was newly married and later as friends, Pete and Liz Cammock have stood out as faithful members of the church who are also nuanced, thoughtful, questioning, and singularly unafraid of hard conversations. Its for this reason they have gained the immense respect of Mormons all over New Zealand. In this episode, Gina and the Cammocks riff on life as Mormons in a small city on the outskirts of the world, discuss this particular Mormon moment and the challenges that we face as a community in conflict, and talk about things of the spirit and the things of Christ as we look for ways to heal our church communities from the strain of ideological partisanship and lives that are often too busy for compassion.
Direct download: AThoughtfulFaith-065.mp3
Category: -- posted at: 12:21pm NZDT

Carys Bray is a British novelist who lives with her family in Southport a seaside town in Lancashire in North West England. A Song for Issy Bradley is Carys’ debut novel and was published recently by Hutchinson Books. It has been released in the UK and is soon to be released in paperback in the U.S. A Song for Issy Bradley has had a full suite of reviews from the UK dailies all of which have been overwhelmingly positive. his is remarkable not simple because Carys is a first time novelist but that her book is a novel about Mormons. To be precise she writes about a British Mormon family, bishops family no less. "A Song for Issy Bradley" explores five year old Issy Bradley’s death through the eyes of each family member. Ian Bradley the father, husband and orthodox Mormon, Claire his convert wife, through the eyes of Issy’s teenaged siblings Zipporah and Alma, and her brother seven year old Jacob. However rather than resorting to the predictable caricatures of Mormon life or romanticizing death from the doctrinal position of a faith tradition, Carys’ treatment of each of her characters is nuanced, compassionate, and profoundly kind. Only one who has been steeped in the Mormon faith is capable of such authenticity and Carys Bray is Mormon to the bone. A thoughtful faith is a supportive conversation to help those struggling in their faith transition, so it might come as surprise that Carys has disaffiliated from the church. Nonetheless her book is refreshingly generous in its treatment of Mormonism. While there is candor, one doesn’t find oneself blindsided by someone who uses literature to eviserate the church. It stands in this place between belief, and furious honesty and makes sense of these polarities through the perspective of faith. It’s this luminous and mindful quality that makes this discussion of the book "A song for Issy Bradley" a wonderful fit for A Thoughtful Faith.
Direct download: AThoughtfulFaith-064.mp3
Category: -- posted at: 12:23am NZDT

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