A Thoughtful Faith - Mormon / LDS

Generation Y and Zeds are vexing for the traditional  church.  Author of ‘Losing Our Religion’ Christel Manning argues that Millennial and Gen Zed Nones (those born in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s)

“hold a wide variety of worldviews, ranging from deeply religious to highly secular, and transmit them in diverse ways. What ties them all together is a commitment to spiritual choice—a belief in the moral equivalence of religions and secular worldviews and in the individual’s right to choose—and it is that choice they seek to pass on to their children.”

In sociological speak, instead of having their identities ascribed or handed down and inherited, Gen Y’s and Zeds value elective identities and that includes religious and spiritual identities.

Dutch religious studies teacher and theologian Frank Brouwer joins me to discuss this fascinating question of how the young in Western Europe are responding to the deeper questions of life, how they understand the church and how, most interestingly, they are building their own spiritual literacy, on their own terms.

Direct download: Franka__Brouwer_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:20pm NZDT

On the 17th December, the Washington Post published an article about a former employee of Ensign Peak Advisors, (a not for profit corporation constituted under the direction of of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).  The article tells of the whistleblower's complaint to the IRS alleging that Ensign Peak has failed to meet its charitable giving obligations.  According to the complaint, not one charitable distribution from the $100billion dollars that purportedly sits with Ensign Peak has been made during its 22 years of operation, which it is obligated to do as a supporting organisation with tax-exempt status.

Professor Sam Brunson, a tax law specialist at Loyola University, joins me in order to make sense of what the complaint to the IRS is all about and if and how it might be resolved.

Direct download: Sam_Brunson_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:44pm NZDT

David’s book 'The Complete Heretic’s Guide to Western Religion:  The Mormons' is not your usual snipe at faith that Atheists can bore you with.   His history of the Mormons is straight-shooting without being unfeeling; it's efficient without cutting too many corners, and it leaves one feeling both impressed and rightly appalled at the faith that gave us the 'Family’s Can Be Together Forever' and a disciplinary culture that would make God blush.

David Fitzgerald and I are unlikely conversations partners; me a theologian and spiritual formation enthusiast and he an avowed atheist. But, it’s one that seems to work well because we both have an appreciation for the absurd.  And Mormonism is brimming with absurdities. 

Mormon history, as it turns out,  makes its people and its past seriously interesting.

Direct download: David_Fitzgerald_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:04am NZDT

Jana Johnson Spangler, a recent graduate from Richard Rohr's 'Living School',  joins me to discuss the spiritual formation and potential richness of the place between the sometimes intractable institution, and the soul's organic growth.

We address the questions:  How do we manage and trust our growth when there is little in the way of a  healthy institutional response to our spiritual change?  How can we find our own faithful path through our faith crisis?

Direct download: Jana_JS_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:15am NZDT

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