Latter-day Faith
172 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 120 ratingsLatter-day Faith is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Wotherspoon, PhD, that explores faith and its realities for this time in human history. Although each discussion maintains awareness of its primarily Latter-day Saint audience, the conversations, sensibilities, and variety of guests featured are drawn from many religious traditions.
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Episodes
022: A Paradigm Shift in Today's Mormonism
September 03, 2019 23:29 - 1 hour - 55 MBLatter-day Faith host Dan Wotherspoon goes solo this week to talk about some of the dynamics he sees at play in today's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Specifically, he utilizes the language of paradigm shifts to try to make sense of this current period, arguing that what we see fits the pattern often found when an all-encompassing vision of "the way things are" (a very strong, well-articulated paradigm that a majority of people think, react, and think out of) begins to show its...
021: Gathering Zion "from Beneath"
August 27, 2019 17:01 - 1 hour - 58.7 MBExpanding on several previous Latter-day Faith episodes that centered on scripture or the concept of Zion, our discussion this week revolves around several elements in LDS scripture and early church teachings that shifts our thinking regarding these areas in wonderful ways. Guided by the brilliant Brittney Hartley, we explore how we need to create a better balance between the scriptural teachings about Zion being brought down "from above" as well as up "from beneath." (D&C 84:100) The vast m...
020: Engaging Scripture the Ignacian Way
August 20, 2019 19:19 - 1 hour - 43 MBFor so many of us whose religious world views have begun to shift, and previous ways of viewing various elements of what we had been taking for granted start to become less stable, scripture is one of the components for which we can easily lose affection and appreciation. But rather than abandon our reading and study practices altogether, there are approaches to it that match well with what our journeys have prepared us be able to engage. One such method is the focus of this episode, an Igna...
19: Surrender and Spiritual Expansion
August 13, 2019 23:44 - 59 minutes - 48.4 MBIn this episode, Latter-day Faith host Dan Wotherspoon goes solo this time to talk about the aspect of "surrendering" or "yielding" or "allowing" the Divine to work in us. He asserts that if we allow the idea that God is all in all and in and through everything, including ourselves, and if we seek to abide in and be influenced by our spiritual center that exists "in" God and is God, we will be able to grow spiritually in ways our minds and plans and goals can't even imagine, as experiencing ...
018: Zion
August 06, 2019 16:36 - 1 hour - 64.9 MBThis episode features an interview with the wonderful Kim McCall about the concept (and small instantiations) of Zion, and especially how it activates and animates his soul and spiritual life. Latter-day Faith host Dan Wotherspoon gets into sharing mode about it, as well. Kim’s recent reflections on Zion were prompted by his being asked this past year to give a sacrament meeting talk on the Second Coming, a topic Kim wasn’t at all enthusiastic to speak on. (Neither would many of us, we suspe...
017: The LDS Temple and the Vitality of Ritual Immersion
July 30, 2019 16:48 - 1 hour - 54.9 MBWithin the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the various rituals and ordinances that take place in LDS temples are considered to be the highest expression of God's love for us and the path of human ascension. And for many church members, especially the ones who have really leaned into temple ritual, it is. But for a significant number of others, most likely a majority of those who have participated, temple experiences baffle them or even become sources of deep internal conflict or...
016: Defending the Family: Alternative Emphases
July 23, 2019 23:14 - 1 hour - 53.6 MBIn this episode, Latter-day Faith host Dan Wotherspoon is joined by Jordan Harmon, a terrific and thoughtful therapist, to talk about the threats to the family that loom larger than the external ones most often emphasized in religious circles: acceptance/normalizing of same-sex marriages, ubiquitous pornography, and so forth. Certainly, these are valid and shouldn’t be dismissed. But what if, instead, we focused our attention within ourselves as well as on our relationships with family? What...
015: Let’s Talk “Blessings”
July 16, 2019 17:44 - 1 hour - 61.3 MBWe hear people throughout the religious world use the language of “blessings” when something difficult in their lives is resolved in a wonderful and what seems to them somewhat mysterious way. For some who are attuned to trying to experience the heartbeat of the cosmos, we will hear about all of life as a blessing, the very large and very small, all the good and all the bad, light and dark, life and death, things unexpected, desired, dreaded, or confusing. For others who think of God in quit...
014: Engaging Scripture: The Practice of Lectio Divina
July 09, 2019 20:08 - 1 hour - 50.3 MBThe spiritual practice of lectio divina (divine/sacred reading) originated in the early centuries of Christianity and survived from then until recently primarily in monasteries and convents. In the past few decades, it has found many practitioners among spiritual seekers. Primarily focused on Bible texts but applicable to all scripture, including LDS ones, and sacred readings, lectio is a way of engaging these texts that concentrates on our discernment of what in the passage is calling to us...
013: Rhetoric and Ideas about the Term "Latter-day"
July 02, 2019 21:15 - 1 hour - 69.1 MBThis episode focuses on the term "latter-day" and how it is understood by Christians, including Latter-day Saints, in many different ways, each leading to quite varied theologies. Mark Crego and LDF host Dan Wotherspoon distinguish between "last days" and the idea of an impending apocalypse, "latter" vs "former" days of both early Christianity and early Mormonism, and, third, as referring to now, this present moment in time. They review each, discussing scripture and precedent in Christian d...
012: Embracing Myth
June 25, 2019 20:37 - 1 hour - 70.2 MBWe all live our lives within mythic structures, and we always will. But early on, as James Fowler states, we take these overarching stories as literally true (he names his Stage 2 as Mythic-Literal). Then life, in ways that we can comprehend, serves up alternate mythologies. We begin to see the stories of others as genuine options for us to adopt, or at least appreciate deeply. In that dilemma of seeing more than one story or mythic framing being as capable of leading people to experience ri...
011: Church
June 18, 2019 15:35 - 1 hour - 44.4 MBIn this episode, I am joined by the wonderful scholar Taylor Petrey for a conversation on "church." Our goal was to try to open up the concept of church to allow more breathing room so we might consider it beyond a particular religion and its various leadership, ritual, and community forms. In the first part of our discussion, Taylor leads us through the origins of the term and understandings of it in the New Testament and early centuries of Christianity. We discuss whether Jesus deliberatel...
010: Becoming Aware of Our Biases
June 11, 2019 18:22 - 1 hour - 56.9 MBI've just released a new and very powerful episode of the Latter-day Faith podcast. I hope you'll check it out! We live so much of our lives unconsciously, in many ways reacting, seeing, and judging based on understandings that were primarily "given to" us during our formative years. Among the toughest of these biases regards race. In fact, this week's guest, Dr. LaShawn C Williams, suggests that if we can talk about this one, we can talk about anything! And so that's what we do i...
009: Faith is Much More than Belief
June 04, 2019 17:09 - 1 hour - 60.6 MBAccording to Joseph Smith, faith is the first principle of the gospel. And many of this teachings show that he understood it profoundly. But ever since the early church published its "Articles of Faith" with all but one of them beginning with "We believe," Latter-day Saints, like so many other Christians who now live downwind from when their various traditions broke off from the main church and in doing so felt they had to distinguish themselves from other denominations by sharing how their ...
008: Faith Journeys
May 29, 2019 00:52 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBLatter-day Faith is, rightly, part of the Faith Journey Foundation, as its ultimate focus is trying to assist in the the life processes that simply "feel right" to our souls: our becoming our highest selves. This episode was originally prompted by a Facebook query in which a listener noted that I have been mentioning quite often that the early episodes of LDF are intended to be "foundational," groundwork for discussions that will follow, but he couldn't quite spot the full rhyme or reason fo...
007: Rethinking Scripture
May 21, 2019 16:52 - 1 hour - 57.8 MBI am thrilled to have two wonderful scholars and friends, David Bokovoy and Margaret Toscano, join me this week for a discussion about scripture. So often while we are undergoing a shift of faith, tools and notions that were once extremely helpful and exciting can become stale to us, or even become a target of our scorn. Our new questions run up against old ways of seeing things such as scripture, and our old views don’t fare well under vigorous inquiry. This failure leads to several options...
006: Clearing the Way for Joy and Forgiveness: A Spiritual Practice
May 14, 2019 19:14 - 48 minutes - 32.9 MBIn this unusual episode, Latter-day Faith host Dan Wotherspoon undergoes the processes that are part of a terrific technique for learning to evaluate current tensions in our lives—with situations, people, and even institutions—and coming to see clearly how we are very likely trading our potential for joy because of certain benefits we (think we) gain from remaining in conflict. The process is an important spiritual practice that we all can learn and apply in many, many circumstances. As taug...
005: Hallmarks of Mature Spirituality
May 07, 2019 20:29 - 1 hour - 60.3 MBAs my good friend Jana Spangler and I talk in this episode about the quality of "spiritual maturity," we note the difficulty involved in a subject like this because such maturity is more of a thing that we might notice in other people and, perhaps, ourselves, yet it is hard to explain in words (and definitely not something someone should claim about themselves). But we pushed on anyway! Our approach was to discuss three qualities or hallmarks that we believe are universal across all spiritua...
004: Changing Our Story
April 30, 2019 21:46 - 1 hour - 60.3 MBIn this episode, I invite my good and very interesting friend Stephen Carter to share some of his deep wisdom about the effect that stories have on us. So often we feel like we are writing and living out our own story—whether it be religious, familial, communal, or many others—when, according to Stephen, it is actually stories living us. It’s an interesting and fruitful angle to try to think from and within, and especially so for Latter-day Saints and others from different traditions who are...
003: Wrestling with Revelation, Personal and Institutional—Part 2
April 23, 2019 16:38 - 1 hour - 71.6 MBAmong the many topics that spiritual seekers must wrestle with, the concept, uses, and experiences of revelation eclipse most others. We seek to know what’s best for us, what God (however defined) would have us do next, and, often, how can we make this or that right: how might we approach this person we’re in conflict with, who we need to apologize to, or who seems to be moving away from what’s good, true, or beautiful? Yet, in the discernment process we so often wonder, “Is this God I’m sen...
002: Wrestling with Revelation, Personal and Institutional—Part 1
April 23, 2019 16:34 - 1 hour - 59.2 MBAmong the many topics that spiritual seekers must wrestle with, the concept, uses, and experiences of revelation eclipse most others. We seek to know what’s best for us, what God (however defined) would have us do next, and, often, how can we make this or that right: how might we approach this person we’re in conflict with, who we need to apologize to, or who seems to be moving away from what’s good, true, or beautiful? Yet, in the discernment process we so often wonder, “Is this God I’m sen...
001: Introducing Latter-day Faith Podcast
April 05, 2019 19:56 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBIn this inaugural episode of Latter-day Faith, host Dan Wotherspoon shares what the podcast will be about. As he moves into this new adventure following eight years as host of the Mormon Matters podcast, he emphasizes that Latter-day Faith will be far broader in scope, less LDS/Mormon centric, and will, at its heart, be about universal themes related to our faith lives. It will tackle the nature of faith itself, and how it should not be narrowed to assent to truth claims (beliefs) but instea...