Latter-day Faith Dan Wotherspoon

If we are not careful, it is very easy to become lazy in our scripture studies--reading but not pausing long enough to really see and understand what it is saying. In the course of our years as Latter-day Saints, we generally have developed ready answers to what this or that passage is about, and we groove those interpretations into our minds. But are the long-standing ways we interpret scriptures always revelatory of what they actually mean?
This is especially true when it comes to the topics of Grace and Mercy. Many of us don't quite believe in either, thinking that we must qualify in some way before we can receive either. This isn't what the Book of Mormon teaches about them, and in this episode, Latter-day Faith host Dan Wotherspoon and the wonderful and insightful Danny Kofoed discuss its most profound ways of understanding God's true graceful and merciful nature.
The previous episode (#176) discussed the first of these topics: Grace
This one presents the Book of Mormons teachings on God's Mercy and how it can transform our lives.
Listen in!

If we are not careful, it is very easy to become lazy in our scripture studies--reading but not pausing long enough to really see and understand what it is saying. In the course of our years as Latter-day Saints, we generally have developed ready answers to what this or that passage is about, and we groove those interpretations into our minds. But are the long-standing ways we interpret scriptures always revelatory of what they mean?
This is especially true when it comes to the topics of Grace and Mercy. Many of us don't quite believe in either, thinking that we must qualify in some way before we can receive either. This isn't what the Book of Mormon teaches about them, and in this episode, Latter-day Faith host Dan Wotherspoon and the wonderful and insightful Danny Kofoed discuss its most profound ways of understanding God's true graceful and merciful nature.
This episode discusses the first of these topics: Grace
The one after that presents the Book of Mormons teachings on God's Mercy and how it can transform our lives.
Listen in!

Latter-day Faith Podcast has just passed its 4th anniversary, and one of its early listeners who is now a great friend, Terri Petersen, suggested we need an interview show in which she’d ask questions of LDF host Dan Wotherspoon and his great friend and partner for the whole Latter-day Faith enterprise, Mark Crego. Terri reached out to many other listeners and asks her own as well as many of their questions.

In the interview's first episode, the focus was on slightly broader themes about the show and its audience and Mark’s and Dan’s hopes for what Latter-day Faith is and hopes to be doing going forward, but the very skillful also Terri started drilling down to some of the more nitty gritty stuff, pulling out many stories from their lives and faith journeys within Mormonism. 

This second episode goes even more to that tire-meets-the-road level, including “how” they engage in their wards, families, friends, and with those who have left full engagement with Mormonism. She also takes them into how someone might disagree with what certain leaders say or push while still "sustaining" them, their views about scripture and how it is engaged within today's church, and also Dan's and Mark's views of God. 
We hope you will listen in! 

Latter-day Faith Podcast has just passed its 4th anniversary, and one of its early listeners who is now a great friend, Terri Petersen, suggested we should do an interview show in which she'd ask questions of LDF host Dan Wotherspoon and his great friend and partner for the whole Latter-day Faith enterprise, Mark Crego. Terri reached out to many other listeners and asks her own as well as many of their questions.

In this interview first episode, the focus was on slightly broader themes about the show and its audience and Mark's and Dan's hopes for what Latter-day Faith is and hopes to be doing going forward, but the very skillful also Terri starts drilling down to some of the nitty gritty stuff, pulling out many stories from their lives and faith journeys within Mormonism. 

The next episode will be more about "how" they engage in their wards, families, friends, and with those who have left full engagement with Mormonism. Terri and those who reached out have many questions in this area, so we hope you will join in for it, too! Listen in!

LDS general conferences are often difficult for Latter-day Saints who are experience shifts in their faith, but at the same time wonderful boons to others. Certain talks can be painful reminders of ideas and ways of approaching God and life that we who are in the midst of faith journeys have come to find unhealthy; just as many are exhilarating to others and and fill them with hope. The key determiner in how certain messages will strike our hearts is "us." We come to conference in all sorts of states of mind, and we are often only primed to receive what's said with certain ears. If we expect to find close-minded pronouncements, we will find them. If we are able to sit in a greater space of peace, we will find much that sings to us, as well. 

As LDS host Dan Wotherspoon was engaging with early April's conference, his mind hit upon the metaphor of "word shakers," which he had encountered in a powerful novel, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. It is contained within a short parable within the book itself and refers to those who climb trees that are made of words (and we are trees also constituted to a large degree by words), and help shake down those that are stuck or that aren't landing and being picked up by the people below in the way they deserve to be. Trees made of horrendous words ugly ideas have word shakers helping spread them to those waiting below, and likewise, wonderful, expansive, empowering words have their shakers, too.

In the context of general conference, we might imagine church leaders as perched in the branches of the Gospel Tree containing so many wonderful words that make it so beautiful. They will search the branches for words they want to shake down. Their choices of what to shake are dependent upon their own ways of interpreting the Gospel message, as well as their particular temperaments, where and when they were raised or discovered the Gospel, and what has worked "for them" as they grew and developed into who they are and what they see.

But, ultimately, it is we who hear the words being shaken who determine whether or not we will be influenced by them and make them a part of us, or if we will reject them because we find them lacking the words and ideas of the Gospel that most resonate with us.

In this episode, Dan reflects upon this metaphor as well as how general conference strikes various people in various ways, but ultimately his goal is to suggest how we can all use conference as a powerful time for self-examination and, eventually dialing down to what we value most--and why that is. Like all "inner work," our processing of conference messages must begin by examining the emotions that stir inside of us when we hear them. And it is through these reflections that we gain greater self-knowledge, a clearer sense of whether or not these reactions come from a healthy place, a place of wholeness and peace, or if there is something we may need to look at and examine more closely. 

Inner work "works" when it brings things to our attention things we might have bypassed and ignored that are nevertheless affecting us in in profound ways. And when we encounter those and gain a clearer picture of what they are, we find ourselves in a state where we might begin to heal the wounds they reveal. 

General Conference = Great Catalyst (for gaining more self-knowledge and healing). What have the word shakers released into our worlds during the two days of conference, and why are certain ones falling from the same Gospel Tree affecting us the way they are?

Maybe this metaphor will provide us a more neutral way to view the role given to those who share from the conference pulpit.

At the Relief Society's Anniversary Conference held March 17, 2024, Sister J. Anette Dennis made a statement that ignited a firestorm online, including on the LDS Church's own Instagram page. 

Here is the statement in question:
“There is no other religious organization in the world, that I know of, that has so broadly given power and authority to women. There are religions that ordain some women to positions such as priests and pastors, but very few relative to the number of women in their congregations receive that authority that their church gives them.
 
“By contrast, all women, 18 years and older, in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who choose a covenant relationship with God in the house of the Lord are endowed with priesthood power directly from God. And as we serve in whatever calling or assignment, including ministering assignments, we are given priesthood authority to carry out those responsibilities. My dear sisters, you belong to a Church which offers all its women priesthood power and authority from God!.”
In this episode, Dr. Julie de Azevedo Hanks, a prominent therapist and church commentator, joins LDF host Dan Wotherspoon to talk about the energetic and anguished conversations among Mormon women in response to Sister Dennis' remarks. In it, Dr. Hanks provides an overview of the things that have transpired in the past eight days (from when this episode is posted) and she and Dan speak about the current controversy as well as broader issues related to women's empowerment within Mormonism.

Listen in!