Introduction

To give a little background on today’s episode, we recently read the book A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck, who is a professor of biology and bioethics at BYU and an award-winning fiction author. The book is a remarkable and frankly terrifying exploration of a concept of “hell” that calls into question the very natures of eternity, meaning, and relationship. 

As we talked with each other about this book, we realized that exploring the Latter-day Saint concept of “hell” in relationship to other hell theologies would be fascinating. But more importantly, as Steve’s book indicated, it would provide an opportunity for us to dive deep on what we mean when we say eternity, and what our unique faith tradition has to teach us and share with the world about the nature of an endlessly loving God, life after death, and human potential.

So we asked Steve to join us to talk a bit about his book, and brought in Terryl Givens as an additional conversation partner to round out some of these concepts, especially in light of Christian and Latter-day Saint tradition.

And yes, if you’re wondering, we thought that Halloween was the perfect day to release this episode ;)