In Good Faith

This week on In Good Faith, host Steve is joined by Melissa Inouye and David Peters. Both guests discuss the idea of Sacred Struggles: trying times with a higher emphasis and draw to God. They also both draw parallels between the Christian Crucifixion and their own lives. Inouye and Peters are both published authors on the topic and we loved speaking to and learning from them. Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye is a scholar of modern Chinese history and religion and works as a historian at the Church History Department of The Chur of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the author of China and the True Jesus; Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church and Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman scholar’s ventures through life, death, motherhood, and cancer (not necessarily in that order). Melissa’s new book is called “Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance.” She enjoys hiking and digging in the dirt with her husband, four children, and Labrador-cattle dog cross, Bertie. David W. Peters served as an enlisted Marine and Army Chaplain, who deployed to Iraq in 2005. He is the author of several books, notably Death Letter: God, Sex, and War and Post-Traumatic God: How the Church Cares for People Who Have Been to Hell and Back. Today he serves as the vicar of St. Joan of Arc Episcopal Church, a new church plant in the diocese of Texas.

This episode is a culmination of comfort and activism. Quilts are usually a symbol of tranquility and peace, but this week we hear from a group that utilized quilts to advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. First, we follow up with a group we met at the Parliament of the World's Religions: The Sacred Ally Quilt Ministry. We speak with Rev. Mark Koyama, Kathy Barrett Blair, and Dr. Harriet Ward. Rev. Mark Koyama grew up in South East Asia and New Zealand before coming to live in the United States in 1980. He was educated at Bates College, Union Theological Seminary (MA 1992), University of Massachusetts Amherst (MFA 2010), and Yale Divinity School (MDiv 2015). Mark teaches literature and religious studies at Northfield Mount Hermon School and is the settled pastor at the United Church of Jaffrey, in Jaffrey New Hampshire. Kathy Barrett Blair has a degree in Occupational Therapy from UNH, and worked as the preschool occupational therapist for the Keene School District for 34 years. She chaired the NHCUCC Ukama Mission Group in partnership with UCC churches in Zimbabwe. Kathy designed and coordinated the renovation of UCC Keene’s Elsie Priest Park and children’s playground. She expresses her creativity through fabric, including the design and construction of Quilt #4 of the George Floyd Quilts. Dr. Harriet Ward is a scientist and a Christian activist. Her doctorate from Brown University (1988) empowered her to serve infants and young children with vision loss, blindness and additional health and developmental challenges. Called by Christ to Antiracism work, Harriet is a powerful voice in the United Church of Christ where she has served on the Board of Directors of the National United Church of Christ and as Chair of the Anti-Racism Ministry group (ARMg) New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ. Then, we hear from Sara Jolena Wolcott. Sara founded her company Sequoia Samanvaya to champion the concepts of ReMembering and ReEnchanting our world. It is centered around rediscovering the spiritu

Welcome to the first IGF episode of 2024! We are speaking with Pastor Jeff McCullough and Russell Moore. Jeff McCullough is the host and producer of the YouTube Channel Hello Saints, which records his journey as an evangelical pastor to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Recently, Jeff and his wife Joy relocated to Utah. Jeff graduated from the private free-Methodist college Greenville University with a degree in audio and video production. Russell Moore is Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today and is the author of Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America (Penguin Random House 2023). An ordained Baptist minister, Moore served previously as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and, before that, as the chief academic officer and dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also taught theology and ethics. He also hosts the weekly podcast The Russell Moore Show and is co-host of Christianity Today’s weekly news and analysis podcast, The Bulletin.

Happy New Year! Join host Steven Kapp Perry and producers Heather Bigley, Lia King, Katarina Martinic, and Ashton Rowan in recounting 2023. They will each discuss some of their favorite interviews from the year, sharing a short soundbite from each. We are so grateful for every opportunity we have had in 2023, so thank you for following along. Stay tuned to see what we have in store for 2024—should be a great year!

Think of it as a family Christmas devotional: a little praise, a little witness, some tears, and some laughter, familiar, yet loose around the edges. We'll hear from Cherie Call, Paul Jacobsen, and Molly in the Mineshaft, as well as pianist Jared Pierce and Mark Geslison, who is the director of several student ensembles here at BYU. Our first hymn is "Once in Royal David's City", performed by Cayson Renshaw and Riley Davis. Cayson Renshaw is a singer-songwriter from the San Francisco Bay-area, currently based in Utah. He's joined here by guitarist and vocalist Riley Davis. See their performance on YouTube Next, Steve speaks with Mark Gelison, leader of the Celtic Ensemble for 30+ years, a student performance group at BYU, who will perform "O Come O Come Emmanuel." This year the ensemble includes, Emily Wall, Kaydie Gillam, Kate Reich, Brandon Torruella, Sarah Shipp, Rebecca Meiss, Eric Christensen, James Hecht, Owen Clarke, and Lawson Archibald. Following this performance comes 'Molly in the Mineshaft'. They play "Gesu Bambino" and "We Three Kings", arranged by Scott and Grace Monson from the contemporary folk ensemble. Molly in the Mineshaft is made up of Lucy Larsen, Grace Monson, Jordan Benson, Douglas Patterson, Talmage Haines, Alex Vincent, and Scott Monson. See their performance on YouTube. Then, Paul Jacobsen performs the spiritual "Go Tell it on the Mountain" for us in the studio. Paul Jacobsen is a singer-songwriter who performs independently but also with the Madison Arm and The Lower Lights. See his performance on YouTube. Mark Geslison returns with Mountain Strings, a student ensemble from BYU playing a medley of "The Holly and the Ivy"/ "Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plain"/"Joy to the World". Mountain Strings includes Madeline Charles, Arthur Prusso, Austin Johnson, Ellie Geslison, Emily Wall, Tyler Anderson, Christina Iverson. Next we're talking with Cherie Call, a singer-songwriter who brought us one of her own compositions, a modern Christmas song about modern challenges during the holiday sea

In August, our team attended the 2023 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, Illinois. Since 1893, this interfaith conference has advocated for harmony and dialogue across religious traditions and their believers. This year, In Good Faith presented on a panel (see below for link). Now, we also get to share with you the impromptu interviews Steve conducted at the Parliament. He speaks first with Rev. Dallas Conyers and her efforts to combat climate change, an overarching theme at the Parliament. Dallas speaks about a series of consecutive incidents that put her life on hold: listen to how Rev. Conyers found healing through religious vigor and scripture. Steve then speaks with Jaxon Washburn, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and graduate of Harvard Divinity School. Jaxon walks us through how he became involved with the Parliament and why divinity school was the right choice for him.

Welcome to our 10-part series exploring Turkey as a crossroads of faith, a place where world religions have met, overlapped, replaced one another, sometimes peacefully, sometimes not. In today's episode we're exploring the history of Latter-day Saints in Turkey, one of many tiny minority religious groups finding a place and building community amongst a majority-Muslim population. The size of the present congregation would seem to point to a new missionary effort just getting a toe-hold in Turkey. But, in fact, American missionaries first came to the Ottoman empire in 1884. In this episode, we'll meet Takouhie Jensen, the great-granddaughter of an early Armenian convert. We'll also talk with a Turkish member living in Istanbul. And we'll meet a recent convert. All three will help us paint the picture of the past and the future of the Church in Turkey, the tensions that exist there, and the opportunities available. Please be advised that this episode includes stories of violence and war, some of them perpetrated against children.

This is episode 9 of our 10-episode series about the crossroads of faith in Turkiye, an ancient land a modern nation. In this episode we explore traditions of the local people and suss out the difference between culture and religion. First, we'll speak with Pinar Bayrack Toydemir, the founder of the Utah Turkish American Association (UTAA) and originally from Ankara, but now living in the Salt Lake City area. We'll also sit down with Zeki Tulak, who served as our guide in the Kapodokya area, and eat a traditional meal with Muzzafar and Essengul Arslan, organic farmers in the village of Avahi. We also speak with Vefa Bowen, a musician and Director of Cultural Affairs for the UTAA, about music from Turkey, and listen to her band Kechi play at the Living Traditions festival.

We have a special treat amid the Turkey series--book club is back! To follow up on Episode 7, host Steven Kapp Perry and senior producer Heather Bigley meet with Kevin Blankinship and Rasoul Sorkhabi to discuss the poetry of Rumi. The group discusses the geographical and cultural impacts on Rumi in 13th century Anatolia as well his esteemed writing style and influence. Rasoul Sorkhabi holds a PHD in geology from Kyoto University in Japan, as well as M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from Jammu University in India. He has conducted geological studies in India, Nepal, Japan, Borneo, the Rockies and the Great Basin of the American West. He has also constructed a global database on sedimentary basins. He is currently a professor at the University of Utah. He reviewed Swallowing the Sun for the journal Interreligious Insight Kevin Blankinship is an assistant professor at BYU in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages, teaching Arabic language and literature, Islamic civilization, and the Koran. He holds a Phd from the University of Chicago, an MA from UNC Chapel Hill, and a BA from BYU. Under the aegis of the Fulbright program, he lived and conducted researched in Morocco for a year.

This week we visit the tomb of Sufi mystic Rumi, who is one of the most popular poets the world over. We explore the relationship between Islam and Sufism, as well as the influence of Rumi on Muslims everywhere, not just Turkey. We speak with scholar Kevin Blankinship about Rumi's life and poetry and we visit with Sheikh Ahmet Sami Kuçuk in Konya, the city where Rumi settled over 800 years ago. We'll also observe the dervishes in their whirling trance. All up next on this episode of In Good Faith. Kevin Blankinship is a professor of Arabic and the medieval Middle East. He holds a PhD in classical Arabic literature from the University of Chicago and an MA in comparative literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kevin also spent a research year in Morocco as a Fulbright-Hayes scholar.