Maxwell Institute Podcast

When Martin Luther published his 95 Theses in October of 1517 he had no intention of starting a revolution. But he became a rebel and the Reformation took off. And then the Reformation rebelled against Luther, and we’re still dealing with consequences that would have horrified the reformer five hundred years later. That’s how historian Brad S. Gregory tells the story in his new book, Rebel in the Ranks: Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts that Continue to Shape Our World. His historical narrative shows how many of today’s most contentious issues are legacies of the Reformation. How did church separate from state? What should Christianity’s relationship be to political and social structures? What would the reformers think about the aftershocks of their courageous efforts to create a godly world? About the Guest Brad S. Gregory is a professor of European history at the University of Notre Dame and an award-winning author of books like Salvation at Stake and The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. His latest book is called Rebel in the Ranks: Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts that Continue to Shape Our World. He’ll be in Provo on September 15th at the Maxwell Institute’s “Living Reformation” conference, celebrating five hundred years of Martin Luther. Go to mi.byu.edu/Luther500 for details. The post How the Reformation rebelled against Luther, with Brad S. Gregory [MIPodcast #67] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

What was Martin Luther trying to accomplish when he nailed his ninety-five theses to the Wittenburg church door? Would you believe he didn’t intend to start a new religious movement at all? Down the centuries Martin Luther has been lauded by some, lambasted by others. Was he an amazing hero or an arch heretic, or perhaps something different altogether? Craig Harline’s latest book peels back the layers of this history, taking us directly into the friar’s musty study to learn the truth about a contested historical figure. The book is called A World Ablaze: The Rise of Martin Luther and the Birth of the Reformation. About the Guest Craig Harline is a professor of history at Brigham Young University and an award-winning author of books including Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Super Bowl and Way Below the Angels, a memoir of his service as a Mormon missionary in Belgium. He specializes in Reformation-era Christianity. His latest book is called A World Ablaze: The Rise of Martin Luther and the Birth of the Reformation.The post Martin Luther and the birth of the Reformation, with Craig Harline [MIPodcast #66] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

When you think about your religious beliefs, your theology, how much consideration have you given to your race? How has the color of your skin affected your understanding of God, of Jesus Christ, or of your religious community? Maybe you’ve never thought much about it. If you’re a black Latter-day Saint in America, you virtually can’t escape these kinds of questions. Many black American Latter-day Saints know that questions about the color of their skin and their faith are deeply intertwined. Add the component of gender and the questions multiply. Janan Graham-Russell visited the Maxwell Institute this summer to talk about womanist theology—thinking about God from the perspective of black women. In this episode, she discusses race, identity, and theology. About the Guest Janan Graham-Russell is a writer and graduate of the Howard University School of Divinity. Her research focuses on womanist theology in Mormonism, and identity formation in racial communities. Her work has been featured in two books: Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, and A Book of Mormons, as well as The Atlantic. She will continue her research this fall within the PhD program in The Study of Religion department at Harvard University. This week Janan joined us here at the Maxwell Institute for a discussion on race, identity, and theology.The post Womanist theology and Mormonism, with Janan Graham-Russell [MIPodcast #65] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died at the hands of an angry mob in June of 1844. Shortly before his death he is reported to have made this bold declaration: “I should be like a fish out of water, if I were out of persecutions…the Lord has constituted me so curiously that I glory in persecution.” Dr. Adam J. Powell of Durham University has written a book on opposition faced by Joseph Smith and early Latter-day Saints. He argues that, like early Christians of the second century, the opposition faced by nineteenth-century Mormons played a major role in shaping their theology. The idea that humans can become gods appeared in a setting of extreme opposition both for early Mormons like Joseph Smith, and early Christian leaders like Iranaeus. In this episode, Powell joins us to talk about his book, Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-Making Heresy. About the Guest Adam J. Powell is a Junior Research Fellow in the Department of Theology & Religion at Durham University (UK). Prior to Durham, Dr. Powell was Assistant Professor and Director of the MA in Religious Studies at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina. He has published on topics ranging from patristic theology to the history of sociology and from Mormonism to identity theory. He is the author of Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-Making Heresy. He recently delivered the MI Guest Lecture, “Crisis Converted: Opposition, Salvation, and Elasticity in Early Mormonism.”The post Heresy, opposition, and becoming gods, with Adam J. Powell [MIPodcast #64] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In the late nineteenth century, a newspaper written and published by women and for women sprung up in what most Americans thought was the unlikeliest of locations: Utah, the home of the Mormons. Along the top of the newspaper the masthead proudly declared its concern: “The Rights of the Women of Zion, and the Rights of the Women of All Nations.” It was called the Women’s Exponent. This declaration—and the paper’s articles on suffrage and women’s rights—puzzled onlookers who thought about the religion mostly as a strange polygamous sect. “How could women simultaneously support a national campaign for political and economic rights while defending a marital practice that to most people seemed relentlessly patriarchal?” That’s the question addressed by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in her latest book, A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870 (see p. xiii). But Ulrich’s book is about more than polygamy and women’s rights. It’s a bold new social and cultural history of early Mormonism more broadly, as seen in the earliest and most personal writings of many overlooked figures of Mormon history. Pulitzer and Bancroft-prize winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich joined host Blair Hodges to talk about A House Full of Females at Provo, Utah in March when she offered a lecture sponsored by the BYU Women’s Studies program, department of history, and Maxwell Institute. A video of that lecture will be available in the coming weeks. About the Guest Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, of Sugar City, Idaho, is a professor of history at Harvard University. She has served as president of the American Historical Association and the Mormon History Association. Her book A Midwife’s Tale received the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize. Her latest book is A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870. The post Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and “A House Full of Females” [MIPodcast #62] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

There’s a famous passage from First Corinthians: “Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted into them to speak. But they are commanded to be under obedience, as also say the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husband at home. For it is a shame for women to speak in the church” (1 Corinthians 14:34–35). Many scholars believe this passage made its way into the Bible sometime after the death of Apostle Paul. Few Christian churches today abide strictly by that admonition, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A new book from the Church Historian’s Press highlights LDS women speaking from the church’s founding in 1830 to the present day. The book is called At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women. Jennifer Reeder and Kate Holbrook, who edited the book, join us to talk about it at the Church History Library of the LDS Church in Salt Lake City. About the Guests Jennifer Reeder (left) is the nineteenth century woman’s history specialist at the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Kate Holbrook (right) is the department’s managing historian for women’s history. Together they edited At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women. They are also members of Mormon Women’s History Initiative.The post Women at the Latter-day Saint pulpit, with Jennifer Reeder and Kate Holbrook [MIPodcast #61] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

When the Lotus Sutra arrived in Boston in 1844 the few people who could read it were intrigued by its parables that reminded them of the Bible. For these westerners, the Lotus was like a gateway into a mysterious and profound culture from across the world. But it took a long time to get there, from India to China, Japan, and beyond, and the most exciting history occurred before it ever reached Europe. The Lotus is a book that explains how you can be a Buddha, too. But its explanation challenged earlier Buddhist texts and led to disagreements that have lasted for centuries. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. joins us to talk about his new book, The Lotus Sutra: A Biography. Special Episodes: “Lives of Great Religious Books” This ongoing series of MIPodcast episodes features interviews with authors of volumes in Princeton University Press’s impressive “Lives of Great Religious Books” series. Leading experts examine the origins of books like the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad Gita, Augustine’s Confessions, and C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. They trace shifts in the reception, influence, and interpretation of these landmark texts. By looking at other religious texts from a variety of perspectives—worthwhile in their own right—we come to understand other faiths better, as well as our own. We begin to see the different ways scholars and believers and believing scholars grapple with sacred texts. About the Guest Donald S. Lopez, Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. His many books include The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, and a biography of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. His latest book is The Lotus Sutra: A Biography from Princeton University Press’s Lives of Great Religious Books series.The post The life of the Lotus Sutra, with Donald S. Lopez, Jr. [MIPodcast #60] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Are you familiar with the New Atheists? The late Christopher Hitchens wrote biting books about religion as “poison,” Richard Dawkins champions a sort of scientism as a replacement for faith, and people like Bill Maher spend time each evening poking fun at the pious. Despite their unofficial “New Atheist” title, they’re perhaps not actually all that new. Award-winning historian Leigh Eric Schmidt sees them as ancestors of village atheists of days gone by. Atheists in American history have often been at the forefront of debates about the necessity of religion for healthy social life. They’ve fought legal battles over free speech and minority rights. In this episode, you’ll hear Schmidt tell the stories of four controversial folks who called themselves freethinkers—stories of integrity and courage, humor and hypocrisy. We’re talking about Leigh Eric Schmidt’s new book Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation. About the Guest Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. He is author of the highly acclaimed book Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment, among other titles. His latest is called Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way In a Godly Nation (Princeton University Press). The post Village atheists, with Leigh Eric Schmidt [MIPodcast #59] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

People are usually more comfortable talking about their strengths rather than their weaknesses. It’s human nature. The same can be said about religious studies. When scholars talk about it, you can expect them to emphasize the positive. But like many academic fields, religious studies also faces challenges. Some come from the outside—say, when schools and governments and religious traditions want to know why religious studies ought to be pursued at all. Other challenges come from within, when different scholars disagree with each other about what the field should even be. In this episode, a former president of the American Academy of Religion joins us to talk about challenges of religious studies. Professor Thomas Tweed of the University of Notre Dame has spent a lot of time thinking about external and internal challenges to religious studies. His proposed solution to these challenges may sound surprising. He says religious studies scholars should think and talk more about values. You can read Tweed’s AAR presidential address here, or listen to it here.  About Thomas Tweed Thomas Tweed is the Welch Professor of American Studies and a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. He served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2015. The post Some challenges of religious studies, with Thomas Tweed [MIPodcast #58] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly is the latest book in the Maxwell Institute’s Living Faith series. In this episode, author Ashley Mae Hoiland joins Blair Hodges, co-editor of the series, to talk about the revelatory nature of writing. The book is for restless souls who desire to know God more deeply. Hoiland bids the reader to follow her down the hallowed and well-trodden path between the heart and mind, where glimpses of godliness are discovered in rainstorms, bus rides, temples, and mountains. As a Latter-day Saint, she explores the complexities of faith in everyday life where laughter and creativity matter as much as faith, hope, and charity. About the Guest Ashley Mae Hoiland received a bachelor of fine arts degree in studio arts and a master of fine arts degree in poetry from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She teaches art in low-income elementary schools in California and has written and illustrated several children’s books. She is founder of We Brave Women—an initiative to educate youth about important historic and contemporary women. Her website is ashmae.com.The post One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly, with Ashley Mae Hoiland [MIPodcast #57] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.