In this episode, Christopher and Riley talk about the need for a church. First, they refer to the Greek word in the Bible translated “church” and bring out its two simultaneously operative meanings. Next, they explore in-depth the need for a church based on those two meanings. Finally, they explore a threefold path one tends to take as a member of the body of Christ we call the church leading from dependence through participation to either disillusionment or leadership. But the leadership they discuss is not the top-down leadership one thinks of when thinking of the church as an institution, but the bottom-up, or grassroots, leadership in which one can participate if one sees oneself correctly as a member of the body of Christ called the church, with each member serving its particular function separate and distinct from all others, and at the same time in concert with them.
In this episode, Riley and Christopher take on the topic of resurrection. Is resurrection something that happens after we do, or do we need to be resurrected before we die? What would it look like to be resurrected before we die and what does a resurrected life in Christ look like? Christopher and Riley answer these questions and related questions about spiritual death and life with New Testament and extracanonical scriptures from the Gnostics, touching on the ordinances of baptism and the Sacrament and offer suggestions for living a resurrected life in Christ in the present. ...
Christopher is joined again with his guest co-host, Shiloh Logan, to talk about the fifth Beatitude. After the last episode’s conversation concerning meekness, there is a better foundation for understanding and experiencing, at least in part, what it means to “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” What is this hungering? How do we experience this in our daily lives, and are we–in our actual lived experiences–truly feeling “filled.” We may say with confidence that we feel the “peace” of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but do we feel the inspiratation of the gospel’s awe and wonder? Is our religious experience reduced to a checklist of things believed and tasks completed, or is there something more to the gospel of Jesus Christ and of our relationship with the divine? Enos, in the Book of Mormon, gives us a good scriptural example through his own initial journey in following the Beatitude-path in hungering and in being filled — but how do we do this for ourselves? Sometimes it requires that we go back to the beginning and start over with the emptying of the first Beatitude and letting God be God in our lives. ...
For this episode, Christopher and Riley are joined by LDPS member and contributor, Jeffrey Goddard, for a wide-ranging discussion on justice, sin & righteousness, good & evil, and atonement. In the past year Jeff read or listened to 200 books, and wrote one of his own - The Physician Christ. As a medical practitioner he tends to see the world through a scientific lens which adds critical context to the discussion of individual and social development. Our hosts make it a point to avoid strict, objective definitions of these constructed ideas, but instead try to problematize prevailing understandings so as to point the listener to a more holistic, and universally restorative Christian discipleship; one less concerned with being right about doctrine and more concerned with being in right relationship, with God and each other. ...
