Episodes

Rosalynde Frandsen Welch, host of the Maxwell Institute Podcast announces a new show–the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, which will be hosted in this feed. 2 episodes will be posted each month, one exploring the assigned text from Come, Follow Me, and the other exploring the most important books or articles relating to it.

I’m talking today with Professor Michalyn Steele, a member of the faculty at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, about Bryan Stevenson and his best-selling book Just Mercy. Stevenson has spent his career assisting people in some of the worst circumstances I can imagine: those on death row or facing a life sentence. He’s also a Christian, and his faith in Jesus and love of the Bible are on full display in his book. Professor Steele helped me see what Stevenson’s work with imprisoned people can teach ...

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Dr. Mary Eyring, associate professor of English at Brigham Young University. Dr. Eyring studies early American literature, and her research has immersed her in the physical and spiritual suffering of ordinary women and men who, like the man Elder Eyring spoke of, reached their breaking point but had to go on. In our conversation, we turn to the work of theologian Sarah Bachelard, author of a short book titled Experiencing God in a Time of Crisis. We talked a...

On this episode of the podcast, I interview Dr. Brigham Frandsen, professor of economics at Brigham Young University. Brigham happens to be my little brother, but I’ve looked up to him almost my whole life for his intelligence and his goodness. I invited Brigham on the show because I was curious about what disciple-scholarship looks like in quantitative or technical disciplines. Most of my guests this season have been scholars of the humanities--history, philosophy, literature--things like that....

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Dr. Christopher Oscarson, a scholar of environmental humanities and an associate dean of undergraduate education at BYU. Christopher, or Chip as he’s known, recently delivered an address entitled “Let Your Education Change You,” and I wanted to talk with him about another important speech he cited in his talk, President Spencer W. Kimball’s landmark address “The Second Century of Brigham Young University.” Dr. Oscarson challenged me to ask not how learning ...

Life’s resistance is the topic of my guest Melissa Inouye’s new book, Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance. Dr. Inouye works in the Church History Department, where she specializes in global Christianity and the global Latter-day Saint tradition. Her new book draws on both her professional expertise and her personal experience to think about why and how and what to do when life is just … hard. The book is divided into three sections: struggles that result from human bod...

On this episode of the Maxwell Institute podcast, I talk with Rachael Johnson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Maxwell Institute, and a brilliant young scholar of early modern intellectual history. Dr. Johnson studies Christian theologies of embodiment -- the spiritual and religious significance of Christ’s body, and of our own bodies made in his image. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught powerfully that “We simply must understand the revealed, restored Latter-day Saint doctrine of the soul, and the h...

President Nelson recently taught, “As we seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ, our efforts to hear Him need to be ever more intentional. It takes conscious and consistent effort to fill our daily lives with His words, His teachings, His truths.” The prophet has asked us how we “Hear Him”--but have you thought about how you “See Him”? Do you bring pictures or other artistic representations of Christ into your spiritual life? For today’s episode I interview Dr. Anthony Sweat, an oil painter himse...

Today I’m speaking with Dr. Ryan Tobler, a scholar of American religious history. Dr. Tobler worked as a postdoctoral fellow here at the Maxwell Institute for a year, and now is off to a new position as a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. We’ll miss him, but we’re thrilled for his success. Ryan and I discussed an article he wrote about the beginnings of the practice of baptism for the dead among the early Saints. He taught me that baptism for the dead doesn’t only answer questions about...

This episode of the podcast is very close to my heart. I’m speaking with Dr. Miranda Wilcox, my friend and colleague, about a new book just out from the Maxwell Institute, written by the late Kate Holbrook and titled Both Things Are True. Miranda and I had the privilege of shepherding the book to completion after Kate died of cancer in 2022. Miranda, who is a professor of English at BYU, co-edits the Maxwell Institute’s book series we call “Living Faith,” a series now up to seventeen titles feat...

Life is a learning experience, they say. If so, what have you learned from life? Do you know it for sure? Absolutely sure? I’ll confess, this line of questioning leaves me feeling trapped in a mental corner. Is there a better question we should be asking? Today on the podcast I talk with Katie Paxman, associate professor of philosophy at BYU. Dr. Paxman studies the work of David Hume, and she’s thought a lot about certainty, humility, and the ambition to form true beliefs. Our conversation help...

Today I’m speaking with Dr. Joseph Stuart, assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University. Dr. Stuart studies race and American religion, and we knew right away that we wanted to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King and the ongoing fight for civil rights and racial harmony in our society. Joseph had the great idea to pair one of Dr. King’s speech with a related talk by Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Both of these deeply Christian men challenge us to wake up to the world around us and look fo...

Today on the podcast I talk with Ryan Davis, associate professor of political science at BYU. Dr. Davis is a philosopher, a quick and humorous conversationalist, and a great storyteller. He suggested that there might be a better way to approach belief. What if we get curious not only about the content of the specific beliefs that we hold, but also about how we hold them? What if we attend to our ways of believing as much as to our articles of belief? Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said “The size of y...

What does it mean to be an objective judge of history--of personal history, family history, or shared human history? Are charity and objectivity opposites--or are they partners? Today on the podcast I talk to Jenny Hale Pulsipher, a professor of history at BYU and a contributor to the Maxwell Institute’s recent book Every Needful Thing: Essays on the Life of the Mind and the Heart. As an historian, Jenny specializes in finding the nuance in complex historical figures--never excusing wrongdoing, ...

How can we best care for the beautiful planet God has given us for our home? And why do our relationships with other humans matter so much in the work of stewardship and conservation? Today on the podcast, Rosalynde talks to Ben Abbott, a professor of Plant & Wildlife Sciences at BYU. As a scientist, Ben specializes in ecosystem ecology — the complex ways that living and non-living components interact in a given place. But he’s found that his work as a teacher and mentor has shaped his research ...

Welcome to The Questions We Should Be Asking, a new season of the podcast from the Maxwell Institute that explores faith-building questions. In this episode, Rosalynde interviews Kimberly Matheson, a scholar at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religion. She asks the question: why do we pray? And what does prayer look like in our lives? Kimberly Matheson is a Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, with current projects focusing on gender in the Book of Mormo...

Meet Rosalynde Frandsen Welch, our new host for the MIPodcast. Rosalynde is the Associate Director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, where she coordinates faculty engagement and co-leads a special research initiative. Her research focuses on Latter-day Saint scripture, theology, and literature. She holds a PhD in early modern English literature from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA in English from Brigham Young University. She is the author of Ether: a ...

In the nineteenth century, a fascination with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made Mormons and Mormonism a common trope in French journalism, art, literature, politics, and popular culture. Heather Belnap, Corry Cropper, and Daryl Lee bring to light French representations of Mormonism from the 1830s to 1914, arguing that these portrayals often critiqued and parodied French society. Mormonism became a pretext for reconsidering issues such as gender, colonialism, the family, and ch...

It’s Christmas! This may feel like an awkward lesson to have in the discussion of the Old Testament, it’s at least how I felt. But in considering the topic more deeply, I can’t think of a better way to prepare for celebrating the Savior’s birth. We’ve spent the year reading the scriptures that He read and recognizing the ways that ancient Israel expected a Savior to redeem them. We discuss the Old Testament in light of the Promised Lamb of God in this episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podca...

Finding Christ in the Covenant Path offers a fresh but faithful focus on the journey of covenants and discipleship through the double lens of ancient words and medieval images. The first part of the book helps us see Christ’s identity as our Redeemer by exploring the ancient words that connect covenants, redemption, worship, the presence of the Lord, and sitting down enthroned in God’s presence as his children and heirs. The second part of the book reveals Christ as our ransom by exploring medi...

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In 2007, the Museum at Eldridge Street opened at the site of a restored nineteenth-century synagogue originally built by some of the first Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City. Visitors to the museum are invited to stand along indentations on the floor where footprints of congregants past have worn down the soft pinewood. Here, many feel a palpable connection to the history surrounding them. Beyond the Synagogue argues that nostalgic activities such as visiting the Museum at Eldr...

One of the most interesting days of my life took place a few years ago when I co-conducted a tour of the Jordan River Temple in Utah for non-Latter-day Saint specialists in American religion. As we walked from room to room, my co-tour guide, my second mission president, did his best to anticipate questions that my scholarly friends may have had. He did a great job! The most interesting part of the tour, though, came well after we left the temple’s doorways. My friend Bob asked “what does the tem...

In Adam S. Miller’s lecture, “The Necessity of God: First person, Present Tense, Imperative Mood” Miller talks about Tim Farnsworth, a man who cannot stop walking from the fictional book The Unnamed. Miller said that everyone has different crosses to bear, and although we cannot change them, like Farnsworth cannot stop walking, we have to learn how to love and accept these challenges in order to connect to God. Link to view the Annual Lecture here: https://youtu.be/N1L_ctSw2pk The post Maxwell...