February 14, 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of Utah women first exercising the right to vote, and the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution being ratified, granting voting rights to many women in the United States—but not all of them. Women’s suffrage is a complicated and fascinating history about how women gained the vote, lost that right, and then fought to get it back again.

This episode features the authors of Thinking Women: A Timeline of Suffrage in Utah—Katherine Kitterman and Rebekah Ryan Clark. Neylan McBaine joins us as well. She’s CEO of Better Days 2020, a non-profit organization dedicated to popularizing Utah women’s history.

About the Guests

Katherine Kitterman is a PhD candidate in American History at American University in Washington, D.C., and the Historical Director for Better Days 2020 in Utah.

Rebekah Ryan Clark is the Historical Research Associate for Better Days 2020. She holds a law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University and attended Harvard Law School as a visiting student. She earned her bachelor’s degree in American history and literature from Harvard University.

Neylan McBaine is co-founder and CEO of Better Days 2020, which celebrates the 150th anniversary of women first voting in Utah and the centennial of the 19th Amendment through education, events and the arts. McBaine is also a member of the Maxwell Institute’s Advisory Board.

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For centuries, Christians have celebrated Mary as the miraculous virgin and Mother of God. Catherine Taylor suggests a much richer history of traditions about Mary, much closer to the experiences of Christian women down through the ages. These traditions aren’t found in the Bible. We’ll need to look at other texts and ancient artifacts—burial boxes, jewelry, art. Catherine Taylor specializes in late antique Christian art history and iconography and joins us to talk about women of the ancient world.

Images discussed in this episode are available in the transcript. 

About Catherine Taylor

Catherine Gines Taylor is the Hugh W. Nibley Postdoctoral Fellow. She is author of Late Antique Images of the Virgin Annunciate Spinning: Allotting the Scarlet and the Purple. She specializes in late antique Christian art history and iconography. Dr. Taylor holds graduate degrees from the University of Manchester and Brigham Young University. Her work is focused on the interdisciplinary study of art, scripture, lay piety, Christian patronage, and patristic texts. Her work is focused on the interdisciplinary study of art, scripture, lay piety, Christian patronage, and patristic texts. More specifically, her research centers on images of women in early Christian contexts. She’s currently researching the typologies of Susanna and Wisdom on sarcophagi and within funerary contexts.

Get behind the scenes of the Maxwell Institute Podcast in this special interview celebrating one hundred episodes. Jeremy King, the Maxwell Institute’s administrator and controller, invited host Blair Hodges to talk about how the show is made and what he hopes it offers to listeners.

About the Guest

Blair Hodges is the public communications specialist at the Maxwell Institute. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communication with a minor in religious studies from the University of Utah in 2010. He received a master’s degree in religious studies from Georgetown University in 2013. He hosts, produces, and edits the Maxwell Institute Podcast. Hodges also served as an acquisitions and development editor for the Living Faith series from 2013–2017 and as chief editorial assistant for the Mormon Studies Review from volumes 1–5.

Jeremy King hosted this episode. He is the Administrator and Controller for the Maxwell Institute. He earned a bachelor’s of science in accounting from BYU–Idaho, minoring in English and political science and recently served for three years on the BYU Administrative Advisory Council.

This episode continues our special series of episodes on the Maxwell Institute’s brief theological introductions to the Book of Mormon. Terryl Givens is author of the volume on what many readers consider to be the most challenging part of the scripture—Second Nephi. The authors of our Brief Theological Introductions are “seeking Christ in scripture by combining intellectual rigor and the disciple’s yearning for holiness.”

About the Guest

Terryl L. Givens is a Neal A. Maxwell Senior Research Fellow. He formerly held the Jabez A. Bostwick Chair of English and was Professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond. He is the author of many books about Latter-day Saint history and culture, including Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought, Feeding the Flock: The Foundations of Mormon Practice, and By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion, each with Oxford University Press. He is also co-author, with Fiona Givens, of The God Who Weeps, The Crucible of Doubt, and The Christ Who Heals.

“I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents...”

So begins the first book in the Book of Mormon. First Nephi. And this is the first episode in a special series of interviews with authors of the Maxwell Institute’s forthcoming “Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon. Twelve different authors tackle twelve different parts of the book, and Joseph M. Spencer of Brigham Young University was given the task of approaching First Nephi.

Learn more about the Brief Theological Introductions series at mi.byu.edu/brief.

About the Guest

Joseph M. Spencer is an assistant professor in the department of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. He’s written a number of books on the Book of Mormon such as An Other Testament: On Typology, For Zion: A Mormon Theology of Hope, and his latest book, First Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction.

Maxwell Institute Conversations are special episodes of the Maxwell Institute Podcast, hosted by Terryl Givens and created in collaboration with Faith Matters Foundation. Audio and video available.

Is faith a choice? Does faith come naturally to some more than others? Terryl Givens and Rosalynde Welch have written and spoken on these questions, and each of them bring interesting perspectives to the discussion.

About the Guest

ROSALYNDE FRANDSEN WELCH is an independent scholar in St. Louis, Missouri and a member of the Maxwell Institute’s advisory board. She is working on a book about Ether for the Institute’s Brief Theological Introductions series on the Book of Mormon.

When Latter-day Saint apostle Elder Jeffrey R. Holland visited Oxford University in England last year, he became fast friends with Reverend Dr. Andrew Teal of Pembroke College. The two of them hit it off so well that Elder Holland invited Dr. Teal to Utah to attend General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and to visit Brigham Young University. Rev. Teal spent some time at the Maxwell Institute where he sat down with Blair Hodges to talk about his life as a chaplain, about inter-religious dialogue, about faith, hope, and charity, and all sorts of other things.

Read more about Rev. Teal’s visit with Elder Holland here.

About the Guest

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal is Chaplain and Fellow at Pembroke College and Lecturer in Theology and Religion within Oxford University. He is Warden of the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God, and a trustee of All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor, Helen and Douglas House Children’s Hospices, St John’s Home for Vulnerable people, and The Porch for homeless people, all in Oxford. He has published in the UK, Europe and in Russian, on Patristic and Modern Theology.

One of the most outspoken critics of Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution was a young poet and journalist named Lin Zhao. She was a Christian convert, then a member of the Communist Party, then an enemy of the state who paid for her opposition with her life. She was executed by firing squad. And her story would have vanished—along with the lives of some two million other Chinese who were killed during the cultural revolution—but she left a record. She wrote her witness in her own blood. In this episode you’ll encounter one of Christianity’s most remarkable martyrs of the twentieth century.

Professor Xi Lian joins us to discuss his latest book, Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, A Martyr in Mao’s China.

About the Guest

XI LIAN, Professor of World Christianity at Duke Divinity School, is the author of Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, A Martyr in Mao’s China (2018). His other books include The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907-1932 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997) and Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China (Yale University Press, 2010). Dr. Lian’s other research projects include the flourishing of Christianity among minority peoples on the margins of the Chinese state and the emergence of Protestant elites and their prominent, if also precarious, role in the search for civil society in today’s China.

This bonus episode feature Spencer Fluhman delivering his 2019 BYU Women’s Conference address, “Answering Sincere Questions about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

It also features an announcement about the Institute’s forthcoming series about the Book of Mormon, Brief Theological Introductions.

Originally presented on May 2, 2019.

Almost fifty million people in the United States live with some type of physical or intellectual disability. That’s one in five. In this special episode, twelve distinguished guests—scholars, organizers, religious leaders, writers—join us to talk about how we can create communities of belonging where people with disabilities and everyone else can feel welcome.

This panel discussion took place during the Summer Institute on Theology and Disability at Hope College.

Learn more about disability resources in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at disability.churchofjesuschrist.org. The video referenced during the episode is available here.

About the Guests

(in order of appearance)

Devan Stahl
Assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Baylor University. Stahl studies intersections between disability studies, theology, and bioethics.

Munorwei Chirovamavi
Executive director of “To Love a Child” in Zimbabwe, a ministry providing pre-school children with a secure and caring environment while feeding their minds, bodies and spirit. He is also a Baptist pastor and theological educator.Neil Cudney
Director of organizational and spiritual life for Christian Horizons, an organization which supports people with disabilities in Canada and four other countries.Katie Steed
Disability Specialist manager for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Reverend Christopher Rajkumar
Director of the Indian Disability Ecumenical Accompaniment. He is an ordained minister of the Church of South India and a theological educator and writer.Andy Calder
A minister in the Uniting Church in Australia. He is the Disability Inclusion Advocate with the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania. He is the 2019 recipient of the Henri Nouwen Award, awarded by the Spirituality and Religion Division of the AAIDD.John Swinton
An ordained minister of the Church of Scotland and the Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at the School of Divinity, History, and Philosophy, University of Aberdeen. He founded the university’s Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability. His most recent book is Becoming Friends of Time: Disability, Timefullness, and Gentle Discipleship.Topher Endress
Doctoral candidate and Fellow at University of Aberdeen Centre for Spirituality, Health, and Disability.Jill Harshaw
Part-time lecturer in Practical Theology and Disability Theology at Queen’s University Belfast. She is author of God Beyond Words: Christian Theology and the Spiritual Experiences of People with Profound Intellectual Disabilities.Shelly Christensen, MA
A pioneer in the faith community disability inclusion movement. She is an international speaker and consultant to numerous faith-based organizations. Shelly’s newest book, From Longing to Belonging: A Practical Guide to Including People with Disabilities and Mental Health Conditions in Your Faith Community, is a resource for all faith-based organizations and service support agencies to enhance and encourage participation and inclusion for each and every person. Shelly is co-founder and organizer of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAIM).

Barbara J. Newman
Director of church services for All Belong: Center for Inclusive Education as well as a special education consultant to Christian and Catholic schools. Barbara is a national speaker and author of several books including Accessible Gospel, Inclusive Worship.Bill Gaventa
Director of Summer Institute on Theology and Disability and an ordained American Baptist minister. For eighteen years he was associate professor at the Rutgers Medical School in the Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities. He now serves as a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author.