In the decades before the Civil War, Americans appealed to the nation’s sacred religious and legal texts – the Bible and the Constitution – to address the slavery crisis. The ensuing political debates over slavery deepened interpreters’ emphasis on historical readings of the sacred texts, and in turn, these readings began to highlight the unbridgeable historical distances that separated nineteenth-century Americans from biblical and founding pasts. While many Americans continued to adhere to a belief in the Bible’s timeless teachings and the Constitution’s enduring principles, some antislavery readers, including Theodore Parker, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, used historical distance to reinterpret and use the sacred texts as antislavery documents. By using the debate over American slavery as a case study, Jordan T. Watkins traces the development of American historical consciousness in antebellum America, showing how a growing emphasis on historical readings of the Bible and the Constitution gave rise to a sense of historical distance.

The post (Reuploaded) Maxwell Institute Podcast #147: Slavery, Sacred Texts, and Historical Consciousness, with Jordan Watkins appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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One of the first things I tell my students, and that I repeat throughout a semester, is that texts do not interpret themselves. Every time a person reads scripture they see it with new eyes and with shifting perspectives. The words on the page may be the same, though, of course, with the Bible, those words may vary, but it is up to us to seek learning by knowledge and through the Spirit. We’ll discuss that, and much more, on today’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.

The post Abide: Psalms Part Two appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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Psalms! There’s over 150 of them marked in the book by the same name in the Old Testament. How can we read them? Are they more useful as a narrative thread, or as a spice to season our spiritual diet? We’ll discuss that and much more on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.”

The post Abide: Psalms Part One appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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Job, as a literary and biblical figure, gives us a lot to think about. He goes from riches to rags to riches again. He loses his family but begins another. He’s at the center of a contest between god and a devilish character. He relies on his friends but those same friends accuse him of doing evil works. What can Latter-day Saints think about when considering Job the book, Job the figure, and the implications of both man and book? We’ll discuss that, and much more, in today’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.

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In Original Grace, Adam S. Miller proposes an experiment in Restoration thinking: What if instead of implicitly affirming the traditional logic of original sin, we, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, emphasized the deeper reality of God’s original grace? What if we broke entirely with the belief that suffering can sometimes be deserved and claimed that suffering can never be deserved?

In exploring these questions, Miller draws on scriptures and the truths of the Restoration to reframe Christianity’s traditional thinking about grace, justice, and sin. He outlines the logic of original sin versus that of original grace and generates fresh insights into how the doctrine of grace relates to justice, creation, forgiveness, and more.

The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #146: God’s Original Grace, with Adam Miller appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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Can one be directed by God when one doesn’t know that one is being directed? The answer, of course, is yes. We learn about how God directed Esther in ways that may not have been recognizable to her, to ancient Israelites, and in ways that still surprise us today. We’ll discuss that, and more, in today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.”

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If an eighteenth-century cleric told you that the difference between “civilization and heathenism is sky-high and star-far,” the words would hardly come as a shock. But that statement was written by an American missionary in 1971. In a sweeping historical narrative, Kathryn Gin Lum shows how the idea of the heathen has been maintained from the colonial era to the present in religious and secular discourses―discourses, specifically, of race.

Kathryn Gin Lum is Associate Professor in the Religious Studies Department, in collaboration with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford. She is also Associate Professor, by courtesy, of History in affiliation with American Studies and Asian American Studies.

The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #145: The Idea of the “Heathen” with Kathryn Gin Lum appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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How do we learn from failure? Especially the end of an organization as large as a kingdom? What if two kingdoms fall? Today, as we look at the end of both Kingdoms of Israel, I hope that we can explore what it means to understand a people’s historical failures and recognize that modern people are just as capable of failing, despite being God’s chosen peoples, as ancient peoples. How do we avoid the hubris of declaring ourselves indestructible? How do we embrace the humility needed to rely on God and trust His word? We discuss that and much more in today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.”

The post Abide: 2 Kings 17-25 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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Elijah and Elisha are well-known to Latter-day Saints. The prophecy that Elijah would return was foretold in each of the four books of the Latter-day Saint canon. Indeed, Elijah visited the Prophet Joseph Smith and his counselor, Sidney Rigdon, in the Kirtland Temple, restoring the keys of the sealing power to the earth. Elisha may be less known, but his miracles are seen as some of the most didactic of any performed by prophets after Moses in the Old Testament. What can we learn from these prophets and their ministries? We’ll discuss that and more on today’ episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.”

The post Abide: 2 Kings 2-7 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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Solomon’s reign was glorious, but what he gained in wealth, wives and infrastructure he lost in spiritual standing. He had not been faithful to the God of Israel. Instead, he adopted a cosmopolitanism that accommodated the religious preferences of his wives. However, God kept faith with David and Solomon, and the kingdom was split in two, with the ten northern tribes, the new Kingdom of Israel, being led by Solomon’s servant Jeroboam, and the southern Kingdom of Judah being led by Solomon’s son, Rehoboam.

The post Abide: 1 Kings 17-19 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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