In Good Faith

Mauli Bonner is a Los Angeles-based vocal director and song writer. He and his wife Chantel founded the charity Lift Up Voices that provides opportunities with music and arts to young people. He wrote and directed an award winning film His Name is Green Flake, that tells the story of some of the first African American pioneers to the Utah Valley. The movie inspired a monument dedicated to those pioneers that was dedicated on July 22nd, 2022, on the 175th anniversary of the first wagon through Emigration Canyon. We recapture here the experience of the monument dedication ceremony at This Is The Place Heritage State Park with excerpts from Betty Sawyer from the Ogden NAACP, Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox, and The Bonner Family singing an original composition "Child of God". Additionally, Steve interviews Darius Gray, a founding member of the Genesis Group.

Dr. Richards is a clinical psychologist at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center with formal training in theology and comparative religion. Earlier in his career, he pursued psychedelic research at Spring Grove Hospital Center and the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Baltimore. His graduate education included studies at Yale, Brandeis, Catholic University, the Andover-Newton Theological School, and the University of Göttingen.

This week we bring you interviews with people who are actively engaged in their book, the sacred text at the center of their religion and faith. We hear from Dan McClellan, scripture supervisor for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who tells us about his tiktok career. Duncan Williams, a Buddhist priest and University of Southern California professor of Religion, explains how the Sutras were used by Japanese Americans interned in concentration camps across the Western United States during World War II. Teresa Kim Pecinovsky brings us a copy of her children’s book that discusses the feminine metaphors writers make use of in the Bible, called Mother God. And we listen to the characteristics of God as described in the Adi Granth, the sacred text of Sikhism, with Simran Jeet Singh. Listen now to how modern believers use scriptures in their lives.

Dr. Matthew Wickman talks about what he calls Divine Silence, and how we can still have a relationship with a God who seems--on the face of things at least--not to speak to us directly. In Good Faith is the place to hear stories and accounts from believers, told in their own words. Our hope is to listen with an open heart, celebrating the power of faith and belief, and what those stories mean to the ones who tell them. Host Steven Kapp Perry talks with believers from all walks of faith—Catholic and Episcopalian, Buddhist and Baptist, Jewish and Hindu, Presbyterian and Seventh Day Adventist, Muslim and Latter-day Saint—in other words, human beings and believers, sharing their personal experience with the sacred and the divine. Sundays on BYUradio—and be sure to subscribe to the podcast!

Dr. Lisa Knopp, associate professor at University of Nebraska-Omaha, discusses her seventh book "From Your Friend, Carey Dean," with producer Heather Bigley. Lisa is a death penalty abolitionist who became the friend and penpal of Carey Dean Moore, a death row inmate convicted of murdering two men in August 1979. Moore spent 38 years on death row before his execution in 2018. In that time, Lisa and Carey Dean exchanged 320 letters about their Christian faith, spiritual challenges, and personal lives. Hear Lisa describe their friendship and her memoir in this week's episode.

This week producer Heather Bigley speaks with Raj Mankad, the Op-ed Editor of the Houston Chronicle. A shorter version of this interview ran in Episode 111 about building new communities of faith. Raj's story continues in a discussion of finding community in one of the most diverse cities in America as he raises his children. In Good Faith is the place to hear stories and accounts from believers, told in their own words. Our hope is to listen with an open heart, celebrating the power of faith and belief, and what those stories mean to the ones who tell them. Host Steven Kapp Perry talks with believers from all walks of faith—Catholic and Episcopalian, Buddhist and Baptist, Jewish and Hindu, Presbyterian and Seventh Day Adventist, Muslim and Latter-day Saint—in other words, human beings and believers, sharing their personal experience with the sacred and the divine. Sundays on BYUradio—and be sure to subscribe to the podcast!

We speak to religious artists in the United States and gather different perspectives about how art and spirituality influence each other. We chat with Kimia Ferdosi Kline, a Bahai visual artist whose work focuses on relationships, and J. Kirk Richards, a Latter-Day Saint painter whose work is explicitly for Christian audiences and talks to us about the ways he portrays Christ. We’ll also explore how spirituality influences actor and director Agam Darshi, a filmmaker from the Sikh tradition whose first film is now on Netflix. And we’ll hear from musicologist Jenny Thomas, who recounts returning to public concerts in the 2022 Easter season and what that experience meant to her. Steve also interviews Vaisesika Das at the 2022 Sadhu Sanga who discusses his kirtan practice. Host Steven Kapp Perry talks with believers from all walks of faith—Catholic and Episcopalian, Buddhist and Baptist, Jewish and Hindu, Presbyterian and Seventh Day Adventist, Muslim and Latter-day Saint—in other words, human beings and believers, sharing their personal experience with the sacred and the divine. Sundays on BYUradio—and be sure to subscribe to the podcast!

Nava Kavelin, formerly the Senior Research and Writer at the United Nations for the Bahai International Community, talks with producer Heather Bigley about Nava’s work at the UN and how it inspired her to start a Los Angeles-based media production company, all with an eye to serving others. Nava also shares how her mother's death impacted her relationship with God. Host Steven Kapp Perry talks with believers from all walks of faith—Catholic and Episcopalian, Buddhist and Baptist, Jewish and Hindu, Presbyterian and Seventh Day Adventist, Muslim and Latter-day Saint—in other words, human beings and believers, sharing their personal experience with the sacred and the divine. Sundays on BYUradio—and be sure to subscribe to the podcast!

Ramsay Taum is the founder and president of the Hawai'i-based Life Enhancement Institute (LEI) of the Pacific. Working with Hawai'i’s travel, leisure and retail industry, Ramsay integrates Native Hawaiian cultural values and principles into contemporary business. Mentored and trained by respected kupuna (elders), he is a practitioner and instructor of several Native Hawaiian practices including hooponopono (stress release and mediation), lomi haha (body alignment) and Kaihewalu Lua (Hawaiian combat/battle art). Host Steven Kapp Perry talks with believers from all walks of faith—Catholic and Episcopalian, Buddhist and Baptist, Jewish and Hindu, Presbyterian and Seventh Day Adventist, Muslim and Latter-day Saint—in other words, human beings and believers, sharing their personal experience with the sacred and the divine. Sundays on BYUradio—and be sure to subscribe to the podcast!

We discuss the foundation of Ikar, a Los Angeles-based synagogue, with Melissa Balaban and the creation in Denver of the Christian nondenominational church Highlands to support LGBTQ families with Rachel McClair and the Reverend Dr Jenny Morgan. And we talk to Dan Foster in Australia from Backyard Church Online, a church for people who don’t like church, as well as Raj Mankad, the Op Ed Editor for the Houston Chronicle, and Dr. Rhonda Williams, a historian at Vanderbilt, about creating sacred spaces for people who are in the racial minority in America. In Good Faith is the place to hear stories and accounts from believers, told in their own words. Our hope is to listen with an open heart, celebrating the power of faith and belief, and what those stories mean to the ones who tell them.