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Leading Saints Podcast

A Closer Look at Grace in the Latter-day Saint Tradition | An Interview with Adam Miller

Leading Saints Podcast

Leading Saints

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Adam S. Miller is a professor of philosophy at Collin College in McKinney, Texas. He earned a BA in Comparative Literature from Brigham Young University and an MA and PhD in Philosophy from Villanova University. He is the author of more than ten books, including Original Grace, Letters to a Young Mormon, and An Early Resurrection. He and his wife, Gwen, have three children. Highlights 4:30 Adam talks about his book, Original Grace: An Experiment in Restoration Thinking. 5:50 Grace is a very powerful name for what it's like to interact with God. It’s where God’s life and our lives overlap. 6:35 Kurt and Adam discuss Stephen Robinson’s book, Believing Christ. 10:00 Grace is not God’s backup plan. It’s God’s plan A. The means and the ends of salvation. 12:00 We attempt to save ourselves when we misuse God’s law. 13:40 Is God’s love unconditional? 17:45 Original sin mentality vs. original grace mentality. 21:45 Justice is only in the business of what’s good, not evil. Justice is not there for the punishment. 22:20 Justice is to give what good is needed depending on the circumstance. It's basically another name for grace, which is to give good for good and good for evil. 24:00 We think that God is coming for us with punishment when we sin but that is faulty thinking. God is coming for us with grace. He is never trying to punish us but give us the treatment that we need. 25:45 What about all the scriptures about God’s anger and wrath? 28:45 Adam talks about his earthly father in his book about grace and why he included him. 32:55 How do we manifest this doctrine of grace in the context of leadership? 39:00 Discussion on suffering. It can feel like suffering is a deserved punishment but Adam explains why suffering is needed. 49:30 Kurt and Adam share perspectives on the subtitle of Adam’s book, an experiment in restoration thinking. 52:50 Discussion on simplicity. Adam talks about how he used to overcomplicate religion but step by step and through experimenting he has been able to find simplicity. Links Original Grace: An Experiment in Restoration Thinking, by Adam S. Miller Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans, by Adam S. Miller Letters to a Young Mormon, by Adam S. Miller An Early Resurrection: life in Christ Before You Die, by Adam S. Miller Believing Christ, by Stephen E. Robinson Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Listen on YouTube Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has over 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler, Ganel-Lyn Condie, and many more in over 500 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Let's talk about the plague of pornography for just a minute.

0:05.0

Wow, this is one of the biggest issues that so many deal with in these latter days,

0:10.0

but few talk about it or even know how to talk about it. And when they do talk about it, it's usually in a private

0:16.1

setting with a leader who is expected to know how to navigate struggles with pornography.

0:21.9

Thankfully, leading Saints has put together a remarkable resource called Liberating Saints.

0:27.7

It's a virtual library with 25 plus presentations focused on helping leaders be better prepared to help someone overcome struggles with pornography.

0:36.0

We cover topics like how to minimize shame in the Bishop's office,

0:40.0

how to talk with children about pornography, and even how to talk with children about pornography and even how to talk about female pornography use in relief society.

0:48.0

If you'd like to review the Liberating Saints Library at no cost for 14 days, simply go to leading Saints.org

0:54.4

slash 14. That's leading Saints.org slash 1.4. While you're at it, we'll give you

1:00.7

access to all of our virtual libraries that cover several leadership related topics.

1:06.0

So click the link in the show notes or simply visit leading Saints.org.

1:10.0

14.

1:17.0

Before we jump into the content of this episode, I kind of feel it's important that I introduce

1:20.7

myself.

1:21.7

Now many of you have been around a long time. You're well familiar

1:25.0

with my voice and with Leading Saints as an organization. But if you're not, well, my name is Kurt

1:30.9

Frankham and I am the executive director of leading saints and the podcast host.

1:35.0

Now leading saints is a non-profit organization dedicated helping Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead.

1:41.0

And we do that through well content creation like this

1:43.9

podcast and many other resources at leading Saints.org and we don't act like we

1:49.0

have all the answers or know exactly what a leader should do or not do, but we like to explore the concepts of leadership,

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