Maxwell Institute Podcast #156: Finding Christ in the Covenant Path, with Jennifer C. Lane

Joseph Stuart: Welcome to the Maxwell Institute Podcast. I'm Joseph Stuart. Jennifer C. Lane, research fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, has written a book entitled Finding Christ in the Covenant Path: Ancient Insights from Modern Life. This volume 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 in the throne of God's presence as his children and heirs. The second part of the book reveals Christ as our ransom by exploring medieval images, particularly the image of Christ, the personal anecdotes, historical background and scriptural analysis. This action uses devotional images and late medieval practices of contemplation as a strategy to come unto Christ. By using medieval images as a counterpoint to restoration practices and ordinances, we can more fully appreciate the gift of God's Son and see that gift with fresh eyes. Please be sure to follow us on social media at @byumaxwell and our YouTube channel, which you can also find at @byumaxwell. Now without further ado, let's start our conversation with Dr. Jennifer Lane. Jennifer Lane, welcome to the Maxwell Institute podcast.

Jennifer Lane: Thank you, it is a real delight to be here with you.

Stuart: You recently published a book entitled “Finding Christ in the Covenant Path: Ancient Insights for Modern Life.” How did you come to study sacred texts, especially in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Lane: The answer really has two parts. So part of it is personal. And part of it is academic. So the personal came when I was starting seminary, ninth grade, and sort of the invitation of a seminary teacher, the program at the time was the challenge to read every day. And we got to color in little red marks when we showed up and we'd read. And I liked coloring the little red marks in. And so I actually started the practice of reading every day through that year. And then when seminary was over, I was on a roll. And so I didn't stop. And so I developed the, the sort of personal pattern of scripture study from that. But it wasn't until later in my life, when I started to think about studying the scriptures as an academic discipline. And so, I was a history major as an undergraduate. And I was really interested in modern intellectual history and changes and thinking about: how do you see God in the world? And how is the world seeing God? And how is the world not seeing God? And just those really, really important changes. But being a missionary in France, so partway through my undergraduate experience, helped me see two things. One is that the world that you live in, when you live without God, and the world wasn't really the place I wanted to spend the rest of my professional life. And I realized, no I really want to study religion, and religious history and people who love God and are trying to understand and follow him. I wanted that. And I also came to realize something, that as I was teaching the gospel to people who the barrier of modernity was so strong, that they just… nothing I could say, could reach them and connect. You know, there are people of course, I mean, that got taught, and people that got baptized. And but just as a whole, I sort of pondered, why is it I'm learning so much about the gospel? Why is it I'm getting all these insights, but I can't communicate them. There was nobody here that I'm able to connect with. And part of the insight that came to me during that time period was, perhaps I'm not learning these things for right now, I'm learning them for the future. So the gospel insights I was getting, I sort of had the sense that maybe I should be teaching; that I should be like, this should be a long term project, not just an 18 month project. And so when I got back my mission, I was still a history major, but I started working more, looking for projects that were religious history, started studying Biblical Hebrew, started studying Greek, then went on to an undergraduate… After my undergraduate years, I had a master's program in the Ancient Near East. So it was very much thinking along the lines of going into scripture as a PhD program. But during the course of the masters, I realized what I loved. Because once you get into language, sometimes you just, some people love that. Like, they love studying Hebrew, they love studying Greek that is, but for me, I always, I really liked the big picture. I like the ideas. And so when I had a chance, a couple years later to start a PhD program, I chose history of Christianity, because I'm interested in how have people over time, taken a text, how they've interpreted text, how they understood it, how they live their lives, based on the understanding that they have. So that relationship between belief and practice, and sort of, then moving further away from not love… moving further away from studying scripture texts, but from studying them just as the sole focus of my study, and sort of reading, sort of how people thought about and lived out what they've understood.

Stuart: Thank you so much for that introduction. I think that helps us to see the way that your disciple-scholarship has oriented your life. And I love that you focus so much on the humanity of those that you studied, as they interpreted the Bible in the Middle Ages, but also today. And I think it actually leads us to one of the first things you write in your book. You write, “We feel lost, we are trapped. But our Heavenly Father has a plan. He wants us to know that His plan of redemption will work. His plan is big enough to bring all His children home.” What comes to mind when you hear that first sentence from your book?

Lane: I think… part of I think about my own experience, and that's what I try to weave in through the book, is the experiences I've had and coming to know Christ as a redeemer, and the only way you can know Christ as a redeemer is to know that you need redeeming. And so that the very reality of feeling lost, feeling trapped, feeling stuck, is what you need redeeming from. And so at the heart of it is that very personal existential condition. And then what is life with Christ? What is life, living with God in the world? Living and coming to understand the power of the covenant? And that's, some of these things are what I discovered before my mission, before I began an academic study of scriptures. And so there's a very deep… started when, like I mentioned earlier, I'd studied scripture daily for years and years, but it was as an undergraduate. President Benson was the prophet, he was encouraging us to read the Book of Mormon every day. So I was reading scriptures every day, but not the Book of Mormon. So making that adjustment to, to add that practice opened up my eyes, I think more fully to my condition. So there's very, very personal, even though I think it maps out with what I've seen, sort of more broadly. But ultimately speaking from a personal position. And I also think, having both lived this audit, studied different people's life experiences, what Christ has meant for them throughout the ages. Cause it is good news. I mean, that the gospel is good news. And so many people, throughout time in many, many places, have felt so alive and freed by the good news of Christ, that it changed their lives. And that's something that I've experienced as well. And so, you know, going back to that particular quote, one of the things I appreciate most about the restoration that I think it just should be shouted from the rooftops is, the vision of the plan of redemption, is all encompassing. So it's very easy to go to one side and say, Well, God loves everybody. And so everyone's coming back. And we don't need a Savior. It's just like, that's God's plan. But part of it takes away the reality of the condition that we get ourselves into. The reality of being spiritually cut off from God, and also denies the choice of agency. Because some people will say, Well, yes, there's Christ, but Christ saves everybody, doesn't matter what you want. And so what I love and appreciate about the restoration is that it honors agency and in offering the, in the message of the ministry in the spirit world to everyone that's ever lived. So time no longer becomes an issue. Like when you hear the Gospel isn't the point, whether people hear at mortality, they hear it in the spirit world, the effect is going to be the same. So what matters then is agency, how do I respond? What do I want, and so for every person, everyone will have a chance, everyone will have the choice, Christ’s atoning sacrifice applies to everybody, and that the potential and the capacity for everybody, no matter what they've done, no matter where they've been, no matter…that they can hear and feel and respond. And whether they do or not, is going back to agency, it's up to them. But the hope is, the vision is that the invitation is, arms are wide and outstretched. And so for me, section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants is one, I think it is an underappreciated treasure of this good news that the restoration is more fully revealing, that how everybody through Christ has the way back home, and that and of course, added to the temple work, the vicarious the work we do to allow everybody to make and keep these covenants. They have to choose it, but we're offering them the opportunity.

Stuart: Absolutely. I was speaking to a fellow Christian this past week, and talking about how Latter-day Saints believe in grace so fully, that we believe that even after death, the power and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ still has reach. And that is what we are working towards in temple work, extending the grace of Jesus Christ to others, especially those who haven't had the opportunity to hear it. Along those lines, you share an experience when you first understood the word “redemption” in relation to covenants. Could you please tell us more about that?

Lane: This I think, was really a formative experience for me when I was…so again, I was back from the mission. I was a history major- honors history, wanted to prepare for writing an honors thesis, graduating with honors at BYU, and I just hope that somehow in a sense, I write about this book, as well because it is such a formative experience for me, and how sort of how I discovered is I learned a lot both in seeing the connections, but also the process of seeing the connection. So part of that is just following the feeling I'd had to explore redemption. I just had a funny, funny story about singing Christmas carols in August, our family was doing a road trip. And right as I was getting ready to think about, what do I write about? And this Christmas, there's several Christmas carols that talk about this redeeming love. And just this overwhelming sense of this, how real this was, how important this was, how I need to understand it better, and then going to… I have this little early notebook computer and little early scripture search software. And so I was working through it right there in the car as we're driving along. Redemption, what is redemption? What, how do I understand this? I want to understand this! And seeing just where scriptures were, what surprised me was how heavily weighted it was for the Old Testament. It’s like, this is important. And I don't know what's going on here. And so I got back to school within the next month. I went- at the time, Steven Rick's was one of the associate Dean's for honors and, and said, “Would you be willing to work with me?” And he said, “Sure.” I said I want to work with Ancient Greece because I didn't quite have the courage to say I want to look at redemption and the Old Testament. So it's like, okay, go read these books, go read them. About you know, the Assyrians and the Acadians, and all the Hittites, all the different Ancient Near Eastern peoples. Read, read a book about each of them, and come back and tell me what you want to focus on. And I came back and said, “Well, I looked at the book, but I realized, no, I really do know what I want to look at. And this is it.” And he said, “Sure.” And so I started with texts, and said, Okay, let's look at primary sources. Just went through, printed out hundreds going through studying. Starting to also look at some scholarship about what is going on with redemption, just because that's all I had. It's just a question of what is redemption. But I think the fact that I was asking questions, both what is it? And why is it? That I started to see answers, because what it is, is fairly easy, it's to buy out of bondage. But the “why it is” was where the pieces started to come together. And I still remember, there's a part of the main entrance to the Harold B. Lee Library here on campus that used to be reserved reading. Now, because we don't have reserves, not quite as much wasn't quite as important. But it was, I was studying in this reserve reading section going through these printouts and all of a sudden, like the lights came on. And I realized there's a connection here. And I'll just share one scripture really fast. It shows up in a few different places. I honestly don't know which scripture it was, but do you see it in Exodus, you see Deuteronomy, actually see it in First Nephi as well, but where the Lord here is speaking to Moses, and he says about the children of Israel, “I've established my covenant with them to give them the land of Cainan.” So this is Exodus 6:4, “and wherein they were strangers.” Though, by promising them this land, but there that's not the condition they're in. They're not in the Promised Land. And verse 5, “I've heard the groaning of children, Israel, whom the Egyptians kept in bondage, I have remembered my covenant.” And so this connection between covenant and remembering the covenant, and then doing something for the children of Israel precisely, is this pattern that we start to see in, in multiple places, that because He remembers the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He redeems the children of Israel. So we're sort of like, okay, what is going on there? So learning more about redemption and learning more about Redeemer, that a Redeemer is a family member. And so realizing and learning more about covenant, that covenant creates a family relationship. And so, that by creating this family relationship through covenant, the Lord is putting Himself in a position to act as a redeemer to bring His people out of bondage. And so seeing that pattern, when you start to see it, then all of a sudden it’s like, wait it’s everywhere! It was just this extraordinary gift to me, and a blessing to be able to write about it. And it's informed a lot of the writing I've done, and sort of coming to this book through the years, I've written a number of articles about… but more nicely for a broad population of people. And so I think that that's part of what informed where I had family and friends who nudged me and said, No, you really need to write about this. For more people, with personal stories, not just lots of footnotes, and sort of dry academic analysis scripture. So that's what led me, sort of like this idea alone is important enough to take the time to share it with larger people. And then it worked its way into being a bigger story about more things, more about how does covenant work? And then also, second half is more how do ordinances work and looking to see Christ in the ordinances.

Stuart: Marvelous. So one of the scriptural texts that you examine is the Psalm of Nephi. So what is the Psalm of Nephi? For those who might not know? And how do you see it teaching us about covenantal relationships?

Lane: Thank you. This is another example I think of where once you start to see this pattern, you can see it in multiple places. So in Second Nephi chapter 4, which is known as the Psalm of Nephi, this language there is very reminiscent of the writing of the Psalms. It's very personal. And so, once you start to see that connection between covenant redemption, you can see how Nephi is pleading for his personal redemption, is this is really his personal journey. So yes, it describes what happened, sort of as this type or shadow of the children of Israel and bondage and then being redeemed from bondage, the Lord, is their Redeemer, remembering the covenants that were made, acting as Redeemer. But this is sort of a microcosm of that macrovision, and of the conditions that we're in ways of being that we are in can trap us. And that coming to both make covenants, but also realize the importance of that relationship with Christ allows us to experience leaving that that sense of being trapped, leaving the bondage of whatever, wherever we're at, whatever we've done, wherever we think we are, that keeps us from being with God being like God, that, that He can move us. And so I'll just read a couple of verses here with Nephi, where you can see this very personal sense. So this condition that he's in, its a bondage as being a condition, a state where it says in verses 17, through 19, of chapter 4: “Oh wretched man that I am,” and that he describes, “my heart sorroweth because of my flesh, my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities. I'm encompassed about because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me. And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins.” And so this is where he is feeling stuck. He's feeling trapped, when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth, but then there's a turning point. Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted. So looking to the Lord, as his Redeemer, somebody has a personal connection to. And I think there's…that there's two dimensions. One is knowing that we need help beyond the power that we have to change and to get out of a way of being, but also that we are agents, and Christ isn't going to do it to us if we don't want to be part of that experience. And so I love this. In Second Nephi chapter 4, where you see in verse 28, and 4:31, he's using his agency, so he's speaking to himself, “Awake, my soul, no longer droop in sin. Rejoice oh my heart, give place no more for the enemy of my soul.” So I want to repent, I want to change, I want to get out of this bondage. But he also pleads for help in verse 31, “Oh, Lord, wilt thou redeem my soul? Wilt thou deliver me out of the hands of mine enemies? Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin.” So having a change of heart, having a change of desire, these are, goes to a deep level where we really need help, but the Lord respecting us, and our agency isn't going to intervene, unless we ask for that. And I love this about the Psalm of Nephi, as we really do see him working with the Lord, asking for help, but also choosing, because having the ransom price paid doesn't get us out of bondage unless we walk out. Unless we leave and choose, we choose to believe that we have been redeemed. Otherwise, we just stay, and we're stuck. And so that's what I love about Nephi is this, knowing has this covenant relationship with the Redeemer that he can leave, he then chooses to do that. Just beautiful insights throughout scripture where you see this connection between covenant and increasing faith in the Lord, knowing Him, knowing that we can trust Him, knowing that He will come to deliver us when we ask for His help.

Stuart: I was also really struck in the first half of your book entitled Finding Christ in the Covenant Path: Ancient Insights From Modern Life from BYU’ss Religious Studies Center. About how you discuss the phrase bowing down. Because I know the phrase from scripture, I'm familiar with how it works, and the role of humility. But I confess that I still felt a little uncomfortable in thinking about bowing down myself, have you had the same experience or heard that from the students that you taught at BYU Hawaii?

Lane: It's such a great question. And it's really, again, quite funny because the students I taught- not that it's funny, because it's a very serious question. And I think it's a challenge in, in a modern world, where we feel as though you know, especially with the American experience, nobody's better than anybody else, we shouldn't have to bow down to anybody, we're all equal. This sense, egalitarian sense of identity is deeply rooted. Why I say it's funny is because I taught many students from places where their sense of relationship with other people is, bowing down comes naturally. So come from Thailand, you come from Japan, I mean, you're bowing down all day long. So it's, I think, the idea of bowing down as being a problem is something that we might experience more than maybe different people in different cultural, so different barriers we have. So in the secular world, we're attuned to abuses of power. And so, this sense, we don't want to acknowledge our dependence for other people or to show that they're better than us is… makes us feel uncomfortable. With that sense, as I think about this, this really does, does transcend at some point, yes, you can be in a culture where you feel comfortable bowing down. But that sense of relationship- and this goes back to identity and agency, because the choice to bow to God is always a choice. And it makes me think about Alma 32, and Alma 33, where the poor Zoramites are kicked out and like telling Alma and Amulek, like, What do we do? How do we worship? But the answer that they're given about how do they worship, this question of worship, you're bowing down is, a lot of the times, it goes back to, again, Old Testament and Hebrew bow down, often translated worship, because literally to bow down is to embody to a relationship of worship, people would bow down to a king. Which we're not comfortable with in our world, and not being comfortable with that, sometimes it becomes harder than to bow down to God, to physically embody a relationship of subservience, of submission that we like, I don't want to be there. And so I love that what Alma is doing, in Alma 33, in particular, is inviting the Zoramites to think about worship. He’s invited them to think about worship, and to explore, to sort of like, You can choose this, you can want this, and you may not know that it's going to work, but you can sort of be just about experimenting on the word. And that is, I think, experimenting on worship, experimenting on looking to Christ, and asking for help, because that's what he's teaching. That is the word, that Christ is the Redeemer that He’s come to save us. But to choose that sometimes, we have to experiment enough to bow down to find out and I've been thinking about the father of King Lamoni, where he gets taught, and he's like, I want to believe it, but I don't know. So this is like a case study in the principle that Alma is teaching us an Alma 33. About wanting to bow down. And so he doesn't know what he's willing to experiment, so he says, Oh, God, if there was a God, and if thou art God, will thou make thyself known unto me. And I will give away all my sins, to know thee. And I think that captures this idea of knowing and this is, as influenced a lot of my work, is the embodiment of knowledge. And so bowing down is a way to begin a relationship. It's a way to use our agency, to choose to be in a relationship to God as God, as our God, as our Lord. In doing that, we're opening ourselves up to come to know Him, because the knowing is an embodied knowing that God wants to reveal Himself to us. But until we use our agency, that He's not going to smother us, He's not going to overwhelm us with a revelation of His love and His goodness in His greatness, it's going to come gradually. And it's going to come step by step as we daily choose, bowing down, and listening, following, choosing a life in that relationship. And that that is the very process by which we do come to know Him.

Stuart: Thank you for sharing that. And would also encourage listeners to read Mark Wrathall’s Brief Theological Introduction to Alma, the second one in the series on Alma, from the Maxwell Institute, or to listen to the podcast with Blair Hodges, several years ago as well. Jennifer, moving forward into the second half of the book, you discuss a lot of art and material culture. So some of the terms may not be as familiar to Latter-day Saints. So could you define the word “relic” for us? And how can relics help us on the covenant path?

Lane: Sure. So, so what I'm doing the second half of the book is moving more to using late medieval piety as a way to practice some of the ways of approaching the ordinances, like how to slow down, how to pay attention, how to see Christ in the ordinances, and so using these material objects. And so a relic is usually we talk about something…it starts in the early Christian world where people would go to the graves of the martyrs, because they were holy, and they wanted to be close to these holy beings, who… bodies were in the ground, they're in the graves, but their spirits were up with God. So there's a sense of late antiques and so we're talking pretty early here, early Christian experience of patronage, wanting these people to put in a good word for God, you know, please, you're up there with Him, please help me because I'm vulnerable, and I need help. So there's a sense of going to the graves as a first step. And then as Christianity spread beyond the realm where the martyrs had been, where the Roman Empire and early Christians had been, and as time moves on, that the holiness in these bodies was seen to be intact, even if the bodies themselves were not intact. So a different church in further Northern Europe or the West could have a part of that saint. And the saint was seen as being present, as though the whole saint were there. So it's still that relationship.

Stuart: Yeah, so something, it could be the finger of a saint, or an item of clothing, like the burial shroud. And these are the sorts of material objects that folks would find power in. And so Latter-day Saints, we don't necessarily have relics in the same way, we certainly have a material culture that emphasizes the connection between the living and the dead, but not in the same way that the Roman Catholics or early Christians did. So how can this help us as Latter-day Saints to think about our relationship to our covenant toward Jesus Christ?

Lane: Wonderful. And I really appreciate you bringing us back because I could go on about late medieval piety forever. But this is such an important connection I'm hoping to draw, is that we don't take for granted that all the ordinances are material. That we connect with holiness, through material substance. When we’re baptized, were baptized in water, when we're given the gift of the Holy Ghost hands must be laid upon our head, that is non-negotiable. That, that's part of ordinances, the work for the dead in temples are done here in mortality, because people need bodies in order to perform ordinances. And so it’s something we can, we can do. And soon, I think we forget to look and to see- we go through these motions, but we stop seeing Christ in the baptism. Paul sees Christ in the baptism, that we die, and are buried, and rise with Christ. But we sometimes don't see that, we just like, Okay, we're getting wet, and then you're out of water. Or taking the sacrament again. So that again, the sense of something that's sacred, something that’s holy. Where the Christians and middle ages would go long distances, to have connection with either a holy saint who brought them closer to Christ, or as you mentioned, something from some Christ’s life which were particularly passionate relics. And some of this sensibility also shaped the way the Eucharist, the host, when we talk about like sacramental bread, that this was seen, as Christ being embodied, and being there. Now we don't hold a doctrine of transubstantiation. But we do, I think, and can and should take seriously when Christ says, This is my body, this is my blood. So when we're looking and partaking, to remember Him, to have that experience, of being present with Him, but He wants to make himself present with us through a material connection, that we eat the bread, we drink the water. When we go to the temple, there are physical connections with those who perform the ordinances, and those that receive the ordinances, that also point us to Christ. And so all the way through the covenants we make through the covenant path, that we are being connected to Christ and His suffering and His death through the ordinances. And so that's part of what I'm doing the second half, whether we're talking about relics, or other forms, is looking for and taking the material as a way to ponder and to think about Christ.

Stuart: Another term that you discuss, or rather a genre- is pieta. So first, can you define pieta for us? Folks may want to Google this to get a better sense of what it is. But I think about Michelangelo's breathtaking statue of Mary holding her crucified son. And so if you could please define pieta for us. And how is the pieta meant to help us to feel compassion?

Lane: Perfect. This is, as you mentioned, the term now particularly describes a devotional image, a sculpture, in most cases of Mary holding the dead Christ. The term in Latin refers to piety, devotion, loyalty; Italian, it has a sense of pity or mercy. So it has this rich sense of love, compassion. What's interesting is there's no biblical scene that this is corresponding to. It's a devotional image that's an opportunity to slow down in the sequence of the Christ suffering and death, after He's taken down from the cross, before He is put into the tomb, to ponder. And what I love about this, and part of what I try to use it for is to think about almost this kind of triangulation, because we want to love the Savior. But sometimes our ability to love the Savior is increased by seeing someone else's love for Him. And I think this is part of what's happening with the image of the pieta because we see Mary's love, compassion, devotion, her sorrow, but also this this sense of personal connection, and that that can move us and help us, I think is part of what we experience when we go and listen to people share their testimonies that the love that others feel for Christ can touch us, and can move us to develop our own feeling of gratitude. I also work through in this chapter particularly how devotional reading for me, it's a daily scripture, study the Book of Mormon, where feeling and seeing how people respond to Christ, to me, it's one of the main themes of the entire book, because people are either looking to the Lord, who is Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ, they're looking to the Lord, and being changed by Him, or also turning away from Him, they’re hardening our hearts. These are two options, two ways of living in the world. And people go back and forth. And you see some really close up views of what happens, as well as a big picture view. What happens when we choose to look to Christ, and respond to Him in love and gratitude? What happens when we choose to stop looking, and stop feeling gratitude, and stop trusting in Him and His power? And so this again, for me, I think that I don't have images in my life necessarily that I ponder, but I think the scriptures can function for us as a way to slow down and to ponder and to reflect, and to go back to that sense of awe and gratitude. But a lot of times, we’re pointed to that by other people's feelings of love and gratitude.

Stuart: I love that because it brings that sort of awe into community, and thinking about ourselves as a covenant community as well. So another term that may not be as familiar to Latter-day Saints, but as to many Christians is stigmata. So what is stigmata? And how can it help us to remember the promises that we have made to God, and that God has made to us?

Lane: Wonderful. So this is a term in Greek, it means “marks.” Paul uses a term in Galatians, that we see again, as part of his relationship to Christ. First he says, in Galatians, 6:14, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ our Lord Jesus, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I into the world.” And then he expresses this relationship of living in Christ and being changed by Christ in this very tangible sense. He says, in verse 17, “From henceforth, let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body, the marks of the Lord Jesus.” So Paul is talking about the sense of Christ becoming everything to him, and everything that he is, is for Christ. So living in Christ is this sort of full sense of the making and keeping covenants, what does that look like? Is there potential for transformation? I think that's what the ordinances are there for is to point us to that, and I explore a little bit the experience of St. Francis of Assisi. And he was the first saint in the medieval tradition, to have been understood as receiving here, the stigmata, meaning “the wounds of Christ”, in his hands and in his side. And what his life was supposed to mean is if you live that closely to Christ, if you follow Him that closely, if you love Him that much that you want to do what He wants you to do you want to be what He wants you to be, that it's transformative. And so that St. Francis, points us is, I think, fascinating, intriguing, and something that’s very moving for me is How can I be transformed? And I love those insights of that image of having that impression, Alma actually uses that kind of language, in Alma 5:19, where he asks, “Can you look up having the image of God engraven upon your countenance.” So here, your countenance isn't just face, it's your whole being, being transformed. And so I think that there's just offers us a lot to think about these, again, these medieval images may seem foreign, but they are people who love the Savior, and their desire to live out the light and the truth that they had, I think can point us to lives of discipleship and lives of devotion in a really powerful way.

Stuart: Jennifer, you've shared so much with us today from your book, Finding Christ in the Covenant Path: Ancient Insights from Modern Life, and following the Lord's direction to Joseph Smith to learn out of the best books, could you recommend three books to our audience that have helped you as a disciple-scholar on your journey?

Lane: I have, first one I thought of was, I don't know whether it has anything necessarily to do with my –well, I guess part of what it has, I think about it is that part of it has to do with my discipleship is learning to see other people's experiences in their own terms. And so this is a classic of cultural history by Robert Garten, The Great Pat Massacre. And so he goes to early modern France, and he looks at these scenes that just make no sense. So, he tries to slow down and figure out what is going on here? What are they thinking? And like, how does this make sense for them? And so to try to get inside the world of another culture, and so I've really appreciated that as sort of as an example of what cultural history can do, that I've just loved that book. It's influenced a lot of the work I've done in cultural history over time. Another book, again, influenced me fairly early on, is a theory. And it goes back to this idea of embodiment and knowledge. And this is Pierre Bourdieu: The Logic of Practice. And part of, I think what's important that Bourdieu offers us, is a way to get beyond conceptions of knowledge that focus just on thinking, and to think about: how do we know things through what we do? And there’s just wonderful insights there that were important for me. My dissertation was on late medieval Jerusalem pilgrimage and how it was changed into a meditation on Christ and the suffering by the Franciscans. And sort of, how the practices of “How do you suffer with Christ?” was a way to know, so this sort of embodied practice, and sort of thinking about how did that work for them? These are practices that I would do, I would never ever do. So like you're making yourself suffer in order to better know Christ. But how did that work for them? What did it mean for them? And so coming to understand that in their own terms, and how that working and so as a theorist, Bordieu is very particularly helpful, now, I kind of have a tie for my third book. And these are two books by the same author. And they've come out fairly recently, both by- he publishers under James K.A. Smith. So he's a professor at Calvin University. And he's a philosophy professor. He's also influenced by Bourdieu. And he has one of his books that I love, called, again, this for a large, popular audience, he has some other ones that are more technical about the role of liturgy, but this is You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. And so he's talking about, again, practice, and his idea of bowing down, and worship as being what creates a relationship, and how we are changed through that. And part of the wonderful point he makes is that everyone's worshiping. And we notice, right? It's always a question is not are we bowing down, but what are we bowing down to? And how liturgy, how worship reorients our life, and points us towards Christ, and towards, brings us back into God and God's story, rather than letting our lives be co-opted by different stories that are not the story we even… look back to, I don't ever want to be living this story, why am I doing this? And so that the practice of worship, the practice of bowing down and serving, those Hebrew verbs that we, we get worship from really are, are powerful, informative, so I really love his work there. And then another book he's written is How Not to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. So in both of them, he’s working with Bordieu and trying to explore some insights. And then Charles Taylor, a great philosopher, but also an intellectual historian, thinking about how did we, sort of like what I thought I would do before I decided I was going to do something else? How do we get where we're at, where we're living in a world without God? But yet, wanting to have God in our world, and living in these sort of cross tensions, between that sort of thing, to understand a modern condition that this is really powerful and helpful to understand why are people pulled away from the covenant path? How are they offered options that maybe feel more compelling for them? And so I think that between the two of them he had a point to, how do we… This is something I'm working on for a volume that'll come out next year. With the Let's Talk About series, Let's Talk about Temples and Ritual. And so looking at, how does temple worship reorient us? How does the very practice of that kind of worship help us live in the world where we are connected to God? And where I think so often, we may not understand why we need to be worshiping the temple as often as we do that, it becomes clearer how transformative it is for us in keeping that relationship with God. And so I've just appreciated as a Christian philosopher, the insights he has, that he's, I think he's looking at something that I think the restoration gives even deeper meaning to, and takes the insight of what liturgy can do and the temple just multiplies it exponentially. This is how we are and can be reshaped. As we live out, we are changed and we live out lives that are more conformed to and becoming like that of Christ.

Stuart: Jennifer Lane, thanks so much for coming by the Maxwell Institute Podcast.

Lane: My pleasure! Thank you so much.

Stuart: Thank you for listening, the Maxwell Institute Podcast. If you please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to this podcast, and recommend it to others so that we can fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints and their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas? Thank you and have a great week!