Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 406

Guest [00:00:01] Come thou fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing the grace.

Guest 2 [00:00:11] A Thoughtful Faith Podcast is a production of Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to A Thoughtful Faith are tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@athoughtfulfaith.org.

Sarah Collett [00:00:45] Welcome to A Thoughtful Faith Podcast. This is Sarah Collett and today I'm excited to be joined by two really wonderful individuals, Jay Griffith, who is going to be a part of the interviewing process with us. He's helped me set up this interview and I'm really grateful. And so he's here and he'll be asking some of the questions. And we are also joined by Jim McConkie and we're in his home today and I want to thank you for letting us come in.

James McConkie [00:01:15] It's nice to have you here.

Sarah Collett [00:01:17] And the way we'll start today is I want Jay to introduce himself a little bit and then we'll go ahead and start with the actual podcast. So welcome everyone.

Jay Griffith [00:01:30] Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate the chance to be involved in this. I've only been exposed to a thoughtful faith in Mormon Stories for about a month and I've thoroughly enjoyed them and now a contributor and encourage anybody listening to also be a regular contributor.

Jay Griffith [00:01:49] I had the good fortune of living down the street from Jim and he's my family's home teacher which is how I got to know him better. I actually knew his daughter in law before that for a number of years. I'm very impressed with her also.

Jay Griffith [00:02:04] But I grew up in Oregon and served a mission in Michigan and have three children. Been active in the church all my life. Although I've had some time times where I've crisis of faith and questioned the existence of God and what his character is.

Jay Griffith [00:02:27] I'm currently the young men's president in my ward, which I think is the best job in the church. I love doing that and that's about me. We'll go on to Jim.

Sarah Collett [00:02:41] All right, that sounds wonderful. We're going to do this kind of in classic Mormon stories fashion which is to ask that you introduce your yourself starting from the beginning, your origins and where you come from and we'll go from there.

Growing Up with Apostles in the Family

James McConkie [00:02:57] I started in Salt Lake and the only thing I disagree with Jay on is the best job in the church is being the gospel doctrine teacher and that's what I'm doing right now.

Sarah Collett [00:03:07] That can start a Whole debate on its own.

James McConkie [00:03:10] So this is a lot of fun to be the gospel doctor and teacher. I grew up for a time in Salt Lake City. My father died when I was seven, so my mother had to kind of put the family back together, and she went back east. And so that began my sojourn away from Zion.

James McConkie [00:03:28] And so I grew up in New York City. I grew up in London, where my mother taught at the University of London. And then I came back and spent the first part of my career in Washington, D.C. and the best thing that happened to me during those years was to meet Judy at BYU, my wife, and have three great kids and 11 grandchildren.

James McConkie [00:03:52] And I am an attorney. There are three things that you have to be to be a McConkie. You have to be an active, good member of the church, and you also have to be an attorney, and then you have to be a Democrat. And if you qualify in those three points, then you're a true McConkie. At least the saying goes.

Sarah Collett [00:04:15] Wow. Do you have any rebels in the family?

James McConkie [00:04:18] Oh, a couple, but they're in the minority and they're unenlightened, and they're not blood relations either. But we love them all, of course, and include them in our family.

Sarah Collett [00:04:31] Okay. Well, I want to point out, obviously, you know, right from the beginning, I'm sure no one missed the name McConkie. And you've talked a little bit about what it takes to be a McConkie. Was Bruce R. McConkie a Democrat?

James McConkie [00:04:45] Yes. And some of the members of the family claim that he became more conservative over time. I reject that notion because I think it's doctrinally inconsistent. But, yes, I am. He was my father's older brother, and so I knew him and. And loved him. He was truly a great individual, and I wish that everyone could get to know him personally.

Sarah Collett [00:05:13] So I guess we can just jump right in. And, Jay, if you have any questions, let me know. I'm going to be really, really honest and say that good old Bruce R. McConkie is responsible for my faith crisis.

James McConkie [00:05:29] I'm glad you're here.

Sarah Collett [00:05:33] You know, I actually have come to some appreciation for, you know, the extensive amount of work that he did. But also, I think he is a difficult figure for many of our listeners and for just, you know, a lot of the people that are kind of starting to really investigate their faith and church doctrine. And he can. He can kind of be a difficult character. Why don't you start by telling us what you know of him personally and how you would describe him from A personal perspective how he was in his relationship with you.

James McConkie [00:06:11] Well, I have kind of an interesting perspective on this because I have two apostles that are uncles. One is Elder Worthland, and the other is Bruce Armaconki. And so I grew up in two households of faith. And even as a young person sitting at my grandfather's table, my grandfather was the presiding bishop of the church, Joseph L. Worthlin. His son was Joseph B. Wirthlin, who was the late apostle. And so I really can't remember a time when I wasn't either at my Uncle Bruce's home playing with cousins, or in my grandfather's home, or over in Elder Worthland's home playing with cousins. And I realized early on that there were different points of view, and those two families looked at theology differently.

James McConkie [00:07:06] And every once in a while, one or the other would remind me that not everyone in the church thought that way. And so when I grew up, I didn't sense that there was a need for me to be orthodox in the sense of pledging my allegiance to one side of the family or to the other side of the family.

James McConkie [00:07:31] The other interesting thing about these two families are the McConkies were devout Democrats, and the Worthlands were devout Republicans. And so I got a perspective, and I knew that people felt strongly about various things, politics and religion, but that that didn't really impact on the quality of person. They were right.

Sarah Collett [00:07:59] How did your mother feel about your uncle?

James McConkie [00:08:04] Oh, she loved Bruce, and she always told me that she had tremendous amount of respect for him. I mean, he really was devoted to his study of the Scriptures, and people may disagree with some of the conclusions he came to, and legitimately so, because there are different ways of looking at the canon of Scripture and what it says. But he was a great help to our family. After my father died, he stepped in. He was the person that I went to often for father's blessings. He had an interest in me and my sisters and my mother. He always kept in touch, as did my mother's side of the family. And so if you're looking at both of these men as people, I think I would characterize them both as entirely honest, straightforward, and willing to tell you what they thought.

Sarah Collett [00:09:05] Did you ever feel as though you could disagree?

James McConkie [00:09:10] Oh, yeah, I felt I could. And when you disagreed with Uncle Bruce, you had to have a scripture to disagree with him. In other words, when we went to some of our extended family home evenings, which I love and I have great memories of, if he asked a question of the family, we used to do this Once a month with all the cousins and the aunts and uncles, and we'd all go. And because Bruce was a member of the Quorum of the Seventy or an apostle, he would always give the lesson, almost invariably. And if he asked you a question and you wanted to answer it, he expected you to answer it and then tell him where in the canon of Scripture your answer was coming from. So there was always in the McConkie family, this focus on what does the canon of Scripture say?

Sarah Collett [00:09:59] Okay, so how old are. Let me get a perspective of your age here. How old were you when he became an apostle?

James McConkie [00:10:05] Well, that's hard for me to say. I'm 67. And so when did he become an apostle? In the early 1980s. And I'd have to do the math.

Sarah Collett [00:10:14] But now his. Did you ever have any acquaintance with his father in law?

James McConkie [00:10:20] Yes. In fact, his father in law, John Fielding Smith, lived in Bruce's home and died in Bruce's home. And so when we went up there, we would see him and we would chat with him. And Amelia, who is just a marvelous person, very funny and quite the character, was always there. And that was Joseph Fielding Smith's daughter.

Sarah Collett [00:10:49] Okay. So I think it's pretty well known that Bruce and his father in law were very close, and they had a lot of respect, and they agreed on a lot of issues that I think that he kind of adopted a lot of his views in the gospel and his approach to gospel doctrine from his father in law. Is that true? Do you have any perspective on that?

James McConkie [00:11:10] I don't think I go quite that far. I think that he loved and admired Joseph Fielding Smith. I do think they agreed on things. And I know that Joseph Fielding Smith had an influence on Bruce McConaughey's thinking. I know that they talked a lot about these things. But I would say that the person who had the most influence on Bruce McConkie's thinking was his father, Oscar W. McConkie.

Sarah Collett [00:11:38] Tell us a little bit about that.

James McConkie [00:11:39] Well, Oscar McConkie was a transitional figure for us. He lived in southern Utah, and he decided that he would break the mold. Instead of being a rancher, he married a Red and married above himself, because the Reds were kind of the celebrity family in southern Utah.

James McConkie [00:11:58] And my grandfather decided to come to Salt Lake City and become a lawyer. And then he had these sons and five sons and a daughter. And he changed the whole course and destiny of his descendants. And they now number well over 100.

James McConkie [00:12:19] And his grandchildren, his sons, were lawyers. The only one that was smart enough not to be was my father. He was a musician. But the one thing that my grandfather did is he taught his children the gospel. And as we came, as we went there for dinner or after church, he'd always ask you what you'd learned, and then you would discuss whether or not what you'd learned squared with the Scriptures.

James McConkie [00:12:46] And so I remember going into my grandfather's home and he had all these Book of Mormons. I said, well, why do you have 30 or so book of Mormons in your bookcase? And he said, well, because every year I get one that's unmarked and I read for another subject.

James McConkie [00:13:01] And so the study of the Scriptures was a very important thing to him, and it carried over to his sons, and I think it's carried over to his granddaughters and his grandsons as well. The other thing that was remarkable about my grandfather McConkey is there are some people who have, I think, gift for spiritual experience, and he certainly did. And that influenced his son and has influenced his descendants as well.

Bruce R. McConkie's Character and Spiritual Gifts

Sarah Collett [00:13:26] Okay, will you talk a little bit more about he had a gift for spiritual experience?

James McConkie [00:13:32] Well, he had dreams that were prophetic. He had visions. He was a great preacher. He was the mission president in California for seven years. And so he was very familiar with the things of the spirit. And it was just expected that those kinds of experiences would continue down through the generations. But I don't think anyone had those gifts to the same degree that my grandfather McConkey did.

Sarah Collett [00:14:06] Can you share a story of a split vision?

James McConkie [00:14:10] Well, he had dreams and visions about doctrines. Sometimes he would see things that other prophets had seen in the scriptures. He sometimes would have a dream as to something that would come to pass, and it would come to pass.

James McConkie [00:14:32] There's a wonderful story in our family about who was going to be the next apostle. And he got the word in a dream that there was going to be a vacancy, and he didn't know who it was. And the next day, he talked to his wife Vivian, and his wife Vivian said she had had the same dream, but the Lord had told her who the replacement was going to be.

James McConkie [00:14:54] And so it was a shared gift. And I had polio as a young man. And so when my dad died, he died of polio. And I came home, and we all came home from Minnesota, where he was a professor of music. And I had to go up to the LDS hospital, and I would come home at night from the LDS hospital.

James McConkie [00:15:17] And I was just a little kid, and I'd sit at his feet, and he was a big man. He was 250 pounds. He was a judge at this time. And I would sit at his feet and he would sit in his chair and he'd teach me the gospel and I would ask him questions. And one day I asked him if everything that was alive had spirits.

James McConkie [00:15:37] And he paused and thought about it for a minute. And then I asked him if insects did and viruses did and germs did. And those are the kinds of things that we like to talk about. And those are the kinds of things that my cousins. To this day, when you get together with McConkeys, you're bound to be talking about something scriptural or something theological.

Sarah Collett [00:16:00] Let me. I grew up in a family where we like to talk a lot about doctrine as well. But I'm going to give you a little bit of pushback here. But I think that one of the things that a lot of people experience when they go through some kind of re evaluation of their faith is that they have to really confront this idea that we know all the answers. And hearing you talk about, you know, sitting at your grandfather's feet and having him tell you all, you know, these, these profound doctrinal truths, or it seems like there was a culture of knowing amongst the McConkies. Do you feel that there's maybe some difficulties with that at all? Or did you experience any difficulties? Did people question was there? Do you know what I'm saying?

James McConkie [00:16:45] Absolutely, because I've ended up on some doctrines taking a different tact, a different point of view. Let me tell you one of my favorite stories about Uncle Bruce. He was always a defender of the church's position on restricting priesthood to African Americans. That was very difficult for me because I was working in the United States Congress. I was the chief of staff for Gun McKay. I was active in the civil rights movement. And if there was anything that I knew that the New Testament taught, it was to love all mankind and to be inclusive. And I didn't see anything in Jesus teachings. And in fact, that teaching is so fundamental, it really caused cognitive dissonance for me.

Sarah Collett [00:17:34] I really want you to tell this story, but I want you to give a little bit more background there. How did you come to that conclusion? Did your mother raise you that way? Was that kind of the culture in your home? Or did you really develop that sense of that all men were created equally on your own? How did you come to that conclusion?

James McConkie [00:17:54] Well, it was just obvious to me you can't read the New Testament and see the people that Jesus loved associated with. And the ultimate direction that the Gospel takes When it goes to the Gentiles, into the world and read Paul, read Paul's There is no difference between male, female, bond free. The same thing that we hear again in the Book of Mormon and Nephi and. And come away feeling that for some strange reason, African Americans can't have equal privilege in our faith.

James McConkie [00:18:33] And this was a very difficult thing for me personally, but I can talk about that later if you want me to. But this doctrine, I shouldn't call it a doctrine, this policy, because I never believed it was a doctrine changed.

James McConkie [00:18:48] And President Kimball asked Bruce McConkie to write a memo, and he did. And the assignment was, tell us if this is scriptural, this idea that you restrict priesthood. And he came to the conclusion that it was not. Now, that was quite a surprise and probably a shock to most people.

Jay Griffith [00:19:09] This is Bruce Armament, Bruce Armaconki.

Sarah Collett [00:19:11] So the policy had already been changed,

James McConkie [00:19:15] had not been changed, had not been changed. This was when President Kimball was asking his Bruce brethren to talk to him, write about it, think about it. And he wanted to know what Bruce thought. And he wrote this memo and said, I don't think you can defend this doctrine from the Scriptures. And, I mean, that's an honest statement. I believe it, too. But anyway, after this great day in 1978, we had another family McConkey home meeting.

James McConkie [00:19:42] Of course, everyone wanted to ask Bruce questions about all of these things that he had said in family home, evenings, in books, in speeches, in debates. And he stepped back and he said, now listen, I want the family to understand something.

James McConkie [00:20:05] I was wrong on this. Everything I have ever said, everything I have ever written, everything I have ever thought on this subject is wrong, and I repent of it. And this is a new day. And I think that was a reflection of the magnificent spiritual experiences that took place when that revelation came, because it took people who were decidedly on the wrong side of the issue from my point of view, and switched them around.

James McConkie [00:20:46] And I always remembered that. So the one thing that makes faith perhaps a little easier for me is that I've always recognized that just because you're an apostle or prophet, there's no such thing as inerrancy. And so I am not looking for it.

James McConkie [00:21:03] And so if a prophet's wrong or right, it doesn't cause a crisis, because obviously Joseph Smith was rebuked of the Lord sometimes, sometimes he was praised, sometimes he made mistakes. And that's as true today as it was in his lifetime.

Jay Griffith [00:21:23] Because I'd like to explore a little more. It seems to me that how you grew up. Having especially apostles with various opinions was probably valuable compared to the typical culture that LDS people would grow up. But there would still be the question, I think, in a lot of people's minds, where you had an apostle of the Lord who spoke with such authority. I mean, I can't think of any other apostle that spoke with the authority that Bruce spoke with before or since. So why didn't you follow to that side of. I mean, again, he's such a strong personality. And somehow what was it in your thinking that you went the opposite direction?

James McConkie [00:22:10] On some things. I mean, on many things, I have no right.

Jay Griffith [00:22:13] But I'm talking about this issue in terms of blacks and priests.

James McConkie [00:22:16] Well, on this issue, I think it was a particularly important issue for me personally, because of my politics and the fact that I was so involved in politics. 1980, I ran for attorney general in the Democratic ticket, lost because that was the time the state was turning decidedly Democratic. But I recognized that there could be two points of view that could be held strongly, and one could be right and the other could be wrong, and they could be held by two different apostles at the very same time, because.

Sarah Collett [00:22:44] Do you think that came from your background with having Elder Worthland?

James McConkie [00:22:47] I think so, because I knew that my grandfather on some things differed when he would say, just Remember, there are two points of view, because my last name is McConkey, and some people associated me with that. And Bruce was more of a theologian doctrinarian than the Presiding Bishop Wirthlin that I grew up with for a year or so after my dad died. But when I got back to Washington, D.C. lester Bush, who wrote that seminal article and dialogue, was in my ward, and I was thinking about these things. And I was also a close friend of Mike Quinn, and we talked about these things. And so I.

Sarah Collett [00:23:28] This is previous.

James McConkie [00:23:29] This is previous to the Revelation. So I said to Lester, I want to see all your raw data and all your research. And so he brought it over in a binder. And so I read it and I read it, and I came to the conclusion in my own mind, this was a misguided mistake almost. It was a historical accident.

James McConkie [00:23:52] Joseph Smith was not the instigator of it, and he'd ordained blacks that everybody knows now. And so I actually had an experience where I got an answer to a prayer. And this doesn't happen often in life where you have some experience that really is profound.

James McConkie [00:24:15] And I was so distraught and discouraged over it. And I prayed and the words came into my mind, if you can just be patient. And this was in 1978. If you can just be patient, this is going to be all right.

James McConkie [00:24:35] And I also felt that the conclusion I had come to was a correct conclusion. Now, I know the church hasn't gone that distance yet, and I hope they do.

Jay Griffith [00:24:47] Do you want to state that conclusion?

James McConkie [00:24:50] Oh, that we don't know why the African Americans didn't have the priesthood.

Jay Griffith [00:24:54] Well, the church has stated that on their website.

James McConkie [00:24:57] They don't know. I think we probably know. And I came to a conclusion as to why.

Sarah Collett [00:25:03] And what is that conclusion?

James McConkie [00:25:04] Well, I think it was a historical accident. I think that there were many reasons we did that. 1. I think we were white. There was a feeling of racism. We were kind of tuning into the Civil War. We wanted to show that we were conservative in the eyes of people. I think these things came out and they slowly come off of this because it's not as if you can't ordain blacks. What happens is that you can't endow them and then you can't give them the priesthood. And there's a whole history of this. But I just thought it was a misguided thing out in the West. There weren't a lot of them, and it was unfortunate. So that's what I think happened.

Sarah Collett [00:25:48] You know, going back to what you were saying, Jay, Bruce spoke with such a force. I was reading through some of his devotionals today, and he spoke as though everything he said was as clear and as plain as the nose on his face that there was no variation, as though the Lord had come down and dictated his talk for him. I mean, he spoke with that. And so, you know, it's interesting because my mom attended BYU and went to the devotional where he talked about when he. When he addressed George Pace in that book. And I, you know, she. She had that come from. Of listening to Bruce or McConkie in those kinds of settings.

Sarah Collett [00:26:34] And so. So I think that for a lot of members, there was this feeling that you didn't disagree, you couldn't disagree that he was the authority and he spoke for the Lord and there was something inappropriate about that. But yet here, within the context of his own family, there's a culture of being able to disagree and, you know, go off, go as far as to say, oh, no, that, you know, you're getting that wrong. There's nothing about God in that. I just find that remarkable. And so I'm wondering if you can give us any kind of an insight into whether or not there was discussion and pushback and maybe arguing within the family not but, like, did people within your family could, could they say you're wrong on that and have that kind of, you know, interaction?

Jay Griffith [00:27:31] Did you have that discussion with him?

James McConkie [00:27:33] Well, I, you know, I have. He would tell you if he disagreed with you. I mean, it wasn't as though if you said something that was on the other side, you wouldn't get pushback. And there was disagreement among my cousins.

James McConkie [00:27:46] One of my favorite cousins, Oscar and I used to play squash together quite regularly. And we used to each would sometimes start the game and say, okay, if I win and I'm right on this doctrine, and if you win, then you're right on this doctrine. It was all in good fun. And so we could disagree and we could tell Uncle Bruce that we disagreed and we could talk to him about these things.

James McConkie [00:28:10] And I never, I mean, he had strong opinions on things, but it wasn't all black and white. And he would be the very first to admit that we don't believe in inerrancy, that prophets and apostles never have made the claim that every time they speak it's ex cathedra. I mean, this is not something that we ever thought or believed. And so I realized that he had an authoritarian air. And that's probably an understatement just a little bit.

Jay Griffith [00:28:41] The Mormon doctrine book helps that you

James McConkie [00:28:43] have to remember that he was a lawyer advocate, and that was his personality. And he was bold and he had a big voice and he was big, but he was also tender and he could talk to you and he was concerned for you. I wish people could know him on that basis. But in his public Persona, from the pulpit, he was one of those, I think, great turn of the century Mormon preachers.

Sarah Collett [00:29:12] Right. So let me ask you a small question, but it's an interesting one for me. Do you think that Bruce Ormel Conkey knew about Lester Bush's article and that he read it? Did he have any idea?

Race, Civil Rights, and Church Culture Change

James McConkie [00:29:26] I don't know because I never brought that up with him. And I was in Washington and so my association dropped off.

Jay Griffith [00:29:35] Okay, let's explore this a little more. So I'm curious, as passionately as you felt being involved in the civil rights movement and about that issue, how many times did you broach this with Bruce? I mean, did you push him to try to change his opinion? I mean, I would have been very tempted to.

James McConkie [00:29:55] No, I don't think so. I mean, I was gone. The family home, evenings I had attended were just after my mission. And by this time I was married. I was living in Washington, D.C. and so I Didn't have the opportunity. But when Bruce came back and was part of the dedication of the Washington D.C. temple, I mean, I had an opportunity to see him, but it was more family talk and how are you and how's the family going? It wasn't really an opportunity to discuss anything of deep import.

Jay Griffith [00:30:25] Interesting.

James McConkie [00:30:26] So, I mean, I didn't feel the need.

Jay Griffith [00:30:31] So explore that because I feel a need to talk to some general authorities about some things that trouble me a little bit. And I would love to somehow to get in that inn to sit down and just kindly ask him, you know, why is it this way and what can we do to address some of these concerns that I have? So that's. I guess that's my curiosity. Why. I mean, with this accessibility that. And I realize there's a distance, but that. I mean, why do you. Why do you think you didn't push that?

Sarah Collett [00:30:59] Picking up the phone and saying, I

Jay Griffith [00:31:02] felt so strong about this.

Sarah Collett [00:31:03] You got it wrong.

James McConkie [00:31:04] Maybe it's because we were in the same family and I wasn't going to. Realized was not going to convince him because he. I mean, if you can write a memo and say the scriptures don't justify the position, but you take a position like this, he was loyal to the church. And as long as the church had that position, he had it.

Sarah Collett [00:31:34] Oh, that's interesting.

Jay Griffith [00:31:35] You gotta explore that.

Sarah Collett [00:31:36] Yeah, that's interesting.

James McConkie [00:31:39] He was reflecting me to say this the official policy of the church. I think that these brethren to this day, I'm just sure that they feel very strongly about being loyal to one another. And they won't change something unless there's unanimity.

James McConkie [00:32:05] Elder packers talked on this. It's not a new notion to members of the church that unless everyone on the corporate quorum agrees on something, and what that means is they're not going to talk about their disagreements either. That's interesting. I knew that there were times when things were spoken about and debated, but he was so careful never to share the different sides and positions.

James McConkie [00:32:30] But I mean, when I sat at the table with my grandfather Worthland, who was the presiding bishop at that time, I mean, he'd come home sometimes and talk about the different points of view on, for instance, John D. Lee. I remember as a young boy listening to Tell me about John D. Lee and how there was a difference of opinion that had developed among the brethren.

James McConkie [00:32:54] And so I recognized that there was a process for changing these things. I also recognized that there were different points of view that were being expressed and that when there was unanimity they would then say something. And sometimes I think when the church doesn't say anything because they can't, I mean, they are not in agreement as to how they should proceed. And I take great comfort in this because that means that a single individual who has a great idea can't co opt the kingdom of God. I mean, it's the kind of thing where you have to respect everyone's point of view and then everyone gets the same revelation.

James McConkie [00:33:31] And there's real safety in that kind of church governance. And so from my point of view, it's kind of the constitution of the church and it operates well and it keeps us out of trouble. We've never turned into a fanatical religion.

Jay Griffith [00:33:45] Can I explore that? Just keeps us out of trouble. So it troubles me that we were kind of late coming to the civil rights and I'm sure it troubles you. So that doesn't seem like it's keeping us out of trouble. I wonder. In the early days of the church there was more debate over things like evolution with BH Roberts and Talmage and the prophet at the time. I just wonder if the membership of the church. Do you feel like it would be unhealthy if they understood a little bit more about the debate that goes on? Because I think a lot of members don't realize that that's really going on behind the scenes and they don't appreciate that There's, I think the process to know it and understand it is valuable and to keep us from that. I don't know if that's as healthy as it could be.

James McConkie [00:34:40] I don't think anybody's keeping anyone from it. I just think it's the way the government was set up in order for a group to make decisions and they have to respect each other's opinions and hold them inviolate.

Jay Griffith [00:34:56] I agree with that. But why can't we know a little bit more about what's going on behind the scenes?

James McConkie [00:35:02] I think they have a very strict rule that their comments are protected and their points of view are protected.

Jay Griffith [00:35:11] Because they're afraid of damaging people's faith.

James McConkie [00:35:14] Well, no, I don't think it's a matter of damaging people's faith because I think it's given. I think it's a given that church leaders disagree. I think it damages their relationships and their capacity to get revelation because in order for a quorum to get a revelation, you can't have one person going to a wife or a member of the family and saying, my gosh, did you hear what apostle so and so said in our meeting today, boy, we got a lot of hard work. I mean, if that happens, then the love that you have to have among men, because the doctrine and covenants in the 107 section tells us that these decisions have to be made in lowliness of heart and love and respect for each other.

James McConkie [00:36:01] And in order for those tender feelings to exist so that the spirit of the Lord isn't restrained, they hold each other's confidences. And I'd like that because it's okay for members of the church to have different opinions. I mean, no one's saying that, but I think it's important in terms of the revelatory process to protect the decision making mechanism. I think that's what's happening.

Sarah Collett [00:36:32] That's an interesting point of view. I wanted to add a little bit and Jay, you touched on this a little bit. But there has been a cultural shift in that way because it didn't used to be that. I mean, they used to disagree openly. I mean, you know, the BH Robertson Talmadge was one of them and a great example. And also, yeah, I mean it wasn't uncommon for the brethren to voice differing opinions publicly, to debate publicly. And then there was a shift and it was. There was kind of a correlation and well, you know, correlation happened and a coalescing, I think, of what came out of that group of men. I don't know. I'm sitting here asking the question of what actually inspired that shift in culture.

James McConkie [00:37:25] I think it's when the church got bigger. I think, you know, you're looking organizations mature just like people mature. And in the early days when no one cared two hoots about Mormons and we were just being tossed around and end up in the Great Basin. These were family squabbles. Orson Pratt could get up and say one thing and then Brigham Young could pound on him and say, I disagree with everything you're saying.

James McConkie [00:37:54] Which is proof certain that church leaders don't agree on everything. But I think as the church got bigger and it needed to get one message out and it gave people outside the church an opportunity to cause trouble and division, that they developed a greater sense of confidentiality. And I think that's basically what's happened over the years. I mean, that's one of the reasons that we have.

James McConkie [00:38:27] A less challenging curriculum in Sunday school than we did at the turn of the century. When we have the B.H. roberts is writing the 70s manuals, or John Witso is writing rational theology, or Barker is writing about the apostasy Neoplatonism Augustine as a course of study on the apostasy for the Church on the wasat front. I mean, I personally would love to return to those days. I hope we can, because I think you can have a dual curriculum, especially in a computer age when you don't have to worry about printing books. But for the moment at least, it's all been simplified. Now, there's real danger in that because simplification means you don't understand.

Sarah Collett [00:39:15] You dumb it down a lot.

James McConkie [00:39:16] You dumb it down and you don't

Jay Griffith [00:39:17] tell the whole story.

James McConkie [00:39:18] And then if the whole story isn't told, then you hard to come to the right conclusion without all of the information. And so if you're just dealing with the surface, that's the problem. And people do that and then they fall out of the church more easily.

Sarah Collett [00:39:34] I think I have a question for you from your personal opinion on this, but you were talking about how Lester Bush had written that article and you had been able to go through the material. And I think that that is a wonderful example of how a member of the church saw an injustice within the doctrine of the church and the policy of the church and really went to this, you know, extensive effort to fight that. And he was not kindly treated by a lot of people because he was outspoken.

James McConkie [00:40:11] Olester, yes.

Sarah Collett [00:40:13] In his opposition to the church. But I. I feel as though that he did us a great service by standing up and speaking his mind. But I think that a lot of times that's not okay with members. We've established a culture where don't go against the church, don't be active, wait for the brethren to come to their own conclusions. And I want to ask you, what do you think about that? How appropriate is it for us to push back or to raise our voice or to be vocal or to protest to some degree? What do you think?

James McConkie [00:40:53] Well, first of all, Lester Bush is a hero of mine. I don't have any concerns about the appropriateness of what he wrote. And I think there is a real difference between writing an article and stating the facts and talking about how the policy on blacks in the priesthood develops over time.

James McConkie [00:41:18] I think there's a real difference between that and challenging the brethren. I mean, you can have this discussion over here, but when you direct your discussion to a leader in the church and say, well, you're wrong and you shouldn't be a leader over this, you've crossed the line which causes stress and strain on the Mormon family.

James McConkie [00:41:41] And so I think if you're dealing with the facts and you're doing it In a fair way, because it's entirely appropriate. Now, I know some members of the church may not take that position, but I get the sense, at least over my lifetime, as we mature, come out of our teenage years, move into adulthood, that that's changing. I mean, there's far less concern about good scholarship. And we have the Joseph Smith papers, we have Leonard Arrington, we have Richard Bushman, Dean May. They made a tremendous contribution. The facts are now out.

James McConkie [00:42:17] I teach ces and it's wonderful these facts are out because it's now legitimate for me to talk about them in class. And so I think we're moving in the right direction.

Intellectual Dissent and Home Teaching Michael Quinn

Sarah Collett [00:42:28] So I just wanted to ask one more follow up question. Do you feel as though like political activism and things like that is also appropriate? Like one of the current issues today is same sex marriage and there's all sorts of conflict. Is it appropriate to take a stand like that even if you know that the church has gone against it? Just from your personal opinion? What's your personal opinion on that?

James McConkie [00:42:57] Such a tough, tough question. Because the church feels like a family and you may disagree with them. So you have this feeling that you don't want to embarrass the family and kind of step out of line, even though within the family you can express your dissent.

James McConkie [00:43:15] And I know how raw this issue is on marriage, same sex marriage. And I think that just becomes a highly personal decision. And my sense is that we didn't have a very good experience on Proposition 8. And so I would hope that we don't position ourselves on a political issue like that again. But those are very hard personal questions because you've got your own personal integrity at stakeholders.

James McConkie [00:43:52] And I guess that the most important thing is your own personal integrity. So if a Latter Day Saint said to me, I'm going to publicly oppose, I may think, gosh, that's too bad, that hurts everybody's feelings. But if you really feel that way and your integrity requires it, I would hope you wouldn't attack the Brethren on it. But certainly state your point of view, because I know on this issue, as I talk to the young people in church, that their way of looking at this is a lot different than mine was. I mean, I've come a distance on a number of issues. One is how to use patriarchal authority in the home.

James McConkie [00:44:30] Since I have a wife with a PhD and so I've grown into a whole new understanding of male, female relationships, thank goodness. I mean, I'm grateful because I think it's more consistent with what the Lord wants But the same thing is happening in other areas and we just have to. Everything comes line upon line, precept upon precept, and we have to be sometimes more patient than I want to be.

Jay Griffith [00:44:57] So, Jim, you know, you touched on your relationship and you've talked to me a little bit about that as a home teacher with Michael Quinn. And I would love you to explore that a little bit because that was kind of the cusp seems to me, and I'm not completely literate in church history, but where there was an individual who had done a lot of great research and factual research, and from my memory serves me there's a bit of pushback. And then of course, he had same sex attraction issue. And I'd just like you to talk about that part because he came to your home a lot and he's still a personal friend of yours.

James McConkie [00:45:37] He's one of my dearest friends. I just love Mike Quinn. We were at BYU together and he is responsible for much of my love of Mormon history. When I was at byu, he was on the same floor and we used, with Richard Lambert, used to go down to the special collections with Mike Quinn and he would pull out all the diaries and show us the interesting parts. And that's when you could get the minutes of the first presidency meetings, because they hadn't, they didn't, they weren't closing these things down, trying to decide how to deal with these things.

James McConkie [00:46:15] And it developed to me just a. Just a thirst for information on Mormon history. And unfortunately, Mike is gay. I mean, that's well known. And from his position, I say unfortunately because that put him in a position contrary to the church.

James McConkie [00:46:37] And he also decided that he would not just make his point of view known, but that he would speak critically of the brethren as he made it known. And he was a professor at BYU at this time, and that was not a wise thing to do. And his close friends talked to him and we pled with him not to do that because we could see where that was going to lead.

James McConkie [00:47:01] But that was his decision and it didn't change our feelings of loyalty and love for him. I know how hard it was for him to deal with his own gender issues because they were. That was discussed among close friends and he finds himself now out of the church.

James McConkie [00:47:29] And that's a real sadness to me because to this day, if I have a friend who's having a problem with the church history issue and they think that you find somebody who does something wrong in church history, therefore the Church is true, it is untrue. I mean, when I talk to people who have these issues, I love to get them in touch with Mike. Because if you ask Mike, did the Father and the Son appear to the prophet Joseph Smith, he says yes, and he still has a testimony. And he will tell anyone that he's never seen anything that he's read that has dissuaded him, that those fundamental spiritual happenings which established the founding events for the gospel, Mormonism, the restoration, he doesn't doubt those.

James McConkie [00:48:21] Does he disagree with things? Sure. But when you get problems with gender and then a willingness to speak critically against specific brethren, it was a perfect storm for leaving the church. And I just. Whenever I see him, I'm a close enough friend, I can say, come on, Mike, you've been out long enough. Come on back.

James McConkie [00:48:41] You don't need to stay out there any longer. Because many of his closest friends are in stake presidencies, bishops, and they're the people that love him just as much as anyone else. And so I'm always hopeful that he'll say, okay, I've been out long enough. I'm ready.

Sarah Collett [00:49:03] So I wonder if. I wonder if the church is. Or the group of brethren, I guess I'm directing this question to you just again, for your personal opinion. But they're open to a lot more criticism now, and it's a lot easier to be criticized in this day of information, because, you know, I mean, you click and there's your criticism for mental culture, and. And, you know, it's getting harder and harder to control what the members say about you. And not that they, I think, you know, had a distinct conscious effort to control what people said. But I think it was definitely, and it still is, very taboo. But do you think that they're going to have to loosen up a little bit more and grow very thick skins and. And adjust to the fact that people are much more capable and willing to voice opinions.

James McConkie [00:50:05] First of all, there are a couple of things at play. One is the availability of information, and two, the defending of the kingdom of God has changed over the years. It used to be that you had these advocates like Harley P. Pratt and John Witzel and James Talmage and B.H. roberts, and they were the defenders of the faith. But today, defending the faith is a far more technical and arduous task, because the people that are defending the faith now are professors at universities, lawyers in the courtroom. And we're defending the faith on grounds that lay people, lay ministry, or some lawyer who happened to be a church leader has no hope of being able to master the material necessary to defend the church in various areas, historically, historically, even sometimes on a doctrinal issue.

James McConkie [00:50:56] And so as the church gets bigger and information is available, that means that some of the defending of the church now is shifting to the experts. And that's a good thing. So that's one thing that's happening, and that's a good thing because the experts are willing, they know what the facts are. They're not trying to shy away from them, they're not surprised by them.

James McConkie [00:51:19] And so we can make a much better defense when we have all the facts. I'm talking like a lawyer now. But the other thing that's happening is the church is getting bigger. And when any organization gets bigger, then there's going to be a lot more shifting and a lot more can be said. And it's not as meaningful in terms of offending people because it's such a large family.

James McConkie [00:51:44] And I think there's a stage that the church has kind of come through, and I kind of refer to it as the teenage years, where you're still small enough that everything you say, you know the person who said it.

James McConkie [00:51:57] And as we get larger, it's just easier to disagree. It's easier to have someone say, yeah, I'm not so sure about that, because it's not personal, because you really don't know that person. And as long as it's the kind of criticism that isn't aimed directly at the leadership, then I don't think it's going to cause much of a problem. I mean, it. I don't think it caused much of a problem in the past, although there are some exceptions to that. Obviously.

Personal Faith Journey and Doctrinal Struggles

Sarah Collett [00:52:26] I wanted to go back a little bit and talk about you personally and your own, I guess, journey in your faith, some of the struggles that you faced in terms of your own questions. And I guess a good place to start is when was the very first time, time that you encountered a problem that maybe you didn't have the answer to?

James McConkie [00:52:54] Well, the first time, as I mentioned before, the issue of blacks in the priesthood was a problem. And then there were also other things. Historically, when I first found out that the Word of Wisdom wasn't in place until the early 1900s, the early brethren were drinking wine and, you know, these things at first were a concern to me, but as I said, having friends like Mike Quinn, and I also had a very close friend by the name of Dean May who was a wonderful Mormon historian, those things were never the kinds of things that you'd go out of the church on. But my faith journey.

James McConkie [00:53:35] The biggest problem for my faith journey is that I'm a makanki and I didn't want to be in the church or believe it unless I knew it. I didn't want to just be in the position where, because I was a McConkie and they're so persuasive that I just follow along.

James McConkie [00:53:57] I wanted my faith to be independent of the McConkies and the Wirthlands because I had a lot of pressure to fit a certain mold and I didn't want to go to. I knew what to say in church because it's kind of like you're in a play and you know what the expectation is and you know what you're supposed to say and you know how you're supposed to bear your testimony and everybody can do it. And sometimes I think people do it because it's the social thing to do, not because it's a heartfelt expression of belief. It's really just a way of saying, I like being a Mormon and I'm with you. But it's not really a reflection of what you know spiritually or don't know. And so that got me started on writing a book.

Sarah Collett [00:54:48] Can I ask about what age you're talking about?

James McConkie [00:54:51] Well, this started on my mission. And it wasn't that I didn't believe. I did. And I was happy to go and I was excited. But as I got through the mission and out, I realized that I had to have something more than just two great families. There's this wonderful expression of John's that he said to the scribes and the Pharisees when they were debating about who were the children of Abraham. And I kind of felt like in the church I was part of the children of Abraham because I just happened to belong to these strong Mormon families. But I also realize that Jesus said, you can take these stones and make them into children of Abraham. So don't think that your spiritual

Guest 2 [00:55:42] well

James McConkie [00:55:43] being is based upon a pedigree. I realized that that's how Jesus felt about it. I had some work to do. And so I went through a process where I decided I would just deconstruct my faith. Or I thought about there isn't a God, There is a God. Joseph Smith is a prophet. He isn't a prophet, or what kind of a prophet is he? It got me deeply into church history. And so out of that process I ended up. We taught our children once a week because I was concerned that my children might go out of the church on some historical fluke. And so Judy And I taught our kids once a week, one on one, I was teaching them about church history. And it finally ended up being a 730 page book which was recently published on the Doctrine and Covenants.

Jay Griffith [00:56:38] What's the name of the book?

James McConkie [00:56:39] It's called Looking at the Doctrine and Covenants Again for the very first time. What I tried to do is go back and look at how the members of the church at the time the Revelation came would have understood it, because we have such a tendency to read back our own culture into these revelations that what we think it says isn't even close to the mark sometimes.

James McConkie [00:57:01] And so I did that and I went through and I carefully considered every single issue. And the reason I wrote about the Doctrine and Covenants is that is church history. And almost every single question that you could possibly ask that's sensitive comes up in the context of the Doctrine and Covenants. And so I had to solve those problems. And it happened over a ten year period of time. It took quite a bit of time to do this. And it ended up being a book for the family. And then someone saw it and said, well, gee, maybe this should be sold. And so it is being sold now.

James McConkie [00:57:34] So that's where I ended up. And I came to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I came to the conclusion that prophets aren't always right. The prophets have prejudices, but that marvelous things can come through inspired men who are in tune with God. And that's where I ended up on that issue and how I maintain my own faith independent of my family.

Polygamy, Patriarchy, and Prophetic Fallibility

Sarah Collett [00:58:00] I want to ask a question. Joseph Smith is a prophet and prophets aren't always right. And maybe you don't want to say this on record, but are there parts of the Doctrine and Covenants that you think might not be Revelation?

James McConkie [00:58:16] Yeah, there's one that's obvious. And this was probably the hardest section for me to write because this really caused me to do some thinking. If you take a Look at section 111, it talks about going to Salem and finding two things, converts and money and treasure. And right up there, the church is very honest and open about this. Right up there in the heading it says they never found any money.

James McConkie [00:58:45] But right down there in the Revelation it says, and you go to Salem and find money. And so I thought to myself, this is really quite remarkable. First of all, that that is there because that never happened. They never got. To this day, we haven't seen money from Salem to save the church.

James McConkie [00:59:03] And so I had to think this through and I thought, well, maybe one of the reasons it's here is that the Lord wants us to come to grips with the issue of false prophecy because it's in the canon.

James McConkie [00:59:16] And so if you're a careful student of the scriptures, you're going to read section 111 and you're going to see that it says you're going to find a lot of money. And this says in the heading, they never found any money.

James McConkie [00:59:29] That to me is an example of Joseph Smith's desires getting mixed up in a prophetic utterance. And that's the lesson to be learned from it. I think it's a Fair interpretation, section 111. And so that's a place in our canon where you come to grips with this.

James McConkie [00:59:56] Now, having said that, I think he has a marvelous batting average. When you take him as a whole, you don't find many problems like that. And also having said that, I think there are different levels of revelation. I think it's different when a resurrected being named John the Baptist appears to Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith and he places hands on their heads and you feel the weight of those hands in broad daylight. When you're fully cognizant and you have a conversation with a resurrected being, I mean, the chance to be wrong in that situation is a lot different than an inspired letter or what Joseph Smith believes is an expired utterance that gets into section 111.

James McConkie [01:00:50] So you have to look at this in a discriminating way. And just because you find in an inspired utterance that may be wrong, it doesn't go to the issue of was there a resurrected being who appeared to Joseph Smith on the shores of the Susquehanna River?

James McConkie [01:01:08] So those are the kinds of things I had to deal with as I went through. And the hardest issues, it weren't coming from the outside. It wasn't the anti Mormons Sandra Tanner, although I read everything that she ever wrote when I was a very young man.

James McConkie [01:01:25] All of those issues are presented to us in the canon of Scripture. And I always thought that the Doctrine and Covenants, if it was read very carefully, was a graduate course on how God deals with people. And it's not satisfying always. It's not satisfying to think that there are mistakes. I mean, it's much, much nicer if we didn't have to have these problems. But that's not what the Doctrine and Covenants teaches.

Sarah Collett [01:01:52] So that brings up two questions. The first one is, when you're addressing this issue with your children, how open are you? I mean, you have to, you know, you get into the problems with polygamy. And I mean, you can really dive into some of these issues. So how open are you with your children when you talk to them? And then the next thing is, are you willing to accept that when people, you know, that dominoes could fall and they could all fall for people, and how do we deal with that?

James McConkie [01:02:26] I'm not critical of people who come to a different conclusion than I do on these things, because I think you can. I think you can do it honestly. But in our home, with Mike Quinn in and out of the house and Dean May and others, when they were 12, 13, 14, they had heard about polyandry, polygamy, blacks in the priesthood, women's issues. And this was just part of the atmosphere of our home.

James McConkie [01:02:57] Their mother is strong on women's rights and every bit equal to anyone in the family intellectually, more so. That was their milieu. And so when they left and heard these things, they had already heard it discussed in a household of faith.

James McConkie [01:03:19] My son James, the year before he left, we had this study program where we studied with them one on one so that we could talk about these things in depth. Because you never get this in Sunday school. We talk about the Doctrine and Covenant Study at the Book of Mormon, New Testament. And the last year, he said to me, dad, what I really want to do, do? Because he was a debate major and perhaps the most intellectual of our children, he said, I want to study anti Mormon literature. I said, great idea.

James McConkie [01:03:47] And so we collected all of the best and most convincing anti Mormon literature that I could find. We kept the temple off limits for obvious reasons, because he wasn't endowed, and we studied it together. Now, since that time, he has been very faithful, and I'm grateful.

James McConkie [01:04:06] You're right. Can go anyway. Some of his friends haven't been able to maintain a steadiness in the kingdom, but he always felt like when his friends found out about these things that they'd never heard of it before. And they'd come to James and they'd say, have you heard about this?

James McConkie [01:04:28] And James just yawned. Oh, yeah, sure. Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Of course he was. Whoever said he wasn't? And so when it was just part of the culture, his own culture, he was comfortable with it. I think all my children are, and I'm grateful for that because those issues have become more important in the minds of people, I think, in the last 10 years than they were when we were raising our kids in the 60s and 70s.

Jay Griffith [01:04:58] Can I expand on that? I'm glad that Sarah asked that question. I mean, you've shared that with me before in my home. And as I reflect on, I knew some things about church history, but I was probably more like, that's why I have some sympathy for the general authorities. I was probably a little overprotective and afraid to discuss some of these difficult things with my children. And so I, of course, my two oldest boys, they're atheists now, hopefully temporary, but that's what they are now.

Jay Griffith [01:05:31] And I think that approach that you took was much healthier. And as a young men's president and I broached this with our bishop, and he's very open to it, trying to inoculate my young men so that they have that same experience. And I mean, even a few years ago when I was not present, but any young man's presidency, I would just mention when we were talking about the first vision, that there's a number of versions of that as Joseph Smith tried to process that experience.

Jay Griffith [01:06:00] I mean, none of them batted an eye. But people that are older, that haven't ever heard that, it's always a shock to them. And my boys feel like they were lied to. And I don't think that's probably the accurate.

Jay Griffith [01:06:14] I'm hoping that they have the new curriculum, which is much, much better, better than what they had for the youth. But I'm also hoping that'll keep getting pushed in a way that, particularly as we're going to send them out on missions at an earlier age, that they're prepared, that they've maybe thought about these things and been taught them from a younger age. Do you see that as a possibility? Do you think that's healthy or good?

James McConkie [01:06:40] I think the church is going to begin to put these things in the curriculum. I mean, when they teach about how the Book of Mormon is translated, we're not going to have Joseph Smith looking at plates, pointing at the letters, and they're going to realize that the plates were on a table with a cloth over it and that Joseph Smith needed a hat to keep light out so that he could see what was reflected on the Urim and Thummim.

Jay Griffith [01:07:02] And the Urim and Thummim was often.

James McConkie [01:07:03] Or the seer stone, I'm going to say, was more likely after the 116 pages were lost. Probably the. So I think those things are going to happen thanks to people like Richard Bushman and others, because this information is in the general domain. It's gone beyond Mormonism.

James McConkie [01:07:20] And so we'll deal with it. And it needs to be dealt with, and it needs to be made part of the curriculum. But I think in the past, it's not that the church has intentionally wanted to lie. I mean, when a stake president or a general authority, what you have to realize is they don't know.

James McConkie [01:07:41] And so if you ask somebody, was Joseph Smith a polygamist, and they don't know that he was, and they tell somebody he isn't, and it's as much a surprise to them as it is to the person who's trying to figure it out, that's a problem, and it's just a problem of general education. Now, there are some people that need to know all about these things to have faith. I'm one of them, and there are others that don't.

James McConkie [01:08:08] But the good thing about this modern age is I think that this is going to become more and more part of the normal conversation. And so hopefully fewer people will be shocked or felt like the church hasn't been up front. But I know this. I know that the church is trying to do a better job educating its leaders and its general authorities so that when they are asked these questions, they don't sincerely think they're telling the truth and in fact, end up misrepresenting something.

Sarah Collett [01:08:39] How do you know?

Jay Griffith [01:08:40] I could speak to that.

Sarah Collett [01:08:41] Okay. Okay.

Jay Griffith [01:08:42] Her personal friend for many years, she's been, I think, at least 16 years the assistant to Richard Turley. And she's told us that. I mean, Richard Turley and she. Who's what, the assistant historian of the church, I believe. So she helps him prepare all the information for these thorny issues. And I can't remember if it's once a week or once a month they present this to general authorities. Not just polygamy, but polyandry, all those things. And she's talked about how difficult it is at times to try to gather the information and present it in the amount of time they have in a way that the general authorities can accept and understand. And often they're shocked.

Sarah Collett [01:09:27] This is like one of those debates that has raged in my family for years. Do they know or do they not know?

James McConkie [01:09:33] If you're a stake president, if you're a general authority, how much time do you have to study the gospel? They probably have less time to study the gospel than I do. And what if they're not inclined to church history?

James McConkie [01:09:49] And so being a church leader is a tough proposition because it takes the time. When I studied the gospel the least was when I was a bishop. And I'm glad I'm not, because now I have the time to explore these Kinds of issues that I want to explore. And so there's that factor. But the reason I know this is I remember in one of our. This goes way back, they were becoming concerned about it, but on different issues they weren't so concerned about some of the historical issues. But Adam, God was a big thing when I was a young man.

James McConkie [01:10:25] And I remember Bruce McConkey coming to a family home evening. He said, look what I've got. Everybody said, oh, what is that? It was a three ring binder. And somebody had gone through and had put all of these anti Mormon quote things in.

James McConkie [01:10:42] And some church member, I guess some church historian or someone who had knowledge had put together this three ring bind there for the brethren so that they could come up on the issues. And I think that's doing apparently, Jay, that's being done in a much more sophisticated way today. And that's great. And that's what we need to do.

Sarah Collett [01:11:02] That's interesting.

Jay Griffith [01:11:03] Yeah. Because I can understand what Tim is saying. I mean, a lot of these authorities have been very busy in their lives and they're called by God for lots of reasons, but often it's not. Usually it's not because they're scholars of church history. It's because they have other assets that the church needs at the time. So I can understand why they're.

James McConkie [01:11:25] I mean, we can understand this on our own level when we sit in a Sunday school class and the gospel doctrine teacher has a testimony because they have spiritual experience, they're doing the best they can. And they don't happen to being Mike Quinn. Obviously there are certain limits and their representations are sincere. They're wrong. But that's okay. That's okay.

Sarah Collett [01:11:54] Let me ask a question about patriarchy for a second. I think it lends itself to what we're talking about because it is our job to be obedient to the brethren of the church. It is our job and they are called to lead us. And as faithful Latter Day Saints, that's what we do is we. We are obedient and submissive and we follow. And it's interesting to talk about it in such a way where you realize how sometimes it is blind leading the blind. And we have this culture that somehow kind of supports that blind leading the blind because we assume, we a little bit deify our leaders. We tend to. We put them up on a pedestal. We assume that they are. We taught, we all know that they have faults, but we don't know what those are. You can say that someone has a fault, but you're not Allowed to say what that is.

Jay Griffith [01:12:58] Yeah. Unlike Joseph Smith at the time, everybody saw his fault, you know, and even Brigham Young. So, I mean, it's because, like you said, the church is so large.

Sarah Collett [01:13:07] Right. We're more distant. Right. And we don't. We don't we. So we have this, I think, bad habit of deifying our leaders. And I think we do them a disservice. Because imagine, I think I have an ego and, you know, a little bit of stroking and I can get too big for my britches. Imagine the weight of walking into a room filled with thousands of people and they all stand. You know, that's going to take quite a lot of energy to keep your ego in check. Right. And then on top of that, you walk into a room and give some talk or discussion, and all of a sudden everybody believes everything you've said.

Sarah Collett [01:13:47] I think we do them a disservice sometimes in continually perpetuating that culture. But I want you to talk about that a little bit in terms of, you know, patriarchy and the fact that they don't know all the answers, sometimes not even their own history, but we give them quite a bit of power.

James McConkie [01:14:11] Well, you know, President Hinckley said adulation is poison. And I think he was one of the brethren who really understood why adulation is dangerous. It's dangerous to corporate leaders, it's dangerous to presidents, it's dangerous to church leaders. And as to fathers, Jesus said we should only call one person teacher, and that is Jesus and our Father in heaven.

James McConkie [01:14:42] Everyone else is a student, and that's the perspective. But we lose that perspective. One of the reasons we lose it is that we're more distant from our leaders. I think that's one of the key factors. And I do agree with you. It would be. I've often thought about this. It would be a horrible thing to walk into a room and have people believe that you're perfect because you couldn't be yourself.

James McConkie [01:15:06] And you would feel so constrained that you would probably end up saying and doing less. Because if every time a general authority comes into a ward and he gives a healing blessing because he's a general authority, you anticipate that the person. Person's going to be healed.

James McConkie [01:15:23] I mean, what kind of a burden is that to place upon a poor mortal? Where even the prophet Joseph had the experience of trying to heal and not being successful, although on the other hand, he had marvelous healing experiences, what would be worse than. Knowing that you had to be a special witness? And would he not be?

Guest 2 [01:16:00] Thank you for joining us today on A Thoughtful Faith. To discuss this podcast, check us out@a thoughtfulfaith.org the music from this podcast was generously donated by Lisa Frazier. Hear more from her at Lisa Frazier.

Part Two Opens: Faith, Family, and Church Leadership

Guest [01:16:40] My Echo Music Hither by Thy help I come and I hope by Thy good pleasure Safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me with a stranger wandering from the fold of God, he to rescue me from danger insupport his precious blood. O to grace how great a debtor Delia could strength to thee Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to be prone to all the Lord, I feel it Come to live the God I love hearing here's my heart O take and seal it, seal it for thy corners above. O come to wonder Lord like feel it come to Thee the God I love. Oh, here's my heart for taking Feel it.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 407

Guest [00:00:01] Come, thou fount of every blessing to my heart to sing thy grace.

Guest 2 [00:00:11] A Thoughtful Faith Podcast is a production of Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to A Thoughtful Faith are tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@athoughtfulfaith.org.

James McConkie [00:00:46] This is a great story. Heber J. Grant was a Stake president at age 24, and he was made the stake president out in Tooele, and a couple of his brethren came out and he bore testimony, and it wasn't the strongest testimony on the face of the earth. He used the word believe instead of know.

James McConkie [00:01:02] It caused a discussion between these two brethren. And it just so happened that the president of the church was out there, Joseph F. Smith, and John Taylor, who was at the president of the church, and Joseph F. Smith, who you would expect, criticized him because he didn't say he knew. And John Taylor laughed and he said, oh, he knows as much as anybody does. He's just saying it differently. Well, Heber J. Grant is eventually called to be a member of the quorum of the 12, and he has not had an experience that he believes qualifies him to be.

James McConkie [00:01:38] And every time he bears his testimony in conference, he said, I hear in the back of my mind, you really don't know? No. And so he was to the point where he didn't want to be an apostle anymore, and he was on a trip on his horse and he goes away from the main group and he has a vision.

James McConkie [00:02:05] And in this vision he is told that he or many other people could have been an apostle, that he was, and he better do a good job of it. And you've now been given the experience so that you can say, you know, and quit whining.

James McConkie [00:02:22] So he's now qualified. But what I mean by that is, as a stake president, as a bishop, as a church leader, is there anything worse than not knowing or being spiritually qualified and having to play a role? And so you don't want to put the bar too high. You don't want to say that our leaders have to be perfect. You don't want to say that they have to heal every time. You don't want to say that every prophecy they utter is going to come true because you are setting yourself up for heartbreak on all sides.

James McConkie [00:02:59] And so if this is what we believe about our leaders, our leaders are going to be very, very careful to say Nothing. This is where it leads. I hope that there is a sense of forgiveness, a sense of reality about these things, because there's no question in my mind that revelation comes, that angels appear, these things happen.

James McConkie [00:03:22] But there's no question in my mind that sometimes they don't. And that doesn't really say anything about my faith. I can have faith and believe those two things, even though they may seem to be somewhat contradictory. They're really not. It just means that we're mortal. That's what it means.

Sarah Collett [00:03:39] Do you think that our culture of knowing somehow puts us at a disadvantage because we don't. We're not given the opportunity to really explore faith. I mean, I came into the concept of faith as an adult after having said a million I knows my whole life, and all of a sudden realizing I didn't know anything and that faith was required to actually go through the process just to even claim God. I still don't say I know. I say I choose. I have faith that there's a God. But sometimes I wonder about that, if maybe just a shift in our language.

James McConkie [00:04:20] Yeah, I think I am an attorney, and so I want to speak carefully. And when you're in the courtroom and you're taking testimony under oath, you need to speak accurately and not exaggerate what you know and what you don't know. When I was on my mission, Elder Brown came and he was in the First Presidency, and I must have been well into his 80s.

James McConkie [00:04:45] And he stood up and he said, I know the gospel is true. But he said, brethren, I want you to know that when I was your age, I only knew this much of the gospel was true. And he held up his hands and he held them close together.

James McConkie [00:04:58] He says now as he moved his hands out further and further, he says, I know this much more of the gospel is true. And he said, there is more to know. And so I think we need to be careful about what we say we know, because if we say we know something we really don't turns out to be false. That's damaging to people's testimonies.

James McConkie [00:05:18] When Joseph Smith sent out a couple of missionaries, he gave them revelation, and he realized that some of them had greater faith and lesser faith. And so he said to them, this is what I want you to do. I want you to teach the things that you have heard.

James McConkie [00:05:31] I want you to teach the things you believe, and I want you to teach the things that you know. And I think if we had more of that with us today, and there wasn't social pressure to say More than we really know. It would be healthier. I agree with you on that.

Sarah Collett [00:05:51] I want to ask, I want to move into the area of your book about the inclusive Christ. But before we go there, I have one last question and I just want to know from your personal perspective, and having gone through a process where you were risking giving your children all of the information, knowing that their dominoes could fall or not, you had to at least consider that they might come to conclusions where, you know, and I'll just give you a few examples, that Joseph was a fallen prophet, that he revealed some truth, and then the rest of it was bunk. You know, that there was a God, a loving God, but that Mormonism wasn't his true church revealed. I mean, there's a million different stages to come to. Is there room for those kinds of conclusions in the church?

James McConkie [00:06:53] Sure, because they're all temporary. I mean, I look at how I thought about Mormonism as a young missionary and how I think about it now, it's different, markedly different. If my son's or daughter came to me and they didn't believe for a while, that's fine, because you can change.

James McConkie [00:07:19] And these things do change, and our opinions change and our way of looking at doctrine change. And I see them changing, I see their faith changing. My faith is changing. But that's part of Mormonism. It's this restless change for the better. And in order to do that, you have to consider all of the options. And as Joseph Smith expressed it, sometimes you have to be willing to look into the abyss. Those are the words he used.

James McConkie [00:07:50] And you have to do it honestly, because if you never do this honestly, you'll never have a testimony because you've never done it. And if you're afraid to look at it and you protect yourself from information, then you'll always have this nagging doubt.

James McConkie [00:08:05] And so you might as well take it out, look at it and start examining it. But you have to realize when you do this, and I'm talking now, looking back over life as you do this, you have to realize that everything we believe in some respects is tentative.

James McConkie [00:08:22] And so it isn't an all or nothing proposition to believe one day and not believe the next, or believe in a different way. The only thing I think our Father in heaven expects of us is that we're trying, that we're making the effort, that we're spiritually inquisitive, and that we're doing it in a sincere way for proper motives. And if that's happening, in the end, I think it's going to be all right.

Teaching Youth and Navigating Difficult Church History

Guest [00:08:50] Will you explore just a little more with me in terms of how you see individual families and church leaders, people that are teaching our youth? How do you see us being able to do that in a way that's in a safe environment, but helps them understand more of our history so that when they invariably run into it, that they're not going to feel like they were lied to or shocked, but that it's. How do you see that?

James McConkie [00:09:32] Well, I think the first responsibility is on the parents. Hopefully. You know, a parent can't educate children unless they've studied these things for themselves. And that's a huge hurdle because everybody in the church isn't interested in church history, nor is it necessary for them to be because we didn't have anything to do with their salvation per se.

Guest [00:09:52] But can I kind of put so I mean, what most of us have is what we were raised with through primary and the church curriculum, which, I mean, even as long ago, not that long ago, when the Brigham Young Manual Priesthood Resetting Manual, I don't think it mentioned polygamy once. So this is what I guess I'm talking about. I mean, a lot of what we have as adults is of what the church sanctioned and taught us. I guess that's where I see where we need. If we want these adults to be able to teach in their family, we need to give them the tools.

James McConkie [00:10:27] Right? Since the church hasn't done this very well in my lifetime, then it was up to Judy and I to do this. But now I do think because of Bushman's book, particularly on Joseph Smith, that raises all these things, it's going to become part of the church curriculum.

James McConkie [00:10:49] And there really is a different spirit in the CES classes I teach. It used to be five years ago or so when they raised these issues. I would say let's talk about that after class, because I realized that if we began talking about it, we would never finish class.

James McConkie [00:11:04] And everybody didn't need to know that. And it would scare the horses if we started talking about it. But that's not true now. And so that's a positive thing. And it's going to take five or six years for this to happen. But I would bet that this is going to be moved into our curriculum so that people know and understand these things more. And I think that's the solution, ultimately. And in the meantime, we just have to encourage everybody to learn about it and think about it and feel more comfortable with our history.

Guest [00:11:32] And so how do you. In our ward that we share Our ward family that I love dearly. That's what I'm asking. How do we. I mean, I've heard you teach. You and Judy are wonderful teachers. You're expert teachers. That's why we've had you teach how to teach. But as a Ms. President, I don't have five years I got right now. I feel impressed. Let me tell you what this needs to happen.

James McConkie [00:11:55] When I was a bishop years ago, one of the things I did is I looked at my youth and I thought, I wonder what their special spiritual need is. Which ones are going to be affected by this kind of things, which ones are not. And we set up a mentoring program where we ask our kids to tell me who they admired in the ward. And then I would go to that person they admired if it was Jay Griffith. And I'd say, I want you to study with this young man or woman once a week. And so we had a mentoring program going on. And in that setting, it was easier for me to line the right people up.

James McConkie [00:12:37] And oftentimes when the boy or girl would make their request of who they wanted to study with Judy or with me or a counselor or a Jay Griffith, they actually were gravitating to the people that had the answers to the kinds of issues and problems that they had.

James McConkie [00:12:55] I did it instead of in a group. I tried to do it one on one because that's where the most effective teaching takes place anyway, because it builds relationships. And I think that worked pretty well. And I think you don't have to do it with all of your kids. Although we tried to do it with all of our kids, we did it with most of them in the ward. But in a ward setting like this, where they don't have a big program on top of every other program that you're at sponsors, you could pick the youth out that you think are going to have a particular issue with these kinds of things.

James McConkie [00:13:27] Like my own son, who was in the debate team and is an intellectual person, loves to read, set him up with a tutor, where those kinds of issues are gently explored at the level and to the extent that the student wants them to be. And I think that's a way of doing it. I think there's a danger right now won't be so much in the future of getting a class together and giving information to people who don't really care about it anyway.

Guest [00:13:59] But don't you worry. I guess so. I agree with much what you said. And the new church curriculum for the youth is very much oriented that way in terms of needs of the youth, particularly prayerfully and spirit led doing that. But my son was always had a cadre of friends that were rock solid. He was always rock solid. I would have never guessed that he would be now on the opposite side of fence atheist.

Guest [00:14:29] So that's what I'm saying. You don't know down the road. I mean, what you do don't add in the road is that they'll run into it. Probably most likely they're going to run into some of this stuff and there's good explanations, I think. Well, there's explanations for it sometimes they're not always satisfying, but.

Guest [00:14:49] So, yeah, I'm struggling right now, I guess, trying to figure out how to help our youth. And I don't think it even has to be a lot of detail, but I think they ought to at least

James McConkie [00:14:57] know, well, some of the basics. The basics, yeah, I agree. The basics they ought to know. You're getting it more in ces. I just think we're in a period of transition and I'm suggesting that in that period of transition it would be difficult to have a class devoted to it, but less difficult to have mentoring, sensitive mentoring taking place. But eventually I hope that when we go to our classes that when we talk about Joseph Smith, that these things will be on the table and talked about and be of far less concern. You don't want to read about it for the first time in the New York Times

Guest [00:15:36] to explore that. I mean, I would love the church to have, I mean, even right now, classes for people who are struggling with their faith, the have faith crisis. Because I don't that they're comfortable going to church and expressing, you know, I just read this or I've experienced this and I'm really wondering, was Joseph Smith off base? Was he really prophet? Did he fall or all these kind of issues. And I mean, to me, that's what church is for. It's not that we go there and hear the same stuff over again. What a great idea. Not that that's not without value, particularly when it comes to the atonement in Christ.

Guest [00:16:12] I mean, it's fresh to me most every week. But that you would have the opportunity, if you're questioning your faith, to feel safe in a classroom setting. And you'd have like a Jim McConkie there, maybe just sitting in the audience or the instructor or Judy or Sarah that says, you know, I've experienced a lot of these things and, you know, I don't have all the answers, but this is kind of what I did. And do you see what I'm saying? I think that'd be healthy.

James McConkie [00:16:36] Well, there are things that are happening. A thoughtful faith. I mean, this kind of discussion where. Where you get people from different vantage points with different perspectives is helpful. The other thing that you can do is it would be wonderful if the church had a curriculum on this. I think it will be developed so that a bishop or a stake president could say, oh, you're having those kinds of problems. Well, this is the CES class I'd like you to attend so that the person teaching. It's difficult to get experts in these areas. Another in every ward. It's just impossible. So it's difficult to get the right teacher to handle it, because the teacher. You don't have a teacher that can handle it.

CES, Prophecy, and the Church Catching Up

Sarah Collett [00:17:24] I want to ask a question about the CES, because I have a good friend who's in ces, and I asked him if the teachers that he works with are aware of these issues. And he said, well, they're aware that people are going into intellectual apostasy. And I said, but are they aware of the issues surrounding their doubts and questions? And he said, no, they're aware of what they're taught, which I think is. I mean, that's true. Right? They're aware of what they're given. And so I'm wondering if, you know of any progress that we're making and how we're actually educating the CES instructors themselves.

James McConkie [00:18:11] I don't, but this is why we need the church to develop a curriculum. I don't think there is one. And so it depends on whether you're with a CES teacher who happens to know these things or doesn't. And so I do think there is a job to be done in terms of church curriculum, but I think we're starting to go that direction. I mean, I think that's where we're headed. But now the question for you, Jay, is what do you do in the meantime? And I think you have a few Band Aids that you work with.

Guest [00:18:42] Well, yeah, I trust that God will lead us and inspire us to help figure that out. I wanted to follow up on one other thing, because this is a question I think many people struggle with. It often feels like.

Guest [00:19:02] And I'm not saying that's the case, but it often feels like the church is a little behind, often on these big, important issues. And so we believe in prophecy and that these men are inspired of God. And yet, whether it's race relations or homosexuality or feminism or a lot of these things where.

Guest [00:19:24] Or this curriculum and I know the church is just. I mean, I've come to the resolution that God just does the best he can with what he's got. I mean, he does. We're imperfect people, but how do you answer people that say, so if we have prophecy and we have these prophets, why does it feel like we're always kind of behind the time instead of leading out? I guess, on a lot of these things.

James McConkie [00:19:53] That's a good question. And I think. I mean, for me personally, 1978 was a long time. And I knew that Hubie Brown and others had been in the President McKay administration, had been asking some of these questions, but there was no way, apparently, that it was going to gain serious consideration by their brother.

James McConkie [00:20:17] And so I guess the answer is in my mind because I'm an impatient person, that I have to be patient. But I think the answer is that you don't get revelation until you tee the issue up. And so, for example, on blacks in the priesthood, the brethren who are always older than the younger generation, I'm young, I'm 67, while our leaders are 80.

James McConkie [00:20:46] Oftentimes they come from a different era, a different culture. And the problem is they don't see what a tsunami is coming because they have such strong feelings that came to them through their own culture. They don't see it coming. And then when it's finally teed up and it becomes a crisis and they ask, because they really need to know, you get a revelation. Thank goodness.

James McConkie [00:21:14] And I think that's just the frailties of. We're talking about the frailties of men and women. I mean, it's the same in our own lives. If things are kind of going along and there's an irritant, you just kind of keep the fly. You just move it away. But when it becomes a hornet and it stings you, all of a sudden you realize, gee, there's a real problem. I had better get on my knees and sincerely ask. That's a different kind of a.

James McConkie [00:21:39] A different kind of a prayer. The most wonderful thing about the gospel is we believe all that God has revealed, all that he is now revealing, and that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

James McConkie [00:21:54] So we just have to say to ourselves, we're in transition. We're imperfect. Two thirds of the Book of Mormon is going to come forward. We've got to prepare for the second coming of Christ. There's much that's going to be revealed in the future, and we just don't want to get stuck in our thinking.

James McConkie [00:22:11] And defend the gospel in 2013 the way we're defending it in 2000 or 1990 or 1980. We need to keep our thinking current so that we're giving our best effort to the kingdom of God. We're doing the best we can.

Guest [00:22:26] Would you say that a lot of that responsibility lies with the members, wouldn't you say? Because most of this stuff has kind of grown from the bottom up to get them to tee up. Right. So that we need to feel like we can question and that we can come up with thoughts that might not be like you did with your uncle. That might not be the storyline at the time.

James McConkie [00:22:52] Well, that's why when you asked me the question, what did I think of Lester Bush? That's why I'm grateful to him. I think that was fair. I think it was honest. I know that there are many people who disagree with me on that, but I agree with you on that. That kind of thing has to be talked about without attacking our leaders. It needs to be talked about. And so there is a role for all of us to play as society and our culture changes and different issues come to the forefront.

Guest [00:23:24] I think we could transition from that because what he's talking about is, particularly as we view our church leaders, is having, I think, an empathetic view for where they are and their history and past and not being any more judgmental than we want to be judged ourselves. And how did you arrive with that in terms of your study of the Gospels and segueing into this book, Inclusive Christ?

James McConkie [00:23:52] This is an interesting question. Early Christianity wasn't any different than what we're experiencing. I mean, Peter had to have a vision three times before he could take the Gospel of the Gentiles. He then goes out on a conference, if we're talking in Mormon parlance, and he only will sit with the Jews and Paul publicly chastises him. I mean, it isn't as though even in the, even with first generation Christians that they weren't experiencing the very same issues.

James McConkie [00:24:22] How much are we going to sacrifice in the temple? What part of the Jewish tradition is appropriate to celebrate in this new up to date Christian tradition? Jewish tradition which develops into Christianity over time. I think that there are some very important parallels to be made between the church that Jesus sets up and the church that Joseph Smith sets up. And some of the same issues in different contexts occur there that occur here. So if we're going to be too critical of ourselves, we're also going to be critical of the early Christians as well. So I think there's some interesting parallels to be drawn there.

Introducing the Book on the Inclusive Christ

Sarah Collett [00:25:06] Let me just. I want to introduce this project a little bit more. You're currently working on a book. It's about the inclusive Christ. Am I getting that right?

James McConkie [00:25:19] That's right.

Sarah Collett [00:25:20] I want you to tell us a little bit about that book, and then I have some questions about it.

James McConkie [00:25:24] Okay. Well, let me kind of tell you. You were talking about the spiritual journey, and I talked to you about how I felt I had to deconstruct our history and know the prophet Joseph. That phase of life took about 10 years. And then my daughter came back from BYU. She'd been studying abroad there, and she went over to study the New Testament. And when she came back and we were studying together, I was shocked at how little I knew about the historical Jesus.

James McConkie [00:25:57] And she was telling me all about it. And it was a discussion that didn't just stop. I mean, we talked about this for a number of months. And I thought to myself, here I am. I have a great appreciation for Christ having been in the church. I don't know who this person is. I don't know what his personality is like. I don't know what he likes. I don't know what he hates. I don't know how it would be to be with him and what he felt strongly about.

James McConkie [00:26:25] And I felt like I kind of had a greeting card view of Jesus Christ where you see on a Christmas card, Jesus says to love your fellow man. And nobody can disagree with that, but it's how you love them.

James McConkie [00:26:41] That's where the rub is. How did Jesus love them? That's what got him crucified. And so I was thinking about this, and Judy and I were in San Francisco and we went to Grace Cathedral. And it's just a wonderful cathedral on Nob Hill. And they have great people who give sermons there because it's a congregation that would have that kind of thing.

James McConkie [00:27:08] We went down to their bookstore and I found a book by Marcus Borg. And it was looking at Jesus again for the very first time. Now, I explained that my title is related to this experience and my in the book on the Doctrine and covenants, he is one of 15 or so Jesus scholars who have tried to put together a historical portrait of Jesus Christ in his own context.

James McConkie [00:27:34] And I started reading everything that has ever been said on the subject, and it started filling out for me what the character and nature of Jesus Christ was, who he was. And I could kind of put him in a setting, and if I understood the context, then what he was doing made real sense. To me.

James McConkie [00:28:01] And that started me off on a new journey where my focus now has not been church history, but it's turned to Jesus Christ. And the thing that's so interesting to me is that I was convinced after my. The first part of the study on the Doctrine and Covenants in church history, I was satisfied. Not satisfied completely. I was satisfied.

James McConkie [00:28:25] But then I realized that it's possible to get a testimony of Jesus Christ without being a Mormon, because that had never occurred to me. Because when I started reading, I decided I would read the four Gospels every single day. And I did for years. And finish, go back, finish, go back. And I was so impressed with what I saw in Jesus of Nazareth that just on that record alone, I was convinced that he was the Son of God.

James McConkie [00:28:59] And that was a real revelation to me. Now, I don't think I would have gotten there but for the prophet Joseph. And having been in the McConkie and, and interested in religion and believing that Jesus appeared, that made me more interested in the subject. But where I've really found soul satisfying satisfaction is in going to the source. And prophets, in a sense, are one step removed. And so I thought, well, let's just go to the source. Let's study his life.

Guest [00:29:33] When you say source, describe as I know you read different versions of the Bible in the New Testament, not just the King James. Talk about your sources.

James McConkie [00:29:40] If you would just be like, well, I love different versions of the Bible. When the Bible was originally translated, the King James Version, they had something like 20 Greek manuscripts, and today they have 5,400. And so you can really see what was added. You proved Joseph Smith correct. You can see what was added, what was taken out. And they're wonderful translations. And so I like to read them because the stilted language of the King James sometimes doesn't communicate the real meaning.

Sarah Collett [00:30:06] Do you have a favorite?

James McConkie [00:30:08] Yeah, I do.

Sarah Collett [00:30:08] What is it?

James McConkie [00:30:10] It's the New Living. And I know there are some that are more scholarly, but I still find myself coming back to that one because it was written to be read out loud. And so when Judy and I teach our New Testament class, when you read it out loud, it has real impact. It's simple, it's direct, it connects. And I like the language in that particular version, But I mean, the new international version is the one that seems to be taking over right now, but I find myself going back to the New Living, so that's where I've been. And this book is entitled, and I've actually got a publisher, so this is good.

James McConkie [00:30:47] But this book is entitled Whom say Ye that I am a Mormon view of Jesus. I think that Mormons who pick it up and read it will be very surprised. What I think the Mormon view of Jesus is because I don't emphasize the kinds of things that are generally emphasized. But what I do is I place Jesus in. I ask, how does Jesus treat rich people? How does he treat poor people? How does he treat sick people?

James McConkie [00:31:13] How does he treat people that are mentally disturbed? How does he interact? Why in his culture was this something that you would expect? How does he treat women? What does he think about the family? That's a real conundrum. You don't see anything about eternal marriage in the four Gospels. So this is an interesting subject.

James McConkie [00:31:34] On its own. We could discuss that for a while. But what I noticed is that when Jesus talks to the woman at the well, or the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years and touches the hem of his garment, he's always so tender. The whole have not need of a physician welcoming. But where his wrath is kindled, it is against institutions.

James McConkie [00:32:01] And there's a completely different Jesus that you see when you're talking about the Romans, the Pharisees, the Sadducees. And he hates systemic injustice. And what I mean by that are people who grind the faces of the poor. You take advantage of their neighbor and are in a system where you can appear to be righteous and actually are personally righteous. But by being in the system itself, you are disadvantaging or disenfranchising large groups of God's children.

James McConkie [00:32:38] And when Jesus talks about those subjects, he talks about snakes, vipers, dead man's bones covered in good clothing. And so I see this Jesus who's very real to me now. And I can see what if he came, I think I see better. If he came into our own culture, he would not just be giving a calm talk at conference. I mean, you have to remember that this is the Jesus who overturns the tables in the temple.

James McConkie [00:33:13] And the reason he does is because they're selling the birds and the doves and the sheep for sacrifice at 10 to 15 times the price that you can buy those very same animals for off premises. And then that money goes to those who run the temple. Well, that's what he's angry about.

James McConkie [00:33:33] That's one of the things he's angry about. Angry enough that he actually physically removes them. And so I get excited about this Jesus. This is a person that I can worship.

Sarah Collett [00:33:46] Let me ask this question. Did you ever at some point connect

James McConkie [00:33:51] with the larger Christian Well, I've connected with some of them, particularly those in the Anglican faith, because they've done such a wonderful job of this. But you know, this contextualization of Jesus in a historical setting is something that has been done by the scholars in the last 15 years. I don't think it's been appreciated by any of the other religions, particularly any better than our own. And so I think that they're as guilty of seeing Jesus one dimensionally as we are. I think that the issue of why we're not Christians is because we don't believe in the same God. I mean, Christianity, their God was defined in Nicaea.

James McConkie [00:34:38] It is a product of Greek thinking and it is Neoplatonistic, and it has nothing to do with the four Gospels. And so they believe in a God. They worship a God that I think is the wrong God. And so I don't want to be a Christian because I worship this person who I've been reading about who was resurrected and still has his body and isn't three in one. And that concept of a God leads me different places.

Sarah Collett [00:35:10] So when you say you don't want to be a Christian, what you're talking about is you don't want to be the type of Christian that is.

James McConkie [00:35:17] I don't want to believe in Council of Nicaea. I don't want to believe in a God that doesn't have a body. I don't. That's not. And you know, this is a very important issue because if you believe that God has an exalted body, that leads you to an entirely different theology. It defines the connection you have with God. It defines who you are. In the King Follett discourse, the first principle of the Gospel is to know the character of God and that we can speak to him as one man speaks to another. Well, all of these things define who we are and what our relationship is and where we're going. That concept is lost on the Christian world, except in a metaphorical way.

Grace, Atonement, and a Distinctly Mormon Jesus

Sarah Collett [00:35:58] So let me ask a question about grace. Let's talk about grace for a moment because I think also one of the major separations between Mormons, everyday, normal, regular LDS people is that we don't do a lot of grace talk, right? We kind of stay away from that. We like our works a little bit better than we like our grace. And the rest of the Christian world is really big on grace. Where did Jesus stand?

James McConkie [00:36:29] I think the Christian world is off in the Neverland on this.

Sarah Collett [00:36:32] Okay, tell us.

James McConkie [00:36:34] And I know that Jay and I disagree. You cannot find in the four Gospels, much discussion on the atonement and grace. The word grace doesn't even exist there. Every time someone comes to Jesus, the rich man, for example, and they say, what must we do to be saved?

James McConkie [00:36:55] Jesus doesn't talk about grace. It's not even an issue. The rich man says, well, I'm living the Ten Commandments. And then Jesus says to him, well, how about living in the law of consecration and give all of your goods to the poor and come follow me? He fails that test.

James McConkie [00:37:12] But Jesus, when he talks about salvation, whether it's the sheep and the goats or whenever the issue is raised, says that individuals can contribute to their own salvation. Now, there are two or three scriptures in Mark and Matthew. I think in Matthew where he says, I've come as a ransom to save many, but that's it.

James McConkie [00:37:35] And so the person who gets us off on grace is Paul. Now, that's not to say that the atonement isn't important, that we couldn't be saved without it. But it's done, it's over with, it is finished, it's available.

James McConkie [00:37:49] And so what Jesus is saying, I've done that, it's over. All you need to do is change and repent, and then you can take advantage of it. And as long as you're trying to change, then you can progress and become more like God.

James McConkie [00:38:03] But in my own view, the spirit of Mormonism is not tied up in the evangelical grace doctrine. And so I feel from studying those four gospels that we've kind of drifted over to a Protestant interpretation of Jesus. So we're doing what the Protestants do. They study Paul and then they interpret Jesus through the eyes of Paul.

James McConkie [00:38:32] And I think you have to study Jesus and then interpret Paul through the eyes of Jesus. And you come to very different places. Because all of this talk, in my view, in the letters about grace and the law are all centered around the oral law and not the Ten Commandments.

James McConkie [00:38:52] And that's a long discussion. And I can't get into it because we couldn't finish it. But I'm just saying that I think that the spirit of Mormonism when I was younger and as I see it coming from the prophet Joseph Smith, is not atonement, atonement, atonement. It's the atonement is finished. We thank God for it. Now we can contribute to our salvation because we're children of God. We have that capacity within us, and so we can do these things.

Sarah Collett [00:39:21] Wait, hold on. One question. I'm going to give you a big pushback here.

James McConkie [00:39:26] I know you Push back.

Sarah Collett [00:39:30] This pushback is.

James McConkie [00:39:32] Lots of my Mormon friends disagree with me on it.

Sarah Collett [00:39:35] Well, and I'm going to use this argument that you're making to mirror a different argument, and I just want to see how you respond to this. But Mormonism does not stick to what Christ taught. We take the liberty of adding a whole chunk to salvation and exaltation. If you read in the Book of Mormon, and I assume you go into the four Gospels, there is no temple in terms of additional ordinances. There is no sense of exaltation. Christ is very plain in the Book of Mormon when he says, hey, this is it, right? Faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost. And he is. And he even goes as far in the Book of Mormon to say there is nothing added to this.

Sarah Collett [00:40:27] And if anybody adds anything to this, they are wrong. But we do. We add and add and add. So I'm just listening to you. You say we take Paul and we interpret Christ through the lens of Paul, and you disagree there. But don't we take Joseph and Brigham Young and interpret Christ and salvation through the lens of those prophets in Mormonism?

James McConkie [00:40:55] We absolutely do. And first of all, I disagree that deification is not taught by Jesus and it is taught so plainly in the Sermon on the Mount. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Now, the modern translations are better on this and more Mormonesque. If you look at the new living on this subject, it says you may become perfect even as your Father is perfect. So instead of making it sound like an instantaneous process, be perfect, it says it's a process of becoming.

James McConkie [00:41:25] Now, Jesus teaches this in at least two or three other places, clearly in the four Gospels, most plainly in the Sermon on the Mount. So I think you find deification there. And I don't have any doubt about it because that idea ended up being an idea that Paul, in his discussion of joint heirship, which comes up over and over and over again in the letters. I mean, we know that Paul is talking about it constantly, and I don't think he would have been had it not been part of the early Christian tradition. And I think it goes right back to Jesus fundamental teaching on the subject in the Sermon on the Mount. So I have to demur on that.

Sarah Collett [00:42:03] Okay, what do you think about the Scriptures then in the Book of Mormon where he says, don't add anything to this.

James McConkie [00:42:08] This is a conundrum because it also says that in the Doctrine and Covenants and you kind of look at Mormonism as the Mormon Church in Kirtland, and then The Mormon Church in Nauvoo. And then you ask yourself the question, well, how do the two meet and where do they marry?

James McConkie [00:42:24] I think the question is more complicated than you are suggesting. And this is why we know now from Margaret Barker and from other New Testament scholars that there is and the 40 day documents that there was a ceremony that was similar to ours. Now, the early church taught that the endowment came on the mount of Transfiguration.

James McConkie [00:42:52] And then we have found documents that talk about endowment, like things, prayer circles and other things in the 40 day documents. And we can get on the Internet and look them up. And if you look at Cyril's lectures on Jerusalem and other things like that, you find all kinds of things that are interesting to Mormons. I think early Christianity had more of this stuff.

Sarah Collett [00:43:13] Give the audience a little bit more of what you're talking about. Give an example.

James McConkie [00:43:17] Okay, take for example, the prayer circle. In Acts, the first chapter, the third verse, Jesus says he came back and he spent 40 days as a resurrected person teaching the saints. We know during that 40 day period that he came to the new world. And so the question is, well, what was he teaching? Well, there are a whole group of documents that purportedly tell us. I mean, you can argue with whether they're accurate or not, but you can do that with four gospels as well.

Sarah Collett [00:43:49] What are the origins? I have to be honest, I don't know anything about this.

James McConkie [00:43:54] Well, these 40 day documents are like the Apocrypha, like the Pseudepigrapha, like the Dead Sea Scrolls. They're ancient documents and they claim to tell what Jesus taught during that 40 days before he ascended.

Sarah Collett [00:44:08] How old are these?

James McConkie [00:44:10] Well, they date back to the time, most of them after Christ, second, third, fourth century, some closer.

Sarah Collett [00:44:17] How complete are they?

James McConkie [00:44:18] Well, they're reasonably, I mean there are hundreds of pages of these. And one of the ones that Nibley puts in the back of his book, Joseph Smith, the Egyptian endowment. In his appendix is Cyril's lectures on Jerusalem. And he talks about the initiatory rites in early Christianity. The Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem.

James McConkie [00:44:41] You're washed, you're clothed, you're anointed, you go through a ceremony that begins with Adam, you become imitators of Adam, you go into a prayer circle, you speak the prayer back in unison. I mean, you have all of these documents which may be some scholars would say, apostate versions or non orthodox, proto orthodox versions of Christianity. That's what they say. That's what the Catholics say. But they also might be accurate representations of Christianity. And if you believe the prophet Joseph Smith, if you work backwards and you say, well, I'm willing to accept the fact that if Joseph Smith restored it, then I should find it and you then begin finding some of these things, then it's faith affirming.

James McConkie [00:45:30] And so I think part of the answer is that there is more there than is generally believed. But clearly in the Book of Mormon, except maybe Alma 13 where it talks about Melchizedek and the priesthood and the pre existence and you have references that sound temple like to Latter Day Saints.

James McConkie [00:45:52] What we first got was just a beginning of what Joseph Smith had to offer. But I think some of that, I think it's actually in early Christianity.

Guest [00:46:04] My, I guess take or issue with what you say is that it seems to totally disregard the Book of Mormon. I reread that over and over like you do, I guess, the four Gospels. Not with the brilliant mind you have, unfortunately, but I mean you can open from the first page of the Book of Mormon and it talks about Christ's vital role as our savior and atonement. I mean it really does. I mean it's saturated with the atonement of Christ and says very point blank in a number of places that we're nothing without him, we're lost without him.

Guest [00:46:43] And so when you take that in context, I guess unless you and I don't think you feel this way but do not believe that book accurately represents what Joseph Smith said it does, I just find it difficult to justify, I guess, some of the things you just said.

Guest [00:47:04] I don't know. I think that element, and whatever we want to call that element, grace is just the word that's been used. But the inability for us to navigate ourselves and breach that huge gasm between where we are as mortals, incredibly imperfect mortals, and into godhood to divinity, that we can somehow earn our way to do that, I don't see a way to justify that.

James McConkie [00:47:33] That's great because I talk about this in the book.

Guest [00:47:38] In which book?

James McConkie [00:47:38] In the book I'm writing. Okay, the book you're writing because I talk about is there a Book of Mormon view of Christ and is there a view in the Doctrine and Covenants of who Christ is? And it's not that I would say that the atonement, which is mentioned 15 times in the Book of Mormon, isn't there. But the emphasis we're placing on it today is out of proportion to what's there. So I went through and I read every passage on Christ in the Book of Mormon.

Guest [00:48:09] There's a lot.

James McConkie [00:48:09] And there's A lot of stuff on Christ, but when you read it, it is very even handed. In other words, it talks about that he's born, that he comes into the world, that he came here to do miracles, that he suffered from the things of the flesh, that he died on the cross and the atonement. And the best statements on the atonement are Alma 15 in Alma and in Nephi. Okay. And so there is a discussion on it, but it's what I called an even handed view. In other words, it touches on everything. It doesn't single something out and then put the entire emphasis there.

James McConkie [00:48:45] And invariably his accounts in the Book of Mormon ends with a comment on the resurrection, which is really the emphasis of the New. If you wanted to say what is the theme? What is the most important thing that happens in the New Testament? In the four Gospels, you wouldn't say atonement. You'd probably say he died on the cross and ransomed us, but he was resurrected. I mean, the early church was focused on the fact that he was resurrected.

James McConkie [00:49:10] So here's what I'm saying. I'm saying, Jay, it's not that it isn't there, it is, but it's listed with all of these other things so that you have kind of an even handed view of Christ's entire mission. And we're not just kind of forgetting that and focusing on the atonement alone. Now why is that important? In my mind, if you emphasize the atonement too much, you end up like Jonathan Edwards.

James McConkie [00:49:39] You don't believe you're capable of anything, you feel guilty about everything, and you're kind of a poor groveling soul hanging on a slender thread with a fire burning is going to drop you in to the jaws of hell.

James McConkie [00:49:56] And so it's the emphasis that I'm concerned about because by emphasizing the fact that we can do nothing and grace is the answer to everything, we're really missing the true message of Mormonism, which is we are gods in embryo, that we have His DNA in us, and that he did the atonement, but that we have the capacity to become like him. In Protestant theology, you get saved so that you can be sinful and still be in God's presence. In Mormonism, you realize you have to over time perfect yourselves so that you can become a God, because God by definition has to be perfect.

Guest [00:50:40] If I can just interrupt, and I don't disagree with that, I just think the perfection process is not just an act that happened. I think that atonement, that act of God's grace or however you want to say, it is a continuing element in our lives, and it is not either or. Obviously, in the New Testament, it debates the same thing works in grace. But. So I don't disagree with that element. I just think the hubris that we have to struggle with at times, and I think that's why God made it the way he did, is that we don't do it on our own.

James McConkie [00:51:16] But what the atonement does, Jay, is it allows us to take the exam until we get 100%. It allows us to fail and retake the exam, but it doesn't excuse us from the arduous work of perfecting our characters.

Guest [00:51:28] I agree.

James McConkie [00:51:29] Because in Protestant theology, the purpose of grace isn't to make us into gods. The purpose of grace is so that you can be sinful and be in the presence of God. It's a completely different thing. And I think when you emphasize that, it takes us in the direction of Calvinism. And that's why I get exercised about this, because I can live a lot happier life believing that if I repent, my sins are taken care of and that I really do have the capacity to do certain things than I can thinking I am such a poor groveling soul, a sinner in the eyes of an angry God, that I just have to depend on grace. And that's it. I can't do much for myself. And so it's a matter.

Guest [00:52:11] It's not very motivating for you.

James McConkie [00:52:13] It's not very motivating. So it's a matter. I think we're talking really about a matter of emphasis.

Inclusion, Exaltation, and a Personal Reflection on Bruce R. McConkie

Sarah Collett [00:52:18] Let me ask another question here. I want to go to this word inclusion. One of the biggest struggles for people that face crisis with their faith in Mormonism is that they get really, really weary and tired of the idea that we're better than everyone else, that only Mormons have the capacity to perfect themselves through ordinances. And this gets back to that.

Sarah Collett [00:52:48] And your point about there are evidences of ordinances in works outside of the Bible, and that can be read into certain passages. But how does this picture of an inclusive Christ relate to the exclusion of people from exaltation outside of Mormonism? And I know that there's the caveat that we die and the work can be done for everyone. But that's hard for people to accept that. You know, they look around and they see other people in other religions or in other faith traditions or even outside of faith traditions that are doing the same work we're doing that put in just as much effort that are as good in their souls and who are as maybe worshipful or even respectful of mankind. Worshipful of God and respectful of mankind. How is that inclusive? I just want you to kind of talk to those two ideas.

James McConkie [00:53:51] If you were to say to me, having spent some time, not as much as many, but some time in the four gospels, what are the two characteristics of Jesus that motivates him in every situation? Almost it would be compassion and inclusion. So he includes the sinner, he includes the prostitute, he includes women in ways that his society never could tolerate. Many women followed Jesus. They supported him, they traveled with him, he spoke with him. This was all counter to his culture. And so I think you would have to say that he was inclusive and he was compassionate. Now, the problem in Mormonism is that we're very focused on the nuclear family. And the nuclear family is a great thing because they have to be strong, but they're a product of the 1950s. I mean, the nuclear family is an accident in history. And so when Jesus is asked the

Sarah Collett [00:54:56] question, explain that a little bit more.

Guest [00:55:00] I know what you're saying.

James McConkie [00:55:01] Well, if you look at history, there's a wonderful book called the History of the American Family. The nuclear family develops in a time when we have comparative wealth in the United States where the father could leave the home and work outside the home and the mother then could use her skills in the home. Almost in every other period of history, that just isn't the case. And it isn't now because we're pressed economically in the nuclear family. The ideal family no longer. It's getting smaller and smaller.

Guest [00:55:32] Well, it was much more multi generational, kind of like what you've developed in

James McConkie [00:55:35] your living room, for example, in Jesus day, what was the family like? Well, the term nuclear family wasn't used in the United States until 1924. So Jesus had no concept of a nuclear family. Joseph Smith didn't have a concept of a nuclear family. Abraham didn't have the concept of a nuclear family. His family was defined differently. So what I'm saying is that it is a good thing that we emphasize the nuclear family because it needs to be strong and it is kind of the bulwark against the winds of the world.

James McConkie [00:56:07] But what Mormonism is trying to do is it's not trying to save the nuclear family, it's trying to save the human family. And the point of all of this is that you've got to have strong nuclear families, but they're all hooked together into God's family. And in Mormonism, that idea is played out in Ceilings because we seal this chain, this human family.

James McConkie [00:56:33] So when Christ talks about the family, he's not talking about a nuclear family or an extended family or an intergenerational family. His focus is on saving everyone because we're all brothers and sisters, literally children of God. And so I understand why we have to focus on the nuclear family, but it blinds us to what we're really doing and what the temple is all about. It's about. It's about saving the entire human family. That's the most inclusive concept of the family that you could have because we are all related as brothers and sisters and should treat each other that way.

Guest [00:57:10] It is an interesting question in terms of what do we offer that other religions don't? And I think it would go back maybe partly to your concept of which Joseph Smith revealed being gods in embryo, which is a very unique thought, really, in pretty much any philosophy out there.

James McConkie [00:57:32] That's what we're here for,

Guest [00:57:35] and that we have at least some basic things that can help you get to that point. But I know there is an uncomfortable feeling too, and I felt fortunate to have a father who was very inclusive in his beliefs.

Guest [00:57:52] Because we know on one level, if you ask an LDS person, that we don't have all the truth, and yet we often act in a very different way that we do that God kind of just speaks to us.

Guest [00:58:07] When you listen to General Conference, you really don't get that sense because they're quoting Emily Dixon and everybody in between CS Lewis. So it doesn't always come top down like that. But I think we do settle into this almost narcissistic way of thinking that we embody all truth, and yet most truth, I think, lies outside the church. I mean, if you're talking about scientific truth and all that stuff, most of it's outside our little nucleus.

Guest [00:58:41] So again, I guess, how would you define what that nucleus is? What is it that we offer that so unique and special that would help?

James McConkie [00:58:53] I think it's our dedicated role to prepare for the second coming. But I'll tell you the thing that Mormonism offers that no other religion offers in my mind. A friend of mine, Doug Parker, who was a professor at byu, was on his way. He was teaching in Boulder at the law school there.

James McConkie [00:59:14] And he was with one of his non Mormon friends who was an atheist, and they were talking about religion. And he said to Doug, who's a dear friend of mine, he said, doug, you tell me in 10 minutes something about God, because I know you believe in him.

James McConkie [00:59:34] That is really meaningful. What's the most meaningful thing that you can tell me about God. And Doug thought for a moment, and he said, God is an exalted man, and that one truth is worth the entire restoration because it redefines who we are and what we're going to become and what our relationship is to each other.

James McConkie [01:00:02] And it helps us understand that all of us are the literal spiritual offspring of deity and have capacities that we know not of at this point. For me, that is an important message. It's the important message that we offer the world. But it's not necessary for everybody to get it right now. I mean, we're all going to move in this direction. Joseph Smith said in the King Follett address, he said, how long is it going to take us to become gods and goddesses after we leave this life?

James McConkie [01:00:35] Millions of years. But it's this journey, this understanding of what we're becoming that makes life so worthwhile, and the understanding that we have of physical relationships and family relationships and what it means to have a body and relate to each other and to relate to a father who's personal and not distant. How do you love a principle? You love an individual. We love the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't love his gospel. We love him. We love his gospel. That's a sidelight. We love him. We love his character. We love who he is. And the gospel is tied up in that idea. God is an exalted man.

Guest [01:01:13] And I like what you just segued into, because to know his character is not just to know what he is, but that he sounds very simple, is a God of love, which goes back to your inclusive Christ, I think. And where we, as LDS people, if we can expand that and are much, much beyond our ward families, every religion

James McConkie [01:01:35] has a tendency to become spiritually xenophobic. We're not the only ones.

Guest [01:01:40] It's true.

James McConkie [01:01:40] No, that's very true.

Guest [01:01:41] That's a good point.

James McConkie [01:01:43] Very common.

Sarah Collett [01:01:43] We're going to wrap up soon, but I wanted to just ask this question, and this goes back to the beginning of the podcast. It's just a personal point of interest for me, but one of the stories that has circulated through our family about Bruce R. McConkie is we have a friend of the family who's very good friends with the paces.

Sarah Collett [01:02:08] And that whole little debacle has come up, obviously, in conversation. And one of the stories that has gotten passed around is how Bruce R. McConkie apologized to George Pace near the end of his life. And, you know, who knows if that's apocryphal. Or not, but we like to think that that's true. But it gets to this discussion on Christ because the whole situation that happened there was over a disagreement about how Christ should be viewed and approached. Whereas George Pace was advocating for a very personal relationship with Christ to be able to pray to Christ. I think he voiced it more like you pray through Christ, but that he was really, you know, pushing this idea of a personal savior that you could know and love and a Big Brother figure.

Sarah Collett [01:03:09] And Bruce or McConaughey was not fond of that idea at all and was very public in his criticisms of George. And I think he said, you know, that that was sectarian nonsense. And also he said that we should hold Christ up more in a kind of like. As a reverent. At a reverent distance.

Sarah Collett [01:03:33] So I want to know, did Bruce R. McConkie have the same. Did he get into the historical Christ? Did he study these same authors and Christian authors outside of Mormonism? And did that somehow contribute to this less personal. Do you know what I'm saying? What was his comfort?

James McConkie [01:03:54] I do know that he read widely outside of Mormon sources, because I had a discussion with him where he told me about that. I don't think that he was familiar with the last 15 years where the historical Jesus has been emphasized, but I do think even members of his family who love him would admit that he could kill a fly with a sledgehammer and in that way be misunderstood. And I think that what he was trying to do. I don't know about this story. I hope it's true, but I think that what he was trying to do is emphasis. Again, President Faust talked about a personal relationship with Jesus.

James McConkie [01:04:40] We know that you can have a personal relationship with Jesus, although it sounds very Protestant, and that always makes one nervous. But I think that what he was trying to say as I read him is that Jesus was responsible to his Father. We worship the Father in the name of the Son and everything every time. Remember when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he prayed vocally, and he said, I'm praying vocally so that the people might know that what I'm going to do isn't me, it's you, Father.

James McConkie [01:05:18] And then he walks into the tomb and Lazarus comes out. Well, everything he does in those four gospels is to honor his Father. He even calls himself imperfect in comparison to the Father. And then he tells us that if you want to know who the Father is, then you can know what his character is like. Because I reflected, and I think Bruce was just concerned that in Protestant thinking, It doesn't matter whether you worship the Holy Ghost, the Father, or the Son. It's all three in one.

James McConkie [01:05:52] But it does matter to Mormons in a way, because our focus is on Elohim, who is separate and apart from Jesus, who came to do the wishes of his Father and to glorify his Father, he said. And so I think it was probably troublesome to him because it didn't square with what Jesus himself was saying about his relationship with the Father. It seemed to be downplaying who God the Father is.

Sarah Collett [01:06:19] Do you, from a personal perspective, how do you identify with God? I mean, I hear that you're saying what you're saying. Doctrinally, it matters to Mormons. But for me, a transcendent experience is not defined by whether it comes from God or Christ or the Holy Ghost. A transcendent experience is with God. And I am really generally unconcerned in that moment about the avenue or the being that I'm interacting with. So I'm wondering for you, does it matter? And has studying Christ and coming to this new understanding of Christ, has that changed the way you personally feel you're interacting with God? Have you shifted from God the Father to Christ or from Christ to the Father? Do you know what I'm asking?

James McConkie [01:07:04] I know what you're asking. I don't think it has affected me in that way, because what my study of Jesus has done, I hold him in reverence and awe when I see what kind of a person he was in the context of his times. It is overwhelming when you see the context of his time and what these acts of his meant to that culture and that kind of a culture.

James McConkie [01:07:28] But if you say to a Mormon, well, what is your experience with God? The God we know best is the Holy Ghost, all of us. And so I don't know Jesus personally. I don't know Elohim personally. The God that I am most familiar with is the Holy Ghost.

James McConkie [01:07:47] And so if you ask me, where am I receiving comfort, where am I receiving spiritual experience from the gifts of the Spirit, all of those things, it's coming through the third member of the Godhead. And so I think, if you ask me, where we're falling down is we're not thankful enough to the third member of the Godhead who is almost unmentioned.

James McConkie [01:08:09] And yet that is the member of the Godhead that is specifically assigned to tutor us, to comfort us, to strengthen us, and yet we rarely speak his name.

Sarah Collett [01:08:21] I just want to thank you for letting us come into your home and talk to you. This has been wonderfully fascinating. I've been really privileged to be here. And I also want to thank Jay for setting this interview up and for participating and helping to have this discussion. So thank you both. And if our listeners are interested, you can buy the Doctrine and Covenants book. What's it called?

James McConkie [01:08:48] Yeah, you can. It's looking at the Doctrine and Covenants for the very first time. It's sold at Deseret Book, BYU Bookstore, and Amazon. Amazon and Barnes and Noble. But the one that I really like you to buy it from, if anybody wants to buy it, Benchmark.

Guest [01:09:04] Good for you.

James McConkie [01:09:05] Okay, my friends at Benchmark.

Sarah Collett [01:09:07] Great, Great. So you can go to Benchmark and buy it through Benchmark as well. And then also look forward to the coming book and tell us the title,

James McConkie [01:09:16] Whom say Ye that I am a Mormon View of Jesus.

Sarah Collett [01:09:19] Tell us who's publishing this.

James McConkie [01:09:21] Well, Coford Coford book.

Sarah Collett [01:09:23] Great.

James McConkie [01:09:23] I'm really delighted that they're interested enough to start down the path.

Sarah Collett [01:09:27] Wonderful. So look forward to that and thank you again. And hopefully we'll be able to sit down with your wife soon and I can ask her that question. Question the gender of the Holy Ghost.

James McConkie [01:09:37] Thank you, Sarah. Nice to be with you.

Sarah Collett [01:09:38] All right. Thank you.

Guest [01:09:39] Come thou.

Guest 2 [01:09:50] Thank you for joining us today on a thoughtful faith. To discuss this podcast, check us out@a thoughtfulfaith.org the music from this podcast was generously donated by Lisa Frazier. Hear more from her@lisafrasier.com.

Guest [01:10:16] Fixed upon it Mount of thy love. Here I raise my equanisen hither by thy help I come and I hope by thy good pleasure Safely to arrive at home Jesus of me with a stranger wandering from the fold of God he to rescue me from danger can you suppose his precious blood oh to Greece how great a debtor dearly I could strike to be Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to be Come to wonder, Lord, I feel it Come to live for God I love. Here's my heart oh, take and seal it, seal it for thy corners above will Come to wonder, Lord, I feel it Come to thee, the God I love oh, he here's my heart.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.