Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, LDS Discussions Edition. I am one of your hosts for today, John Dehlin. It is March 9, 2023 and we are now on to part 38 of a historic and super well received and popular series on Mormon Stories podcast called LDS Discussions. Where from as neutral and as objective and as evidence based of a perspective as we can come from, we analyze Mormon Church truth claims. We are on part four of a series on Joseph Smith revelations by my count, and today's episode is going to be about problematic LDS prophet revelations after Joseph Smith. So we just covered three episodes on failed prophecies, backdated prophecies, problematic patterns on Joseph Smith revelations and and now we're moving beyond Joseph Smith to problematic revelations and prophecies from Brigham Young to modern day. We have a lot to cover. I will just quickly remind you all that you can always enjoy the LDS Discussion series as a part of the integrated Mormon Stories podcast feed. But there's also a dedicated podcast feed on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts called LDS discussions. And you can go to the playlist on YouTube on the Mormon Stories podcast channel and you can see all the LDS Discussions episodes in sequence. We do pay our participants on this series and so we would like to specifically ask that if you enjoy this content, if you value it and you want to see Mike and his work continue on Mormon Stories, please go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button and become a monthly donor and you can list LDS Discussions in your description. And. And we'll make sure and have as much of Mike as possible. So without any further ado, let's join our panelists for today. Hey, Mike, welcome back.

Mike [00:02:05] Hey everybody, how's it going?

John Dehlin [00:02:06] Anything you want to say to begin?

Mike [00:02:09] No, just this one will be fun just because I think it takes us a little bit away from all of these episodes we've done on Joseph Smith. So now we can look at how the church has operated after Joseph Smith, which I think will give us a lot of insight, not just into our current leadership in 2023, but but also into Joseph Smith because you now can compare and contrast how revelation and discernment, all of these things work in the church, not just with Joseph Smith, but now up through today. And I think it'll give us a much bigger picture of what we're kind of how to evaluate that I guess I should say.

John Dehlin [00:02:41] Perfect. All right, well, we're happy to have you, Mike. You're already a legend and as always, we are so delighted to have Nemo from Nemo, the Mormon YouTube channel here as a partner in righteousness and truth. Hey, Nemo.

Nemo [00:02:55] Hey. How's it going?

John Dehlin [00:02:56] How's life in the UK these days?

Nemo [00:02:59] Excellent. Very rainy. We've just had snow, which was nice in bloody England. Yeah, we had snow in March.

Guest [00:03:07] Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:09] All right, well, we're excited to have you for today's episode. And again, everyone, please subscribe to Mormon stories podcast on YouTube and also please subscribe to Nemo, the Mormons channel as well. All right, Mike, where do you want to begin with today's episode?

Mike [00:03:24] Yeah, we could just start with the first slide and just kind of jump in.

John Dehlin [00:03:28] Okay, let's jump in.

Mike [00:03:29] Let's jump in. Yeah. So our fourth episode on Revelation, and just like we were saying a second ago, I wanted to look at how the church has handled kind of revelations and kind of this idea of this prophetic ability since Joseph Smith's death. Death. And you know, as we've said up until now, we've done 30 something episodes. We've almost exclusively been on Joseph Smith and early church history. And so now we're kind of getting into the home stretch of the at least this original series of episodes. And we wanted to focus a little bit more on getting towards more the modern church. And you know, one thing people have asked me is why we're not covering certain things like under Brigham Young. And when I did the overview project, the reason I did it the way I did it is pretty simple, which is to say is if Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God, then the church today is not the one true church of God. And so for me, I believe these overviews have shown beyond any reasonable doubt that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God. And so I don't necessarily think that writing a ton of overviews about today's leaders and Brigham Young is really necessary because at this point, we can be very confident they're just men trying to run a church.

John Dehlin [00:04:34] Can I? Can I? I don't want to overreach here because we have a commitment to try and be in as objective and as neutral and as evidence based as possible. What we have nem. I want to get your view on this as well. What we have shown is that Joseph Smith did a lot of prophecy and revelation back back dating that the DNC and the Book of Commandments were changed in ways to hide failed or incorrect or changing policies. And we've shown policies that didn't, you know, prophecies and revelations that didn't come true. It's still possible, in theory, that Joseph Smith got some prophecies or revelations right and that it, you know, maybe in someone's theology, a prophet can get things right and wrong and that all we've done is just showed where he got it wrong, but there's still room for him having gotten it right. Does that make. I just don't want to poison the well and make people turn it off because we make too sweeping of a charge.

Nemo [00:05:33] I think that's fair. I think it's. It's interesting to look at. The example they'll throw at you immediately will be Jonah refusing to do what God told him to do directly and then being corrected and, you know, things not going the way that they were meant to. Because Mormons love agency. The church loves to teach about agency. So ultimately, Joseph can choose to get stuff wrong. He can choose to write things down his own way, rather than the way God revealed them to him per chance, you know.

John Dehlin [00:05:59] Yeah, because the apologetic is often that, you know, And I actually remember having these thoughts in high school. It's like Noah got drunk. Peter denied Christ, David, you know, David committed adultery and had his, you know, nemesis killed Bathsheba's husband. Uriah, I think was his name. Like, you can, you know, Judas betrayed Christ. Like, you can always find prophets, seers, and revelators that make mistakes. And even Joseph himself said, I've made a gazillion mistakes. And so modern apologists are going to say, hey, just because a prophet gets it wrong or makes mistakes, they can still be a prophet anyway. I don't want to belabor this point. Mike, do you have a quick reaction to that?

Mike [00:06:43] Well, I guess what, what I'm saying in here is, is more along the lines of this entire project. So when I was asked to do this, I was asked to put together basically everything I had that showed whether or not the truth clays and Mormonism are true or false. And so when I did it, my mindset was if the foundation. And I'm not talking just about revelation. I'm talking about the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, you know, the Word of Wisdom, polygamy, all of these things together. To me, if. If all of those things are pointing to this not being from God, then Wilford Woodruff, while obviously a historical figure in the Church, doesn't really, to me, and that's just, to me, that. That's why in the overview project, I didn't include it. You know, I don't know if that makes sense, because I'm not talking just about revelation. So it's not like saying Joseph Smith, you know, said we were going to have a temple in Missouri. It didn't happen, therefore the church isn't true. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the overwhelming abundance of evidence when you talk about truth claims is ultimately going to rest on Joseph Smith, because that's really where almost all of this is going to come from. And so to me, that's what's important just to evaluate kind of true versus untrue. And now we're getting more into like still in the truth claims, but also good versus not good. We'll see more of that as we get through the kind of remainder.

Nemo [00:07:54] And if I may, I think perhaps the thing to say to cap this point off would be, if you're joining us now at episode 38, what might be worth doing is going back to the beginning, watching these and then when you get to this point again, deciding whether the point that Mike's making is a fair point or not. Because then you've been exposed to all the evidence that we've been exposed to having gone through these episodes. But if you're coming at this cold, that may seem like a strong statement. So go back, watch them all, decide for.

John Dehlin [00:08:20] Yeah, that makes sense.

Mike [00:08:21] I think that's a very fair point. And that was my, you know, this slide is kind of partly something I wrote into the overview, which is because a lot of people did ask, why aren't you focused more on, you know, post manifesto polygamy? And my point was it matters. Of course it matters. It's history and it impacted a lot of people. But to me, when you talk about Mormon truth claims, it really rests on Joseph Smith. And you hear leaders of the church make that claim, the Gordon B. Hinckley one, which is, you know, everything rests on the first vision. Either it's true or this is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on man or whatever it is. So is that, you know, it's not just me. I'm just saying, and maybe this is too, too blunt of a way to start the episode. I'm just saying that that's the reason that most of these episodes are on Joseph Smith as opposed to being on kind of say, the last 150 years of the church. Because I think that the validity of Mormonism, especially when you talk about truth claims, is going to rest on what Joseph Smith did, because not a lot has happened since he was killed.

John Dehlin [00:09:15] I, I do want to say that I just got a tip that this month, March of 2023, there's an insider who's saying that the Mormon Church is about to come out with, with some sort of statement or video or something around addressing prophetic fallibility. And that's why I think this is an important thing to bring up now is I think especially. And probably you're laughing, Nemo, I'm guessing, prompted that. Yeah, exactly. What's your suspicion, Nemo?

Nemo [00:09:48] Oh, it might have something to do with them having their dirty laundry aired in public about the way they manage their finances, something like that.

John Dehlin [00:09:55] The se. The settlement with the securities and Exchange Commission of the United States and the Mormon Church and the fact that the church just got busted for what I call financial fraud or dishonesty.

Nemo [00:10:06] And I've been sending out emails to stakes around the world. I've sent it to all stake presidents in the uk, but people have been sending it all over the world calling for church discipline for those involved, because the handbook and scripture would indicate that that's necessary. So possibly it might be reactionary to say, well, hold on, of course, infallible. We shouldn't be facing church discipline. Yeah, perhaps.

John Dehlin [00:10:28] Yeah, so we'll be looking for that. And that's all going to be fodder for discussion. Okay, Mike, should we go, should we go to the next slide?

Mike [00:10:34] Yeah, we can go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [00:10:35] Okay, so is. Did we cover the slide?

Nemo [00:10:40] We did.

Mike [00:10:41] I think the last point I just made is just saying it is still important to look at how prophets have operated and proclaim revelation just to get the insights into what connection they have to God and also to look at how it, you know, contrast from what Joseph Smith was doing. So that's that we can go to the next slide.

What Revelation Means to Modern Church Leaders

John Dehlin [00:10:56] Okay, next slide.

Mike [00:10:58] And. And this is honestly this one minute. I don't even think it's a minute long video that we're going to play for you is the best explanation of revelation that I've ever heard. And it's from Wendy Nelson, who is Russell Nelson's second wife. And I, I think this is a quote that should be at the beginning of every church article about what revelation is because she is being almost too honest here, unintentionally. And so this is an interview she gave with the church. I think it's with Church News. It could be with like Deseret News shortly after Russell Nelson became prophet. And so you can read the quote on the slide, but I think it's more effective just to listen to it. So we're going to play a short clip and just listen to how Wendy Nelson explains what revelation in the Church actually is.

John Dehlin [00:11:41] Okay, so this is the current wife of the current Mormon Church prophet, President Russell M. Nelson.

Mike [00:11:51] I have seen him changing in the last 10 months. It is as though he's been unleashed. He's free to finally do what he came to Earth to do is my big thing. And also he's free to follow through with things he's been concerned about but could never do. Now that he's president of, he can do those things.

John Dehlin [00:12:19] Okay, Nemo's laughing. Nemo, why are you laughing?

Nemo [00:12:23] Well, because aren't things meant to be done by the 12 by unanimous consent? So if he's had these concerns and he raised them in a meeting of the 12, why were they not dealt with then? Why has he got to wait until he's the boss and he can essentially make the others do what he wants to, then be able to act on them?

John Dehlin [00:12:38] If we laid that foundation that the 12 has to, you know, consent, I may not have.

Nemo [00:12:44] Yeah, but that. That's. That's essentially the way that it works. The way that they portray it to the public is that if they have a decision to make the. The 12 and the First Presidency get together so all 15 of them get together, and they won't action or they won't act on it until it's unanimous. Now, there are. I mean, there are other stories about how that isn't necessarily true or even always the case, but that's the image they present to the public. So my question based on that image would be, if he's had these concerns all this time, why is it only when he's the boss man that he's now able to address them? Because if he'd had them before, surely they would have stopped anything moving forward because he didn't consent.

John Dehlin [00:13:16] And people may not even have the history of what you're talking about, Nemo, because a lot of our listeners and viewers have never been Mormons, so they don't know about the flurry of changes that Russell M. Nelson has made since he became prophet. But, Mike, what did you want to emphasize about that video?

Mike [00:13:31] No, I mean, it's kind of what Nemo said, which is just it, really. To me, Wendy, Nelson is saying, without saying it, that becoming prophet means that you are able to implement your worldview on the church because you now have the power to do it unquestioned. And so by saying he's unleashed. It's like saying Russell Nelson had all these ideas that were so awesome, but he was leashed by the fact that he wasn't the oldest member to Be prophet. And all of a sudden he does it. He's unleashed and just starts doing all the things he always wanted to do. And it just. To me, we're going to get to that in Russell Nelson's revelations later in this episode. But I think that that quote doesn't just apply to Nelson. It applies to every prophet because it shows that at the end of the day, every prophet in the Mormon Church, from Joseph Smith to Russell Nelson, is constrained by their own worldview and is limited to their own worldview. It's why they don't have information about the future. It's, it's, it's entirely things they've wanted to do anyways, but now can do it in the name of God.

John Dehlin [00:14:25] So if a. So if a, A non president of the church who's a sitting member of the quorum of the 12 is storing up ideas of once the guys ahead of me die, here's all the changes I want to make, which is obviously what Wendy Nelson is here saying her husband, Russell M. Nelson has done, then it's more problematic to claim that those revelations come from God. It signals that it's more just the ideas and the pet projects of the apostle prophet in waiting than really coming from God.

Nemo [00:15:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:02] Is that the argument here? Okay.

Mike [00:15:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:06] My understanding from reading Dialogue, a Journal of Mormon Thought, is that when Joseph Smith died, he was referred to by subsequent presidents of the church as, as the prophet and that Brigham. From Brigham Young to the guy who comes before David O. McKay, George Albert Smith. I believe that none of those presidents of the church were comfortable being referred to as the prophet. And even Brigham Young himself, who you skipped over, if you just notice we skipped over to John Taylor. My understanding, and you guys can tell me if you have a different understanding, is that Brigham Young didn't think of himself as a prophet. He thought of himself as the caretaker of the church and a president, almost like a corporate manager of the church after Joseph Smith died. Now, I'm sure that you would find contradictions to what I'm saying in the Journal of Discourses, but I'm pretty confident there's at least something to what I'm saying.

Nemo [00:16:13] It would explain a lot. It would explain a lot about the current attitude of the presidents of the church and about the sort of corporate nature of their involvement with the church. They oversee far more of the managerial aspects of the church than you would expect someone who is acting solely in the role of a prophet as, like a spiritual leader. You wouldn't expect them to be as involved in the Sort of management and administrative tasks of the running of a church.

John Dehlin [00:16:39] Right.

Nemo [00:16:39] As the current Quorum of the twelve and First Pres. In my view.

John Dehlin [00:16:43] Mike, anything you want to add? Have you read any of that?

Mike [00:16:45] That's. That's what I've heard too, is that they didn't refer to the prophets of the church as prophet. They referred to him as the president of the church. And I think until, like you said, was it was George A. Smith or. No, it was David McKay.

Speaker E [00:16:58] Right.

Mike [00:16:58] Was the first one that started getting. So he started getting called prophet and all of a sudden it just kind of stuck again. And I think it's why you have this weird interchange. Like, a lot of times when Russell Nelson does, like a public event, so it's like the NAACP or another church, they kind of refer to him as like President Nelson because I think it feels more formal as opposed to like, they want the members to think of him as prophet because obviously that's the whole kind of secret sauce of Mormonism. But, yeah, I think there was that gap where people didn't really feel maybe like they were worthy enough to call themselves profit. And you see that in the fact that Mormon leaders don't really have anything new to say, at least from the voice of God.

John Taylor's 1886 Revelation on Polygamy

John Dehlin [00:17:34] Yeah. And the other context I just wanted to lay before we jump to John Taylor, that our viewers and listeners will probably have thought about, but I just wanna make sure they have a chance to think about it. If we look at all the sections that Joseph Smith added to what Mormons call the Doctrine and Covenants, which is canonized Scripture. And of course, it's complicated because there was the Book of Commandments before the Doctrine and Covenants, but let's just put the number at around 140, you know, revelations that were added to the Doctrine and Covenants during Joseph Smith's life, give or take however many 5 or 10 or whatever, almost none have been added since then. And that should be immediately suspicious because if we think about all the prophets from Brigham Young to present as prophets, seers and revelators, like unto Joseph Smith, why did they not continue to. To add revelations to the Doctrine and Covenants? The only things that have really been added, I think, is the ones that I know of are the declarations that we're gonna talk about later, which is the cessation of polygamy, the first cessation of polygamy, which is the Declaration one, I believe. And by the way, there was a second cessation of polygamy called the Second Manifesto that conveniently they didn't add because it was embarrassing. So there's the first manifesto, and then the second manifesto is when black members of the church were allowed to have. The males were allowed out of the priesthood. And.

Nemo [00:19:04] Oh, the official declarations.

John Dehlin [00:19:05] The official declarations, right. So other than that, you know, and maybe a Wilford Woodruff vision, I'm not sure, but there's like, been almost nothing added. And I think that's an important thing to note before we talk about John Taylor.

Nemo [00:19:18] And that's why I think Down Lake jokes is pushing so hard for family Proclamation to essentially become canonized scripture. That thing that would be added.

John Dehlin [00:19:27] But even that, as of 2023, is not scripture.

Nemo [00:19:30] No, it's not. And this is why I want to big up Community of Christ right here. This is their Book of Doctrine and Covenants. And the last thing they added was section 165, which was given in 2016.

John Dehlin [00:19:41] Yeah.

Nemo [00:19:41] And they. In Independence, Missouri. And they make a point of saying here that this document is offered humbly for that purpose as an expression of our cherished principle of continuing revelation.

John Dehlin [00:19:51] Right. So there's.

Nemo [00:19:52] Doing it.

John Dehlin [00:19:53] Yeah. So this, you know, one of the breakoffs of Mormonism, former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, currently Community of Christ, they actually do add to their doctrine and covenants.

Nemo [00:20:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:20:05] You know, things. Things. Anyway, I, it was super rude of me to interrupt you, Mike, but I think that's important background to add here.

Mike [00:20:12] Yeah, I mean, it's been, it's been 100 years, I think, since they've had a canonized revelation. So obviously that's a big deal. And one thing, if you, if you look at the churches, I think it might be their. In their actual gospel topics, I say they refer to it. The proclamation on polygamy, I believe is an inspired document or is an inspired. It's. They don't really call it like a revelation from God because it doesn't. It reads like a legal document. So. Yeah, that's a, that's a. We'll. We'll note that a lot with the priesthood lifting, because we're going to talk about that as well. So it's. It is good foundation. And if you're in the church today, a lot of times, you know, I, I always come across it when people are talking to me, I'm like, what's the last revelation? And they'll say, oh, it's the, the family proclamation. Or, oh, it's the changing from three to two hours. It's like, no, no, what's the last real revelation? And It's. It's a question that is definitely a red flag because, yeah, it's been 100 years since we've had one, and it doesn't really make sense, given how crazy the world has been over the last hundred years, that we don't have them. So that's. And that's what we're talking about at the beginning. The contrast between how Joseph Smith could get a revelation when someone would come up to him and ask if they should go on a mission. It'd be like a literal canonized revelation saying, you need to go on a mission, sell your stuff. We're gonna send you out in the spring. And then today they're like, we need to know who Heavenly Mother is. And the leaders are like, yeah, we have no idea who she is. It really does show.

John Dehlin [00:21:28] Or LG or LGBT stuff. Yeah. Or anything. Indigestion could prompt Joseph Smith to have a revelation. Nowadays you can't buy it.

Nemo [00:21:36] With his wife not wanting to clean up tobacco mess prompted a revelation.

John Dehlin [00:21:41] Yeah. Nowadays you couldn't buy a revelation for $200 billion. Literally, you couldn't even buy a revelation.

Nemo [00:21:47] Yeah. And.

Mike [00:21:48] And let's. Let's just to. To jump on that for a second. Let's just put it this way. Joseph Smith had a revelation because the waters were too choppy, that he was afraid to travel on the water. And today we are told that the leaders of the church clearly didn't get a revelation from God. Or maybe they did, but is there's no canonized revelation from God saying, let's create 13 shell companies to hide your money from your members. I mean, that's the thing. It sounds really, like, snarky to say that, but that's what it is. Joseph Smith is a canonized revelation because he was afraid to travel on water. The church is handling $150 billion in an investment fund with a lot of illicit activity that they had to settle with the SEC on. And yet they can't get a revelation to know what the best way to do it is. I think that tells you a lot about how Joseph Smith had no qualms about claiming to speak for God, whereas the leaders today are terrified to do so.

Nemo [00:22:37] So to round it off nicely, I guess you could say that the reason then that they weren't calling themselves prophets after Joseph Smith was because they weren't fulfilling that function. And if they continued to not call themselves prophets, you could almost excuse them not fulfilling the function that Joseph Smith filled.

Mike [00:22:52] Yeah.

Nemo [00:22:52] But as we're going to do now, going through all These. We're going to look at how these people compare to Joseph Smith, who claimed the title of prophet that they also claimed.

John Dehlin [00:23:00] Okay, Mike, well, let's go ahead and go. Now that we've got that background on, you know, prophets and revelations between Joseph Smith and John Taylor will say, let's go ahead and talk about John Taylor's 1886 revelation on polygamy.

Mike [00:23:16] Yeah, and so this is an important one. We talked about this in the episode on polygamy. But in 1886, John Taylor receives a revelation from God that was recorded in the voice of God. And that's obviously very important. This revelation was a very clear and direct commandment to continue polygamy even against the increasing pressure from the U.S. government. And this is a revelation that was not canonized. But I think most scholars agree it's an authentic one. And so I don't know if Nemour John would like to read the text of the revelation.

Nemo [00:23:44] That's fine. Specifically because John Taylor was an English prophet.

John Dehlin [00:23:49] So we've given the background on the story for those who don't know it. Do you think that we've given sufficient background?

Mike [00:23:54] I think so. I mean, basically, Joseph Smith dies, polygamy becomes a big deal in Utah, and the government doesn't like it. And so the US Government is threatening effectively to take all of the church's assets if they don't stop polygamy. And so John Taylor is effectively in hiding. He's hiding from the government because, you know, God can't protect him from the government, which we talked about in the last episode, which is also another issue where God constantly promises protection, yet never gives it. And so this revelation is written, I believe, with like, seven other people as witnesses. And they make, like seven copies or something like that. And that's why it's not canonized, because it's done while John Taylor's in hiding. And as we'll get into with the history, it just never really has a chance to be canonized. But, yeah, this is. This is being written at a time when the church is under insane pressure from the government to stop polygamy with the threats of literally taking the temple away. So the pressure is just amends on the church.

John Dehlin [00:24:47] All right. All right. Let's go to Nemo reading the revelation.

Nemo [00:24:53] My son John, you have asked me concerning the new and everlasting covenant, how far it is binding upon my people. Thus saith the Lord, all commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name, unless they are revoked by me or by my authority. And how can I revoke an everlasting covenant? For I, the Lord, am everlasting and and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with, but they stand forever. Have I not given my word in great plainness on this subject? Yet have not great numbers of my people been negligent in the observance of my law and the keeping of my commandments? And yet have I borne with them these many years? And this because of their weakness, because of the perilous times. And furthermore, it is more pleasing to me that men should use their free agency in regard to these matters. Nevertheless, I, the Lord do not change, and my word and my covenants and my law do not. And as I have heretofore said by my servant Joseph, all those who would enter into my glory must and shall obey my law. And have I not commanded men that if they were Abraham's seed and would enter into my glory, they must do the works of Abraham? I have not revoked this law, nor will I, for it is everlasting. And those who will enter into my glory must obey the conditions thereof. Even so. Amen.

John Dehlin [00:26:24] Okay, really quickly, Mike. We've talked about this in past episodes, and we don't want to go too deep on it, but my understanding is, is that John Taylor's son is. Is the one who claims that John Taylor, the prophet, gave this revelation. Is that right, Mike?

Mike [00:26:40] I think that's right. Because like I said, this is going to happen right before John Taylor basically dies. So there's just a lot of. And because a lot of the leaders of the church are in hiding, it really is not like a time when there's a lot of organization as far as this stuff. So I think it is his son who brings it forward after the fact. I'm not 100% sure on the timeline,

John Dehlin [00:26:58] and it's probably fair to say that the current LDS Church might contest the validity of this revelation and probably has in the past. But I will also add that, number one, they lied about polygamy for decades. Number two, they sent Mormons literally, Southern Alberta, you know, Southern Alberta, Cardston area, you know, Lethbridge and northern Mexico were both areas literally settled to be able to continue practicing polygamy in spite of the federal government's prohibitions. And even when we did, Declaration one, the church lied, including prophets and apostles, kept performing plural marriages. After the manifesto, the first manifesto was given, we promised the world we would stop such that it required a second manifesto. So for those who are inclined to not believe that we would continue practicing polygamy even when we had promised the world we were going to stop. I'm going to cite those factual current modern day church confirmed instances to kind of back up the likely validity of this John Taylor revelation, saying to his son, which was the foundation of the FLDS and the breakoff polygamous groups in like Colorado and southern Utah. This letter becomes the foundation of, of what becomes the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and all the spinoffs. I think there's probably more evidence that would support the validity of this quote, revelation than would undermine it. Nemo, anything you want to add to that?

Nemo [00:28:41] No, I agree. I think, you know that it's very likely that he would have received this sort of thing to back up his position. Bear in mind he's hiding because of his polygamy. So as far as he's concerned, God is clearly commanding him to keep doing this.

John Dehlin [00:28:54] Yeah, and I think there were previous prophets and revelators who again said, well, it was called the New and Everlasting Covenant. So it would make sense that John Taylor and that's in doctrine and Covenants 132. It would make sense that John Taylor would not back down because it was called the New and Everlasting Covenant. Mike, anything else you want to add?

Mike [00:29:13] No, I just, I would point out that when I was doing the research for this early on, a lot of scholars basically say, yeah, this looks authentic. So I don't think that there's a lot of, I don't think there's a lot of people in the church that would argue that it's a false rev, like a, like a forged man revelation. I think what they argue is that because it wasn't voted on, we don't have to worry about it. Which is something that we talked about in our last episode, which creates a lot of problems when you start to get down that road of like, well, if it's not voted on, we don't have to worry about it. Because then as I said last, last episode, why are we watching General Conference? Because until it's voted on, everything they're saying is just basically, you know, to quote kind of the, the, the line, the opinions of men. And so yeah, I, I, I don't think there's any reason to think that this is not an authentic revelation, at least from John Taylor's mind. And that's why I think it's so important because as we're going to go into, it's going to get reversed in just a few years.

John Dehlin [00:30:05] Yeah, all right, well, let's go ahead and go to the next slide, which are the implications of John Taylor's 1886 revelation on polygamy.

Mike [00:30:15] Yeah, and so, you know, I think this one, this is one of those ones I never heard of as a member. So I just, I always thought when I, when I came across it doing the deep dive, how important this is because it shows that John Taylor was able to record a revelation in the voice of God, which really is rare for prophets after Joseph Smith. It shows that John Taylor was receiving a revelation that confirmed his prior beliefs that polygamy was a commandment from God and that it was the new and everlasting covenant, which follows the pattern that I mentioned with the Wendy Nelson quote that prophets receive revelations that just happen to match their predetermined beliefs and worldviews. I think that's really important. But the third one, and this one's gonna be really important for this episode. This revelation shows that when a new prophet takes over, God often changes his mind. And so this revelation was recorded on September 27, 1886. But polygamy for time, it's, you know, as we've talked about before, it's still doctrine for eternity was revoked less than four years later on September 24, 1890. So we're going to see this happen again as we continue this episode. But it's really difficult to imagine an all knowing and all powerful God who is literally just throwing down the gauntlet and saying, what part of everlasting do you not understand changing his mind just four years after telling John Taylor that polygamy was the new and everlasting covenant and would never be revoked. And so as we talked about, I understand that apologists will contend that polygamy is not the new and everlasting covenant, but celestial marriages. I just, again, we talk about this in the episode on polygamy. But this is so important that when John Taylor says in the voice of God that I have and have I not commanded men that if they were Abraham's seed and would enter into my glory, they must do the works of Abraham. I have not revoked this law, nor will I, for it is everlasting. The works of Abraham 100% is, is linked to polygamy, as we see over and over in DNC132. So this is God telling John Taylor that you have to do the works of Abraham, which means polygamy, and it's never going to be revoked. Four years later, it's revoked by the next prophet. I think that's a really important thing to understand because we're going to see it again later in this episode.

John Dehlin [00:32:16] And Mike, I'm just, you know, we just did the failed prophecies of Joseph Smith. Did you include polygamy as one of the failed prophecies?

Mike [00:32:24] Well, I don't really know how to. I mean, I don't know if it really is considered a failed prophecy. It's an incorrect one.

John Dehlin [00:32:29] I'm just going to note that you could argue that it is, because if he's going to call it the new and everlasting Covenant, if God's going to implement it, if he's going to die because of it, and if the church was going to suffer incredibly for it, and again, it's called everlasting. The fact that they're renouncing it by 1890, that seems to be. And you could argue, I think, that that's a failed prophecy. Although the church isn't going to own up to a failed prophecy. I think just like the gathering in Independence, Missouri, the Zion stuff, you know, United Order, it seems to fit within those in the same type of category to me. And it's okay. It's okay if you don't agree.

Mike [00:33:18] That's a fair point. I mean, from a church stand, like, the way I look at it is, from a church standpoint, polygamy is still doctrine. It's still doctrine for eternity. So they've just kind of changed.

John Dehlin [00:33:26] Except when Joseph Smith goes on Larry King. Well, sorry, when Gordon. Except when Gordon B. Hinckley goes on Larry King Live and says, you know, it's not doctrinal.

Mike [00:33:36] Okay, so this is a quote that Gordon B. Hinckley made on Larry King Live about polygamy. He says, I condemn it. Polygamy. Yes. As a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal, it is not legal. And this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates, and honoring, obeying and sustaining the law. And so that quote, obviously is kind of relevant today. Yeah, that has not aged well given the. The fact that they. They basically hid their money and shell companies for 13 years and just got fined by the SEC. But, yeah, I mean, Gordon B. Hinckley there is absolutely lying to the public by saying it's not doctrinal because it's canonized as DNC132.

Guest [00:34:11] Yeah.

Mike [00:34:11] So, yeah, I mean, that's just. That's just being dishonest.

John Dehlin [00:34:14] Yeah. So it makes sense that John Taylor would publish this revelation saying it's never going to be changed, you know. Okay, cool. All right, well, that's, that's the first one. Are we ready to go on to the second, which is the lifting of the, the priesthood ban on, on black adults within the Mormon Church?

Mike [00:34:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:37] All right, let's go to it. The lifting of the priesthood ban is the next, you know, problematic policy slash revelation.

The 1978 Lifting of the Priesthood Ban

Mike [00:34:45] And this is one, you know, a little bit ago I said, you know, when you ask members what the last revelation was, a lot of them will say the proclamation of the family, and a lot will say the lifting of the priesthood ban. And this is one we covered. We did two episodes on this and this is frequently hailed as a modern day revelation. And so I'm going to include some of what we already kind of talked about in the previous episodes. And this is from the Church's own essay on race in the priesthood. They say I put this in bold because it's important. They say this revelation on the priesthood, as it is commonly known in the church, was a landmark revelation and a historic event. Those who were present at the time described it in reverent terms. Gordon B. Hinckley, then a member of the quorum of the 12, remembered it this way. There was a hallowed and sanctified atmosphere in the room. For me, it felt as if a conduit opened between the heavenly throne and the kneeling, pleading prophet of God who was joined by his brethren. Every man in that circle, by the power of the Holy Ghost, knew the same thing. Not one of us who was present on that occasion was ever quite the same after that, nor has the church been quite the same. And, and, and one thing I'll point out in that is that Gordon B. Hinckley says every man who was there, because I believe there were two that were sent away because they knew that they wouldn't agree to it and so they sent them away. It was one Marky Peterson, I think there was one other one, but it might, might have just been Markey Peterson because they needed it to be unanimous. So they got him out of there so they could get a pass, which I find kind of an interesting thing. But the second one, which we'll talk about in a second, is just that the way Gordon B. Hinckley describes as a revelation is, is absolutely not how described when you get behind the scenes.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] So to just give a tiny bit of background for those who have never been Mormon, the Mormon Church, you know, Joseph Smith ordained black men to the priesthood, and that happened. A few, at least a few black men were ordained to the priesthood between the founding of the church and kind of early Utah period. But at some point, Brigham Young, who was super racist, you know, implemented the policy to keep black men from receiving the priesthood and to keep black adults from entering the temple and doing temple work. And that ban persisted from, you know, from Joseph, from Brigham Young's time, let's just say, all the way through to 1978 when it was lifted. So, Mike, you're talking about the lifting of the priesthood ban in 1978. Are you going to be mentioning that at least two first presidencies confirmed the priesthood ban as doctrine? Are you going to be mentioning that already, Mike?

Mike [00:37:19] You know what? I don't think I have it in here just because we did that before. But yeah, and that's another important point to note, is that we have first presidencies that signed. The one that is literally signed, you can see it online, by the first president. He says this is doctrine from God. The ban on those with black skin is doctrine from God. And. And so it's another area where you've got the one prophet who has a worldview that God doesn't want. People with black skin holding the priesthood, holding the line. And then you've got another one who's. Obviously, there's a lot of outside pressure, too, but it's amazing how these prophets are getting different answers from an unchangeable God. It really is something that is striking.

John Dehlin [00:37:57] And we'll ask Maven to include in the show notes a link to first presidency statements that confirm the priesthood ban on black members of the church. Okay, so what you just read is sort of like almost. It sounds like spin from Gordon B. Hinckley. Was it about how miraculous the lifting of the priesthood ban was, how it was pure revelation. Now let's go to the slide that actually talks about. Should we say how the sausage is made? Actually, yeah. How the revelation sausage is actually made.

Mike [00:38:32] And we covered this in our episodes on Racing the priesthood. But this is so important. And this is an interview that's being done by Apostle Legrand Richards to Wesley Walters. And if I understand correctly, Legrand Richards was not happy that this interview got published because he's being a little too candid here. And so I don't know if Nemo or John want to read this because it's a bit of a bunch of texts, but it's important.

Nemo [00:38:55] Which one do you want to be, John? Do you want to be Walters or Richards?

Mike [00:38:57] Oh, there you go.

John Dehlin [00:38:58] I'll be Walters.

Nemo [00:39:00] Okay, cool.

John Dehlin [00:39:00] Okay, Walters, on this revelation of the priesthood to the Negro I've heard all kinds of stories. I've heard that Christ appeared to the apostles. I've heard that Joseph Smith appeared. And then I heard another story that Spencer W. Kimball had had a concern about this for some time and simply shared it with the apostles. And they decided that this was the right time to move in that direction. Now, are any of those stories true, or are they all?

Nemo [00:39:32] Well, the last one is pretty true. And I might tell you what provoked it in a way. Down in Brazil, there is so much Negro blood in the population there that it's hard to get leaders that don't have Negro blood in them. We just built a temple down there. It's going to be dedicated in October. All those people with Negro blood in them have been raising money to build that temple. And then if we don't change, then they can't even use it. So Brother Kimball worried about it, and he prayed about it a lot. He asked each one of us, the 12, if we would pray, and we did, that the Lord would give him the inspiration to know what the will of the Lord was. And then he invited each of us in his office individually, because, you know, when you're in a group, you can't always express everything that's in your heart. You're part of the group, you see. So he interviewed each one of us personally to see how we felt about it, and he asked us to pray about it. And then he asked each one of us to hand in all the references we had for or against that proposal. See, he was thinking favorably towards giving the colored people the priesthood. Then we had a meeting where we meet every week in the temple, and we discussed it as a group together. And then we prayed about it in our prayer circle. And then we held another prayer circle after the close of the meeting. And he led in the prayer, praying that the Lord would give us the inspiration that we needed to do the things that would be pleasing to him and for the blessing of his children. And then the next Thursday, we meet, every Thursday the Presidency came with this little document written out to make the announcement, to see how we'd feel about it and present it in written form. Well, some of the members of the 12 suggested a few changes in the announcement. And then in our meeting there, we all voted in favor of it. The 12 and the presidency. One member of the 12, Mark Peterson, was down in South America, but Brother Benson, our President, had arranged to know where he could be reached by phone. And right while we were in that meeting in the temple, Brother Kimball talked with Brother Peterson and read him this article and he, Peterson, approved of it.

John Dehlin [00:41:39] This is Walters again. Now, there wasn't a special document as a revelation that he had and wrote down.

Nemo [00:41:47] We discussed it in our meeting. What else should we say besides that announcement? And we decided that was sufficient, that no more needed to be said.

John Dehlin [00:41:56] Okay. And I'm just going to let everyone know. I just went out and googled and I found a document called Interview with Mormon apostle LeGrand Richards concerning the 1978 Negro revelation. And I've included a link to it in the show notes. But, you know, for those who don't want to believe that what you just read was anything important, that was a Mormon apostle LeGrand Richards giving a detailed account of, of. Of actually how the, you know, what led to the priesthood ban. Mike, do you want to call out or highlight what you think is most interesting about that exchange?

Mike [00:42:35] I just think when you read the exchange, LeGrand Richards is saying there's no, like, grand revelation here that's being recorded and being voted on is basically, they're being called in and say, basically the church is saying, we're thinking about doing this. What are your thoughts? And then they give them all a statement and they can all kind of make their edits or suggestions. Then basically they, they take all of those suggestions, they come up with a final statement that's voted on. And once it's voted on, it's released to the public and the ban is lifted. So at no point in there are they mentioning that God is coming down in the same way that Joseph Smith would claim or even John Taylor with a direct revelation. This is basically the church trying to find a way to end the ban and just basically getting the input of the 12th so that they can get that unanimous vote. And so it just doesn't fit with the way Gordon Binkley, Gordon B. Hinckley describes it, in my opinion. In my opinion, it reads more like if you had a corporate boardroom and they're trying to do a press release and they're trying to make sure they hit the right notes. That's more what LeGrand Richards is saying. And I think that's why he was upset this interview got released.

John Dehlin [00:43:34] Yeah. And I'm going to say, and Nemo, I want to get your reactions to it. I just want to note the fact that somehow it wasn't at all bothersome or problematic to Mormon prophets, seers and revelators that black people and the specifically black Africans and black African Americans were being denied the priesthood. It was like, oh, oh, wait, Brazilians of color are being denied the priesthood, all of a sudden that's a problem. And of course, we all know that for those who knew, Spencer W. Kimball will know that he had a special place in his heart for, quote, the Lamanites. And what we mean by that term, which is now deemed offensive, the Lamanites. What he meant was, you know, members of the church in Central and South America. It's almost like. Well, because Kimball really cared about Latinos and Brazilians are Latinos. Then he wanted the church to grow in Brazil. Then they all realized that a lot of the. A lot of the Brazilian saints had African ancestry. Then all of a sudden, in the 70s, if they're going to build a temple there, and a bunch of Brazilians want to go to the temple and get married in the temple, all of a sudden they have a problem on their hands. And because they've been giving the priesthood to the Brazilians for a long, long time, while they've been denying the priesthood to Africans for a long. And African Americans for a long, long time. Well, then all of a sudden, it's important, and it just shows to me, tell me, Nemo, if I've got that wrong. It sort of sends the message we really didn't care about African Americans and we really didn't care about black Africans. You know, black white South Africans were okay, but certainly not black Africans. But, but, but, yeah, I guess we did care about black Brazilians.

Nemo [00:45:25] I think it's. It's an expediency thing. It's an incredibly expedient and convenient and pragmatic revelation to receive at the time they received it. And the Grand Richards kind of made that obvious, that, well, we've just built a temple, and how else are we going to run that temple without members? And none of the members down there currently can have the priesthood. So I guess that ought to change. That's. That's. It seems that was the main motivation for it.

John Dehlin [00:45:46] Yeah. And, Mike, you've got, you've got, you've got some of your takeaways on this next slide, so we'll just go to that.

Mike [00:45:52] Yeah, I mean, we, you know, for the most part, we've covered a little bit, but, you know, to me, it just. It reads like the ban was lifted more in a solution to a problem than a revelation. As we talked about, you know, it's. It's basically, as Nemo just said, it's a signed statement that allowed the church to solve an attendance problem. And as we kind of have talked about in these previous episodes in Revelation, it's really shocking, this one in particular, because usually the church responds to outside events. You know, Joseph Smith with the temperance movement, you know, obviously I'm a. Emma was the catalyst there. But the civil rights movement was going on and it did not change the church's mind about whether or not God would want people with black skin to be able to have saving ordinances. But a desire to increase attendance at a new temple where the population was predominantly of those with dark skin all of a sudden gets them to make the change. And, you know, when you think of all the struggles that members of black skin had in the church, you know, basically since the ban was implemented, it was, as Apostle Richards admits, the desire that all those people with negro blood in them were able to attend the new temple in Brazil that finally pushed the prophet seers and revelators to action. Which again is stunning given that we have signed statements saying this is doctrine from God. And you know, just. I don't really know what more to say outside. Just saying any idea that the lifting of the ban was some kind of grand revelation that was implied in the Gospel topics essay and is taught today is just simply not how it happened. Especially when we have an account from someone who's there and who's talking, you know, very candidly in this interview. And even with a statement that lifted the ban on members of the African blood, the church still left all of the scriptures that led to the ban in place, and they are in place today. And so I do think that's another problem that you would think if they're going to have some grand revelation, God would all say, hey, you might want to get all that racism out of the Book of Mormon, the book of Moses and the book of Abraham. But they are all still there.

John Dehlin [00:47:41] Yeah.

Nemo [00:47:41] The point I'd like to raise just real quick is that the justification they tried to use, because I've actually just done some shorts on this. The justification they used when they announced the. The removal of the ban was that it is the long awaited day foretold by prophets before us. So they try and put it on Brigham Young when he said that there will come a day when black people will get the priesthood. The problem is Brigham Young made it very clear that black people wouldn't get the priesthood until all the non black people had been redeemed. He talks about the seed of Abel needs to be redeemed before the seed of Cain can receive salvation or redemption. So that doesn't wash. But I just think it's important to

Mike [00:48:18] note, oh no, it's very important for sure.

John Dehlin [00:48:20] And I'll just add, not only, you know, did the prophets not, you know, get a. Mormon prophets did not like, lead the civil rights movement. That that's a problem in the United States. It seems like they should have been the ones leading it. But not only did they not lead it, not only did they not join it and support it, they denounced it. And we, you know, we've got entire, you know, a series on Mormon stories with Matt Matthew Harris talking about Ezra Tab Benson and the civil rights movement in the 60s and 70s. And Matt Harris has a book coming out about that. But that's another huge problem is Mormons, Mormon prophetseers and revelators are like consistently a generation or two behind the civil rights movements. And if anything should have changed the priesthood ban, it should have been the civil rights movement. But people like Ezra Benson and Markey Peterson and Harold B. Lee and others were opposed to it. And I do want to add one more thing. If you read Michael Quinn's book, it's either Origins of Power, Extensions of Power, I'm not sure which. He talks about how Hubie Brown, who was in the first presidency under David O. McKay's administration, Hubie Brown in the early 60s, wanted the priesthood ban lifted. And he lobbied and lobbied and lobbied for it. Then he. Wait, then finally, when David O. McKay is really old and David O. McKay is almost invalid, Hubie Brown is able to sort of like, you know, call a meeting, I think in 1968 and actually persuade the, you know, he waits until like the right apostles are like traveling and then he actually calls a vote. The apostles agree that the priesthood band should be lifted 10 years before it was. But then apparently certain apostles get back into town and they scuttle what was voted on and agreed to. And then it took another 10 years before it was lifted. So again, you can call, you know, a progressive or liberal Mormon is going to say, yeah, that's revelation. It's messy, it's lobbying and it's backroom deals and it's, you know, calling for a vote when a certain apostle's out of town. You could say that that's all revelation. But once you know how the sausage gets made, and then when you add to it the fact that that revelations as important as law of consecration or united order, you know, Zion in the New Jerusalem and the new and everlasting covenant of polygamy, if you can see that not only can they get repealed, but they're clearly only repealed when there's massive social pressure or the whims of the current prophet. I think all of that really, really calls into question what's the value of prophecy and revelation if this is really how it's made?

Speaker E [00:51:22] Yeah.

Mike [00:51:24] And I would note we have the 12 and the first presidency are all ordained prophet seers and revelators.

Speaker E [00:51:31] Right.

Mike [00:51:32] And how is it that you can have 15 men who are ordained prophets, seers and revelators getting different ideas from God? And that, to me, is the biggest indication that, as I've mentioned these last episodes, either these men are beholden to their own worldview. As Wendy Nelson said, they're basically leashed to their worldview and to the power they hold, or God does not have the ability to reach any of these people. And so if you have 15 men who cannot tell the will of God from the will of their own worldview, that's a problem. And that is the exact kind of organization you want to run from, because they cannot tell when what's coming from God and what's coming from their own prejudices and their own experiences. And I think that is the biggest indicator from the priesthood ban is that they had to work so hard to get these apostles to line up. And even then they had to send Mark Peterson out of town because God apparently couldn't go to Mark Peterson and say, dude, cut the racist crap out. We're done with that. But instead, Marky Peterson has some of the most vile quotes you'll ever hear as an apostle of the Lord of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that tells you that God is either very powerless or these men don't speak to God. And they're basically just trying to persuade people out of their own worldview. It's like politics. And that. That should not be how revelation is. If God really has a conduit to these people.

John Dehlin [00:52:47] Yeah. All right, well, if that weren't enough, we're going to talk about something near and dear to my heart. And that's the changes to the temple ceremony. Now, just to refer to past episodes, we've given a lot of background and context to the Mormon endowment. There's an episode on masonry in the temple that we can have Maven include in the show notes. Right, Right. Mike?

Changes to the Temple Ceremony Over Time

Mike [00:53:16] Yeah, we did an episode that's going to cover a lot of this, but this will. So this will be a kind of a quick. Just look back at that.

John Dehlin [00:53:22] Okay, so just. Just the background really quickly is that Joseph Smith was a Mason. He went through the Mason temple ceremony when he was in Nauvoo. He incorporated really horrific penalties where he's slicing his throat and disemboweling himself. The handshakes, you know, the signs and tokens, the garb, the clothing, and the five points of fellowship. So much of the Mormon temp, the Mason temple ceremony was just, like, stolen from and imported into the Mormon temple ceremony. And that existed all the way through my time, all the way through 1990. I mean, there were changes all along the way, but up until 1990, in my lifetime, a lot of these horrific things were still in the temple ceremony. Now, let's go ahead and go to this slide about changes to the temple ceremony.

Mike [00:54:13] Yeah. And so, just as we noted, and we have a whole episode on the endowment ceremony in masonry. And, you know, we mentioned in that episode that a lot of changes have been made to the temple over the years. And these are changes that oftentimes that came after surveys were sent to members about their temple experience. And we talked about that in the episode. But just as with all of the other changes to the church's doctrines and policies, this is an area where we were originally told that the temple ceremony would never be changed because changes in ancient times were for the convenience of men. And so this is David B. Height at the October 79th General Conference.

John Dehlin [00:54:46] Sorry, Mormons are going to hear that. Hate, David. Hate.

Mike [00:54:49] Yeah. So we explained briefly the apostasy and the restoration that there is vast evidence in history of an apostasy from the doctrine taught by Jesus and his apostles that the organization of the original church became corrupted and sacred ordinances were changed to suit the convenience of men. And that today good people all over the world are confused with contending religions with differing doctrine and methods of worship. And so he's making it very clear that the original church had these ceremonies, but that they changed them to basically suit their own convenience. And to make, you know, I would say, more clear, Brigham Young worked to create what is called a perfected version of the in temple ceremony. They had many drafts to make sure that the ceremony was exactly as God wanted it. On March 21, 1877, Wilfred Woodruff recorded the following in his journal. President Young has been laboring all winter to get up a perfect form of endowments as far as possible. They having been perfected, I read them to the company today. And so the church is saying that basically the original church made changes because basically they were corrupted. And Brigham Young is saying that he got the perfect endowment ceremony, and that is recorded. And so what you should have is a temple ceremony that would never change.

John Dehlin [00:56:02] Okay. And I think what we're going to learn in the next slide is. Well, and what we've already said is that the truth is there have been a ton of changes to the temple. Temple ceremony, yeah. Are you going to list them or should we list them now?

Mike [00:56:15] You can list them now. I don't think I have, like, a whole list.

John Dehlin [00:56:17] Okay, so I'll just say. I'll just say they've changed the film. They've. They've taken out the five points of fellowship that was Masonic. They took out all the. All the horrible penalties like slicing your neck. They took out that women hearken to their husbands as the hark. As the husband's covenant with God. They took off. The women veiling their face. They. They took off. Oh, when you. When you went through and you did your washings and anointings, used to wear this super, super immodest poncho called the shield. A shield that went over. Just a hole that went over. Your sides were fully exposed. They would put oil, touch different parts of your body, including your groin, with oil. You know all of this without, you know, previous written consent. There used to be a preacher in the temple ceremony that wore a collar that used to condemn other religions, including the Catholic Church. I know that they used to condemn the state of Illinois in the Mormon temple ceremony and have everyone covenant. You know something about the condemnation of the state of Illinois or Missouri. I forget which ones. And those are just the ones coming to the top of my brain. Nemo, any other changes you want to.

Nemo [00:57:38] They got rid of the covenant to a. Avoid loud laughter. Very important. That's the most recent change that happened in February this year. And you're forgetting the most important change of all. John. The little tie between the cap and the robe's gone.

John Dehlin [00:57:51] Oh, yeah, that's huge. You used to tie your. Your hat. Used to tie your baker's cap to, like, a little, I don't know, thing on your shoulder, basically. All right, Mike. And so lots. All I'm saying is massive, massive changes to the temple ceremony.

Nemo [00:58:07] Yeah, just. Just real quick, not to, like, just the presentation meth. You know the joke about the tying from the cap? Right, Whatever that can change. But actual changes to the nature and the conditions of the covenants that you make. So people going through at different times essentially make different covenants with God. That's the key to those changes that they. They change the nature of the covenants that you're making. So the nature of the theology of the ceremony. Sorry.

Guest [00:58:34] Okay, okay.

Mike [00:58:35] No, that's a good point. And it's a Very true. 1. It's just the, the, the slicing your own throat, cutting out your bowels. You know, a lot of that was taken out largely because people didn't want to go to the temple, because it's really creepy to vow to kill yourself if you reveal the temple. I went through the temple before the changes in 2005. So I had the shield on and I had a naked old man touch my inner. My naked inner thigh with oil. Had no idea that was going to happen. Those are the things. And I remember just feeling shattered inside. And then the worst part of all is you've got this naked old guy rubbing oil on your naked inner thigh, and all of the people around you after you get out of it are looking at you and smiling as if it's somehow normal. And I think that's the reason that now you go through with, with, with the, the Church's in garments with the Masonic symbols on it. You go through with those on, and I think you're just tapped in the forehead now. But, but the point is, a lot of these changes are being made at the exact same time that we've got, or I should say a little bit after you've got people saying that they were done in ancient times for the convenience of men. It's, it's a little bit, you know, it's a problem when you compare the fact that they're doing exactly what they're, you know, accusing the ancient church of doing.

John Dehlin [00:59:46] Got it. Okay, so what are the implications of the changes to the temple ceremony?

Mike [00:59:51] Yeah, and so. Oh, that's another big one that we forgot is that the Adam God doctrine was present in the temple ceremony. Brigham Young added that Adam was our God into the temple ceremony. And after Brigham Young died, they got that out of there pretty quickly because, you know, it's a problem, and it's one that the Church tries to say was more the philosophy of men. Well, guess what? It's in the temple ceremony. And this is another thing where you go, how in the world is Brigham Young perfecting the temple ceremony and adding in something that the Church today is running away from as fast as they can? That is another sign that these are all men that are just thinking on their own and have their own philosophies and their own theologies, and yet the Church had to yank that one out. And today they pretend like it was never in there, but it was absolutely. In the lectures at the Veil, we

John Dehlin [01:00:33] should probably add LDS discussions episode specifically about temple changes, don't you think?

Nemo [01:00:40] I think we covered.

Mike [01:00:41] We Covered a lot of them in that episode. We have to look to see which ones are missing.

John Dehlin [01:00:44] I'm just saying, for SEO reasons, having an episode just dedicated to that probably helps people who want to find that specific topic find it anyway.

Nemo [01:00:53] Specific resource.

John Dehlin [01:00:54] Just. Just an idea. I think it would be useful to do that.

Mike [01:00:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:58] Okay. So other. Other implications on the changes to the temple ceremony.

Mike [01:01:02] Yeah. And so you know, we talked about they removed the. The penalties where you animate your own death, that they remove some of the sexism from the church. And apologists will contend that these changes are the result of ongoing revelation. But the truth is like we said, Adam God doctrine was claimed to be received directly from God by prophet Brigham Young, or he would like to be called President Brigham Young. Are we to believe that God told one prophet that Adam is our God, our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do, but then told the other future prophets? Never mind. It really explains how revelation works. Brigham Young believed that those were the teachings of Joseph Smith and were revelation from God. And every prophet after him did not believe that. And so they dropped the doctrine. And current day leaders try to pretend it was never a part of the temple ceremony. In other words, the people under Brigham Young believed that Brigham Young was wrong, but they were leashed. And then they became prophet and as Wendy Nelson says, they became unleashed and were able to do the things they always wanted to do. And the reality is that the changes to the temple have been explicitly to appease the convenience of men. The penalties were removed because people realized how barbaric they are and did not like mimicking their own suicide for talking about the temple. And the removal of some of the sexism in 2019 was done because women did not like that men gave themselves to God while women were giving themselves to their husband, which is a direct remnant of polygamy's influence on the temple ceremony. We are constantly taught in the church that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Yet we are also constantly given revelations that are reversing previous revelations from God, changing perfected temple ceremonies, and are even sometimes at odds with the scriptures. And I think when you look at all that from the big picture, it becomes really clear, just as Wendy Nelson said, these are all men who are basically just doing the things they always wanted to do but lack the power to do. And also the result of surveys that are telling people that members are extremely creeped out by the Mormon Temple, which I would have to agree.

John Dehlin [01:02:49] I was, I'm going to say it's not suicide. I think it's homicide because it says suffer my life to be taken.

Mike [01:02:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:56] It doesn't say take my own life.

Mike [01:02:58] It says some people, some people do say like, they'll say like when you slit your own throat, it's not that you're, you're actually slitting it. It's that you're basically saying, this is going to happen to me if I reveal it, someone else will do it. And then apologists will say, yeah, they said it, but like no one ever was killed for it, so you can't really worry about it. But the fact is, and to me, more importantly, one, the part of I forgot what the phrase is that Joseph Smith used, but he's like, basically the best part about Masonry is secrecy. And so he was pulling this from the Mason, the Masonic ceremony. Because it's very effective to get people to stop, to not talk about it. But at the same time, whether you're doing it or someone else is doing it, it's pretty insane that God would want you to think that your throat will be slit if you talk about the temple, outside the temple. It's just, it's one of those things where when you leave you're like, holy. Well, first of all, I didn't that all those words were taken out. I think in 1978. They took, they took the rest of it out, but. Or not 1990. And so like Mitt Romney would have had to have gone through with that. And so that was one of the things in the BBC interview. But yeah, it's. These changes are being made because people are at this point where they're like, yeah, that's weird. And the garments have changed because people are realizing it's a little weird to wear underwear with Masonic symbols that would go from ankle to sleeve. So now they're shorter. They're still very long, but they're shorter. And so these changes are being made for the convenience of men and every once in a while the convenience of women as well.

Speaker E [01:04:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:19] Nemo, anything you want to add?

Nemo [01:04:21] Not particularly. I mean, it's wild that it changes, you know.

John Dehlin [01:04:25] Yeah, yeah. And you just have to ask, why would God's revealed holy, sacred, most sacred temple ceremony, most sacred ceremony of all,

Nemo [01:04:35] restoration of ancient rites.

John Dehlin [01:04:37] Yeah. You know, why would that need to change? And not just change, but change radically. And not just change radically, but change multiple times radically. And not just change multiple times radically, but always change multiple times radically in response to complaints or the God makers or, you know, feminists in, you know, in the 2010s complaining on the Internet. It just always seems like the changes. It just seems like whenever there's, you know, since Joseph Smith, any revelation is really the undoing of a failed revelation previous. I mean, there may be exceptions to that. But even if you want to say the proclamation of the family isn't necessarily a reversal of failed revelation, we know that the proclamation of the family started as a legal brief in a lawsuit in Hawaii that grew into a declaration that has not been canonized yet. So, I mean, where are the prop. Would the prophet seers and revelators please stand up?

Nemo [01:05:41] Yeah, I'm waiting for Russell M. Nelson's little thing that he did at the April conference of 2020 to end up somehow canonized. His kind of thing of the first missionary discussion as. As a special little announcement.

Mike [01:05:54] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

John Dehlin [01:05:55] Yeah.

Mike [01:05:56] Yep.

Russell Nelson's Revelation on the Church's Name

John Dehlin [01:05:57] Okay, well, let's go ahead and go to the next one. Which, man. It's just hard to view this as revelation. It's hard to even swallow this one. But, yeah, it's the revelation by Russell M. Nelson that we need to not use the word Mormon. Let's cover it.

Mike [01:06:19] Yeah. And this was like, literally right after I started looking into church history. And so to come across this was just when he announced this, you're like, you've really like, this is. This is where you're going. And so after Russell M. Nelson became the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, his first major action was to warn the church against using the name Mormon to describe the church. And many members felt this was a true revelation from God because Nelson said that the Lord impressed upon his mind the importance of the name he decreed for his church, even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So Russell Nelson is basically saying, God put this in my head. It's revelation. So he's not using the word revelation, but he's saying everything else so that members get the direct implication that this is revelation. And this was the problem that most members are not aware of, and I certainly wasn't when it happened. Nelson was pushing this exact line of thought for 28 years before he was sustained as prophet of the church. In April 1990, Nelson gave a talk appropriately called Thus Shall My Church Be Called, where Nelson maps out the exact same arguments he made in 2018 as a prophet. And he had two prophets who basically just laughed him off. And I think to me, that is the biggest sign ever that God does not speak to these men. Because how in the world are three prophets getting very different ideas of what

Nemo [01:07:38] God is offended by and spending millions of dollars on that very cause, which I'm sure we'll come to.

Mike [01:07:44] Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:07:47] Okay, so we've actually, I think it's beautiful. I think we've got some video clips comparing, you know, Gordon B. Hinckley with Russell and Nelson past profit versus current profit. Is that right?

Mike [01:08:00] Yeah, this video. Yeah, this video is on. On YouTube. And it's amazing because it really. It's going to take what Nelson is saying in 2020 or 2018. I'm sorry. And it's going to compare it to Gordon B. Hley. And now Gordon B. Hley is going to give a talk six months after Nelson gave his Thus shall my church be called talk in 1990. Six months later, Gordon B. Hinckley is going to go out there and just basically smack Nelson down upside the head to basically say, like, dude, you are like, this is ridiculous. And so watch the video and just look at how Gordon B. Hinckley just basically takes what Nelson does, body slams him into the ground, and then does like a, you know, a flying elbow smash off the turnbuckles. Because it's amazing to see how Russell Nelson is 28 years later can be like, yeah, God revealed this to me. And yet Hinckley here is just basically apparently disconnected from the same God. This video is amazing as far as just showing how prophets are getting completely different messages from God.

John Dehlin [01:08:56] All right, all right, let's go to the video.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [01:09:02] Today I feel compelled to discuss with you a matter of great importance. Some weeks ago, I released a statement regarding a course correction for the name of the church.

Video Clip 1 [01:09:12] Many of our people are disturbed by the practice of the media and of many others to disregard totally the true name of the church and to use the nickname the Mormon Church. Six months ago in our conference, Elder Russell M. Nelson delivered an excellent address on the correct name of the church.

Video Clip 1 [01:09:29] I did this because the Lord impressed upon upon my mind the importance of the name he decreed for his church, even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Video Clip 1 [01:09:40] He quoted the words of the Lord, thus shall my church be called in the last days even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Video Clip 1 [01:09:51] As you would expect, responses to this statement and to the revised style guide have been mixed. Many members immediately corrected the name of the church on their blogs and social media pages. Others wondered why, with all that is going on in the world, it was necessary to emphasize something so inconsequential.

Video Clip 1 [01:10:10] The Mormon Church, of course, is a nickname, and nicknames have a way of becoming fixed. I think of the verse concerning a boy and his name. Father calls me William, Mother calls me Will, Sister calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill. I suppose that regardless of our efforts, we may never convert the world to general use of the full and correct name of the Church. Because of the shortness of the word Mormon and the ease with which it is spoken and written, they will continue to call us the Mormons, the Mormon Church, and so forth.

Video Clip 1 [01:10:48] They could do worse, and some said it couldn't be done, so why even try?

Video Clip 1 [01:10:55] More than 50 years ago, when I was a missionary in England, I said to one of my associates, how can we get people, including our own members, to speak of the Church by its proper name? He replied, you can't. The word Mormon is too deeply ingrained and too easy to say. He went on, I have quit trying.

Video Clip 1 [01:11:13] Let me explain why we care so deeply, so deeply about this issue, and it is not inconsequential.

Video Clip 1 [01:11:25] I am not ashamed of the nickname Mormon. Look, he went on to say, if there is any name that is totally honorable in its derivation, it is the name Mormon. And so, when someone asks me about it and what it means, I quietly swear, say Mormon means more good.

Video Clip 1 [01:11:43] Instead, it is a correction. It is the command of the Lord.

Video Clip 1 [01:11:51] So while I sometimes regret that people do not call this church by its proper name, I am happy that the nickname they use is one of great honor, made so by a remarkable man in a book which gives an unmatched testimony concerning the Redeemer of the world.

Video Clip 1 [01:12:06] Joseph Smith did not name the church restored through him. Neither did Mormon.

Video Clip 1 [01:12:12] Anyone who comes to know the man.

Video Clip 1 [01:12:14] It was the Savior himself who said,

Video Clip 1 [01:12:16] through the reading and pondering of his

Video Clip 1 [01:12:17] words, for thus shall my church be called in the last days even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Video Clip 1 [01:12:23] Anyone who reads this precious trove of history which was assembled and preserved in large measure by him, will come to know that Mormon is not a word of dishonest repute, but that it represents the greatest good, that good which is of God. It was the modern translator of this ancient record who declared that through reading, that a man would come closer to God than through the reading of any other book. All of this places upon us of this church and this generation, an incumbent and demanding responsibility to recognize that his we are spoken of as Mormons. We must so live that our example will enhance the perception that Mormon can mean, in a very real way, more good.

Video Clip 1 [01:13:11] The name of the Church is not negotiable.

Video Clip 1 [01:13:14] If there is any name that is totally honorable in Its derivation, it is the name Mormon. Mormon is not a word of disrepute, but it represents the greatest good.

Video Clip 1 [01:13:24] When the Savior clearly says states what the name of his church should be, and even precedes his declaration with thus shall my church be called, he's serious. And if we allow nicknames to be used, or adopt or even sponsor those

Video Clip 1 [01:13:39] nicknames ourselves, I am not ashamed of the nickname Mormon.

Video Clip 1 [01:13:43] He is offended. When it comes to nicknames of the

Video Clip 1 [01:13:47] church, the Mormons, the Mormon Church and

Video Clip 1 [01:13:49] so forth, such as LDS Church, the Mormon Church, or the Church of the Latter Day Saints, they could do worse. The most glaring omission is the absence of the Savior's name. To remove the Lord's name from the Lord's Church is a major victory for Satan. When we discard the Savior's name, we are subtly disregarding all that Jesus Christ did for us, even his atonement, after all he had endured and after all he had done for humankind. I realized with profound regret that we have unwittingly acquiesced in the Lord's restored church being called by other names, each of which expunges the sacred name of Jesus Christ.

Video Clip 1 [01:14:47] I testify that the Book of Mormon is the the Word of God and that when people speak of us by the name of this book, they will compliment us if we will live worthy of the name, remembering that in a very real sense, Mormonism must mean that greater good which the Lord Jesus Christ exemplified.

John Dehlin [01:15:12] Wow. All right, well, Nemo, do you want to share your reactions to that first?

Nemo [01:15:17] Yeah. I mean, Hinckley was the PR guy, right? He knew what a good public image looked like. It's why he did the public interviews. It's why he tried to put a good face forth with Larry King, etc. Nelson doesn't give a crap. Bluntly, he doesn't care what other people think of him. He has his own objectives and that's the way he wants things to be. I object to two parts of what Nelson said, that it is a major victory for Satan because that, as we will see in a moment, becomes very problematic in terms of what other prophets did with the nickname Mormon. And I also object to the idea that Jesus is offended because, as David A. Bednar teaches us, it is a choice to be offended. And it is a choice that is often an indicator of a much deeper spiritual malady, I believe were his exact words. So if Jesus is getting offended over this, that's problematic. So I don't agree with, with postulating that Jesus is offended by the use of Nicknames. I think he's just happy if his church is being talked about in a positive light, frankly. Yeah, that's my thoughts.

John Dehlin [01:16:23] All right, Mike, what do you want to add?

Mike [01:16:25] Yeah, so just the thing I'll note is that, you know, Russell Nelson is getting really upset about people kind of calling it a different name. But what he doesn't explain to members is that the church changed their name three times. So the original name of the church was the Church of Christ from 1829-34. Then they changed it to the Church of the Latter day Saints from 34 to 38, and then they changed it to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And so he actually mentions that God is offended when people call it the Church of the Latter Day Saints without noting that it was the church that changed their name to that in the 30s. So I think that's really important. And then the other part I would just note is that this video is showing Nelson from 2018, but he's making those same arguments in 1990. And so Gordon B. Hinckley here, with a wink and a smile, is just basically knocking Nelson down and then hitting him with a chair a few times. So just to have two prophets getting their wires crossed so badly is just a really good indication that God is not offended by the use of the word Mormon, or else God would not do what we're going to reveal in the next two slides.

John Dehlin [01:17:25] Yeah, so let's go ahead and jump to that. So to show how absurd Russell M. Nelson's it's almost Orwellian. To show how Orwellian Nelson's revelation about the word Mormon is, let's tell some people some history about the I'm a Mormon campaign.

Mike [01:17:42] So this is a campaign that launched in 2010 and was done by the Mormon Church. And this was part of the press release that was released by the Mormon newsroom. And it said the church's national media campaign called I'm a Mormon, included television spots, billboards, and ads on buses and on the Internet. The ads give a glimpse into the lives of Latter Day Saints from all over the world and refer people to the Mormon.org website, where they can read the profiles of tens of thousands of Mormons, chat live with representatives who will answer questions about the faith, and watch dozens of videos about members of the church. And so, again, if God is so offended by the nickname of Mormon as Nelson has proclaimed, we, why in the world would God allow his prophets, seers, and revelators to run a campaign such as the I'm A Mormon one where it was broadcast through tv. It was all over the Internet. They were buying fa, I think they're doing Facebook ads. They were telling members to flood Facebook and all these other social media platforms with the I'm a Mormon hashtag. And so we're told that leaders constantly pray about every major decision, especially when tithing dollars are being used. And this would be no exception because they were trying to help boost the image of the church. So I just. If God felt this was an error that had crept in over time, clearly the leaders would have received a response to not move forward with this campaign. And yet they're going to spend millions on it.

Nemo [01:19:00] Times Square, they covered in their billboards, I'm a Mormon London. Do you know how expensive it is to advertise in London? Very. They spent millions on the sides of buses, whole tube stations, underground train stations, covered all along the walls. I'm a Mormon all the way along. If that's a major victory for Satan, as Russell M. Nelson says, then why did they pay that much money to put it everywhere? How did Satan win? So.

John Dehlin [01:19:29] Well, yeah, also I'm going to add the I'm a Mormon campaign was literally stolen from the Scientologists. So for those who don't know, you know, you watch these I'm a Mormon videos, the church, like almost, it almost seems like they paid. They certainly paid, you know, super expensive video producers, but you've got like skateboarders and artists and actors who, who kind of look pretty and handsome and talented to all do a short little one to two, three minute video. And then at the end say, I'm a Mormon. You can literally Google I'm a Scientology videos on YouTube and you can find videos made in the few years prior to the Mormon Church where it's just clear that the Mormon Church took pages out of the Scientology playbook to help restore its image. Which is also in and of itself kind of dark and ironic, but even more kind of begs the question, why would the church plan a gazillion dollar campaign to then not only have it erased, but then to have Nelson come back and say, you know, Mormon's a bad name. It makes no sense.

Nemo [01:20:42] Victory for Satan. Major victory for Satan. Yeah, that's strong language. That is really strong language.

John Dehlin [01:20:50] It's almost like Nelson was really hurt that Hinckley had publicly flogged him for stepping out beyond. Because let's be clear, Nelson said we shouldn't use the term Mormon in a general conference talk before Hinckley gave that talk where he corrected him Am I wrong, guys?

Nemo [01:21:11] Nope.

Mike [01:21:11] No, you're correct.

John Dehlin [01:21:12] Yeah. It's almost like Nelson held on to a grudge at having been publicly rebuked for, what, a couple decades? And then once Hinckley was dead, he had his revenge on the dead prophet. Which, again, is super weird, isn't it?

Nemo [01:21:30] I think that's what Wendy was alluding to when she said that those things he's been concerned about for a long time, he can finally do something about now. He's finally the boss man. He can. He can push that agenda that he's been holding to since 1990.

John Dehlin [01:21:41] Yeah.

Mike [01:21:42] Yeah. I mean, it certainly seems that. That Russell Nelson had a massive, you know, axe to grind with Hinckley. I mean, the fact that Hinckley went six months later in general conference and made a talk basically just. I mean, that if you read between the lines, Hinckley is using a talk at general conference to beat down, you know, another member of the 12. I just. I. You can't, like, overstate how weird that is when you actually kind of understand the politics behind it. And then to see Nelson, as soon as he becomes profit, just immediately go right after that. I think is. Is beyond telling that this is, as Wendy Nelson said, russell Nelson unleashed. And. And, yeah, I. I think it's personal for sure. And I also. Oh, go ahead, Nemo.

Nemo [01:22:26] I was going to say to that point, I think it's. What further backs up that idea of possibly a grudge is how prolific Russell M. Nelson's been in building temples to the point where people from the temple department are saying he's just ignoring all rules that used to govern where and when we'd build a temple and how many members they used to. To need to be and all this sort of stuff. He's just torn that rule book up and gone. Just. He's gone Oprah Winfrey on it. It's like you get a temple, and you get a temple, and you get a temple because he wanted to build more than Gordon B. Hinckley, and he's achieved that now. He did a specific number, not the last conference, but the conference before that got him above the amount that Hinckley did. And then the conference after he did a specific number that got him to 300 total, announced, constructed, or in construction.

Mike [01:23:09] Yeah, because hinckley. Hinckley did 78 and Nelson beat 78. I think Nelson's over 100 now. So, yeah, whatever the total number is. But, yeah, you hear stories about how the temple department is like, guys, we can't even do all this stuff. And Nelson's just, you know, announcing him left and right. And a lot of people would argue that because he does seem to have a grudge against Hinckley. What better way to cement your legacy, especially to cement your legacy, stomping on the guy who stomped on you, but to announce more temples than he did, because Hinckley was known as being the guy that announced a ton of temples. So, yeah, it does seem that. That Nelson definitely has some added motivation to announce all these temples. And I'm sure at the next general conference, he'll announce another dozen or whatever, too, but. Yeah, yeah, it does. It seems very personal. Especially, like I said, the. The idea that Nelson would. Or that Hinckley would go out six months later and call him out that way at general conference, just. That seems personal, too. So there's definitely something there.

John Dehlin [01:24:04] Yeah. But wait, there's more. If the I'm a Mormon campaign wasn't enough, there is also the Meet the Mormons movie that has its own kind of interesting tale. Mike, do you want to start and tell us a little bit about that background and what happened?

Nemo [01:24:22] Yeah.

Mike [01:24:22] And so this one is another one that people point to really quickly when they kind of talk about Russell M. Nelson having this revelation, because in 2014, the church is going to produce and release a movie called Meet the Mormons, which follows six members of the church, basically so the public could better understand what it's like to be a Mormon. And, you know, once again, we have sacred church dollars, as they always refer to, to sacred tithing dollars are spent, and leaders were out there telling members to see the movie on the opening weekend to help boost the ticket sales in the hopes that it would generate some buzz so that non members would actually go and see it. That didn't really happen. They had a strong first weekend around Salt Lake, and they just died off. But Elder Bednar was encouraging members to flood social media with the hashtag Meet the Mormons, and members were asked to post about the movie to friends and family to increase awareness. And so, you know, as we've been saying, the question is raised as to why Thomas S. Monson undertook these two massive campaigns to promote the Mormon name when God was, as we, you know, heard from Nelson, offended. And it was called a victory for Satan, to use these terms. And, you know, these are not small undertakings. And yet the church leadership felt they were both vital to the work of growing the church and to spreading the Book of Mormon, that they spent millions of dollars in the process.

John Dehlin [01:25:35] Yeah, and that's all True. And if it weren't. If that weren't interesting enough, there's actually a UK tie to this Meet the Mormon story. Nemo, do you want to give us the background on that? Because there's an amazing video that you actually released on Meet the Mormon that connects all this.

Nemo [01:25:52] Yeah. So there's a couple of connections. First, the. Our very own Jane Christie of 21st Century Saints, as far as the I'm a Mormon campaign goes, has their own I'm a Mormon campaign video, which is quite interesting. And the other connection to this is that in 2014, when that video was released, when the church released that film, a documentary earlier that year had been released here in the UK called Meet the Mormons, which was an investigative documentary about a young Mormon missionary going on his mission to the MTC here in the UK and the family that he got placed with beforehand and all this sort of stuff. The church really didn't like that they'd invited this documentary maker to come along to make a documentary about their faith. But she then started to notice some of the kind of controlling tactics that were being used in the MTC and how this mission was not comfortable at all and the lack of privacy on the mission, all these sorts of things. And so she kind of flipped gears a little bit. Also, the church sent a handler along for all the filming, so there was always a church representative in the room whenever they were being filmed. So there was a lot of problems with that. But anyway, she put this out. It was called Meet the Mormons. And then the church buried it in terms of SEO by releasing their own film called Meet the Mormons to try and wash this thing down the memory hole, because they really didn't like it. She put pictures of. Of garments on the screen. She, you know, she really put things out there about what goes on in the temple, all that sort of stuff.

John Dehlin [01:27:19] Yeah, and. And what, Sweeney was the journalist, right. Who covered that?

Nemo [01:27:24] No, so that was. It was Lynn Alloway who made that one. Sweeney was the journalist who had the run in. In 2012. He did the this World BBC, another BBC thing. But that was around the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.

John Dehlin [01:27:38] But. But there wasn't.

Nemo [01:27:39] That was called the Mormon moment, that one.

John Dehlin [01:27:42] Oh, okay. Okay. So I've got those confused. Okay, but is it fair to say that some believe that that. And maybe you just said this, that. That this whole Meet the Mormons movie was kind of an SEO play, a search engine optimization play to try and bury good journalism about Mormonism that happened in the uk? Is that right?

Nemo [01:28:03] Yeah. Because both the Sweeney documentary, that this World, the Mormon moment, that one on the BBC, and the Channel 4 documentary, Meet the Mormons, which particularly they wanted to try and bury because it. It had that title, and then their film has that same title. A lot of people have said that that film being called that was a play to really try and suppress both Sweeney's work and Lynn Alloway's work, which was very good journalism about the church, but they didn't like how it made them look.

John Dehlin [01:28:31] Yeah, and that's really interesting, again, to use Sacred Dollars with the name Mormon plastered all over it to try and bury someone else's coverage of what you're doing, only to then say it's evil to even use the word Mormon. That's all kind of. I mean, some would say it's a little bit sketchy. Mike, anything you want to add to this conversation?

Mike [01:28:54] No, I mean, just the fact that, you know, as Nemo said, sometimes the church will do this kind of double speak where they're out in public really trying to boost their image, especially in response to a story that comes out. And we've seen a little bit of that with the SEC report where they're kind of flooding their own. You know, I don't want to refer to it as state media, but like, their. Their media that they own, they're flooding with a lot of information that is not correct about the SEC report in order to kind of neutralize at least the damage being done to members finding out about it. In this case, it was more of a public venture where they're trying to get to the public, especially because if, you know, you remember when this is released, this is right after Mitt Romney ran for president. So there's a lot of interest in the Mormon Church. And I think this was their way to try to get out in front of it, but it just. It didn't work very well. And as Nemo said, now they're sitting there scrubbing everything online, trying to get rid of the fact that they spent millions of dollars on this campaign. And so if you go on YouTube, you could find these old videos where they'll say, you know, I'm Janine and I'm a Mormon. And now you'll find the same video and be like, I'm. Or it won't even. Sometimes they won't even say that at the end because they don't really refilm it. They're just scrubbing it out. And so it'll end with, like, some quote about what they're doing in their Life. And I find that to be really telling, again, about the fact that God seems to not know what God wants to be offended about.

John Dehlin [01:30:08] Yeah, okay. All right, so. So that's kind of our coverage of the Mormon moment. And the Mormon is a victory for sacred moment as it relates to prophetic, you know, inspiration and revelation. Should we go on to the next one? Quick? Yeah, before we move on? Yeah.

Nemo [01:30:32] So it's just come to mind a very recent UK documentary, which is called the Mormons Are Coming, which, you know, props to the documentary makers for just completely ignoring Russell M. Nelson's style guide. They just went, no, no, we're going to call them Mormons anyway. In that documentary, they asserted that more people have seen the Book of Mormon musical than there are actual members of the church. So when you get to that point that more people worldwide have seen the Book of Mormon musical than our actual Mormons, and that's the stated amount, that's not, you know, active or inactive. That's just the whole membership, that whole 17 million number. When you get to that point, I think you've lost the battle for SEO. And I wonder whether that's an extra element to why they're just, okay, we can't lean into this name Mormon anymore. We've lost control of the, the nickname. Let's pull back from it and reassert ourselves differently. That's just my thought.

John Dehlin [01:31:23] Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, the next one, I mean, the Meet the Mormons thing is just kind of odd and marketing and branding and identity and silliness. This next topic is kind of in my mind where, I don't know, the rubber meets the road, where the church bungling the church, Mormon church prophets bungling. Revelation can actually have fatal, I'll just say fatal consequences. It's the 2015 policy of exclusion for LGBTQ members and their kids. And then the ultimate reversal. Do you want to give us some background on that, Mike?

The 2015 Policy Excluding LGBTQ Members and Children

Mike [01:32:05] Yeah. I mean, basically this was, ironically enough, this was kind of after I had stopped believing in the church, but before I started doing the deep dive. And so I saw headlines about it, but I didn't really even jump in because I, I was still in that mindset of like being very afraid of information that kind of was bad mouthing Mormonism. And effectively they created this policy in response to the fact that the Supreme Court had effectively given the right of same sex marriage across the US with the Ogerfell decision. And so they created this policy which effectively labels LGBT members of the church who are in active relationships as apostates. And it tells their kids that they cannot be baptized until they're 18 and only when they basically disavow the lifestyle of their parents. And so it really had a lot of bad press right away because, you know, the whole thing is that you're not supposed to blame the kids or, you know, the sins of the father and all that stuff. So you're not supposed to hold the kids accountable for what the parents are doing. And in this case, the church did. And it really felt like a really bad knee jerk reaction to the fact that they were losing, horribly losing the battle against same sex marriage in, in the country. And this is an area, I think, where they injected their worldview, as we've talked about over and over in this episode, directly into perceived revelation. We're going to go into how the church has framed this and why it created such a bigger problem for the church to call this a revelation.

John Dehlin [01:33:37] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And let me just see there. I'm trying to see if there are more slides on this. Yeah, there's more slides on this.

Mike [01:33:46] Yeah, we got a couple.

John Dehlin [01:33:47] Yeah. I'll just say, as someone who has really dug deep on the LGBTQ issue, when the church basically declares same sex sexuality to be worse than rape and murder, and what I mean by that is they made it a mandatory excommunication or disciplinary council. Excommunication for the crime of same sex marriage. That's a huge deal because even rapists and spouse abusers and murderers didn't necessarily, by church policy, have a mandated excommunication and disciplinary council. So that was severe. Plus, they're excommunicating people for loving each other and making what for many would be a monogamous lifetime commitment, that's a problem. But then also Jesus, Jesus himself said, suffer not that the children come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. When they're telling 8 year olds, when they're telling babies that they can't be blessed if they're the babies of, of, you know, same sex married couples or, you know, 8 year olds, that they can't get baptized if their parent is in a same sex married couple. Plus, if they're asking 18 year old adults to denounce their same sex married parents marriage to then be able to join the church. And it's just such a horrific policy that it just. The backlash was justifiably overwhelming. Nemo, did you want to add anything to that?

Nemo [01:35:31] Yeah, just that a lot of the justifications I heard for it was they didn't want to create conflict between the children and the parents, they didn't want the children being taught one thing at church and then their parents living a different lifestyle. They didn't want children being taught at church that their parents lifestyle was wrong. Well, there's two solutions to that. I mean, or there's at least one solution to that, which is, you know, stop teaching that their parents are evil. Maybe that's a good thing to do.

Guest [01:35:53] But.

Nemo [01:35:53] But what they then instead done, if that is truly the argument is instead they've gone, right, well then when you hit 18, we're going to force you, if you want to stay with us, to actually just cut them off or denounce them or drive a wedge between yourself and them rather than allowing those two things to coexist. They're like, no, okay, you can stay out, you can't be one of us until you're 18, and then you're going to have to put a wedge in. So the argument that it's trying to reduce the tension and conflict in those families just doesn't work.

John Dehlin [01:36:23] Yeah, absolutely.

Mike [01:36:24] Yeah. That's the worst part. You just think about kids who might go to church and you know, you can go to church without being baptized and you could, you could participate without being a member of the church, right? And so just picture you've got this 11 year old kid and these parents love each other and they're two men or two women or whatever and they bring this kid and this kid's in class and it's, you're constantly, everyone knows you are not baptized and everyone knows why you're not baptized. And so this idea that doing this is somehow compassionate towards children is just ridiculously bad. This was a policy that was designed to inflict pain on the people who are LGBT in order, I believe, to get them to stop being actively in loving relationships. Because it's kind of like when you watch a, a movie and the villain knows that they can't really get to the, to the main, the main hero of the movie, but they know if they go after that person's family that the heroes can be more willing to, to bend. And you know, I don't mean to say that Russell, Nelson and Oaks and all them are super villains, but I will say that I believe this policy was designed to inflict pain on the families of lgbt, LGBT people so that they would back away from the relationships. Because there's really no other way for me to look at it. Because if, if it was really just trying to get compassionate towards the kids, this did the exact opposite.

Nemo [01:37:46] I mean, because there's, there's like two things, right. The church can, wants to achieve. They either want those people out of the relationships and playing by their rules or they want those people out of the church so that they're not bothering the church anymore. And there's not. Because the biggest problem for the church would be the idea that there is a minority with group within the church who want to remain in the church but feel like they are second class. Because then they're going to push that point and say no, we feel second class. We want equality with our peers. And so the way to, to nullify that is to get them out of your hair, get them gone or get them to stop doing the thing that makes them second class, which is being in those relationships.

Guest [01:38:25] Yep.

Mike [01:38:26] And that's just it. And, and they're doing all of this with the expressly stated decree that this is from God, that this is what God wants. So is not Russell Nelson or Dallin Oaks. I know Thomas Monson was a prophet. There's a lot of stories that he wasn't quite all together at this point.

John Dehlin [01:38:45] No, no, for sure. Let's not play around this. He had dementia. He had full on dementia. And so it was probably Nelson and, or Ochs or a combination of the two that did this while Monson was basically incapacitated.

Mike [01:39:01] Yeah. And so, you know, yeah, I just, to me this is one of the easiest ways for me to know that they don't speak for God. Because you're going to see in these next few slides how they're inflicting pain on these families, as Nemo said, to either force them out or to force them out of these relationships. And then they're going to do it literally by saying God wanted us to do this. And then all of a sudden, as we all know, they're going to reverse it just like they did with John Taylor's polygamy revelation a few years later. And it just shows that, you know, it, it even they could not sustain this plan because they knew how badly it backfired. But yeah, you know, there's a phrase you hear all the time online and it's like, you know, basically like the punishment is a point or the cruelty is the point with this policy, the cruelty was the point. And I think that Oaks and Nelson are both hardliners enough that they thought if they did it in the voice of God, people would back off. And unfortunately for them, they do. You know, the greatest source of revelation is outside pressure. And in this case there was so much outside pressure eventually, they had to bend.

John Dehlin [01:40:01] Yeah, yeah. And so the pressure came. So this is in November of 2015. The pressure came, and immediately there were some apologetics that kind of came out that basically said, well, this is just, oh, go ahead, Nemo.

Mike [01:40:17] What?

Nemo [01:40:17] Wasn't it leaked? Am I right in thinking it was. It was leaked. It was a change that was going to be made to the handbook, and they had to kind of then try and get out ahead of it because they didn't, like, launch it themselves. Yeah. Well, am I recalling that correctly?

John Dehlin [01:40:28] Well, well, somebody leaked the policy change to me, and I leaked it on the Internet. And then the Internet went wild. And what I'm talking about now is what precipitated Nelson's doubling down, that this was a direct revelation.

Nemo [01:40:45] So, yeah, so, yes, they pulled Christopherson into that meeting with Mike Otterson. They sat those two town together in a room, which, I mean, we could get into how Kristoffsson didn't really know what was going on. He kind of just. This thing had happened. He's like, oh, okay. And then he gets rushed back and he's the one that gets put in front of the camera and has to kind of try and defend this policy. But, yeah, and then all that pressure is building up, and then we end up with Nelson trying to, like, go, well, hang on, guys. It is God.

John Dehlin [01:41:11] Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely. I'm pretty sure it was Oakes and Kristofferson that had to immediately field questions. Right. And then, as I recall, it was a couple months later. Do you know the date of this clipper about the show, Mike?

Nemo [01:41:25] It's February, I want to say.

Mike [01:41:27] Yeah, it's early. It's like January or February of the next year. I can't remember the exact same.

John Dehlin [01:41:30] It's a couple months after. And what I was trying to say, Nemo, before is, so the policy is leaked. There's all the damage control. I've even talked to people within church headquarters, kind of, you know, contacts I have within, where it was immediately acknowledged that this was not of God. Even employees of the church were even, you know, members of the media were like, where did this come from? This was like somebody's pet project. We weren't given advance notice. This policy change didn't go through the proper channels. There was immediate backlash, not just, you know, within ex Mormonism or progressive Mormonism or even with the media within church headquarters. There was such backlash that people like Oaks and Christofferson had to do kind of damage control. And then part of the damage control was to try and kind of leak out there that maybe this wasn't a doctrinal change, this was just a policy change, which was how over time, the priesthood ban on black members of the church, that's how they did it over decades, was to say, well, it wasn't really doctrine, which we've shown was wrong, but it was kind of a policy. It was the errors of men. And isn't that an okay setup for this next video, Mike?

Mike [01:43:01] Yeah, I mean, this video, I think, speaks for itself. So this. And that is a good lead up because this, this talk by Nelson, it does come months after the. It was kind of leaked in November. So it. This is, to me, interesting because this is Nelson knowing a few months have passed and this is not really going away. And this is how he's going to address it to the church in order to solidify it, as you do not question this. And I, I do feel like this is. I'm, I'd like to think he wishes that he could take this back, but I also, you know, just kind of the way Nelson is. I'm pretty sure he fully, you know, thinks this is okay. So. So, yeah, let's play it. And people can judge for themselves, I guess.

John Dehlin [01:43:39] All right, so this is Russell M. Nelson, Pres. Now, by this point, this point, he's not. He's not prophet yet, right?

Mike [01:43:47] He's not prophet yet.

John Dehlin [01:43:48] At this point, he is the senior presiding authority in the Quorum of the twelve Apostles, or the number two man in the church. And he's not in the first presidency, but he's kind of speaking out. As Thomas S. Monson is still with dementia and kind of disabled. Right?

Mike [01:44:11] Yeah. And I would also note, when you listen to this clip, listen to it through the perspective of a guy who knows he's the prophet in waiting, because I find it really interesting how much weight he gives to the prophet and to the way that the prophet gets revelation from God because he knows that it's only a matter of time until he takes over. And so of course, he wants to elevate Thomas More Monson as much as he can because he's elevating himself in the process.

John Dehlin [01:44:35] All right, let's. Let's play the clip. It speaks for itself. This is the date says January 10, 2016. So that's basically two months around. Two months after the policy was leaked. All the damage control happens. Progressive Mormons are like, okay, maybe. Maybe we don't have to even consider this to be doctrine. Maybe it was a clerical error. And then Apostle Russell M. Nelson removes all doubt.

Nemo [01:45:02] Then this guy happens.

John Dehlin [01:45:03] Yeah, then this guy happens.

Guest [01:45:05] After fasting, praying, studying, pondering and counseling with my brethren about weighty matters, it is not unusual for me to be awakened during the night with further impressions about issues with which we are concerned. And my brethren have the same experience. The First Presidency and Quorum of the twelve Apostles counsel together and share all the Lord has directed us to understand and to feel, individually and collectively. And then we watched the Lord move upon the President of the Church to proclaim the Lord's will. This prophetic process was followed in 2012 with the change in minimum age for missionaries and again with the recent additions to the Church's handbook consequent to the legalization of same sex marriage in some countries. Filled with compassion for all and especially for the the children, we wrestled at length to understand the Lord's will in this matter. Ever mindful of God's plan of salvation and of his hope for eternal life for each of his children, we considered countless permutations and combinations of possible scenarios that could arise. We met repeatedly in the temple in fasting and prayer and sought further direction and inspiration. And then, when the Lord inspired his prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord, each of us during that sacred moment felt a spiritual confirmation. It was our privilege as apostles to sustain what had been revealed. To President Monson, revelation from the Lord to His servants is a sacred process, and so is your privilege of receiving personal revelation. My dear brothers and sisters, you have as much access to the mind and will of the Lord for your own life as we apostles do for His Church. Just as the Lord requires us to seek and ponder, fast and pray, study and wrestle with difficult questions, he requires you to do the same. As you seek answers to your own questions, you can learn to hear the voice of the Lord through the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. As helpful as Google, Twitter and Facebook may seem, they simply do not provide answers to your most important questions. My dear young friends, you can know the mind and will of the Lord for your own life. You do not have to wonder if you are where the Lord needs you to be or if you are doing what he needs you to do. You can know the Holy Ghost will tell you all things what you should do.

John Dehlin [01:48:48] All right, well, there you have it. So, Mike, what analysis did you want to make of that of that video? What do you think we should take from that?

Mike [01:48:56] I just for me. This is Russell Nelson proclaiming exactly how he believes this to be a revelation from God. And just as we've said throughout this episode, it's amazing how this revelation from God just happens to match the worldview of Russell Nelson in Dallin Oaks. And I find that to be quite interesting that throughout church history, every prophet that claims to know the will and mind of God happens to match almost perfectly exactly what they've always wanted to do but never were empowered to do, as Wendy Nelson said. So I think that's, for me, the takeaway and then the secondary one, of course, as we have already talked about, is just how the lengths he's going to to say that this is about compassion, especially for the children, and yet creating a policy that does the exact opposite. I think it is really telling. Just to show. I don't want to say that Russell Nelson doesn't care about kids. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying that he views eradicating LGBT members from the church to be more important and worth the sacrifice of the kids, at least in my opinion, because this is just such a cruel policy. And he's justifying it by putting it in the voice of God, which I think, to me, is a really horrible thing to do.

John Dehlin [01:50:06] And it's almost like he paid attention or remembered. I don't know. He probably wasn't even the quorum in 78, I'm guessing. I'm thinking that he was called also in the early 80s, maybe right before Oaks. This is something we could Google. But it's almost like he really has to say, we all got together. We all prayed about it. We all felt the Lord's, you know, revelation and unanimity. It's almost like he's recreating the, you know, a little bit dubious accounts of the 1978 revelation. Given what we read already just previously in this episode about Legrand, Richard's account for how the changes got made in 1978. It's almost like he had to recreate a similar experience to retell that reflected, you know. You know, what also, you know, they claim happened in 78. Nemo.

Nemo [01:51:00] He was called in 84.

John Dehlin [01:51:02] Okay, yeah.

Nemo [01:51:03] So, you know.

John Dehlin [01:51:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nemo [01:51:05] And then thoughts on that? Well, actually, no. Tell you what, why don't we go to. To the reversal? I guess we're going to go to the reversal. Right. Because my thoughts are on the way the reversal is framed.

John Dehlin [01:51:16] Okay.

Mike [01:51:16] Yeah. So we can go to the reversal.

The 2019 Reversal of the Exclusion Policy

John Dehlin [01:51:17] Okay, so let's go to the next slide, and that is comparing Nelson's 2016 statement to the 2019 reversal. This is good. So should we talk about what the reversal was.

Mike [01:51:31] Yeah, if you want to. I mean, you know, for me, it was more like. It was almost like they were like, oops, we shouldn't have done that. And they just kind of pulled back the policy and then they did it right before general conference. Right in October, I think. 2019 or. No, April. 2019.

Nemo [01:51:46] April.

Mike [01:51:47] So, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:47] And we should also add that it was, you know, tons of tons of resignations from the church. I would say it's the single, you know, in my lifetime. It's probably one of the single most, you know, resignation causing decisions the church has made in terms of like, hemorrhaging people who voluntarily resigned their membership. Were those three or four years after the November 2015 policy? Nemo, what do you think?

Nemo [01:52:21] Well, yeah, I can't recall exactly what it was, but I remember a Salt Lake trip headline talking about the number of people that resigned. There was mass resignations going on. People were all getting together in one group and resigning en masse. It was bad. And the, the reversal that we're about to hear is from a 2019 talk called the Love and Laws of God. And it's about 17 minutes into that, if you're going to look up that video yourself. But it's worth. It's worth a watch because you get to see him stood in almost the same sort of way as you just saw him announce it. Pull it back.

John Dehlin [01:52:56] Yeah, yeah. And which is it? Did God, you know, did. Did God make the original revelation or did God make the reversal or did he do both? And then why would God reverse himself?

Nemo [01:53:10] Well, Renlund's gonna make that more problematic, but we'll talk about that in a moment.

John Dehlin [01:53:14] Yeah. Okay, so let's go to the slide. Go ahead, Mike.

Mike [01:53:16] Yeah, so this is just, you know, they released a statement, and the statement is from the first presidency, of course, and they say these policy changes come after an extended period of counseling with our brethren in the Quorum of the twelve Apostles and after fervent united prayer to understand the will of the Lord on these matters. And so they're using. Nelson is using the exact same language he used in 2016, which is that they are in fervent prayer to understand the will of God, except that in three and a half years, the will of God suddenly flipped upside down. And, you know, as I've said, like, there's no better way to show that revelation in the church is often led by motivated reasoning and not God. Because we have this statement from Nelson completely contradicting the one he makes in 2016, both of which they're saying that they were in united fervent prayer to understand the will of the Lord. Both times they're saying they felt that spiritual confirmation of its truthfulness. And yet now we're sitting here three and a half years later, after so much harm being caused after so many members leaving the church. And as I said at the beginning of this episode, this is an exact mirror to John Taylor's 1886 revelation from God that polygamy was never going to end, that it was everlasting, where God says, how can I revoke an everlasting covenant? For I, the Lord am everlasting, and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with, but they stand forever. Three and a half years later, that one was reversed. Just like three and a half years later, this one was reversed.

John Dehlin [01:54:39] Okay, Nemo.

Nemo [01:54:41] Yeah. So, I mean, the thing is, if you listen to Dale G. Renan, when he was telling us why we can't have any revelation about Heaven, Heavenly Mother, he said that essentially we shouldn't pray about things that God has already revealed his will about through his prophets. Renlund said, when we ask for revelation about something for which God has already given clear direction, we open ourselves up to misinterpreting our feelings and hearing what we want to hear. So then how are members to know because Russell M. Nelson said we continued to seek the Lord's guidance, we continue to plead with him. How are members then to know whether Russell Nelson is just hearing what he wants to hear because he's scared that members of the church are all leaving. How do we know that he's not opened himself up to misinterpreting his own feelings? As Renlund said, I agree with reverse in the policy. I'm just saying theology or their view on revelation isn't aligning because they're saying that you shouldn't ask God about things that God's already revealed his will about? Well, then why were they asking about the policy for the next interceding three and a half years before they reversed it? Why were they doing that?

John Dehlin [01:55:48] Absolutely.

Nemo [01:55:49] It's a problem.

Mike [01:55:51] That's a huge problem.

John Dehlin [01:55:52] Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so should we. Should we show the next slide?

Mike [01:56:00] Yeah, I think so.

Evaluating Nelson's Prophetic Credibility

John Dehlin [01:56:01] Okay. So the next slide is called A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words. You want to describe this for the listeners, Mike?

Mike [01:56:06] Yeah. So if you're. If you're listening and not watching, you know, when you call a policy revelation that you wanted to implement, it becomes that much more embarrassing when you have to remove it three and a half years later because it failed. And so Nelson here is claiming that they calculated countless permutations to show compassion for God's children, and yet it failed in just three and a half years. And so on the left, you're going to see the Salt Lake Tribune headline that says, mormon gay policy is will of the Lord through his prophet, senior Apostle says. And it's got a picture of Russell Nelson from that devotional we just showed you. And then on the right, it says, LDS Church dumps its controversial LGBTQ policy. And that's from 2019. And so it just shows that the will of the Lord could be dumped when the public relations gets too bad for it.

John Dehlin [01:56:50] Yeah. Yep. Well, and I guess I'll channel progressive, liberal Mormons in saying, yeah, Paul himself said, we see through a glass darkly. And yeah, sometimes prophets and apostles are going to get it wrong. And they can still be inspired. And maybe they get it wrong more than they get it right. And you're just focusing on one instance where they get it wrong. But look how many times they get it right. I guess you can still be a believing Mormon, especially a progressive, liberal believing Mormon, and say, I'm going to give prophetseers and revelators grace that even them could get it wrong sometimes. And still I can still maintain a belief in Mormon prophets and revelators.

Mike [01:57:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:35] I'm guessing you guys wouldn't argue with that.

Mike [01:57:38] Well, I just, you know, I can't speak for anyone else, but I remember when the reversal happened and there were so many members of the church were like, oh, my goodness, what a wonderful, wonderful thing that happened today. And I'm thinking to myself, like, that's like watching somebody set a house on fire and then applaud them for putting out the fire. Like, this was entirely done by Nelson claiming to speak for God. And then he claims to speak for God to get out of a jam. And everyone's like, unreal. This is prophecy. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, it just. To me, it's just so disjointed. And it shows in the bigger picture that throughout the history of this church, this is revelation, where it's just basically what you wanted to do yourself. And then when you need to make changes, it's usually because of public pressure. And I don't think that there's any reason to give applause for this. I think there's reason to take a step back and go, what should we learn about this, about the role of revelation and Mormonism? Because clearly God is out of Control if he's speaking through these people because he has no way to communicate to his prophets when it's the will of God versus when it's something they wanted to do but lack the power to do. And now they become unleashed.

John Dehlin [01:58:43] Yeah. Nemo, did you want to add any other input? No. Okay. The only thing I'll add is that, you know, it's fine if you want to give grace to prophet seers and revelators as imperfect beings. Here's the problem is that, you know, they say when elephants fight, the grass, you know, suffers or the grass dies or whatever the metaphor is like, because they claim to speak for God and Jesus when they declare, you know, LGBTQ identities to be evil and acts of apostates and excommunicable. And when they're, you know, going as far as preventing children from following Jesus, they're making decisions that lead to real deaths, real division in families, real divorce, real anxiety and depression and distress. And so, yes, we can give them grace, but they should be more careful. If we're going to claim that they are more likely to communicate the mind and will of God and Jesus, they need to be more careful, not less. And with a decision like this that has such, in real life, disastrous consequences, they should not be making such careless and disastrous decisions. And if they do, if they do make it, they should be apologizing, not copying out with, well, it was revelation when we gave it, and now it's revelation when we're taking it away. Because that's just. That's irresponsible and deadly behavior, in my opinion.

Nemo [02:00:28] That is one thing I would like to say is actually that when he says he does that thing where he goes, whenever the children of God weep for any reason we weep, it's like, why are you looking up at God?

Speaker E [02:00:38] You.

Nemo [02:00:38] You're the reason they're weeping. So own it. Apologize and move on again. Watch that video. We'll put it down in the description. The Love and Laws of God. It's Russell M. Nelson in September of that year, trying to explain it all away. It's just disingenuous.

Mike [02:00:54] Yeah, well, it's the same thing as the B1 speech when they did the B1 40th anniversary of lifting of the priesthood ban. And Dallin Oaks gets up there and he's like, yeah, I didn't really like what God was doing, but, you know, I don't know God's ways. And, you know, it's. God wanted to do it. And you're just like, no, just apologize for the fact that Brigham Young was a horrible racist who intentionally created a slave state and try to create some goodwill by the fact that you could say it. But Dallin Oaks knows that if he does that, he's watering down his own future profit being time as a prophet. Just as Russell Nelson knows that if he had went up there in January 2016 and was like, yeah, you know, this was a statement. It wasn't a big deal. He's watering down his own credibility as profit because he knew he was going to be it. And that's why I think when you listen to those statements, it's so important to listen to how Nelson is elevating Monson because he knows he's elevating himself, because they cannot say that prophets make mistakes because they know the people below them have a chance to be prophet, and they don't want to become prophet and have people go, you're just a dude who has as much insight of heaven as I do, and why am I gonna stand before you and give you all this reverence? And so I think what you're talking about is true that they should apologize. But the reason they can't apologize is because they're not all of them, but a lot of them are so narcissistic that they don't want to water down their own power when they get there. And it's just a vicious cycle of people who work their entire lives to get to this position so they can lead this church, and they. They. You know, they don't want to do anything that. That even limits their infallible view of. From the church members in any possible way.

The Dangers of the Discernment Doctrine

John Dehlin [02:02:31] Yeah. Well, that leads us to the next issue that is really, really, for me, one of the most damaging teachings in all of modern Mormonism. It's this teaching of discernment. And I'll just give it an introduction because we're gonna jump right in and tell why it's a problem. Discernment is the teaching that not just, you know, the prophet and the quorum of the 12 and, you know, general authorities have the ability to discern the mind and will of God and Jesus. But it's even bishops and church leaders and patriarchs in the home, they all have the ability to discern the mind and will of God for the people who they have stewardship over. And it's the idea that if a bishop tells you to stay with your abusive spouse, he's, you know, it's God and Jesus that are telling him to tell you that if a mission president tells you to stay on your mission, Even though you're suicidal? Well, it's the mission presidents, the president that's channeling the mind and will of God. If a patriarch prays and tells you that you're gonna get married in the temple and serve a mission, this patriarch is able to discern the mind and will of God. If a bishop tells a mixed orientation married couple, a gay man and a straight wife, that he feels like God wants them to get married, then a than a member. Or if he tells a gay man or a gay woman, you should engage in conversion therapy to try and fix your gayness. You know, members are more inclined to believe and do what the leader says because we're taught that they have what's called the gift of discernment, or the ability to know the mind and will of God. So having given that sort of introduction to the concept, Mike, why don't you tell us why that's a problem, especially with prophet seers and revelators.

Nemo [02:04:31] Yeah.

Mike [02:04:31] And so as we've been talking about, you know, in addition to receiving direct revelation from God, we're also told that the leaders of the church, and really any man with the priesthood, holds the power of discernment, which can help guide us to make the right choices as we live and go through our daily lives. David Bednar describes the gift of discernment in the following way. He said in 2006, the gift of discernment can help us one, detect hidden error and evil in others, two, detect hidden errors and evil in ourselves, three, find and bring forth the good that may be concealed in others, and four, find and bring forth the good that may be concealed in us. And it's almost like, you know, when Superman can do X ray vision. It's like the gift of discernment. You can talk to someone and you can kind of see right through what they're saying and know if they're lying or, you know, if you're a bishop, you should be able to know if someone's doing something horrible before you maybe give them a calling to work with young kids or something. And the simplest way to put it is that the power of discernment is absolutely 100% non existent among not just everyday priesthood holders, but in the leaders themselves. And we're going to give two quick examples here that are very well known to illustrate just how easily prophets of this church have been deceived. And we can do an entire series on all of the ways that the bishops of the church have been deceived. How the state, how the people above the bishops could be deceived when we have all of these people who are doing really bad things and getting called to high positions in the church. But it just shows that we're talking about this idea that these people speak to God. They should not be able to be fooled on big matters. And yet we're going to show two times when they do it in the worst ways.

John Dehlin [02:06:06] Yeah. As I was enumerating, you know, the most damaging real life consequences of the teaching of the gift of discernment, I forgot to mention that the trust that members, ward members, Mormon ward members put in people called to positions like boy Scout leader or primary leader over children or youth leader over youth, or even bishop over youth, leads to a level of trust that allows children and youth and vulnerable adults to be sexually and or physically abused by those leaders because they trust that the bishop is inspired by God to call them to those positions. That's a great thing to mention. But let's focus right now on prophets, seers and revelators. And the first example we have that we're going to cover today is one that we've covered already on LDS discussions series, which is the Kinderhook plates. But let's cover it again in this specific context.

Mike [02:07:06] Yeah, and so we're going to go through these quickly. So this example is particularly good because it ends up not duping just Joseph Smith, but church leaders all the way up until Signs prove these to be a hoax in the 1980s. So this is something that is going to impact the church for like 140 years. And so, in short, William Fugate, as we talked about, was part of this hoax where Joseph Smith was presented with the Kinderhook plates in the hopes that he would translate the plates and prove himself a false prophet. And so, as we talked about, Joseph Smith never did a complete translation, and then he was killed. He did give a partial translation to William Clayton, who was Joseph's personal scribe, which was recorded in his journal. And, you know, even after Fugate comes out and admits that they were a hoax, church leaders not only continued to say that Joseph Smith did translate them, but that the people claiming it was a hoax were the actual hoaxers. And so, you know, just to make this abundantly clear, here is Apostle, who would be a prophet, seer and revelator, Markey Peterson, just one year before Signs finally forces the church to abandon this idea that they're, they're true once and for all. And he says there are the Kinderhook plates too, found in America and now in the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. Controversy has surrounded these plates and their engravings, but most experts agree they are of ancient vintage. And so the church all the way up until 1980 is going to tell people these are authentic. This is further proof of Joseph Smith's, you know, mantle is a prophet. And yet Joseph Smith was completely fooled. God did not warn him. Like, don't give these guys the time of the day. They're trying to deceive you. He just went right in and he. He gave a partial translation. We did a whole episode on us. We don't need to go into all of that. But whatever your belief is and how much he translated, he did translate part. And he did not know, through the power of discernment, as David Bednar said, that there was evil in others and deception in others.

John Dehlin [02:09:01] Yeah. All right, Nemo, we've covered Kinderhook plates already. Anything you want to quickly add to that one topic?

Nemo [02:09:07] Just that essentially it's. Most experts agree is one of those sentences that's like scientists say. It's like, all right, okay, can you point to the studies or can you point to, like, who these experts are or what they're actually saying? Don't just say most experts agree because as the science would go on to show a year later, they didn't.

John Dehlin [02:09:26] You also have to prove that there's consensus when you say that. Right?

Speaker E [02:09:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:31] Very good.

Guest [02:09:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:32] Okay, so Kinderhook plates, and that's a double whammy because it shows Joseph Smith's, you know, ability to be deceived. But also we've got Markey Peterson, modern day apostle. So it's kind of a. Kind of a double, double century whammy.

Guest [02:09:48] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:09:49] And if that weren't enough, another great example is the Mark Hoffman forgeries. We did at least one, if not a couple episodes on the Mark Hoffman stuff. We'll have Maven included in the show. Notes our link to the Murder among the Mormons interview that we did with Sandra Tanner and also the one with Jared Hess and Tyler Meesam about the documentary about the Mark Hoffman forgeries. But, Mike, let's go ahead and jump to the slide.

Failed Discernment: Kinderhook Plates and Mark Hofmann

Mike [02:10:17] Yeah. So this one is one that has been much in the news over the last few years because there was a Netflix series about the Mark Hoffman forgeries called Murder among the Mormons. It's been a very successful release, and this is a big one because this is an area where the church is going to be duped by someone who was set out to fool them, and they ended up spending quite a lot of money to suppress documents that were not only fake, but in the case of the William McClellan collection, they already owned them, but did not realize it because they had hidden the documents away. And so this is an area where, if the gift of discernment were a real thing, the church could have proved its prophetic power by exposing Mark Hoffman as a fraud, which would have almost certainly saved the two lives that Hoffman would later take. And, you know, I hate saying like a cliche, like it's as simple as that, but in this case, the spirit of discernment failed so badly that the church ended up looking beyond foolish because they paid Mark Hoffman both directly and indirectly to purchase documents that they knew could be damaging to the church. And they only came out publicly with these documents because Hoffman was leaking the details to other historians to kind of embarrass the Church. And so this one has all of these layers of deception and no one from the church could see any of it.

John Dehlin [02:11:28] Yeah, yeah. And it's. There's so many. There's so many elements to that, including the fact that people died, including the fact that we were hiding history intentionally, that we were using tithing money to hide and bury documents. You know? You know, and that they didn't have the discernment to know Mark Hoffman was a bad dude and that he was deceiving and misleading people. Nemo, anything you want to add about that?

Nemo [02:11:58] Just that here in the UK we're having massive trouble at the moment getting proper safeguarding in, as is happening around the world, but particularly background checks for people who work with children. And I think if members truly understood, if people in the Church truly understood just how much discernment doesn't work with the case of Hoffman, if it can go that badly wrong for men who claim to commune directly with God. Your local bishop stands no chance of knowing if the person he's about to call to work with your child has got a background of abusing children or not. He has no idea. He has no way of knowing.

John Dehlin [02:12:34] Yeah.

Nemo [02:12:34] And so that's. We can't rely on that. And the Church is so hung up on this idea that we're a ward family and bishops will be able to know, they'll be guided by the Spirit, that it's just dangerous.

John Dehlin [02:12:45] Yeah, yeah.

Guest [02:12:47] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:12:47] And, and, and if, if it, if, if, you know, and if we thought that this is just something that past apostles and prophets have done, I really like it that now we're going to pull in current first counselor in the first Presidency and the second most senior LDS church leader. To date, which is Dallin H. Oaks into the Hoffman problem. So let's go ahead and go there, Mike.

Mike [02:13:13] Yeah. So on the day that Mark Hoffman killed two people, he met with Dallin Oaks in the church office building just a few hours later. And during this meeting, Oakes was not able to discern that he had just murdered someone in cold blood. Not only was Hoffman defrauding the church without any of these prophets, seers and revelators figuring it out, but he murdered innocent people. And these leaders could still not figure out that Hoffman was doing horrible things because they were more focused on protecting the image of the Church against these documents they believed were real. And I, you know, I feel like in our episodes we've picked on Dallin Oaks a lot. But this is the guy who's going to be our. The next prophet of the Mormon Church. And look at this quote that he gives in the 2004 General Conference, which obviously is decades later. The Holy Ghost will protect us against being deceived. But to realize that wonderful blessings, we must always do the things necessary to retain that spirit. We must keep the commandments, pray for guidance and attend church and partake of the sacrament each Sunday. And we must never do anything to drive away that spirit. Specifically, we should avoid pornography, alcohol, tobacco and drugs. And always, always avoid violations of the law of chastity. We must never take things into our body or do things with our bodies that drive away the spirit of the Lord and leave us without our spiritual protection against deception.

John Dehlin [02:14:30] What are you saying, Mike? Yeah.

Nemo [02:14:31] What has he been doing? What have you been up to?

Mike [02:14:33] I'm saying, what has Dallin Oaks been up to? Because clearly what he's describing is kind of like one of those great self owns because he's basically a guy that was deceived in the most public and humiliating way. As a, you know, someone who's an ordained prophets here in Revelator and here he's sitting here telling us how you could be deceived. So I'm just saying, I mean, something, something must be happening if he got deceived.

Nemo [02:14:54] And what's your vice, Dalin? Yeah, I'm not your advice.

John Dehlin [02:14:58] Yep, yep.

Mike [02:15:00] That's. I'm just saying, like, you know, if we're gonna play that game, you know, these are their rules, these are their, their layouts. And, and so, yeah, no, you're right.

Nemo [02:15:08] By his own admission, he should have been protected from deception unless he was doing one of those things that he outlined. So if he is, if he is putting that out there as the way that the world works, then I would like to know from him which of those things he was doing.

John Dehlin [02:15:22] And again, I've already mentioned this early in the episode, but the apologetic that the church I hear is going to come out with this month is that yes, even prophets and apostles are fallible and can get it wrong sometimes. But I'm guessing they're going to say you should still put your trust and believe in them because on the really important things, they get it right or they get it right enough on the important things that they're still worth putting your faith and trust in. Maybe something like that.

Nemo [02:15:50] We don't follow a prophet for them to be right enough. We follow a prophet because we're told they speak for God. They speak on behalf of deity. Right enough. When it comes to speaking on behalf of an omnipotent deity is not good enough, frankly, for Nemo.

John Dehlin [02:16:05] For Nemo.

Nemo [02:16:06] For me.

Mike [02:16:06] Well, for anyone. Like, that's the thing. Like, imagine Rolex having a commercial. Like, our watches are amazing and they're going to give you the right time 80% of the time. You know, I mean, like, or Google's, like, our gps, Google Maps is absolutely amazing. You're going to get to the correct destination at least 73% of the time. No one's going to use it.

Nemo [02:16:24] I don't see a Google Ad of a car in a lake and it's just like, Google Maps, it's good enough.

Mike [02:16:29] Yeah, it's like, you know, we've talked about this before, but, you know, professional betters, if they get about 60 of sports betting right, they're like a legend in sports betting.

Nemo [02:16:38] Right.

Mike [02:16:38] And the Mormon Church is going to start to fall back on that. Like Jim Bennett, who, who I like, but he's been on your show. His. A lot of the things he'll fall back on is the church gets more right than it gets wrong. And I always go, but. But what do they get right that isn't already out there? Like, it's, it's almost nothing. And so it's kind of like the church is now falling back to, like, we're infallible. But we do get it right most of the time. So give us your money, Wear underwear with Masonic symbols. Give us your loyalty, clean our bathrooms. It's just like, no, your entire special sauce is to say we speak to God. And so now you're saying we speak to God, but we don't know when it's God talking to us or it's just us talking for ourselves. And I just, I think that's an argument that is just so bad. Because what is left if you can't tell when Russell Nelson is speaking for himself or speaking for God, he is of no use to me because at that point, you already know that he's unreliable. And so once you start to say that prophets are infallible and you admit that they make decisions in the name of God that are incorrect because they just don't know exactly what God wants, then either God sucks as a communicator, which I don't believe to be the case, I'm just saying. Or these people are just winging it, as the evidence is overwhelmingly showing.

Nemo [02:17:50] And I know John likes to speak to the Nevermos in the audience. So I think it's important to mention that, as we've already mentioned in this episode, there are other breakoff groups of the LDS movement, the Latter Day Saint movement, if you're looking at it from kind of historical religious perspective, that believe in the Book of Mormon. You know, they believe in the Book of Mormon, they believe in Joseph Smith. So the unique claim, the actual USP of the Brighamite movement of the church, Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, the biggest movement, is that they have a living prophet on the earth, Russell M. Nelson, who speaks for God. That is their usp. So if they start to undermine that by saying, well, sort of, then really, what's the point? You can go elsewhere. You can find all the other things that you love about your belief in Mormonism elsewhere by people who are more honest about how their prophet actually acts, if you want.

John Dehlin [02:18:42] Yeah, well, we're really hitting this one hard. And all I'm going to say is, I would say that if I had to pick one issue that was most important and most sacred to top church leaders, and that was most essential to the level of obedience and the level of harm that members experience, it's prophetic fallibility versus infallibility and trust and discernment. So I think this is the thing. If we're gonna really emphasize something, I think this is it. And I think that, as you say in this next slide, a picture is worth a thousand words. This may be one of the most devastating pictures ever taken in the history of Mormonism. Do you want to describe it, Mike?

Mike [02:19:30] Yeah. So, you know, as we just joked about, you know, one must ask which of Dallin Oaks requirements he was not following that allowed for him to be deceived was a pornography, alcohol, violating the law of chastity. But it gets worse, because every other prophets here in Revelator was fooled in the church so what were all of them doing? And I'm joking, but like, this picture is Mark Hoffman. I believe this is the press conference they did. And you have all of these leaders of the church standing around with, you know, looking at these documents with a magnifying glass at a press conference, hailing all of these documents that have been found. And they're all being fooled by Hoffman who's standing right next to them. And so it really makes you wonder what God is doing. And we talked about this with, like, say, the book of Abraham. Like, why would God let Joseph Smith look like an absolute fraud by giving him an incorrect translation of the Egyptian papyri? Well, why would God allow these, these leaders of his church to be absolutely humiliated by not being able to see that this man is deceiving them? Like, this is the most basic thing that God could do, and yet God is going to leave them hanging because, as I would argue, they don't speak to God and they're just doing the best they can. And in this case, it led them to a really embarrassing event.

John Dehlin [02:20:41] And you may have just said this, but I'm looking, I'm looking right now. So that's Kimball, Spence W. Kimball with the magnifying glass. That's definitely Hinckley and Packer overlooking him. And then I think there's Marion G. Romney in there. Is that right?

Mike [02:20:57] It looks like.

John Dehlin [02:20:58] And maybe an Eldon Tanner. Nemo, do you, do you. Are you able to identify all those people?

Nemo [02:21:05] So next to Hoffman, I think, is an Eldon Tanner. And I think. I think you're right. Between Packer and Kimball is Marion G. Romney.

John Dehlin [02:21:13] But I mean, that's a lot of. That's a lot of discernment all gathered in one place. That's a lot of big names.

Nemo [02:21:20] A lot of big names.

John Dehlin [02:21:21] Yeah. And then there's Mark Hoffman right there. Okay, well, that's pretty significant. I think we've made the case. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide. Then on to the watering down of revelation.

The Watering Down of Latter-day Revelation

Nemo [02:21:35] Yep.

Mike [02:21:36] And this is one we're going to talk about a lot in the next episode as well. But when you compare the way that Joseph Smith received revelation with how leaders today talk about getting revelation, you can see that revelation in the church lives in two completely different universes. And you know, John Taylor recorded a revelation in God's voice, but since then, we've had zero revelations written in that manner. And there has not been a single revelation added to the DNC, to the doctrine and covenants in over 100 years. And you know, just take a step back and think about this, because as a convert I was continually told that this is the only ongoing true and living church. And so we are constantly told we're living in the last days. We have a living prophet for the main purpose of guiding us through increasingly tough times. And yet the church has not a single canonized revelation in over 100 years. DNC 138, which is the last canonized revelation, was recorded in 1918. And you know, this is something that's not lost on members. It's very well noticed, especially by those who leave. And Spencer W. Kimball was seemingly aware of how bland and absent revelation had become since Joseph Smith. And he made the following statement in 1960. He said, the great volume of Revelation comes to today's prophets in the less spectacular way, that of deep impressions. But without spectacle or glamour or dramatic events accompanying, expecting the spectacular, one may not be fully alerted to the constant flow of reveals, communication, which is a really good way of saying, yeah, this is pretty, pretty mundane stuff that we're dealing with, but we need you to keep believing in us because if you don't, we lose all of our power because, you know, Joseph Smith. This is not how Joseph Smith ever ran the church. And yet today we're like, yeah, you really shouldn't expect anything more than impressions. It's just, it's, it's tough.

John Dehlin [02:23:21] Yeah.

Nemo [02:23:21] Not to go, you know, full atheist on you, but it's almost like God, as soon as someone invented the video camera was like, oh, hold up, I better stop doing miraculous things because that's going to undermine faith. If people could, you know, like take video footage of these things happening.

Guest [02:23:36] Yeah.

Nemo [02:23:36] So I better, I better just stop with all that nonsense.

John Dehlin [02:23:38] Well, I was listening, I was listening to, I was listening to Neil DeGrasse Tyson interviewed. I think it was on a Joe Rogan podcast, or maybe it was Sam Harris. But basically they made the point that UFO sightings have, you know, decreased, you know, proportion to the increase of mobile devices, you know, that are available, the image quality. And the idea is just that when there's more and more observers, more and more evidence, more and more science, it's harder and harder to make fantastic claims, you know. Yeah, but, you know, this is the value proposition. If you had to pick one value proposition of the restoration, I think you could argue that it is that God speaks to man today through prophets.

Nemo [02:24:28] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:24:28] I mean, I was a missionary. I spent two years full time serving the church. That's what I took for my mission. The value proposition of Joseph Smith's Restoration is that God speaks to man and women today through prophets. And so if that's tainted, it's a problem. And I'll just add, it's not just they get it wrong. I would add the problem is that they're behind the times. That consistently and reliably. What are the most important issues that have ever faced humankind in the past couple centuries? Oh, I don't know. Slavery, civil war, civil rights, the discrimination against people of color, discrimination against women, the discrimination against LGBTQ minorities, women's right to vote. And if you pick any of those major issues, crime and poverty, pick any of them. You can consistently see that Mormon church leaders not only don't lead, not only do they not join, but they oppose all of those important strides in human advancement, and they're two to three decades behind the times, reliably on all those issues. So it's not just that they don't receive prophecy and revelation. They actually retard or slow down social progress through its wealth and its money and its power and its galvanized opposition. Whether it's denouncing the civil rights movement as a communist plot, you know, Martin Luther King is a communist, whether it's literally mobilizing to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, Whether it's Proposition 8 in California or Proposition 22 in California, or whether it's same sex marriage in 2015, we're going to do everything. Mormon church leaders are going to do everything they can to defeat what ultimately becomes characterized as super crucial, important social progress. And that's why it's even worse than just getting it wrong, in my opinion. Did I overstate that, Nemo?

Nemo [02:26:54] No, no. I've just been looking at. Preach my gospel here and looking at the first lesson, and they go straight in with Book of Mormon and we have prophets. That's. Yeah, that's bam. Straight in. Like, like I was saying earlier, like you just said, John, the USP is that we have these men, and so why are these men always behind? As we said earlier in this episode, Jeffrey R. Holland said, the world is here, and then we're here, and then the world goes there and then we go here, and before you know it, we're over here. He admitted.

John Dehlin [02:27:20] Yeah.

Nemo [02:27:21] That they're just, just doing this, following along, and it makes you ask the question, the world is here. Why do prophets not go actually, but we should be here. Why is that not the case? And for those listening, I've just done a load of gesturing with my hands, showing that the world is in one place and that the church is behind it. And if you get a chance, watch the Jeffrey R. Holland clip because it's worth it. Yeah.

Mike [02:27:43] And you know, I'll just throw this out. I love this example because I think it's so applicable to the church today. But to Nemo's point, we are to believe in the Mormon Church that God knows everything that's going to happen to the most minute details. So, for example, God knew that Joseph Smith was going to lose the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon, so that thousands of years earlier he had a second set of plates prepared, knowing that Joseph Smith was going to allow Martin Harris to take the pages and Martin Harris would lose them. And yet that same God has no idea that slavery is going to end, that LGBT marriages are going to be allowed in the US that women are going to get more rights, that Nazi Germany is going to get overtaken and defeated because the Mormon Church was not willing to stand up in Germany during World War II and in some cases was actually sympathetic to the Nazi party in order to get exposure in Germany or access, I would say, to being able to maintain their church in Germany. So my point is you have to believe in Mormonism on one hand that God knew everything that was going to happen up until the Book of Mormon was written, yet seems to know nothing about what happens after. And that's why that first episode we did on backdating prophecy is so important, because it really shines a spotlight on everything we're seeing today as to why the Church is behind on everything and why public pressure is the only true prophet of the Mormon Church. Because public pressure is the only thing that is forcing them to make changes, that they should be out there leading on, but instead they're generations behind on.

John Dehlin [02:29:12] And now that we violated Godwin's Law and invoked Hitler in an argument. Go ahead, Nemo. You've got Mormonism, Moroni and the Swastika

Nemo [02:29:21] Book by David Conley Nelson, and I've read some parts of it on my channel as shorts, but it's definitely worth a read. And if you don't want to buy it, you can find his PhD thesis online, which is broadly the same topic, which is free to read as a PDF. Yeah, we've invoked Godwin's Law. Cheers, Mike.

Mike [02:29:40] Well, no, you know, and I apologize for doing that, but it's one of those things.

John Dehlin [02:29:43] It's fine, it's fine, it's fine.

Mike [02:29:45] Yeah, no, I mean, I think. I think it's a good example because that is a well documented thing. No, I know, and I hate it because I totally know that someone watching this is gonna be like, oh, you've gotta be kidding. You went there. But it really did happen.

Nemo [02:29:56] I mean, let's talk about the fact that J. Reuben Clark used the word Aryan to describe members that should be allowed to get out of Germany and that should be allowed out. But he deliberately denied paperwork that would have allowed Jewish converts to Mormonism to escape Nazi Germany. J. Rubin Clark, who was a member of the first presidency at the time, denied those members. He. He let his own personal anti Semitism come in the way of doing what he should have been doing. As Mormons claim that the prophet and that they are leaders for the whole world, he should have been looking after his flock across the whole world. Again, they're just not living up to what they say prophets are meant to be. Whether it's discernment, whether it's actually caring for people, all those sorts of things.

John Dehlin [02:30:37] Yeah, yeah.

Mike [02:30:38] And not to be ranty. I'm going to go one more. One more example, which is to say we've talked about this in the polygamy episodes, but this is the same God that sent an angel down to Earth to tell Joseph Smith, if you do not marry and have sex with teenage girls, I'm going to kill you yet. Is silent on slavery, was silent on World War II, was silent on so many other issues today, whether it's Heavenly Mother or LGBT causes. It really makes you wonder why it is that Joseph Smith was able to come up with all of this stuff. Much of it is historically wrong, whereas the leaders today are completely unable to do anything of the sort.

John Dehlin [02:31:11] Yeah.

Mike [02:31:12] And why God can't do anything of the sort if we're going to go that route.

John Dehlin [02:31:15] Okay. And now that we violated Godwin's Law officially, let's end with something very trivial, which is Joseph's. This is more kind of humorous than anything else. It's Joseph F. Smith's declaration that what? Men will never reach the moon. Should we end with that?

Guest [02:31:31] Yeah.

Mike [02:31:31] And this is one. This is not something where he's saying, thus saith the Lord. So I wasn't going to include it, but Nemo brought it up.

John Dehlin [02:31:37] Nemo made you.

Mike [02:31:38] Well, Nemo brought up. And it's a fun way to end this. And so Joseph F. Smith said at a state conference in 1961 that men would never get to the moon. The USA is going to have men on the moon just eight years later. And fair Mormon is going to say that this quote was not a prophecy. It was his opinion that reaching other worlds and discovering that Christ was also their savior would eliminate the need for faith. And I will let John or Neil. I'll read the quote.

Nemo [02:32:02] I. Yeah, I'll. I'll do that. We will. We will never get a man into space. This earth is man's sphere and it was never intended that he should get away from it. The moon is a superior planet to the Earth, and it was never intended that man should go there. You can write it down in your books that this will never happen. Seems pretty emphatic to me, considering that Fair Mormon said it was just his opinion. Yeah. Can I make a quick point about that?

John Dehlin [02:32:30] Yeah, please.

Nemo [02:32:31] Because this idea that he is saying that because he said that over the pulpit, he said it in his official capacity as a prophet, seer and revelator. So as far as I'm concerned, that is the benchmark for when someone is speaking for God. If they're speaking in their publicly in their official capacity as a prophet, seer and revelator, you should be able to trust that what they're saying is on behalf of the deity they claim to speak for. You know, that it. That it can be counted as revelation or prophecy or whatever. Because anything less than that is exactly what we're warned against in the temple, which is that they are speaking using scriptures and they're speaking using their opinions, which is essentially then just the philosophies of men mingled with Scripture, which is useless to us, and we're warned in the temple to avoid it at all costs. So we. That's why if they say over the pulpit in their official capacity, we should be able to trust that it is on behalf of God and It is prophetic.

Mike [02:33:27] 100% agree.

John Dehlin [02:33:28] Yeah. Yeah. That's the whole value proposition. All right, let's go to the next slide, which is. This is certainly not Joseph Smith's idea of revelation anymore.

Mike [02:33:38] Yeah. And so I'm actually going back because we added the slide in. So if you think about what Kimball said about how revelation isn't really spectacular anymore, you know, this is a church that is founded on constant grand revelation that just happened to die out after Joseph Smith's death and has now been reduced to, as Spencer Kimball said, deep impressions, which Russell Nelson loves to say, use the word impression, that make clear that these leaders do not see God, are not talking to God, and are not channeling the words of God anymore than they are implementing their own worldviews, as Wendy Nelson confirmed to us a few years ago. And Joseph Smith would mock the leaders of this church today if he was around. And I just want to look at this quote from, from Joseph Smith about how other churches don't have the faith to produce revelation and are content with just resting on the Bible. And he said, but we ask, does it remain for a people who never had faith enough to call down one scrap of revelation from heaven and for all they have now, are indebted to the faith of another people who lived hundreds and thousands of years before them? Does it remain for them to say how much God has spoken and how much he has not spoken? And I just find it funny because you could read that quote today and apply it to the church because basically every leader of this church is relying on what Joseph Smith said hundreds of years before them. And this church continues to be the, you know, Joseph Smith's church, with only minor tweaks along the way, as we've talked about, that may or may not eventually be removed, depending on how the minor adjustments or policy changes are received by the public or the future prophets. And so I just, I think it's pretty easy to say that what the church is doing today, Joseph Smith would absolutely, absolutely use this quote against them.

John Dehlin [02:35:11] Absolutely. All right, well, this is a lengthy episode, but it's so important. I hope people made it to the end. But we can't end without playing an excerpt of your favorite Mormon of all time, Mike.

Closing Reflections and Episode Wrap-Up

Mike [02:35:26] Yeah, and so we're just going to revisit the quote from Wendy Nelson from the first slide or two, just because you heard at the beginning. And now I want you to hear it again, knowing what we've talked about today, and just think about how, how candidly she's describing what revelation is in the Mormon Church, having, you know, being the current wife of the current prophet of the Mormon Church.

John Dehlin [02:35:48] All right, so let's play it. This is Wendy Nelson, current wife of current Mormon Church prophet Russell M. Nelson and Mike's favorite Mormon.

Mike [02:36:00] I have seen him changing in the last 10 months. It is as though he's been unleashed. He's free to finally do what he came to earth to do is my big thing. And also he's free to follow through with things he's been concerned about but could never do. Now that he's president, he can do those things.

John Dehlin [02:36:28] All right, closing thoughts. Mike?

Mike [02:36:30] President, you know, just there's a quote, and I think a lot of people have said over the many years, but they say that if anytime you come across someone who speaks, claims to speak for God, but can't discern between his own worldview and God's will. You just need to turn around and run away. And I think we have so many examples in Mormonism, whether it's the priesthood ban or the LGBT or Joseph Smith from early on with polygamy, where they're doing these things in the voice of God, that today we know it just doesn't make sense. In a lot of cases, the church has disavowed some of those. It, to me, it tells you that these men don't speak for God and they don't know, even if, even if you want to give them this, this little bit of wiggle room to say that they do get deep impressions from God, the way they project them to members, clearly they cannot separate their own worldview, their own prejudices from what God is telling them. And in that case, they are absolutely worthless to us because they are as unreliable as any other person you're going to meet. And so, you know, that quote, I think is really important, which is just, if they can't tell what's their own worldview and what's God's will, then there's no reason to follow them. And I think that this episode shows that throughout history that has been the case. And so, you know, I just, I think we should all keep that in mind, especially as we go through these next, you know, General Conference, just to see, you know, what they say and, you know, we'll see.

John Dehlin [02:37:52] All right. Well, this is long, and we kind of really hit it hard, but honestly, I don't know. This might be the single most important episode of the entire LDS discussion series, because it really does strike at the heart of the Mormon value proposition. And I think it gives a pretty compelling case about why, at minimum, it needs to be diluted and weakened to Kool Aid levels or worse. But, but it potentially, I think, made may deal a fatal blow. Nemo. That might be overstating it.

Guest [02:38:26] What.

John Dehlin [02:38:26] How would you. How would you want to conclude today's discussion?

Nemo [02:38:31] I'd conclude it by looking at the idea that if you view what Joseph Smith did as a religious revolution, then all the prophets that come after him are the children of that revolution. And the children of revolution often sit twiddling their thumbs, wondering what they can revolt against. And so it's kind of like you've got all these prophets now sat wondering, well, what can we do to make our stamp, to make our difference? And they've got nothing. And if you want to apply the principle of prophets, from Joseph Smith to Russell M. Nelson, if you want to say that Russell M. Nelson is modern, day, Moses, he is like Joseph Smith. Then you have to ask, has he done all the things that Joseph Smith claims to have done? Has he done all the prophesying that Joseph Smith claimed to have done? The answer is no. And then you have to ask yourself, well, why? What's changed? And if this is meant to be the last dispensation, there's no apostasy, then why is there a reduction in the quality of our profits?

Speaker E [02:39:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:39:23] All right, Nemo. Thanks, Mike. Any final thoughts before we sign off? We've hit this pretty hard.

Mike [02:39:28] Yeah, I think we're, I think we've, we've done everything we need to say. And just thanks if you made it this far. Thanks for making it this far.

John Dehlin [02:39:35] All right, well, Mike, thanks. And Mike, thanks, Nemo. This is really important discussion. Great work. This concludes episode 38 of our LDS discussions. We still have at least one more episode to go on this topic of revelation. Next time for 39, we're going to be covering personal revelation and kind of epistemology and whether, you know, feeling feelings, you know, amounts to knowledge and truth. And then we've got at least another seven or eight, if not 10 more LDS discussions episodes to go. So if you please comment, please like please subscribe to our YouTube channel on Mormon Stories podcast YouTube channel. Also subscribe to Nemo the Mormon YouTube channel. Please subscribe to us on Facebook. Please like us. And the best thing you can do is always share this stuff with everyone that you are able to share it with. And of course, we're trying to, we, we try to make this financially sustainable by paying everyone for their good work. So if you love the LDS discussion series or Mormon Stories podcast in general, Please donate through MormonStories.org, please become a monthly donor. And while you're at it, go over to Nemo the Mormon and follow the descriptions of the information where you can donate and support. Become a monthly donor to Nemo the Mormon as well, because Nemo's now a full time content creator and we want to see that continue. Any, Any objections, Nemo? Nope. Okay, Nemo's got his approval there. So thanks for joining us, everybody. Thanks for everything you do. Please be good to each other. Please be kind to each other. Find out the truth for yourself. Never believe us. Learn. Go to the source. Go to LDS Discussions website. Read up, click on the, click on the footnotes, check out the original sources, do your own research, figure out what's true for you, and then act accordingly. And that's all we want. At the end of the day is informed consent, and then we want people to do what's best for them. Thanks, everyone. Tune in next time for more Mormon stories and more LDS discussions, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode. Take care, everybody.

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