Welcome and Episode Introduction

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 1553

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I would even dare say a special star studded edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is March 2, 2022. I am here with my partner in truth and righteousness, Kara Burrell. Hey, Kara, how you feeling about today's episode?

Guest [00:00:22] I am so pumped. I'm so excited. Yeah, this is going to be an epic maybe three parter, maybe four. We're gonna spend all day.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] This is gonna be all day with John and K. So you got your shoulders out and you're ready to go. Your guns out, ready to party?

Guest [00:00:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:00:37] All right. Yeah. So today we are interviewing somebody with probably tens of, if not hundreds of thousands of kind of like community members or supporters. We are here to interview Rod Meldrum.

Rod Meldrum [00:00:53] Hey, Rod.

John Dehlin [00:00:53] Welcome to Mormon Stories Studios.

Rod Meldrum [00:00:55] Well, thank you, John and Kara. Glad to be here.

Guest [00:00:59] We're glad that you're glad to be here.

John Dehlin [00:01:01] For those who have no idea who Rod Meldrum is, because there's always, like, silos of information and communities, Rod Meldrum is known as one of, if not the leaders and, or if not the founder of something that's referred to as the heartland theory for the Book of Mormon. Rod can clarify or correct any of the introductions that I give, but basically, if I were to kind of tell you what you're in store for today, if would be the following. So, you know, the Book of Mormon is clearly a foundational scriptural text for Mormonism created by Joseph Smith. We've covered it a gazillion times on Mormon Stories podcast. And I think for many, many decades, if not a century or more, it was just kind of understood that the Book of Mormon covered, let's just say in terms of geographically, the Book of Mormon kind of tied to North, Central and South America, that if you were to ask Joseph Smith or most, if not all of the early Mormon prophet seers and revelators where the Book of Mormon took place, they would say throughout the Americas, from the bot. From the top of the tip of Alaska all the way down to the bottom tip of Chile, like, that's where the Book of Mormon took place. And if you were to ask Joseph Smith or any of his prophet seers and revelators up until just the past few decades, if you were to ask any of them, you know, where's the Hill Cumorah? There would be no question. The Hill Cumorah is in upstate New York. And that's the deal. Let's just say several decades ago, there sort of emerged within this is my understanding within Mormon thought, particularly with farms, the foundation for Ancient Research in Mormonism out of BYU with Daniel Peterson and Lou Midgley and even before them, Hugh Nibley. Hugh Nibley and others, and then also John Sorensen. There came to be this concern that modern science couldn't support North America as the place the Book of Mormon happened. And I'm relying on a recent. I'm always fuzzy on a lot of this history. And so I had a phone call with RFM just this morning to make sure I understood it. As BYU scientists slash apologists started really studying anthropology, linguistics, geography, archeology, evolution and all the different flavors of modern science, they're like, oh, we have a problem. If the Book of Mormon happened in North America, that doesn't speak well for the Book of Mormon. So that's when kind of this two cumorah theory of the Book of Mormon emerged. Where, oh, we can't have Palmyra being the place where the Book of Mormon, you know, wars happened, in battles. We got to stick it somewhere in Mesoamerica, Central America, maybe Guatemala, because at least, at least it gets it out of a place where the Book of Mormon a geography gets it out of a geography where the Book of Mormon couldn't have happened, but it also gets it to a place where there might be a little bit more scientific evidence to support that the Book of Mormon actually happened. And that's where kind of a Mesoamerica or Central America or limited geography theory, the Book of Mormon and a 2 Kimora sort of version of the Book of Mormon started to emerge that became supported by Daniel Peterson, by Lewis Midgley, by John Sorenson and by the BYU farms people that then migrated into the BYU mine, Maxwell Institute people. And that. But, but what was interesting is then there became these two camps, kind of like the Central American Mesoamerican, limited geography, Mormon Book of Mormon apologists. But then that led to the emergence of Rodney Meldrum and the Heartland theory Book of Mormon apologists that said, no, no, no, can't be Central America. It's more all of the Americas and or primarily North, North America for the Book of Mormon is taking place. And it even got more interesting because they started criticizing each other's approaches. And so you've got farms in the Maxwell Institute saying Rodney Meldrum and the Heartland theory people, they're bad, they're harmful, don't believe and follow them. And I wouldn't say that you've returned those levels of criticism, but certainly you would say, here's why the Mesoamerica or the Tukumora theory isn't legitimate from your perspective. And so. So you've got. And that's for. For those who are kind of like, not sure about the Book of Mormon's historicity at all or who are just kind of interested to see. To observe Mormon apologetics, it's been at times over the past few decades kind of theatrical to watch two different forms of Book of Mormon apologists kind of critique each other and challenge each other. So, anyway, what's interesting about that, in addition to everything I just said, is that what's emerged from Rod Meldrum's kind of Heartland theory movement is tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of more conservative, more fundamentalist, more, let's say, orthodox Mormons who are really interested in this point of view because it pulls young Earth creationism. It pulls, you know, questions about the age of the Earth. It's sort of a. Let's just say if I were to characterize, you know, the heartland, Heartlanders, as they're often called, there tends to be a belief that the earth is. Is 7 to 8,000. Yes. Let's just say 7,000 years old and not billions of years old. That evolution is kind of bad. That Adam and Eve were the first, you know, humans or mortals on the Earth, that Adam and Eve are. Were literal humans. That a global flood happened. And most stunningly. And care. This is where kind of, you know, you've. It's been fun to kind of watch your perspective on this. You know, what that pulls is a concern that where did the water come from and go to. That would have filled the whole Earth. And it's led to even theories as controversial as is the Earth. You know, is the Earth's core truly magma or molten lava or is it water? And. And so, Carrie, you. You attended even a conference just this past summer?

Guest [00:07:31] I went to the Book of Mormon Evidence Conference. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:07:33] Where you observed.

Guest [00:07:34] Yeah, that was a shocker. I thought I was going to hear a lot of things to do with like, yes, the Heartland theory, but there's way more than that that I learned at that conference, let's put it that

John Dehlin [00:07:43] way, including the belief that the Earth's core is water, not. Not molten lava.

Guest [00:07:48] Right. Yeah. Yeah, I was taken aback.

Rod Meldrum [00:07:51] Yes. I was just going to say that that was a pretty accurate, you know, monologue there.

Guest [00:07:56] He's a good little Wikipedia article, isn't he?

John Dehlin [00:07:58] He just.

Guest [00:07:59] He can whip it out.

Rod Meldrum [00:08:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:00] I have no idea what I'm talking about three quarters of the time, but that's my way of summaring you, summarizing you and your work. But, you know, I'll just say you told me just in terms of the

Rod Meldrum [00:08:11] basics, pretty much there some, some nuances that need to be maybe addressed. And we will eventually. As we move along through these interviews,

John Dehlin [00:08:21] is there anything you would add or correct to my summary?

Rod Meldrum [00:08:25] Well, as far as just things like the earth and the age and some of the, you know, the interior of the earth things. And there's nuances, but in general, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:35] Okay.

Guest [00:08:35] We have five hours to get to it.

Rod Meldrum [00:08:37] All right. That's right.

Guest [00:08:38] The nuances will be taken care of.

Rod Meldrum [00:08:40] Okay.

Overview of the Interview Format and Goals

John Dehlin [00:08:40] So, yeah, so just to kind of let viewers, viewers and listeners know what they're going to be experiencing today, this is going to be an all day interview. We will probably do eight hours in total. I hope you'll forgive me for that. But we don't do shortcuts or sound bites on Mormon stories. Eight hours won't be enough. But here's how we're going to break it down. Part one is going to be Rod's story. So we do Mormon stories here. We're just going to spend an hour or two just learning about the human and what motivates him, his history and, and that sort of thing. So part one will be his story. Then we'll stop and we'll start again for part two, which is going to be us talking to Rod just about his views on Mormonism and its truth claims, just as a general survey. So we're not going to be digging into the heartland theory on part two, but we'll talk to him about, you know, Joseph Smith's polygamy, the peep stone in the hat like, but of Abraham, and just kind of get his, and, and the modern church and what it is to be a prophet and what modern revelation is and what scripture means and just talk at a high, at a higher level about his approach to Mormonism. That'll be part two. Part three will be us talking more in depth about what the heartland theory is, where, where it comes from, and, and, and just asking him questions about criticisms of it. And I'll just say as a disclaimer, we are not going to pretend to be getting into the deep science of the heartland theory today on Mormon Stories podcast. What we've told Rod is we would prefer to bring back Thomas Murphy or Simon Southerton, legitimate scientists, where he can explain his scientific perspective about the heartland theory and the Book of Mormon and then a scientist can discuss the geology or the DNA or the archeology, etcetera, So I just don't want people to think we're Care and I are going to pretend to be scientists today. We're not scientists, and so we're not even going to try, but we are going to be talking about just what his positions are and how he. How he reconciles his positions with some criticisms without pretending that we're going to dig into the science. So is that, Is that okay?

Rod Meldrum [00:10:58] Yeah, that's good.

John Dehlin [00:10:59] And then the only other thing we've promised Rod over today is we don't do gotchas on Mormon stories. We. We don't. We try not to be antagonistic. We're not here to try and embarrass him or argue with him or debate him per se. But I also have a commitment to, and I don't say this in a disparaging way, and these are words I've used with him. I'm really sensitive in 2022 to misinformation, dis. Disinformation and what I would call pseudoscience. And so for people who are followers of Rod or supporters of him, you might get frustrated at times. If I don't allow the conversation to get into deep areas of science, it's not out of disrespect for Rod or a desire to mute or muzzle him. It's just because I'm really sensitive to. To false science or pseudoscience. You having my platform be as a place where that goes unchallenged. And I'm just going to admit I am not qualified to talk about DNA or, you know, geology. And so I'm not going to try. But I'm also not wanting the conversation to go too deep there. Do you have a response to that? Because I know it's a delicate thing

Rod Meldrum [00:12:12] to go into a really deep dive would take literally weeks, semesters. Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:12:17] So, yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:12:18] Oh, yeah, absolutely. You have to keep it at kind of a.

Guest [00:12:21] Not.

Rod Meldrum [00:12:21] Not the 60, 000 foot level, but maybe the 30, 000 foot level.

Guest [00:12:24] Sure.

Rod Meldrum [00:12:24] some point. But we're not going to get into the weeds in too much detail unless you have other, Other people here that we can talk to about it too. Hopefully they're watching.

John Dehlin [00:12:34] Yeah, yeah, we've got, We've already got, okay, 350 people on the live stream, and I'm guessing it's going to grow throughout the day, so that's fun. Kara, anything you want to add about why you care so much about this issue? Like, it's kind of personal for you, but I don't know if you Even want to go there or not.

Guest [00:12:50] I mean, we'll get into it throughout the day. I know my mom has probably tried to talk you out of coming on what she might term as, like, an anti Mormon podcast, and I hope that that is not your experience today. I hope that we are very just like, pro truth, pro transparency, pro people. And I view people as, you know, products of their genetics and their conditioning. And so I'm excited to start this podcast by just understanding if you're the. One of the biggest proponents of the Heartland theory. I just, I'm curious of where did you come from? What motivates you? And so just from that starting point, I is a beautiful, like, yeah, jumping off point for that. We'll lead the discussion the rest of the day.

Rodney Meldrum's Early Life and Personal Struggles

Rod Meldrum [00:13:25] All right, that sounds good.

John Dehlin [00:13:27] Okay, so tell me where we want to.

Rod Meldrum [00:13:29] We want to jump in.

John Dehlin [00:13:30] Yeah, yeah, let's jump in. And I. I'm going to just go quickly to. Okay, so we actually have slides that Rodney has brought for the storytelling part of. Of today. And. And so, Rodney, you'll have to tell me kind of when to go to the slide as you change the slide, if you'll tell, kind of weave it into your narrative. Because Rod brought visuals. And these visuals are fun. I've already reviewed them. And what's fun about these visuals is they show him kind of, you know, in the. In the 60s, they show his. His upbringing growing up in Cache Valley. And I think the visuals are a fun way to accent your. Your story. So I've. I've got the computer hooked up here, and you'll just have to tell me as you change the slide, I'm going to go back between the shot of you and the shot of your slides, and I just need you to kind of tell me when to kind of advance to the next slide. Is that okay?

Rod Meldrum [00:14:28] You bet. Well, maybe just a explanation as to why I have this in the first place, because a number of. Probably about three years ago, I had the. The opportunity. Somebody said, I'd like to. We'd like to come and speak to our group, but not about the heartland stuff. And I go, oh, oh, no. But they said, actually, what we'd like to do is have you tell a little bit about your story, how you came to believe the things you believe. And so that led me into a number of things. But one of the big things is we have a lot of issues nowadays with suicide, and suicide prevention is, I think, is a big thing. We have way too many kids who are deciding to just end their lives And, And. And I think a message of hope kind of thing would be. That's kind of what I decided to do in this particular case. And I actually think it works out pretty well for what we're doing here because it kind of introduces not just that, but, you know, basically hang in there, bad things happen. And so that's. Should we. Do we jump into that?

John Dehlin [00:15:37] And I guess what I hear you saying is maybe there have been times in your life where you've been so low that those types of thoughts have even entered your mind, and you're saying you something that you feel like you've been through some of those rougher feelings and you want to give other people hope that it maybe if you work through some hard things, they can too.

Rod Meldrum [00:15:57] Well, in full disclosure, I really never had the. The thought that I'm going to end it, but I just didn't know how was. How was this going to come out? How is this going to.

John Dehlin [00:16:07] But you've hit.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:07] How is it going to survive this?

John Dehlin [00:16:09] You've had desperation so bad.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:10] Yeah, I was just desperate. But, but as far as. Yeah, I haven't really ever had any thoughts of actually ending it.

John Dehlin [00:16:16] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:16] Which has been, I think, kind of a blessing because I know that that plagues a lot of people.

John Dehlin [00:16:21] Yeah, but you want people to have hope. You want your story. If your story can give people hope.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:26] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:16:27] They'll be good for you.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:28] And I think in the process, it also kind of tells me a little bit about my faith, basically how I view things, I guess, would be a good way to talk about it. So the slide here says, do bad things happen for good reasons? Or as I like to call it, my miserable, horrible, terrible life full of trials. All right, now, you have to understand, I don't really believe that that's. That my life has been horrible, okay, in any way, shape or form. But there's been times, and I think all of us have experienced those times when it just looks like there's just no way out or things are going to be horrible. In fact, I like this little. This little meme here has this author. Meet the author of the book called My Miserable Life. And here's her parents. And she says, look, we're sorry. If we'd known you were going to be a writer, we'd have been better parents. And so I have to say that unlike the writer in this meme, I instead was born of, as the Book of Mormon would say, goodly parents. This is my mom, Carol Jean Tuttle Meldrum, and my dad, Calvin Ray Meldrum. Junior this is on their wedding day years and years and years ago. And just a really. Just very brief background. My. My. My father served a mission in the Central States mission. And it was for three years. And he came back kind of dejected because he had absolutely zero baptisms, convert baptisms. He was just like, oh, no. And he kind of felt like that that was, you know, that he had. That he'd somehow had failed or whatever. So when he met my mom at by academy, she was from St. Louis, he is from Oregon. And they decided that if he couldn't baptize anybody, have any converts, maybe he could raise up some converts. And so they decided early on to be really good parents. And so we had the obligatory scriptures every morning. We did that. We went through pretty much all the scriptures at least several times before I became of age to go on a mission. And I have to really give a lot of credit to my parents for that. A lot of you may have heard of living scriptures and they had these dramatized Book of Mormon tapes and so forth. We had to listen to those. And we couldn't listen to the radio in the car until we'd listened to the same amount of time in the living scriptures and stuff. So I got a pretty big dose of that as a kid growing up. And I hate to say this, and mom, whatever, both my parents have passed. And so I will have to say that I was probably the one that was the most resistant to all of that. I probably gave my parents the most rash about doing that kind of thing. But there was a couple of things that really kind of stuck. And one of the things that helped me when I was. I had some friends that were members of the church as well, and Kevin Glenn and Corey Parker, and they're still around. So we had different times in our lives when we would kind of fall off the wagon, if you will, and then the other two would kind of pull the other one back in and so forth. But my mom really had the most influence. I like this picture. I kind of photoshopped a little bit. But one of the things that she always told me, she says, rod, you know, if you just do what is right, if you follow the truth, then you know, you'll be blessed. And if you don't, then there's no promise. So you don't have

John Dehlin [00:20:13] to do what he says.

Rod Meldrum [00:20:15] Exactly. Kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:20:16] 82:10. Is that right?

Rod Meldrum [00:20:17] Exactly. Yep. And so that really. And she used that pretty effectively, you know, so, you know, you should go to this fireside tonight. And I'M like, mom, I got. I'm too busy. I don't want to go, and so forth. Well, you know, if you do what the Lord wants you to do, I'm like, oh, Mom, I hate when you say that. You know? So anyway, can I ask you. Yeah.

Growing Up in Cache Valley, Utah

John Dehlin [00:20:39] So you were born. What. What year?

Rod Meldrum [00:20:41] In 63.

John Dehlin [00:20:43] You were born in 63.

Rod Meldrum [00:20:44] I'm old. Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:45] No, no, no. So you're.

Rod Meldrum [00:20:46] You're skyview high school.

John Dehlin [00:20:49] Six years. You're six years. So you're 50. 50. I'm not trying to out your age. I'm just. I like to. So you're 58. Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:20:56] Technically 59.

John Dehlin [00:20:58] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:20:59] Had my birthday.

John Dehlin [00:20:59] Okay. So you were born in 63.

Rod Meldrum [00:21:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:03] So a year before the Beatles came to America. So your teen years would have been

Rod Meldrum [00:21:07] in the 70s, 70s, 80s, rock and roll, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:12] Okay. Okay. I'm just trying to, like, get so. So you would have. You would have been alive and aware when, like Joseph. When David O. McKay dies. So you would have. You would have. Might have even remembered David. Okay. McKay being prophet.

Rod Meldrum [00:21:26] Just barely. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:27] But then, but then Harold B. Lee and Joseph Feeling Smith and then Spencer B. Kimball probably would have been.

Rod Meldrum [00:21:33] Probably the one that. Yeah. That I. When I was on my mission and whatever that he was at that point.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] But this, but this mid-70s is like when the church was. Oh, well, you would have been. You would have remembered the ancient America speaks kind of Mormonism. Right.

Rod Meldrum [00:21:47] Numerous times.

John Dehlin [00:21:48] Right. So you would have been. You would have been watching seminary videos of the church. Really? Well, I guess if it's Sorensen, but also Thomas Ferguson. Ferguson.

Rod Meldrum [00:22:02] Stuart Ferguson.

John Dehlin [00:22:03] So you would have. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm just putting this together.

Rod Meldrum [00:22:05] He really had much out there at that point in time. I didn't remember anything from him. But. But all I'm saying is Jack West. And that was kind of the.

John Dehlin [00:22:14] All I'm saying is like, when the. When the church was really starting to gather evidence from its Central America explorations and expeditions to try and find evidence for the Book of Mormon and then produce videos and those film strips, you know, you would have been growing up at the time where the church was really using. Starting to do that Central America archeology as a way to bolster Book of Mormon veracity. So you would have been exposed to that as a aspect. As a kid.

Rod Meldrum [00:22:47] Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:48] You remember that?

Rod Meldrum [00:22:48] I remember that in seminary. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:50] Did that get you excited? Like, oh, the church is true. They found a baptismal font in Central America or they found A tree of life, you know, on a wall in whatever.

Rod Meldrum [00:23:00] It didn't really affect me too. I mean, I, I, I just thought, well, that's interesting. There's people who are a lot smarter than I am that have figured this out. I'm glad that they did. And, and, but as I read the Book of Mormon, though numerous times through my, my youth and up into my teenage years, basically I had the impression from the Book of Mormon that they keep talking about this mighty gentile nation above all other nations. It talks about a land of freedom, a land of prosperity, and land of liberty, they call it, eight different times in the Book of Mormon. And I was kind of having a hard time reconciling. Well, how, okay, so if that's Guatemala, does that fit better? And we'll get into that discussion. We get into the heartland stuff. But I always just kind of had a little bit of a hesitation as far as, just like I said, well, you know, I'm just a dumb kid. I don't know anything. So I just kind of accepted it as well. That's okay. I didn't internalize it, but I just kind of said, well, that's okay. There's some interesting potential evidence there. And we did play the, the, the film strip, you know, while I was serving my mission in Milan, Italy. We'll get into the mission thing in here in just a minute.

John Dehlin [00:24:15] But, but as you, you're saying as you were reading the Book of Mormon as a teen, you and you were watching church film strips or videos about Central America potentially being the location of the Book of Mormon, you had questions as early as then about whether that fellow fit the text that you were reading.

Rod Meldrum [00:24:36] Yeah, I just didn't, didn't seem to, I thought, well, yeah, I, like I said, I don't know much about it at this point in time. And so I just kind of interesting, just kind of deferred to the, to the experts.

John Dehlin [00:24:47] Okay, but you read the Book of Mormon, like as a teen from it?

Rod Meldrum [00:24:52] Yeah, several times, in fact. One of the things that my parents did is if you would read the Book of Mormon, then, then there was some, you'd got to go by the time I was 8 years old. Then I got to go out to dinner with my mom and dad. So the first dinner ever in a restaurant was in my, when I turned 8 years old.

John Dehlin [00:25:08] And let me guess, Bluebird or Maddox, which one?

Rod Meldrum [00:25:10] Blueberry, actually. We went to Piccadilly Fish and Chips.

John Dehlin [00:25:14] I've never heard of that. That must be, not be there anymore.

Rod Meldrum [00:25:16] No, it's not there anymore. It was there in Logan.

John Dehlin [00:25:19] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:25:19] First time I ever had the little English chips, and I thought it was the best thing ever. And my. My parents didn't like fish, and my mom didn't like making fish, so we never had fish really growing up. But I like fish now. But anyway, enough about that.

John Dehlin [00:25:32] But you're a Cash Valley boy.

Rod Meldrum [00:25:33] Yeah, Cache Valley, actually. It's a little place called Young Ward, which is between Logan and Mendon, Utah.

John Dehlin [00:25:39] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:25:39] And it's a. And my dad had a little dairy farm. He.

John Dehlin [00:25:42] He is that kind of Northwest Cache Valley. Does that sound right?

Rod Meldrum [00:25:46] It's kind of Central and West.

John Dehlin [00:25:48] Central West. Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:25:49] Yeah. People know where Wellsville is? Went to Wellsville Elementary School and then South Cache as far as junior high and then Skyview High School. I understand you have some. Some of your family with the Skyview went to Skyview. You lived in North Logan and so forth. So. Yeah. So you know the area. Yeah, but. Yeah, so Young Ward basically grew up there on dairy farm. My dad worked at Utah State University to support his dairy habit.

John Dehlin [00:26:13] Was it called agricultural college at the time, or was it.

Rod Meldrum [00:26:15] Yeah, it was the Aggies. I mean, it was always been the Aggies, but it was an agricultural college. And I think they still consider it to be an agricultural college.

John Dehlin [00:26:22] I think it was named, like, agricultural college before it was renamed to usu.

Rod Meldrum [00:26:26] Anyway, so I grew up milking cows and, And, And. And hauling hay and so forth. I spent my summers, a lot of times, you know, hauling hay for my. My dad or other people. They pay us to do that. So anyway, but then that actually leads into. That's. That's this next little picture here. This is. We had. This is part of our. Our farm there. We had horses. This is lady, my little sister on the back with me. And we would. I just spent my summers. I think I kind of feel like I had a kind of an idyllic, you know, childhood. Grew up ahead of Logan river, was in our backyard, and I spent a lot of time playing back there.

John Dehlin [00:27:01] And so those the Wellsvilles behind you?

Rod Meldrum [00:27:03] Yeah, those are the Wellsville back there. Yeah, this is my family. So I have an older brother and. And an older sister and two younger sisters. I'm right. I'm right in the middle, so I'm the. The problem child. And this is. You can see the hairstyles here. You know, this is back in the day.

John Dehlin [00:27:20] Got those polyester colors and that was great, wasn't it?

Rod Meldrum [00:27:24] Those prints and stuff, they were just fabulous. But anyway, so wide.

John Dehlin [00:27:27] Wide Ties and glasses. I love it.

Rod Meldrum [00:27:29] Exactly. So this is kind of me, you know, I'm a kid. I'm growing up. I've got two parents that love me in a pretty stable home. We live in a great ward. You know, I mean, life is good. And I'm thinking, I'm. I'm really happy. You know, I'm really happy. And then. Then life goes. Just wait a sec. Right? Never, ever have that happen to you. You know, you're kind of thinking, man, things are finally just working out. Things are great, and all of a sudden, wham. And one of those kind of things.

John Dehlin [00:27:57] Has that ever happened to you? Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:27:58] Kara, No.

Guest [00:27:59] I was birthed 33 years ago, and I've never had a bad day.

Rod Meldrum [00:28:05] Good deal. Well, so. So one of. One of the good things that was kind of happening is I had this neighbor, Lance Bohm, who. Who had a mink ranch. And so over the course of time, he was in our ward, and. And he knew I was worked looking for work here and there. And so I'd still. I'd help him with different jobs around the mink ranch.

John Dehlin [00:28:24] Can I just say I have to ask you this?

Rod Meldrum [00:28:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:27] I once had. So I. I know that even today there's still some mink ranches in Idaho, kind of Southern Idaho, I think there's a couple of them, Cache Valley area. And. But. But Cash Valley used to be a big producer of mink, and maybe it still is, but.

Rod Meldrum [00:28:41] And I. I don't think so.

John Dehlin [00:28:43] I. Oh, you don't think it is?

Rod Meldrum [00:28:45] I doubt it.

John Dehlin [00:28:45] Okay, well, I've heard. I've. I remember when I was living there, someone telling me, and I'm not trying.

Rod Meldrum [00:28:50] It was, though.

John Dehlin [00:28:51] I'm not trying to make this darker, but. But I. Because I've got this memory and you've worked on a mink farm. I have to ask you. Somebody told me once that they lived by or drove by a mink farm, and it was actually a very scary and dark kind of experience because apparently they. They skin the minks alive, and when they do, they make a really awful shriek. And this isn't me trying to, like, do a Gotcha. That's just all I literally have ever heard about inks.

Rod Meldrum [00:29:21] Well, are you ever there? Set it straight, because I was there and helped with some of that. I didn't do most of the. The killing part, basically.

John Dehlin [00:29:30] Were you there when the killing happened?

Rod Meldrum [00:29:32] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:32] Oh, okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:29:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:33] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:29:34] They have to, you know, they grow the mink and so forth, and then they're in these little teeny cages. And it's, you know, they're small animals, so they don't need apparently a lot of space. But, you know, I mean, they, Anyway, I won't get into the humanitarian aspect of the whole thing. I'll just say that that was, you know, it was a, the way that they were primarily killed. There was a, there was a tool, basically, and they bite on the tool and you just twist it back and then just pull it and just, and it just, and it breaks their, their skull at the back and, and there's no, they just go limp, really. There's no screeching. They're not skinned alive or anything like that.

John Dehlin [00:30:12] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:30:13] But it's kind of an interesting way to make money. But, you know, it's the same way that people who, you know, cattle industry do cow, you know, cattle or chickens or whatever. I mean, something's going to die, you know, for, for what we are doing. So, yeah, that's kind of the, you know, the situation there. But basically. So I, I, I was helping with feeding the mink and that kind of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:30:35] Oh, I've also heard that mink are nasty.

Rod Meldrum [00:30:38] Oh, they are mean little critters.

John Dehlin [00:30:39] Is that true?

Rod Meldrum [00:30:40] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, how many, how would you like if you were stuck in a cage your whole life, you can get out. Yeah, I'd be pretty.

John Dehlin [00:30:46] But when you say they're mean little critters, what do you mean?

Rod Meldrum [00:30:49] They're part of the weasel family. So I mean, they, they, when they're, when they're cornered or whatever, they, they, they have sharp little teeth and they'll, they'll tear you to shreds if you're not careful. So you have big, big gloves that go up to your elbows and so forth. Anyway, but the point basically I was trying to make here is that, is that the, that when it comes down to the mink sheds, they were expanding because, you know, people, there's a, there's a demand for mink coats back at that time and furs and collars and things like that that people would use for, you know, to show kind of status because they were expensive because, you know, they're animal skins basically, but they're very soft. Anyway, so the, so the deal was, is that he came to me and said, I need you to. This is my, the, the summer after my senior year in high school. So I'd gone to Utah, not to Utah State, but to Skyview High School. And he came and said, I need to build like four more of these sheds in the back. And there's a lot to do. As you can see, one of these sheds involves making these wooden boxes and all these wire cages and the roof structure and all that stuff. And he says, I think it's probably going to take you all summer to do that. And so here's your job for the summer. We'll just have you build these mink sheds. Well, I'm a pretty focused guy, so when I get started on a project, I go for it. And about four weeks into the summer, the meat sheds were done. And I was like, okay, so now what? And he's going, well, that's really all I had planned for you for the whole summer. I said, so what you're saying is I was getting paid by the hour, not by the job, so you have nothing else for me to do. And if you know about summer jobs, basically, they're not that easy to come by. And so I was like, okay, so what am I going to do now? And at the time, I had this awesome car. My. It was my, my older sister's car and I bought it from her. It's a, it's a. Those who recognize, it's American Motors Javelin sst.

John Dehlin [00:32:54] It's a sweet ride.

Rod Meldrum [00:32:55] It was a sweet ride, man. It was, it was fast. Had a big 390 motor in it and so forth. It was pretty hopped up. Anyway, so that was my, my, my car. Other than that, my, my parents had a robin egg blue Ford Falcon station wagon. And when I would drive that to Skyview High School, most of my friends would like crawl down in the backseat and lay down so nobody could see them, you know, coming in, in to high school. You ever had that experience?

Guest [00:33:19] No, no, I've never done anything wrong in my life.

Rod Meldrum [00:33:22] Okay.

Guest [00:33:24] No, I did that, but with like 20 kids in a minivan similar that. Not quite as cool.

Rod Meldrum [00:33:28] Yeah, well, but, but you probably don't even know what a Ford Falcon station wagon was, right?

Guest [00:33:33] I can Google it.

Rod Meldrum [00:33:34] Yeah, there we go. Okay. So there you go.

Music, Culture, and Youth in the 1970s

Guest [00:33:36] My family actually did have a station wagon in garden.

Rod Meldrum [00:33:38] It was a robin egg blue, so it made it even more fun. Okay. So I, so I had, I had to get something. So my sister sold me this car for I think 500 bucks or something. And the transmission was blown and so I, I took a course and, and rebuilt the transmission and auto shop. But anyway, the point basically I'm trying to make here is that this is, this is in a time frame. I also had a girlfriend. I was kind of preparing for a, a mission I always wanted to go on. A mission. That was one of my things that, you know. Hope they call me on a mission. Right. When you're in your in primary.

John Dehlin [00:34:08] Now, is that photo literally you with the girl sitting on your bed?

Rod Meldrum [00:34:11] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:34:11] That's you. That's your room?

Rod Meldrum [00:34:13] That's my room, Yep.

John Dehlin [00:34:14] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:34:14] My mom was taking the photo. I mean, somebody had to take the photo.

John Dehlin [00:34:17] So you got your sweet stereo there.

Rod Meldrum [00:34:19] Yes. Had to. You probably record player right there. See on the left hand side there, the vinyl. You were posters on the wall. You know, this is in our basement downstairs.

John Dehlin [00:34:28] And so I have to. I have to ask you something.

Rod Meldrum [00:34:30] This was. This is Breakfast in Bed, by the way. So it was my birthday and so my.

John Dehlin [00:34:35] What's a girl doing sitting on your bed? Rod Meldrum.

Rod Meldrum [00:34:38] My mom was there. She was taking the picture. I just said that. Right.

John Dehlin [00:34:41] That's your girlfriend?

Rod Meldrum [00:34:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:34:43] All right. It's a tiny bit sketchy. No, I'm kidding. I'm just joking. I have to ask.

Rod Meldrum [00:34:47] Come on.

John Dehlin [00:34:47] Okay. Look at this 70s vibe. Like it's reminding me of my older sisters. You need to tell us the top 5 to 10 vinyl LPs that you would have listened to on your record player. Because I'm in a 60s 70s.

Rod Meldrum [00:35:05] I like that. I mean there's a bunch. But I had like Eagles, you know, I had. You ever heard of Pablo Cruz? They came and did a concert up at Utah State one time and I was. Was at that concert and just loved it. The, the. The. The pianist and those guys were just absolutely amazing. The drummer. Love that. I had a. I had Carpenters.

John Dehlin [00:35:22] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:35:22] America. Love that.

John Dehlin [00:35:24] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:35:25] I had REO Speedwagon, some of that rock and roll. Boston was always a big deal there. Journey.

John Dehlin [00:35:31] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:35:31] One of my. One of the favorite things for, you know, for, for dancing and that kind of stuff. You know, dances that we'd have.

John Dehlin [00:35:38] Anyway, what about Rush?

Rod Meldrum [00:35:41] Never was into really Rush or, or like Led Zeppelin or you know, the really AC dc. I kind of thought they were disgusting and gross. I thought the Gene Simmons was kind of a. What about Foreigner guy? Loved Foreigner, though.

John Dehlin [00:35:53] Yeah, like Foreigner.

Rod Meldrum [00:35:55] Toto. Toto, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:56] Sticks.

Rod Meldrum [00:35:57] Yeah, that, that, that huge on sticks, but yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:04] How about Beatles? Come on.

Rod Meldrum [00:36:06] Never a big Beatles fan. You know, it was just. Never was stuff. Yeah, it was a little older, I think.

John Dehlin [00:36:12] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:36:12] I got into a lot of the older stuff because of my older siblings. They would listen to.

John Dehlin [00:36:16] Did you say Led Zeppelin?

Rod Meldrum [00:36:17] No.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] You did?

Rod Meldrum [00:36:18] Like, I, I didn't like.

John Dehlin [00:36:20] Okay, really quickly, I have to ask

Rod Meldrum [00:36:22] the Scorpions or Leonard Skynyrd.

John Dehlin [00:36:24] Or, you know, some of those you didn't like. You did or didn't like scorpions. This is the most important part of this interview.

Rod Meldrum [00:36:31] Right, Right there.

Guest [00:36:33] John gets angry. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:34] What?

Guest [00:36:34] This is where Don gets angry when people don't like the same things that he likes.

John Dehlin [00:36:37] So you said you didn't like scorpions and Lynyrd Skynyrd or you did like.

Rod Meldrum [00:36:40] Not a big fan of those guys. I actually even liked like John Denver. My older sister, she worked up at Grand Teton national park for a number of years and so most of our family vacations involved going up to Teton national park to do it. And I love. She was a big John Denver fan and she kind of got me into that whole genre. So I love that, you know, Rocky Mountain High and all that kind of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:37:01] Okay. What about James Taylor?

Rod Meldrum [00:37:03] Nope.

John Dehlin [00:37:04] What about Elton John?

Rod Meldrum [00:37:06] I liked a couple of his songs.

John Dehlin [00:37:07] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:37:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:08] Not a big deal. Really quickly. So I remember a book called Pop Music and Morality by Lex Diazevedo.

Rod Meldrum [00:37:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:14] The guy who wrote Saturday's Warrior. Did you have Saturday's Warrior lp?

Rod Meldrum [00:37:17] I could probably sing you most of the songs of Saturday's Warriors. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:37:20] You love Saturdays.

Rod Meldrum [00:37:21] In fact, that had a real impact on my life personally.

John Dehlin [00:37:24] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:37:24] When we went. We went to. We drove all the way from Logan. Whenever we got out of Logan. It was a big deal. Right? Because I mean, like I said, the first, first time I was in a restaurant was eight years old. But. But we, we came down to the play actually Saturday's Warrior down. I can't remember. It's probably like a west high or something in Salt Lake City. And. And it just had a profound effect. And then we had the. How did it affect you? Just kind of how the. How important family is and you know, in the pre. Existence and then throughout, you know, how that affects everything throughout our lives and in the future.

John Dehlin [00:38:01] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:38:02] And so that's kind of. That was a big, big deal for me anyway. So you're saying about Lex in his book.

John Dehlin [00:38:06] Yeah, like I had that book, Pop Music and Morality and I think there used to be. I was in Texas, so I didn't get this, but I hear there were people who'd go around the circuit, kind of the fireside circuit and like talk about the evils of rock music, the evils of backmasking.

Rod Meldrum [00:38:20] And I remember that about one of the stick songs or something was. Was they. I remember going to that kind of a fireside and they played some like. I think it was Come Sail Away or something backwards and it had some interesting stuff. But. But, you know, it's interesting because as a kid, Come Sail Away, I wasn't even. I wasn't even listening. You know, as a kid, you don't. You don't listen to the music. And I guess, you know, I listen to some of the songs now.

John Dehlin [00:38:47] You didn't pay.

Rod Meldrum [00:38:48] I listen to the lyrics and go, whoa, is that what that's talking about? Kind of like I went to. In fact, this is going to come up here in the next part of my story here.

John Dehlin [00:38:57] Okay, we'll get.

Rod Meldrum [00:38:58] I took this particular girl, leave her name out just for, you know, for anonymous anonymity. That's why you can't see her face there.

John Dehlin [00:39:04] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:39:04] But anyway, really sweet gal. And I took her to a concert down in Salt Lake City, and it was the Doobie Brothers, which I love Doobie Brothers, you know, and. And now you're embarrassed and all that kind of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:39:18] You're embarrassed to admit that now? Why?

Rod Meldrum [00:39:20] No, no, no, no, I'm not embarrassed to admit that. The reason why I was embarrassed because I had no idea what even the band's name came from.

John Dehlin [00:39:29] Kara, do you have any idea where the band's name came from or you maybe have no idea?

Guest [00:39:33] I have no idea. I am so innocent.

Rod Meldrum [00:39:37] Somebody actually was interviewing the Doobie Brothers and they said, so where did you come up with this name, Doobie Brothers? And they said, well, one day we were sitting around smoking a doobie and said, well, we should call ourselves the Doobie Brothers. Yeah, that's what we should call ourselves. So. And you said, so smoking marijuana was the. How they got their name. And I was like, what? Anyway, so a little bit of a. Of a background about that. So I think they have great. I listened to a lot of the lyrics and I realized, wow, that's what they were talking about. Yeah, but I loved it. I loved the beat. I love the song. I let you know the. The chords and so forth there. It was awesome. But, you know, and now I just listen to nothing but Motab.

John Dehlin [00:40:20] Is that true?

Rod Meldrum [00:40:21] No, that's not true. Anyway, okay, but moving along.

John Dehlin [00:40:27] Well, this would have been a cultural revolutionary time where the Woodstock would have happened in the 70s. Drug culture, free sex culture. You know, just Berkeley and Haight Ashbury and all that stuff. And so the church, the brethren, would have been really concerned about long hair hippies. Did you remember?

Rod Meldrum [00:40:46] We were on the verge of destruction because we knew that there was not going to be enough oil anymore in the world to supply. We were all going to be within five years, the prediction was that we were all going to be, you know, that, you know, the science was, is that that the oil is going to run out and we're all going to be basically on the eve of destruction. As one of the old songs on the Virgin.

John Dehlin [00:41:09] Who could survive? Who could survive? One of us will be alive.

Rod Meldrum [00:41:12] Yeah. And there was. There was all this talk about, you know, oil shortages and so forth going on because there's not. There's only so much oil in the world. And. And we're going to run out of it soon. And so we need to. We need to do something. This kind of reminds me of things going on today. But anyway.

John Dehlin [00:41:28] But also, the brethren would have been really concerned about sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Rod Meldrum [00:41:31] The church leaders. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:33] Right.

Rod Meldrum [00:41:33] Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And that was obviously a part of me as well. I mean, you know, that whole, you know, the. Although I think that they were pretty open, you know, I don't know of anybody that was coming down and saying, you know, okay, well, you can't, you know, pass the sacrament if you listen to rock and roll. That never happened, you know, anything like that. But, you know, I think that we all have to make our own decisions. It's kind of like the whole thing with caffeine and coke and so forth. My parents were pretty strict when it came down to that. They're like, we don't drink caffeinated drinks. And I still, to this day really don't. Have I ever had one. Yeah, I've had a Mountain Dew or whatever here and there, but I never developed a taste for it. And I don't really drink much soda at all. So we drank milk. I mean, we had horrible water. We couldn't afford soda and so we drank milk. That's what our family did.

John Dehlin [00:42:27] The cows were your water filter?

Rod Meldrum [00:42:28] Yeah, 10 or 15 gallons a week were. We would go through ours as a family. So we. That was our. That was our main staple for drinking.

John Dehlin [00:42:37] So I won't ever ask you if you were ever lured into the temptations of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Rod Meldrum [00:42:41] I'll avoid asking. Well, I had a girlfriend. I mean, obviously there's a temptation there, right? And rock and roll was at a Dubey Brothers concert. And coming back from that. So this is where it actually ties into the story here.

John Dehlin [00:42:51] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:42:52] So we. We went down to this Doobie Brothers concert. And on the way back, my. My car was over overheating, kept overheating. What the heck is going on with this thing? And I learned a valuable lesson and probably you already, maybe you already know this lesson, but never assume that your gauges in your car are, are faulty. I, I, I, I got out, I, I, I looked at it and everything seemed to be fine. It was, it was warm. But, you know, I said, well, maybe the gauge is messed up. Well, it, it happened that just the, the thermostat had gotten stuck and so it wasn't, the, the, the, the coolant wasn't going through the radiator and basically it was just overheating the engine big time. I didn't realize that going all the way back to, to Logan. I got up to the top of Sardine Canyon, if you know where that's at.

John Dehlin [00:43:35] It's a gnarly canyon.

Rod Meldrum [00:43:36] And all of a sudden it just, the engine just erupted out from underneath. So I had myself and we, it was a double date. So I had my friend Kevin and his date was in the back and I had myself and my date in the front. Anyway, and so we cozed it down. Bottom line is that the engine was fried. It burned the valves of the engine to the point where it wouldn't even start or anything like that. So I'm in a situation where I just finished this job with the mink and I got my last paycheck. Now I just blew the engine in my car. And I'm like, what am I going to do for the summer? And I hadn't been very valiant as far as paying tithing. Okay, so this is, this is where kind of my, my thoughts about tithing come into play. And I hadn't been paying tithing for a while. So basically I owed as much in tithing as I was getting from the check. And I had enough to either pay for the, you know, to redo the heads of my car or the valve, get a valve job on my car or to, to pay tithing. And my mom, her words came into my mind again, said, now if you do what the Lord wants you to do, you'll be blessed. And if you don't, then you have no promise, right? So I decided to go to do this. So I have this slide in here. Sometimes good things fall apart so the better things can fall together. And that's become kind of a bit of a mantra in my life, I think, as I look through and as we talk about some of these things. And the point basically is that I was at this low point, this low ebb in my life. I mean, I'd had no money, had this girlfriend and so forth, but I couldn't get my car fixed I had no wheels. My freedom was taken away. How you feel when you don't have a car, right? Anyway, and so I had to make a pretty big choice. I had to make a decision. And I remember it was a Sunday afternoon. I took the. My mom said, if you do what the Lord tells you, you know, you'll be blessed. So I went to the. The bishop's home. Back then, you could go to their home. And I came up to our. Our bishop's place, and I. And I had this. This stack of money in my hand, basically, And. And I rang on the doorbell, and he came and says, hey, Rod, what's going. And. And. And I said, I just kind of had. Had that money in my hand. I just kind of shoved it out to. And he says, what's that? He says, it's my tithing. He says, well, you don't have to pay tithing. I said, I don't. My parents always had. Kind of taught me that you do, and it's just something you do, right? And he says, no, come on in here. So he sat me down and basically explained. He says, you know, tithing is really kind of a privilege to be able to do that. And, And, And. And. And, you know, you. You have been blessed to be in this wonderful family, and we're in this ward, and we're in this. This gospel and so forth, and bottom line is that, you know, this is a good thing, and you'll be blessed for it. Well, I went home that. That night. I now had no money to fix my car, and I had no job. And I'm like, okay. And then later on that evening, I got a phone call from my friend Kevin Glenn. And he said, rod, he says, what are you doing? I said, I'm sitting here with no job, and my car's broken, and I'm pretty miserable, actually. He says, well, how fast can you come to Colorado? I says, well, what's in Colorado? He says, listen. He says, the job I took for the summer and a bunch of other of our friends was over in Colorado doing coal exploration, drilling. He says, they need some more helpers over here. And let me tell you about what the pay is. I said, okay. I think I was making 750 an hour at the time, which I think at the time, I think 525 or something was the minimum wage. So I was making a little bit over minimum wage. I said, okay, well, how much do they pay? And he says, well, actually, it was. I still remember this day. Says, It's $14 an hour. But, but then it's like twice what I was making. But then we worked 10 hour days and we worked 10 days straight and two days off. And bottom line, then there's a per diem per day and then there's a food allowance and a housing thing. And bottom line, by the time I had it all up, it was like, it was a lot of money. And I'm like, whoa. I said, okay, I will be there. He said, well, how are you going to get here without your car? I said I'll take my dad's old truck. So I had to trust God and believe in good things to come. And that's basically one of the things that was a big, big factor for me. Now this is a big, a big thing. I had to trust that if I paid my tithing it was going to work out okay. This is the book Cliff Mountains in, in south well, kind of western Colorado essentially by Grand Junction, Colorado. And I started this job that involved helicopters. And you're an 18 year old kid flying around in helicopters. That's cool. So basically it involved this coal exploration drilling. And we would drill down into these mountains into a big coal seam that's underneath there. Enough coal to run pretty much all of the United States coal needs at that time for 200 years. It's about a 30 foot wide or thick seam of coal that runs down through these mountains there. And they need to get, they, they drill down and take actual samples of the coal so you can see how pure it is and you know, and all kinds of things about the coal.

Working on Drilling Crews and Early Career

John Dehlin [00:49:32] So when you, I watched a bit of some videos with you and when you talk about drilling and the mantle and geology, you actually have had some experience drilling and some.

Rod Meldrum [00:49:43] Well, I mean, yeah, this is, this is really, you know, surface drilling. I mean it's not deep, deep core drilling like was done in scientific boreholes and so forth, but it's not nothing. Yeah, I mean, but it was fun. It was kind of cool exposure to the whole drilling process and how it works. And in fact one of our main jobs as we were basically grunt laborers is, is to, to help set up the drilling derricks and then, and haul in the drilling muds and so forth. We'd have to dig pits for the, for the stuff to come in so it wouldn't go contaminate the area and so forth. And then I'd pump all that stuff out Anyway. This is a Llama helicopter called, the brand is a Llama. It's a really powerful helicopter that we used a lot to do that, and there's one particular time we'd have to have water up there to be able to drill. So they had these big water tanks and then they'd have these big like two, two and a half inch thick steel braided hoses that would connect on there. And we'd have to have water with water trucks down at the bottom of the canyon. They'd put water in tanks with great big pumps. They would pump the water up to the drill sites up on the mountain. And so we had. One of our jobs was to lay these big water lines. And so we would start, we'd hook it up to the tank up at the top and we'd kind of wind it down through the trees. And one particular time we got down to these points where they were going off of these cliffs. And so we're up there, we had backpacks on for the day working, and we'd be taking this water line down. Well, we got to this one particular cliff, we couldn't look over the edge of it. We threw the water line off the, off the edge of it. And long story short is that I started crawling down and got down to the bottom of the hose. You have about 200 foot sections of hose on top of about a 50 foot leader that they would bring these pieces of hose in with the helicopters. And I got down to the bottom of the hose and I was literally hanging off the bottom of the hose. And it was about 25 or 30ft more until you got down to the, to the jagged rocks below. And I realized I was in trouble because I'd already come down off the, off the cliff about 150ft. And there's no way I could have the arm strength to pull myself and all of our tools and everything up there. So I got on the radio and said, hey, I need some help here. So a helicopter, they brought in another helicopter with another piece of hose. They had to swing it out. They couldn't get close enough to the cliff. So here's a, here's a shot of kind of what we're talking about here. This isn't actually from the, from my work. This is a different thing. But, but you see that then. So this is, this is. What happened is I, I had to grab onto that hose, they swung it over to me, had to grab onto that one while I'm hanging on to the bottom of the other hose there, hanging at the bottom of this canyon, and then reach over, jump onto this other hose and then come swinging out of the canyon. So anyway, but the whole Point basically is this was a fun job for an 18 year old. You know, adventure seeking, thrill.

John Dehlin [00:52:34] That sounds scary and dangerous to me.

Rod Meldrum [00:52:36] Yeah, it's a good thing. Oh, she wasn't there anyway, so, so we. But, but this was. I made enough money actually in the three and a half, four months that I worked there to actually pay for my entire mission. And I had saved some money before that, but that was really. So the, the mink job basically had to fall apart so I could get this job which made a lot more money a lot faster. So they could actually have some of these other things. So this is my actual car and my motorcycle and other stuff that I had prior to my mission.

John Dehlin [00:53:10] So give those sweet things up to go on those sweet rides. You had to give those sweets.

Rod Meldrum [00:53:14] Well, I had sweet rides. I mean I had sweet rides. I had, I had my girlfriend, I had. And then when I got back from the summer then what happened was, and this is another interesting part of it by the way. So I've never had any issues with pain tithing ever since then. I just do it. It's just one of those things that I just do automatically because of the experience I had. Literally the day of then I get this call from my friend and so forth. You could say, well that's coincidence, but I look at it differently. But anyway, I think it was a blessing. Anyway, so I get down to this point and have this girlfriend and everything's going on. Come back that fall. And my birthday is in February, so I was looking at sometime in February. I was going to be heading off for my mission. Right. And then I got an interesting sideswipe. Basically the guy that owned the mink ranch came to me and said Roddy says we have had a banner year. Last year was great. We you over the summer we've been using those other, those other sheds that you did and so forth and we've expanded and so forth and so on and, and the meat prices were way up. And he says we're building a new house. And, and so we're going to be leaving the house that we're currently living in, which was on the property. And you know, you have to deal with that smell all the time. But you know, he said it was a smell of money.

John Dehlin [00:54:39] You know, what was the smell like?

Rod Meldrum [00:54:42] Really? The mink smell?

John Dehlin [00:54:43] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:54:44] Oh, it's, it's not pretty. You've been, you've ever been by a mink? You said you, you kind of knew about some mink stuff.

Guest [00:54:50] But my only reference for minks is guys and dolls, which is now ruined by the ideas about mink farms. All I had is take back your mink. And I had this wonderful, like, striptease version of Guys and Dolls in my head until I went into this mink

Mission to Italy and Marriage

Rod Meldrum [00:55:03] farm business, but now ruined now.

John Dehlin [00:55:05] I mean, I put my cattle, you know, by like dairies, and they smell awful.

Rod Meldrum [00:55:08] Yeah, they smell worse than pig farms. It's not probably. It's not as bad as a pig farm, but it's probably about the same as a dairy. Dairy farm.

John Dehlin [00:55:16] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:55:17] But, yeah, when you grow up in a dairy farm, you know, it's just.

John Dehlin [00:55:19] You're used to it.

Rod Meldrum [00:55:19] You just get used to it. So that's where it is. So anyway, so he came to me, says, roddy says, I want you to manage my ranch. We're going to move into this other house and I want you to manage it. And he says, and just before you, you know, whatever. I know, I know you want to go on a mission, but we got to have a manager for this ranch and we really like your work ethic and what you do. And so, for instance, so we're willing to offer $60,000 a year.

John Dehlin [00:55:42] Whoa.

Rod Meldrum [00:55:44] And the house that is on the property is yours for free. And I'm thinking, dang, that's kind of

John Dehlin [00:55:52] like when Lucifer takes Jesus to the top of whatever mountain and says, all this could be yours if you abandon your mouth.

Rod Meldrum [00:55:58] But yeah, but I mean, temptation, right? It was. Well, I mean, it was an offer. It was just a straight up offer. And I was like, whoa. So let's see. So I could marry this gal and I already have my car. I mean, I'd be making almost twice as much as my dad was making up at Utah State University working up there. And in fact, he was kind of like, well, you know, son, but my mom was like, well, now remember, if you do what the Lord wants you to do, then be blessed. And if you don't, then you have no promise. Right. Man, I hate that. But still, I just always had wanted to go. It's just one of those things. And so I told him, I said, you know what, I appreciate the offer, but I'm going to go on a mission. So I went ahead and turned my papers, got my mission, called to Milan, Italy, thought, man, this is awesome. This is benissimo. You know, I would love to do that. And so got in the mtc and this is where I had another. A bit of a. Of a. I don't know if you want to call it my conversion story. Well, that's What I would call it

John Dehlin [00:57:06] is that this is around 83, I'm guessing.

Rod Meldrum [00:57:09] Yeah, yep. So I graduated in 81 from Skyview. And then this is the, this is the beginning of 83. And, and so in the MTC and I realized, you know, I'm kind of giving up a lot here. You know, I'm giving up a $60,000 a year job. And back then $60,000 was something, you know, I mean, it was. I don't know whether it'd be the equivalent maybe a hundred grand now or something. I don't know, something like that. For a young snot nosed kid, you know, just barely out of high school with no, no college experience or anything, that was, that was pretty substantial.

John Dehlin [00:57:42] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:57:43] And that's kind of funny because now, now I look at it and think, I was thinking then what a sacrifice I'm making. And now I look at it back and go, what a blessing.

John Dehlin [00:57:53] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:57:53] But anyway, so, so I'm in the mtc and I decided, you know what? I am not going to go serve a mission unless I know absolutely that the bookworm is true. At least that.

John Dehlin [00:58:11] And up until then you weren't sure?

Rod Meldrum [00:58:14] I mean, I'd read it several times with my family. I mean, I didn't have any reason to really doubt it per se, but it was, you know, it hadn't, it hadn't really. In other words, I was making a life decision. I knew I was making this life decision that I had to make, you know, and this was going to be a big deal. And so I just, I kind of, I hate to say this, but I kind of made a deal with the Lord. I said, you know what, I'm going to. I've been reading the book Mormon again for how many other time? And I need to know, Lord, is this true or not? Bottom line? And I said, if I don't have an answer by the time I get to the end of it, I'm going to go home, I'm going to marry this girl, I'm going to take that job, I'm going to basically live happily ever after there in Logan, raising mink. And so I remember a couple of weeks go by, I was in the NTC quite a while, learning Italian and so forth. So I was in there for several weeks. And I just remember one night my companion got into bed. I was getting down to the end, I had about maybe 10, 15 chapters left in the book. And I said, you know what, Lord, I still don't have an answer here. And I'm serious. I'M going home if I don't know. And my companion got into bed at night. He was asleep and I was sitting there reading. I got down to some of the last parts in the book where it talks about how depraved the people had gotten. The Lamanites had gotten so wicked and they were describ. How evil they had become and the things that they were doing. He says, and you think the Lamanites are bad, the Nephites are even worse. And explaining that, I'm just like, my heart just sinking, like, how could people who have been so enlightened, if you will, have lived so long peaceably among each other to some extent, with wars intermittent and so forth. But the bottom line is that then I got to the promise there in the. Towards the end of the Book of Mormon. And I will just say that I had an experience that has really shaped my. My attitudes in my life for the rest of my life. And I'll just say that at that point I spent hours just wandering the halls, just filled with the. With a love, just. Just a pure love. It was. It was really. It was powerful. It was astounding to me. It's a personal experience. You know, obviously people have different things. Some people have talked about, you know, testimonies coming like, like the sun, you know, kind of slowly up in the morning, you can barely perceive it. Then it all of a sudden it kind of breaks over the mountains and whatever. Some people, it's like a flipping on a switch. And for me, I had, Although I'd been brought up that way, basically this was a turning point. And at that point, I knew

John Dehlin [01:01:19] what.

Rod Meldrum [01:01:20] That. What I was reading was, was true. It was a real history. There was. There was really people who were involved with this. It was a historically accurate thing.

John Dehlin [01:01:30] The Book of Mormon.

Rod Meldrum [01:01:30] Yeah, the Book of Mormon. And of course, then all the things that flow from that, you know, you hear, you know, from when you're, you know, in seminary and so forth. Well, if the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith, then blah, blah, blah and so forth and so on. Right. Kind of goes down the line. That's kind of the foundation. That's the basis we have.

John Dehlin [01:01:48] Half of our listeners and viewers aren't have never been Mormon.

Rod Meldrum [01:01:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:51] So just to fill in those dots, if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was called of God. He saw God in Jesus. This is. Do you want to fill in the

Rod Meldrum [01:01:59] blanks of that whole thing, what you just said?

John Dehlin [01:02:02] Mormons, what would the other blanks be?

Rod Meldrum [01:02:07] Yeah, that God lives. That There's a. That he has a. A prophet. There's that he had a gospel that he established and then it was lost and then re. Established again. The restoration. Yeah, those kind of things.

John Dehlin [01:02:20] And Jesus, right?

Rod Meldrum [01:02:22] Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's one of the things that the Book of Mormon talks about is the resurrected Christ coming to the Nephites here in America. So that was one of the big things.

John Dehlin [01:02:33] And then just the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, what

Rod Meldrum [01:02:40] that the gospel, the doctrines and so forth are true. The church. A lot of people have this tendency to think that the gospel and the church are the same and they. I make a little bit of a distinction just for my personal. There's the church and the administrative aspect of that, things like missions and so forth and things that go on. But then there's also. Then there's the gospel, the principles, the doctrines that are part of that. So I do distinguish them somewhat, but I think that generally speaking they're pretty similar.

John Dehlin [01:03:17] But back then and even now, the discourse in Mormonism is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the one true church. Was that how you would have.

Rod Meldrum [01:03:28] That's what I was taught basically, growing up, yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:31] You would have believed that back then, at least.

Rod Meldrum [01:03:34] Well, there are doctrinal aspects of it that are unique to any other church. I think we'd all agree with that. I mean, probably our plan of salvation is something that's different than really anybody else's, you know, as far as that's concerned. I think, you know, I mean, a lot of the core beliefs, just things like honesty and integrity and, you know, and those kinds of things are things that pretty much, I'd say almost any, Almost any you know, church, even non Christian and so forth. I'm not sure if Satanists would believe that. Maybe. I don't know. Don't know much about them.

John Dehlin [01:04:08] So my friends who belong to the Church of Satan actually say honesty is really important to them. Them. But also the Church of Satan is

Guest [01:04:15] why you look at me. I noticed Cara's shoulders are out. She must be in tune with Satan. Kara, do tell.

John Dehlin [01:04:25] Just to stick up for my Satanist friends. I'm not. I don't identify as Satanist.

Rod Meldrum [01:04:29] There we go. Yeah, there we go. Anyway, so. But there's, there's, there's doctrinal things, you know, things like the basics like baptism and, you know, conversion and accepting Christ and so forth and so on.

Guest [01:04:43] Those kinds. Because there's that famous Joseph Smith quote that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. So I'm sure you would have grown up with that idea that everything would follow from that. So it's a great catalyst moment.

Rod Meldrum [01:04:53] So if the Book of Mormon is not true, I mean, pretty much, I mean, kind of everything else crumbles and if Joseph Smith was lying about it, or if the Book of Mormon doesn't have any historical evidence. And so hopefully you can kind of see from my, from my experience there in the mtc, my, my underlying, my baseline is, is that number one, it's true. Okay? But that doesn't mean that I just can turn a blind eye to everything, you know, I mean, basically you still. Which is the reason why I do what I do because I like the physical part of it. You know, if the, if the, if the, if the gospel basically is true, then basically we were a spirit. I mean, if our plan of salvation, if that's accurate, then in the pre existence before this life, we were spirits and spirits don't die as we understand it. And we were living with our heavenly Father, basically God. And if that's the case, then we're going to live forever with God. That sounds like kind of a pretty good deal. Why can't we just say, hey, you know what, game over, let's just stay here. This is great, we'll just stay right here. But according to the church's the plan of salvation, we had to come to the earth for what? To get a physical body, right? Get those shoulders, you know, and this lack of guy with hair, you know, I mean, a guy with no hair in comparison anyway.

John Dehlin [01:06:20] You'll be resurrected to look like me.

Rod Meldrum [01:06:22] Well, hopefully. I. Hopeful. I'm hopeful. Maybe I have hair.

Guest [01:06:26] Did you say it was a good deal? Suddenly not such a good deal.

Rod Meldrum [01:06:28] Maybe I had really good hair. My hair was so thin and wispy, it never, you know, it had no body. I mean, you know, Cara's hair's got some body, you know, it's all me.

Guest [01:06:36] This is actually thinned, by the way.

Rod Meldrum [01:06:38] Okay, there you go, There you go. And highlighted. So anyway, but anyway, so where were

John Dehlin [01:06:43] we at church is true, or at least the gospel's true.

Rod Meldrum [01:06:47] And the Mormons, right?

Guest [01:06:49] Came here to get a body.

Rod Meldrum [01:06:50] Came here to get a body. Okay, so if that's one of the reasons why we had to come to the earth, then what's the point of that? What's so great about a body? I mean, basically it just gets old. Your hair falls out. Hair grows out of weird places where it's not supposed to grow and stops growing where it's supposed to grow, and then we get diseased and we get old and we get sick and we die. So what's great about all that? Well, I don't know what's so great about all that, but I do know this and that is that if our plan of salvation is correct, then we can become like our Heavenly Father is. Right. That's kind of one of the other core things that make us different and unique from other religions, that we can become like he is. Right. So apparently God has a physical body, and that's one of the things that, you know, Joseph Smith and so forth. So if that's the case, maybe it's not enough just to have a spirit. Maybe you have to have a spirit and a body. And when the two get together, a spirit and body united, the. Then that's when the scriptures call that a fullness of joy. Right. Okay. So that being the case, if that is how a fullness of joy. We can't have a fullness of joy because we can't become like our Heavenly Father is. In other words, if I understand it right here, John, I don't think God would be God if he didn't have his physicalness, his body, his whatever you want to call that thing, at least in, in the Mormon ideology and, and understanding that's. That would be, Would that be accurate? I think, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, so. So there's something about the physical and the spiritual coming together. And that's one of the things that is really important to me because that kind of goes into the whole science thing because, you know, there's, you can, you can have theories all day long, but if you can't actually show it, replicate it, you know, have other people do experiments and verify and validate things, then, then basically it stays in the realm of, of, of somebody's idea. But physical laws have to be things that can be seen, observed, replicated and so forth according to the scientific methods and so forth. So, so that just to kind of finish up here, can I, can I

Faith, Science, and Mormon Epistemology

John Dehlin [01:09:09] just ask you about one thing? Yeah. So I don't know how much you've read about kind of early 20th century Mormonism, but there was a time where scientists were kind of elevated in the church as being really important. So like Woodstow, Talmage Eyring, not Henry Eyring, but his dad or grandpa, whoever it was. And like even BH Roberts. Sure.

Rod Meldrum [01:09:33] There were there geologist and you know, a lot of these guys were. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:38] So early to midnight, early to mid 20th century Mormonism, there was A real strong pro science strain within the top leadership of the church. Then Joseph Fielding Smith came out and basically opposed those scientists and especially was concerned about, well, challenges to the Book of Mormon historicity.

Rod Meldrum [01:09:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:59] BH Roberts specifically. But then also the emerging beliefs around Darwinian Darwinism and evolution. And basically there were battles between Joseph Fielding Smith, Mormonism and.

Rod Meldrum [01:10:11] Yeah, there's a lot going on in the background that people didn't know.

John Dehlin [01:10:13] Yeah. And then eventually the scientists died off. Joseph Fielding Smith outlived them, and then he built into Mormon correlation or Mormon curriculum, a real kind of anti science mentality. And so if you look at the books, Doctrines of Salvation, volumes 1, 2 and 3, if you look at Bruce R. McConkey's Mormon Doctrine, and then Boyd K. Packer kind of became the successor there, you'll see a real you. And I would have grown up in a very, I believe, anti science church in this one way. We would have been taught that the earth was 7,000 years old, that a global flood was literal, that Adam and Eve were the first humans, that there was no death before the fall, and that Darwin and evolution were evil, and that they were principles of mankind that were causing people to lose their faith. Now, Carrie, you're raising your hands.

Guest [01:11:09] I just wanted to ask, when you say, when we were raised in a very anti science, what do you mean by anti science? Can you define, like, just not mainstream? Like, what do you mean by anti science?

John Dehlin [01:11:18] Well, by the 70s and 80s, you know, evolution, organic evolution, you know, would have been accepted by mainstream science as a valid explanation for the evolution of human life, but also that the Earth was billions of years old. Carl Sagan would have been raging by this point, that, that humans had been around for hundreds of thousands of years, if not, you know, man and that. That. That there was no global flood, that Adam and Eve were not the first humans. That would have been the accepted scientific consensus by, by the 60s, 1960s and 70s. But. But Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce on McConkie, Mormon doctrine and CES curriculum would have all been condemning that consensus, condemning the consensus.

Guest [01:12:03] Okay, all right. I just kind of wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page. What. What kind of era you're talking about?

John Dehlin [01:12:08] Yeah, so. So all I'm saying is you would have grown up in the same church that I did, where in seminary. It's like evolution's bad. Scientists be skeptical of them. The. The wisdom of man, the pride of men. Like, I'm just saying that's probably where

Rod Meldrum [01:12:23] I'd make maybe a little bit of a distinction between it. I don't know, it was anti science as much. It was anti. Well, let's just kind of put it this way. And this is going to be a core thing that we're going to be probably talking about throughout these interviews here. And that is that, and this is kind of my position, just for whatever that's worth, that is that if there are discrepancies between what we have from the scriptures and the prophets and the teaching is there and what science is saying and what they teach and what they're talking about, if there's discrepancies, I do believe, and I know that this is something that's going to come across maybe to some people a little bit difficult, but I do believe that there's actually truth. There is a truth out there. If somebody sees a car accident and the police officer goes over and he talks to three different people and they all saw exactly the same thing, but each one of them saw it from their different lenses, their different perspectives. And so they get kind of three different reports. They may all come to the same overall conclusion, but everybody has their way of looking at things, right? Well, my way of looking at things basically is this. And that is if there's a discrepancy between what we are being told from science and what we understand from true religion. In other words, if it's true science and true religion, I don't see how there's any possibility, how they can not be fully compatible with each other. In other words, if the science part of it's true and the religion part of it is true, then they should be fully compatible because there is only one truth really out there. But what we've had in the past, we've had semi true religions going up against partially true science and they're at loggerheads with each other. In fact, there's been really, to a large extent there's even been animosity between the two. I mean, you look at, you know, look at Copernicus and Kepler and all these different people. I mean, there was a state run church that was attacking them as scientists because what they were seeing, what they were looking out into the heavens and seeing didn't match up with what the interpretation of the scriptures of the, you know, the, the church, basically the state run church. They didn't match up and so they were persecuted. So actually in a lot of ways persecution has gone on both sides. There was persecution from, you know, if you go back historically, there was persecution from the, from the, you know, the, the church of England and. And the Roman Catholic Church to persecute those who contested the beliefs and thoughts of things that, like, for example, the nature of God. I mean, if you take a look at that. That's really interesting. The whole Council of Nicene, they had a whole bunch of guys get together philosophizing about the nature of God. They come up with a particular. They all agree to what God is and who he is and what his attributes are. And then they kind of almost like take a vote on it. And then they say, okay, well, this is now God. So everybody just has to agree, okay, this is now God. He's everywhere and he's nowhere and he can dwell in your heart, but he fills the entire universe and all these different kind of, you know, conflicting things. And it created a tremendous amount of confusion.

John Dehlin [01:16:01] Yeah. And then if it's. Okay, let me just restate. What I heard you say, is that you believe there's a single truth.

Rod Meldrum [01:16:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] And that if. And that if science is making some assertions that conflict with. With religious interpretations, that we. We've got to figure it out because there's a truth. And if. But, but I, but I guess, and this is the way I would ask or summarize what I've heard, there is a degree to which, if you've had your spiritual confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true and that this is, you know, God's church on the earth. And then science comes out with assertions or consensus that conflicts with our interpretations of the Bible and the Book of Mormon and the way that they try to describe the natural universe. You are going to say science must have some things wrong because they're conflicting with how I understand the scriptures.

Rod Meldrum [01:17:02] One of the other room has to be wrong right. Now, it is possible that they're both wrong. Of course, that is one of the other possibilities, that both science and religion are wrong. But assuming that one of them is right and the other one is assuming there's one truth. Certainly there's one truth. And let's just assume for a second that if the religion has it right, then science is wrong. If science has it right, then the religion is wrong. But when you try to reconcile both of them together, which is what, unfortunately, this is what I feel, and this is my overall view of apologetics, even within the church, is that a lot of the players in the apologetics community have kind of one foot in both camps. So it's like they're going to. They want to accept the scientific research and information and consensus, but they also want to still be part of the church and the gospel and those kind of things. So they're trying to reconcile the two. And honestly, sometimes it works and sometimes it just does not work. There's some things that you just can't reconcile.

John Dehlin [01:18:16] And I guess the thing that I just want to lay down is like, I remember Kerry Mohlstein one time a BYU Book of Abraham apologist, saying, admitting we, we start with the assumption that the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, this is the true church and that the leaders are inspired. We start with that assumption.

Guest [01:18:34] Any information we get, we try to fit within that paradigm.

John Dehlin [01:18:37] Yeah, and, and we. Yeah, yeah. And if there's ever going to be a conflict between what science is saying and your understanding of the gospel, you're gonna, you're gonna have to just keep working out the science part because, because when push comes to shove, you're going to pick the scriptural interpretations over a scientific interpretation. And that's, I'm actually asking you a question because yes, it's true, there's one. Let's just say we all agree there's one truth and that religion and science are both imperfect. But, but there is, I would ask you, isn't there? And this is the mindset I was raised in. So I'm, I'm relating to you.

Rod Meldrum [01:19:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:16] The way I was raised is when push comes to shove, if science is saying things that conflict with what the prophets have said and what the scriptures say, you're going to, you're going to rely on the religion more than you are the science. Is that fair to say you're going to prefer the religion to the science?

Rod Meldrum [01:19:32] That is pretty much a dead on analysis. And when it comes down to it, I think if there's a conflict between the two, one of them's got to change. Now this is, there's some caveats here because, you know, do we understand the scriptures properly? I mean, are we, are we interpreting them correctly? You know, but the scriptures say what they say. And I'm, I'm pretty much a real, you know, a literalist when it comes down to these things. And I think in the apologetics community within the church, I think that, that some of them have done a real disservice because they've tried to reconcile things that are non reconcilable, like for example, Adam and Eve and evolution. I mean, so are those, there's ways you can try to make them reconcile by saying, well, what happened was, is God actually used evolution in making everything else. But then when he got down to people, then he Put a soul in him. And Adam and Eve were the first two beings that had a soul. I understand trying to reconcile it that way. Unfortunately, that's not what the scriptures say. That's not what any of the scriptural accounts that we have. In all three of the creation accounts. That's not what it says. It's not what it says in the temple ceremony and so forth. Right. The endowment. So in doing so, a lot of times they end up throwing basically both religion and science under the bus because science does not say that there was any direction from God. So you're basically trying to put words in their mouth. They're saying there is no God, basically. Or, or they're agnostic about their.

John Dehlin [01:21:06] Silent about.

Rod Meldrum [01:21:06] Yeah, yeah. So they're just silent about and say, you know, there was no direction from any intelligent being basically, that we know of. And, and so, so they're not really following the science. So in that sense, they're, they're not being true to what the science is saying.

John Dehlin [01:21:25] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:21:25] But on the other hand, they're not being true to what the, the church has taught and what the scriptures say. And one of the things I think that I feel like that we try to do with my organization and the firm foundation and so forth is to put exclamation points behind the. You know, as you've heard that talk about. Instead of question mark, put exclamation points. Right. But science is all about questioning.

John Dehlin [01:21:53] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:21:54] It's about coming to different conclusions and talking about them and showing forth evidences in support of your particular area. But this is one thing I've got to say, John. And I think it's real important for everybody who's listening. And I've told the people who I associate with that I have around me, I've told them, he says, if I ever get to the point where I'm more interested in defending my position versus telling the truth, then I want you to call me out. Because once you start to defend your position, that's when pride can enter in and you start to be more interested in not being wrong than you are about what's the truth. So I think as long as we focus our efforts and our energy on finding out, okay, what is the truth here? Yeah, but. But the truth is not easy to find.

John Dehlin [01:22:52] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:22:52] As you know, there's lots of different ideas about truth and there's a lot of ideas about can truth even be known?

John Dehlin [01:23:00] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:23:00] I mean, if in the scientific realm they don't even talk about truth anymore.

John Dehlin [01:23:05] Right. Because there is no truth and interpretations of evidence.

Rod Meldrum [01:23:09] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [01:23:11] So, but. So just to summarize, and then I want to get right back to your story. Yeah, you would. You, you. You are okay with the characterization that if your understanding of religion conflicts with the modern scientific consensus, you're going to have a bias towards favoring the religious interpretations.

Rod Meldrum [01:23:31] I'm not trying to pull any punches. I mean, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:23:33] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:23:35] But that means I also, I do question. In working with Dean Sessions and the Universal Model Project, one of the things that we talked about quite a bit that is that if God really is out there, okay, and obviously we believe that he is, then there are truths. And trying to find those truths out, sometimes God allows us to know things, and sometimes I think it's just not the right timing. Just like the, the timing for all these different things in my life. You know, it's kind of like I was just coming here with GPS this morning. Right. Well, in gps you put in your final destination. But I didn't know exactly how I was going to get here this morning, but in the gps, it gave me, okay, go. Go to this point and then make a turn. That's all it gives me. I mean, I can go through and it'll tell me more about it. But, but to not confuse the issue basically says, go to this point and then have. And then trust me that I'm going to take you on the next point. So then we make this turn, and then you make that turn and you make this turn and that turn. Pretty soon I'm pulling up in front of your place here, and I didn't know turn to turn to turn, what was going to happen. I look at it, our lives are kind of like that. Maybe that's a good analogy.

John Dehlin [01:24:58] Line upon line, precept upon precept.

Rod Meldrum [01:24:59] You kind of have an endpoint in mind. But then how you get there may have detours and all kinds of different things, but. But if you just have faith in the GPs, sometimes it's taken me on gravel roads, kind of weird places. You know how that goes. And it's like, you know, recalculating. Recalculating all the time. But.

John Dehlin [01:25:18] And it's the church, but if you

Rod Meldrum [01:25:20] can hang in there with it, it will eventually get you there. So basically, kind of my feeling about the church.

John Dehlin [01:25:25] So you're saying the church and the gospel and the scriptures tell you where you're supposed to go. And you may. The church and the gospel, the scriptures and the prophets may not always know all the details between.

Rod Meldrum [01:25:37] Well, I don't know. Between. Yeah, I don't know what God has in short, in store for me, which is kind of the whole point of this thing with this, my, with my presentation here. People get in situations where they think it's hopeless. They think that it's a, it's, there's, there's, there's no way out of this

John Dehlin [01:25:57] situation, including losing their faith in the church.

Rod Meldrum [01:26:00] Right.

John Dehlin [01:26:00] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:26:01] Yeah. But God always has a backup plan. I just love that. I mean, when the 116 pages were lost, God had a backup plan. We ended up with the, with the first books from the, from the book of Nephi, which was the more, the less secular record and the more spiritual record. So we ended up with something I think is probably better than what was originally there in 116 pages. But God has a backup plan for every single person. Yeah, and I love that part of it because we all make mistakes. We all do stupid things. We go to do we Brothers concerts and we let our cars, you know, blow up and, and so forth. But, you know, but God has a way out for everyone. So if so, if nothing else, maybe that, that message right there may help somebody who's watching this, this podcast, you know, hang in there. Don't give up. God has a plan for you. And, and it may be so much better than you ever dreamed. I mean, I look at what I do now and I just almost have to pinch myself because, you know, I get to basically talk about things that I love and my deep core beliefs pretty much on a daily basis. I mean, how many people get to do that?

John Dehlin [01:27:12] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:27:13] Yeah, you do.

John Dehlin [01:27:14] I agree with, I agree with you. And I agree with you on that.

Guest [01:27:18] I would say in my reinterpreted secular version of what you just said, that I agree with is sometimes it's like you're standing on a cliff and life can kind of kick you off the cliff, but then underneath that cliff is like the universe, like something else will come about that will like hold your hand, that will, that's still there to like rock you to sleep.

Rod Meldrum [01:27:34] It's not completely something else comes into your life or circumstances change or, you know, so, so basically never give up. I mean, that's really kind of the message between that.

John Dehlin [01:27:46] Yeah. The only other thing I just want to do just kind of state in summary. Well, two things actually. One is that you were raised in a, in a culture that did condemn that either, did condemn certain teachings about science, like evolution, being listed as one of the seven deadly heresies like that. That's how you would have been raised and you would have been raised with a very fundamentalist type of Mormonism championed by prophet seers and revelators that Adam and Eve were literal, that 7,000 year Earth Global flood was real. I mean, that kind of, in that sense, an anti. Certain parts of science and a very pro. More fundamentalist, literalistic interpretation of scripture.

Rod Meldrum [01:28:34] Yeah, I think that probably, I can't remember now who actually had the quote, but said we embrace all truth, scientific and so forth. But then it comes down to, you know, again, the, the interpretation of the scriptures. Do we have that right? Number one and number two.

John Dehlin [01:28:54] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:28:55] Is it okay to question science? And for a long time, you know, in fact, when I first started working with Dean Sessions in the Universal model, I was really struggling with. Wait a minute, wait a minute. You mean science can be wrong, but all of us can point to. I mean, I could point to a thousand, a thousand different things where science once believed this, of course, and now we know it's that.

John Dehlin [01:29:20] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:29:21] You know, and so, so if you follow that course of, of information, you have to realize that science is also evolving. Of course, it always evolves, it keeps moving forward and, and hopefully it's moving towards certain things. But I got to say, there's one interesting aspect in the Book of Mormon. It's this vision that Lehi has, and he has to see this great and spacious building, right? And there's all these people in this great and spacious building, and they were laughing and mocking at those who were partaking of the fruit, right. But the building has an interesting little description of the building itself. It says it was standing, as it were, in the air. Does that sound like a real building? I mean, how many buildings do you know of that stand in the air? In other words, it's not even real. There's no foundation. There's no basis for it. It's just kind of there. I look at it kind of like a house of cards, basically. If one foundational pillar upon which that building has been built, if one of those things is not right, if it's wrong, or if several of those pillars are wrong, then what happens to the whole rest of the building?

John Dehlin [01:30:36] And you're likening that unto what?

Rod Meldrum [01:30:39] To basically science, to some, some aspects of science. Now there's, there's one of the. One other thing that we have to. That we make a distinction about when it comes down to science stuff. I know we don't want to get too much into science, but this is kind of at the 30,000 foot level still. And that is that science, basically, it's all about questioning. Right. And the thought as far as the science is concerned versus religion is that the consensus somehow makes truth. If enough people agree, then it must be true. But how many times in history have we seen.

John Dehlin [01:31:23] Yeah, I understand that a lot of

Rod Meldrum [01:31:25] people agree on something and it turns out that it's not the case. I mean, it's kind, kind of like the whole, I mean, as a latest example, maybe is, is the whole, you know, pandemic and the way we handle the pandemic and the masking and the mandates and all the other things that went along with that. I mean, now, now we're seeing of, you know. Well, mass, really, it may have helped. It probably did help in some ways, but it wasn't the cure all that people thought.

John Dehlin [01:31:52] And I, and I, I made sure to let you know that for me, it would be a straw man to assert that, you know, to, to think that it's a really noteworthy thing to say that science is flawed, you know, that people think science is perfect and people worship science or that science can't make mistakes, science will. Science is a method of discerning truth. And scientists would be the first to acknowledge that science can be flawed, that science has made a lot of mistakes in the past and that it will make mistakes in the future. Future. It's nothing to be worshiped or to be viewed as absolutely true. It's literally a way of understanding, gathering knowledge and understanding and explaining what's around us.

Rod Meldrum [01:32:31] It's kind of a framework really to, to, to understand, to explore the world around us and the natural, the natural world now.

John Dehlin [01:32:38] But, but also that, that, I mean, I think someone could easily take that dream, Lehigh's dream, with the building in the air and no foundation, they could say, well, well, once you really understand the Mormon Church and its truth claims in its history that it's, that's the thing that's lacking.

Rod Meldrum [01:32:54] Another, Another view question. That's right. You know, that's another view.

John Dehlin [01:32:57] Yeah, but, but I, I was just wanting to establish that you would have been raised that if I were to put a gun to your head when you were 25 and said Darwin's teachings, good for mankind or bad, and you had to give one word, what would you have said?

Rod Meldrum [01:33:13] Bad.

John Dehlin [01:33:13] Yeah, and if I would have said, yeah, you know, Earth 7,000 years or billion years old and you were 25, you would have said what?

Rod Meldrum [01:33:22] That I don't know yet because I was only 25. Okay, but now I would probably say, yeah, well,

John Dehlin [01:33:31] 1000s, not billions, right?

Rod Meldrum [01:33:32] No, actually our position is, is that the materials that this earth is made from is probably billions of years old. But, but the formation of this particular orb, this particular planet was some around 13,000 years ago.

John Dehlin [01:33:45] 13,000. Okay. Yeah. And that's just it. We, we grew up in a, I, we grew up in a church that was very suspicious of science, critical of science and a very fundamentalist science.

Rod Meldrum [01:33:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:33:56] And, and a, and a, and a fundamentalist biblical interpretation.

Rod Meldrum [01:34:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:00] Yeah. Okay. And then the only other thing I just want to say and care this is just, there's something that you have to respect about fundamentalist Mormons. There's a consistency and an integrity in fundamentalist Mormonism and I don't mean polygamist, I mean the Book of Mormon and

Rod Meldrum [01:34:18] the, in the Bible teachings.

John Dehlin [01:34:20] If you read the Bible and if you take it seriously, if you read the Book of Mormon, you take it seriously. There's not a lot of wiggle room for how you interpret the age of the earth and the literality of things like the Tower of Babel and Noah and a global flood and you know, how things are and, and have been and will be and, and there's also little wiggle room for calling these men prophet seers and revelators from Joseph Smith until the present, including Russell and Nelson

Rod Meldrum [01:34:49] if the sciences, calling them prophet seers

John Dehlin [01:34:52] and revelators, but then saying they got all that wrong and they, they, they didn't, they didn't understand where Palmyra was and they didn't understand what Joseph didn't understand what he was doing with the Book of Abraham. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like you, there's a, there's a level of integrity that I think fundamentalist Mormons have that I think apologists like farms, Maxwell Institute type apologists and even neo apologists of today like Bushman Givens and Mason and Flumen and others, they lose integrity because they just start to massage words in ways that, that lo, that make words lose all their meaning. And in that sense, I'm actually giving you another, more fundamentalist, ultra orthodox Mormons of tipping my hat because you're basically saying when they call themselves prophet seers and revelators, I believe it. And when the scriptures say something, they say what they mean. And that's, I guess I'm saying at least you have some, some consistency, some integrity on, on your side. That's respectable.

Rod Meldrum [01:36:01] I appreciate that.

Guest [01:36:02] And don't you say rob that like if the Book of Mormon happened, it had to have happened somewhere. So where did it happen? Yeah, so there's, if it's a real

Rod Meldrum [01:36:09] history I mean, well, of course, this is kind of a catch 22. Name me any other civilization in history that we know that actually existed, that there's no. That there's no evidence for their existence. Well, of course, if there was, there wouldn't be any. Right. But. But we don't know of any history that doesn't have evidence to support its claims.

Guest [01:36:29] So you kind of made it your life work to support those claims.

Rod Meldrum [01:36:32] Yeah, yeah. Or at least look for them.

Guest [01:36:35] Whereas as opposed to kind of John's point that there's other apologists, even the, like, modern church will not actually pin down where these things have happened. Well, they have to be a little bit more progressive.

Rod Meldrum [01:36:45] There's actually somewhat of a movement within kind of some of the more progressive areas of the church and apologetics, where they basically are saying, you know, maybe Joseph Smith just made this stuff up. Maybe it's just a really inspired fiction and he was just kind of making it up and it didn't really happen anywhere. I'm definitely not in that camp, but I know that that is a movement that's going on.

John Dehlin [01:37:10] Yeah. Spencer Fluman and Patrick Mason and Givens and Bushman, they're all moving towards like, Book of Abraham wasn't a translation, it was a revelation. And Book of Mormon. Maybe it wasn't a historical document, or maybe it's loosely historical, but it's more of a revelation, a spiritual thing, not

Rod Meldrum [01:37:28] an actual historical novel.

John Dehlin [01:37:30] Yeah, an inspired novel. Yeah. Okay, well, thanks for letting me establish that. I really appreciate it. Let's jump back to your story because.

Rod Meldrum [01:37:37] Because, well, one of the other, one of the last things I was going to mention, Annette, is when it comes down to science, there's a lot of people who, who, they, they look at science as being. Well, you know, science brought us cell phones and, and, and space, gps, space technology, space travel. Yeah, but modern medicine. But what you just said was the important part, that we differentiate between science, which is the study of all these things, and technology, which is the application, basically arm of it. I mean, nobody can make a theoretical cell phone and sell it.

John Dehlin [01:38:10] Right.

Rod Meldrum [01:38:10] Because it has to work. When you, when you do the functions on the phone, if it doesn't work, you're going to, you know, say, hey, you know, this is, this is garbage. We don't. I'm not going to pay for this. But yet in some fields of science, we get away with a lot of theoretical stuff that is not observable. It's not repeatable. There's no experiment. You just have to kind of accept it on faith that this is how it is. And so what we try to do is try to separate the. The observations and the analysis of it from the interpretation of the. It's just like data and the interpretation of the data. The data doesn't lie. But like we all have heard before, the old saying about that data doesn't lie, but, excuse me, that figures don't lie, but liars configure, okay? So data can be manipulated in different ways to create different outcomes that are needed. And that's one of the things that's also. It happens. And all of us are guilty of this. Scientists are guilty of this, I'm guilty of this. Everybody is. And that is that you look at everything through certain lenses and those lenses. So in my particular case, I'm kind of, I guess you'd say, you know, more fundamentalist. I believe in kind of the core principles that were originally established and things. And so when it comes down to the acceptance of those things, yes, I have a bias, but I'm also looking for, okay, if it can't be reconciled and one of them is wrong, where are they wrong? In nature abhors a vacuum. You can't just say evolution is wrong, for example, and not replace it with something else, because that's the best explanation that we have at this point in the scientific realm. So you have to replace with something else. And that's what the universal model and my work with Dean Sessions and a whole lot of other people that are involved with that project, that's one of the things I feel very blessed to have had that opportunity to actually question the very foundations of science.

John Dehlin [01:40:22] Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:40:23] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:40:24] Thank you.

Rod Meldrum [01:40:24] So that's where I'm from. Okay, okay, so let's back to the story. So.

John Dehlin [01:40:28] So going on a mission to Italy, right?

Rod Meldrum [01:40:30] So I go, I go on this mission to Italy. I'm finally happy, and life goes. Wait a sec. And my mom, thank. Thanks heaven for her. And she goes, if you do what you. If you do what you want, what the Lord wants you to do, you'll be blessed. Right? And so that's when I decided to go on a mission. Trust God, believe in good things to come. And there we go. Is that a Fiat? Is that a Fiat? The Fiato E. We could get seven elders into that little beast.

John Dehlin [01:41:01] Really? It's like a clown car.

Rod Meldrum [01:41:04] Yeah, it does. It totally does. Yeah, It's a Fiat 500. And they're all over the place that they were back in that timeframe. But this is in Italy. And I mean, Just some of the experiences as my first companion here. Of course. We are in Milan, Italy, and my first day. Now, you got to understand, I'm a backwoods kid from Young Ward, Utah. Biggest city I've ever seen in my life is Salt Lake, probably. And I'm dumped into 11 million people there in Milan, Italy. I've never seen a city like this before. I mean, it's totally. I feel like I'm a farm boy. Right. Anyway, so it was quite a. Quite an amazing thing. But I loved it. I just. I loved it. I mean, I just, you know, had a great time with it. This is one of our districts there. So forth has the district leader there. And where are you in that photo?

John Dehlin [01:41:56] Top left?

Rod Meldrum [01:41:56] Yeah, I'm in the top left on this.

John Dehlin [01:41:58] The shades with the cool shades.

Rod Meldrum [01:41:59] Yeah, they have cool shades. You could get these sunglasses for, like, really cheap. Over there is awesome. And this. I mean, the. The third one over from the left there. And that shot there, that's in the. In the. In the. The plaza. The piazza.

John Dehlin [01:42:14] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:42:14] Look at all that hair I had, man. It's like, dang. Totally. This is a couple of guys that. We had this over for dinner. These guys were so poor that we had spaghetti with butter on it. That was all they could afford, but they were just amazing. This is my. This is my. My. I don't know if you want to call it claim to fame. This is. His name is Moroni. Moroni. And he was my. He was a baptism. Now, you gotta understand that when I. When I left my mission, I felt pretty proud of myself because I doubled the mission average of baptisms. I had two.

John Dehlin [01:42:52] So most missionaries would serve two years and get one baptism in two years on an average.

Rod Meldrum [01:42:56] Which means that for every. Every missionary got two, somebody else was going home like my dad did with. With nothing.

John Dehlin [01:43:03] Right. With noon. I was one of your.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:05] He was one of them. Yep.

John Dehlin [01:43:06] He was named Moroni. How.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:08] He was just named. That was just his name. Yeah. Moroni Francesco.

John Dehlin [01:43:12] Okay.

Guest [01:43:14] He was from the Camorra Islands.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:15] Yeah. Probably was from the Kamora Islands. No, no, no. He wouldn't be from there, but it's not there. That was pretty good, though, you know? That's good. You've been studying our stuff here. All right. And then this is coming back from the mission.

Guest [01:43:25] More than just hair.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:26] And. And guess what?

Guest [01:43:28] What?

Rod Meldrum [01:43:29] No girlfriend.

John Dehlin [01:43:31] You got Dear John.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:32] I got the big dj. Yes. Yeah. About three.

Guest [01:43:37] Three.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:37] Three months before I was coming back, she met the. She was. She started going out with the. Actually the son of the of the assistant head coach at Utah State University. Yeah, Stu.

John Dehlin [01:43:50] Not Stu Morrow.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:51] No, Pella.

John Dehlin [01:43:52] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:53] I don't know if you know, remember Pella? He was. I think he's the head coach after a while. But anyway, so it was his son.

John Dehlin [01:43:57] You got Dear John.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:58] Dear John. Yeah. But in the meantime, what I didn't know because I was completely out of, you know, I mean, I was serving a mission. I was kind of, you know, completely out of the. The news circuit. But during the time that I was on my mission and not managing the mink ranch, you know what happened?

John Dehlin [01:44:18] PETA. PETA happened.

Rod Meldrum [01:44:19] PETA happened.

John Dehlin [01:44:20] People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals happened.

Rod Meldrum [01:44:22] Yes, yes. People for the. People eating tasty animals. No, just kidding. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. And they began to spray paint Hollywood stars and so forth. But if they were wearing mink or furs and the inhumanity of the whole thing, they basically created a huge backlash against anybody who was wearing that stuff. And you were basically afraid to wear it. I mean, Kara, do you have mink?

Guest [01:44:49] I wouldn't.

Rod Meldrum [01:44:50] Yes. There you go. So they now they have all the fake furs and so forth.

John Dehlin [01:44:54] Samantha would excommunicate you if you had.

Rod Meldrum [01:44:56] That's right.

Guest [01:44:58] I was a vegetarian most of my life. So till I married a red blooded American and started eating meat. I'm cursed forever. But I had a good run there for a while. I was good, like human rights and animal rights type person.

Rod Meldrum [01:45:10] Anyway, so it became suddenly absolutely, you know, I mean, this is some of the things, you know, fur is dead. Go for free print or animal prints, not animal skins and so forth. And by the time I got back from my mission, my friend had. I'm not sure if he actually declared bankruptcy, but basically his mink business was done. If I had taken the bait, I'd taken the job. I'd have been married to this gal. I'd have been working at a mink ranch that basically was closing down or shutting down. And I would have never had the experiences that I had on my mission. So I'm kind of like, dang, man, that's pretty amazing.

John Dehlin [01:45:56] So how do you interpret that?

Rod Meldrum [01:45:58] So the way I interpret that is that because I followed the path that I felt that God had for me to do, I was blessed. I wasn't in the middle of all that. I wasn't married to the wrong girl. You know, this is interesting. I like this quote here from Elder Bednar. He says, strong faith in the savior, submissively accepting of his will and the timing of. Of our lives. Even if the outcome is not what we hope for or want it. So I had to submit my will to his timing. And because of that, sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. And guess what fell together?

John Dehlin [01:46:31] You found a better woman.

Rod Meldrum [01:46:32] I found you the best woman for me out there. And that's my sweetheart, Tanya.

John Dehlin [01:46:38] Are you getting emotional?

Rod Meldrum [01:46:41] No.

John Dehlin [01:46:42] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:46:42] I don't get emotional.

John Dehlin [01:46:43] That's tiny.

Rod Meldrum [01:46:44] I just cry like a baby when I need to. Okay. Just kidding.

John Dehlin [01:46:47] So that's Tanya.

Rod Meldrum [01:46:48] So this is my sweetheart, Tanya. So grateful that I didn't marry this other gal. She's probably a sweet person. I have no idea. I haven't had any contact with her ever since that time. But I do know that she's. She has left the church. I know that. And. And my wife Tanya is the absolute love of my life, and she hasn't left the church. And she has not left the church. And we've been able to. Or me, which is equally important things.

John Dehlin [01:47:20] Just so you know, Kara left the church.

Rod Meldrum [01:47:23] Yeah.

Guest [01:47:23] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:47:24] I'm assuming that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:27] I did not leave the church, by the way. I did not leave the church.

Rod Meldrum [01:47:30] Okay, okay, okay. All right.

John Dehlin [01:47:32] I didn't. Okay. I'm just being silly. Okay. Keep going.

Rod Meldrum [01:47:35] Yeah. Okay. So basically, she didn't leave me or the church. And we have four beautiful children. We have. Three of them are still living. And so that's basically a little bit about my thing. So when it comes down to it, my hope is basically when people who are listening to this podcast, you know, if you're going through a hard time, if there's something about your life that you just feel like that just you've been forsaken as you. As it might be as the case here, this is another quote says, because the failure to re. Establish the Saints on their lands in Jackson County, Zion's camp was considered by some to be unsuccessful and profitable endeavor. I mean, they didn't. You know, you could argue that what they set out to do, they didn't do. And they spent a lot of time, effort, and blisters and so forth, you know, in doing it. And it kind of reminds me here, this is. There was a brother in Kirtland.

John Dehlin [01:48:33] This is Bednar.

Rod Meldrum [01:48:33] This is Bednar's writing. Yes. And this is in the Ensign in July 2017. He says there was a guy who came to the camp and met Brigham Young on his return from Missouri. And he asked him, he says, well, what did you gain on this useless journey to Missouri with Joseph Smith? And the answer came all we went for promptly replied Brigham Young, I would not exchange the experience I gained in that expedition for all the wealth of Geiger county as individuals and families. We too will be testified or tested, sifted and prepared as members of science camp. That's basically kind of my, my overall feeling. The scriptures and teachings of the brethren are replete with promises that if we follow him that we'll, you know, get that. So that's just the final slide here. If God is all you have, you have all you need. That's again kind of my. So there we go. So then we, that brings us to. That's kind of my foundations, if you will. And since that, that point, I've had opportunities to, to explore lots of different things. I've had the opportunity to really study a lot of church history and things like that in some depth and specifically relating to Joseph Smith. And I know that that's one of your areas of expertise as well.

John Dehlin [01:49:40] No, I'm not an expert.

Rod Meldrum [01:49:43] Well, anyway, and, and, and so, so that's.

John Dehlin [01:49:46] Can, can I ask you, can I, can I ask a little bit more about your story?

Rod Meldrum [01:49:50] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:49:50] Okay. So you served a full two year mission?

Rod Meldrum [01:49:53] Actually I was called the two years and then I was in the MTC when they changed it to the 18 month.

John Dehlin [01:49:57] So you did the 18 month?

Rod Meldrum [01:49:58] Yeah, which also this is going to play into probably some of our future conversations a little bit. And that is differentiating between the church and the gospel. Yeah, I'll never forget was in the mtc, called for a two year mission and they called us in real early one. I think it was on a Saturday morning. Everybody in the mtc, all the missionaries were to come to a special thing at like 6:30 in the morning or something like that. They had a big announcement to make. And so we were in the MTC and they came in, they had a general authority that came out to the MTC and he basically came and he said in the next next couple of hours at the, in the, in the opening session of the conference, the General Conference, you're going to hear that that mission time frames are going to be changed. And then they proceeded to give us the outline of that from two years to one and a half years and so forth. I'll never forget there was a young man, one of the missionaries that was there and after he kind of explained what the situation was going to be, he said, does anybody have any questions in this one? Elder gets up and he says, so is this, is this something that inspired, is this a revelation from the Lord or is this inspired or what is this? Or he says, or is this just a good idea? And I remember the general authority kind of railed on him a little bit and just said, obviously this is inspired and so forth. But yet, three years later, I think it was, they went back to the two years thing because it was a. I would consider that to be, you know, as a missionary serving in a foreign language. Really, that last six months of your mission, you're probably the most effective because you stop having to translate into Italian. You start just thinking in it, and so you lose some of your six most effective months. So, yeah, so six of your most effective months, you're. You're not being able to do that. So I think it was a good move that they went back to it. Was it a mistake? I mean, I don't know, you know, but it was an administrative idea. It wasn't a doctrinal thing. And so there's a lot of things that the church does that are administrative that may or may not. You know, they test the water, see what happens, you know, and if that doesn't work out well, then, you know, then we go back to. Or we change it or do something else. But the core doctrines remain unchanged. And I think people have a tendency to. To think that they're the same thing.

John Dehlin [01:52:41] And my. My good friend and. And partner in. In truth and righteousness, Gerardo, he writes in the comments, you know, the question, so was it revelation? And I guess that that does. And we don't. We don't need to dig into this now, but it does invoke the question of, like, how do you know when the. When the brethren are speaking inspired revelation or if it's just their opinion or if it's just wrong or if it's Satan's influence?

Rod Meldrum [01:53:08] We all have to kind of wrestle with that. I mean, those of us who are, you know, believe that they're prophets. We have to. We have to say, okay, okay, is this inspired? And that's one of the things I really love about our current prophet, basically. Is that. Is that one of his. I think one of his mantras, if you will, or things that he says, you know what? You should. And even Joseph Smith said this. You should never just accept what a prophet or any other person says at face value without checking the source of all truth, which is essentially the Holy Spirit. So, but the trick. How do you do that? And what if you get something different and that all comes into the whole vaccine things and all kinds of stuff which we can go into. We will get into that Later.

John Dehlin [01:53:57] But I mean that you, you even said, you even referenced earlier the Wendy Nelson kind of idea of put an exclamation point if the prophet says it.

Rod Meldrum [01:54:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:06] I mean, sometimes the church and, or believers want it both ways, where it's like, they're prophets, they're inspired, they're men of God, but I don't want reveal the truth. And if they make a mistake, then it's like, well, they're just men and you know, and they got it wrong. And you have to use the spirit and you're admitting that it's messy. I don't think you're trying to claim that it's that when the brethren's mouths move. Okay, true or false? When the brother's mouths are moving, they're speaking God's doctrine. True or false?

Rod Meldrum [01:54:37] False.

John Dehlin [01:54:38] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:54:38] Yeah. And it's kind of funny. I was reading an article, it can

John Dehlin [01:54:42] be true just for your sake.

Rod Meldrum [01:54:44] Right, right.

John Dehlin [01:54:45] I'm guessing you would say sometimes true, true, sometimes false.

Rod Meldrum [01:54:48] Well, I mean, I think if the prophet has a, you know, goes to McDonald's and has a Big Mac, that, that doesn't mean that all of us should be, you know, following suit and having a Big Mac at the same time. But if Brigham, every decision that they make is not necessarily, but when they make important things, I think that as a prophet they have the right, but also the responsibility to tell us when it's revelation and when it's just their right.

John Dehlin [01:55:15] But when Brigham Young says Adam and God theory kind of stuff, can you allow for the fact that prophets can actually get important things wrong sometimes?

Rod Meldrum [01:55:23] Yeah. And in fact, Joseph Smith even said that says, you know, unless a man is speaking as a mouthpiece from God, he's speaking as a man. And you have to somehow have a way to discern that truth. And so that's kind of my,

John Dehlin [01:55:41] I mean, for me, that's, that's another example of integrity because you're, you are willing to stand up and say sometimes prophets, even when they claim they're it's revelation, they can sometimes get it wrong. And that we have to rely ultimately if it's absolute reliance on things prophets say versus the witness of the Holy Ghost. I'm guessing you're going to say at the end of the day, Holy Ghost, personal revelation of Holy Ghost might need to trump when the prophet's speaking.

Rod Meldrum [01:56:15] Well, and that's one of the, I think one of the factors, I believe in a hierarchy of laws, for example, just like in the judicial system here in the United States, you have local laws like jaywalking and so forth. Then you have, there's county laws, there's city laws, there's state laws, and there's national laws, and each one kind of trumps the other. I mean, you could be busted for jaywalking or speeding at a certain level, but ultimately the Supreme Court's not going to hear your case. But if the Supreme Court does hear your case, they supersede all the other laws. And there's similar kinds of laws. For example, thou shalt not kill or thou shalt not take, you know, innocent blood. Right. But yet here we have examples of Nephi and Laban, you know, Labani. Yeah. And so forth. And these people killed people. I mean, there's no doubt about that. So how do you justify that? Well, it's an understanding of, you know, in the Book of Mormon it tells us the, the justification was it's better that one guy should perish than an entire nation should perish and dwindle in unbelief. Okay, well, that's a higher law, if you will. So I think a lot of times we get confused with different laws. And I think one of the highest laws that the Lord has for us to do is to receive confirmation through the spirit of the things that we are being told and taught. I kept smiling a couple times here just a minute ago because I remember an article I read not too long ago. It says the funny thing between Mormons and Catholics is that Catholics believe that they teach that the Pope is infallible, but they all know that they're fallible. And Mormons believe that their prophets are infallible, even though the prophets themselves say that we're just men and we're fallible. So I think it's just kind of an interesting dichotomy.

Guest [01:58:23] So, yeah, can I ask a follow up question real quick? Do you mind, John? So you talked about like a hierarchy of laws is how we're supposed to understand God. Laws that sometimes they trump other ones. And you need to understand that. Where do you like, what's your evidence for where God said that that's where he wants you to follow them sometimes and follow them not so much other times. Do you have like a scripture doctrine that you can point to why you follow it that way?

Rod Meldrum [01:58:44] Well, basically you just look at different, different commandments and so forth and then exceptions to that. You know, like there's no commandment, thou shalt not lie. It says thou shalt not bear false witness. But then we have. Was it Ruth that basically, I mean, Abraham lied about his sister his wife,

John Dehlin [01:59:05] maybe God told him to.

Rod Meldrum [01:59:06] Right, so does that mean that. So is lying the commandment? Or when is it okay to lie, for example? I mean, those are, those are things that everybody has to kind of wrestle with.

Guest [01:59:18] Well, how do you square that with, like, if God says God is. God says, I am not a God of confusion.

Rod Meldrum [01:59:24] Yeah.

Guest [01:59:24] So shouldn't he, shouldn't he put forward some more clear understandings of when you're allowed to break that law? Because it sounds like it's kind of like up to interpretation for whatever situation. And now we're living in 2022, and a lot of people will lie for the Lord and they'll say that I'm doing this because God would want me to. But there's not really. We have no, we have no way of interpreting what that, that God actually wants you to lie for the Lord. You know, it's really up to everyone's interpretation. So it just, it falls into this big mix of just a very confusing God that a lot of people have trouble following.

John Dehlin [01:59:51] So like when the church gives the 1890 manifesto saying they're stopping polygamy to the world and then they keep. Or when Joseph Smith claims for a while continues, when Joseph Smith tells the world, I'm not a polygamist and yet he is practicing plural marriage. Or when the church issues the 1890 manifesto saying they've ended the polygamy should be done with and we should stop it, and then for another 15 years they secretly keep doing it. They're. You're saying God sometimes wants us. Wants.

Rod Meldrum [02:00:21] Let's just put it this way. When, when it comes down to, you know, God being, you know, not being a God of confusion, truth is actually pretty simple. But we complicate things because of our understanding. On the other hand, even Christ when he was with the, when he was alive, it's interesting because usually over in the old world, when Christ was living, you had the Pharisees and Sadducees and so forth, and most of the time he taught in parables. Well, why not just teach straight up doctrine? Because sometimes the people are not ready to hear the straight up doctrine or they wouldn't accept it or they wouldn't understand it. And so using it through a parable gives them more of an understanding of kind of how that is the usefulness or the purpose of that. Right. But it's interesting, when he comes to the Nephites in the Book of Mormon, how many parables did he teach the Nephites? None. He taught them just pure doctrine because I think they were prepared to listen to and hear it. So I think that there is also there's something to be said about the message to the right. The right message to the right recipients that make sense. And so sometimes people are just not ready to hear it or they don't or, you know, I mean, I'd like, I look at, for example, polygamy. I mean, back in the. Back in that time frame. I mean, practically every ancient civilization practiced polygamy of some sort of. I mean, whether it was actual marriage or just by concubines or whatever, there's a lot of that going on. But when it comes down to Joseph Smith and that, is there a time and a place? I mean, in other words, I think God has a timing aspect as well as his. So things that seem like they're a dichotomy may actually be just a. Just a difference in the hierarchy of laws. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [02:02:34] And of course, I think you would acknowledge, if you think about, like the book under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer that talks about the Lafferty brothers where they literally, like, stab a pregnant woman and kill her because they feel like the Holy Ghost told her to. Like you would acknowledge that this Holy Ghost inspiration, it's not always clear. Well, that it can lead to some really dark and dishonest.

Rod Meldrum [02:02:56] Not, not if it's coming from, well, just the right source. But. But there's lots of different spirits. There's a lot of different, you know, there's. There's positive and negative energy.

John Dehlin [02:03:06] Well, I don't want to do your story. I'll just say that. That once you start teaching people that their feelings are truth.

Guest [02:03:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:03:16] Then when they start paying really close attention to their feelings and their feelings tell them to do awful, dark things, you've set yourself up for an epistemology that can have really dark consequences. And I hear you saying you acknowledge the messiness of all this.

Rod Meldrum [02:03:31] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:03:32] You're not claiming that it's clear and concise and neat.

Rod Meldrum [02:03:35] It's hard to know sometimes. Is this coming from the Lord? Is this just my idea? You know, I mean, it's not easy to know. However, I think that the Scriptures and prophets do give us some guidelines. If it's going. If there's something that's going directly against the teachings of the Church in that sense, then. Then I have to question. Okay, so is this. Where's this coming from? You know, if I'm getting the impression that I need to rip off a neighbor or whatever or not be truthful or Honest about certain things. Where's that inspiration coming from? Because I do believe in, I don't want to call the dark side of the force. You know, there's, there's good and bad, there's evil and, and, and righteousness, and, and they all exist. And so it, sometimes it's not easy to tell what it is.

John Dehlin [02:04:26] Yeah, makes sense. And so if we go to your narrative, the one and a half year mission change was back to. From two years to one and a half.

Rod Meldrum [02:04:36] Probably looking back is probably wasn't a great idea.

John Dehlin [02:04:38] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:04:39] You know, but.

John Dehlin [02:04:40] So you're okay with profits, make mistakes.

Rod Meldrum [02:04:43] Yeah. Administrative mistakes, but not, but not doctrinal.

John Dehlin [02:04:47] So Adam God theory with Bruce, with Brigham Young.

Rod Meldrum [02:04:52] I think, again, that goes into a hierarchy situation where. And I, I haven't studied that extensively. I know that that's. He talked, he talked about that. I mean, I think atonement, I think into a lot of the different aspects as far as, you know, the nature of God and those kinds of questions.

John Dehlin [02:05:10] Okay, so you're still open to blood atonement and Adam God theory as being legitimate God doctrines? Well, you're saying you haven't studied them?

Rod Meldrum [02:05:22] Yeah, I would have to probably say no comment on that particular area because it's not an area of my expertise. I haven't really studied a lot. I mean, I've looked into it some things, but it's kind of like I told you this before, our interview here said everybody is expert in certain things and ignorant in everything else.

John Dehlin [02:05:42] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:05:43] So, you know, I'm going to have to claim ignorant on that part.

John Dehlin [02:05:47] That's fine.

Rod Meldrum [02:05:48] But I also do have faith that we, you know, eventually we'll probably know what the deal was. Why did he say that? Was he talking as a man? Was he talking as a prophet? You know, those are all open questions to me.

John Dehlin [02:06:03] Do you have a quick thing here?

Guest [02:06:06] We could get into this later. I don't want to derail the story too much, but I was just. I always like to lock down on, like, kind of definitions of what we're talking about and what the difference between a doctrine and a policy might be. Because you talked about administrative decisions versus unchanging doctrines. Maybe.

John Dehlin [02:06:18] And I do want to ask that in the next.

Guest [02:06:20] Yeah, well, I'm sure we'll probably get into that, but I just want to make sure that we, we know that when we eventually do have this discussion,

John Dehlin [02:06:27] we will for sure. Okay. Okay. So back to. Can I ask some questions just about your story?

How Meldrum Discovered the Heartland Model

Rod Meldrum [02:06:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:35] Before we stop this part one and go to a Part two. Okay, so what about what. What events in your life led you to become kind of the Heartlander guy? So you get off your mission, and I'm sure there's. There's decades that you could talk about, but just as in an abbreviated way, take us through your chronological timeline of how you end up kind of as the Heartland Book of Mormon heartland guy, you know.

Rod Meldrum [02:07:06] All right, well, you get home from your mission, and then from a mission. I get started at Utah State University. I'm studying there and doing business administration. I kind of figured that. I like talking to people. I enjoy that. I never really got to talk to many people outside of my family and our ward kind of thing, you know, some high school friends and so forth there, but. But not just open to the public, you know, kind of thing. And I realized how much I just enjoy people. I just. I love people. I think, you know, people are interesting and I like talking to them, and I'm kind of a talker, as you can tell. Anyway, so. So I started going to Utah State during the summers. I would. I would quite often. I would do monthly. One summer, the first summer I got back, I was. I went to work for a company called Eagle Systems International, and they had these blue Book of Mormon, illustrated Book of Mormon sets and so forth, and they had all kinds of church history and so forth. And that's something that interests me. I thought, hey, you know what? I would like to bless people's lives with this information, you know, be able to help them in their teaching their kids and so forth. So I went and did that for a year and excelled in that, and then came back the next year with a team of people and went to Colorado. The first year was down in Arizona. Went to Colorado after that and kind of miserably fell apart and everything. The wheels came off. But I needed to be there in Colorado for a real important reason,

John Dehlin [02:08:37] which

Rod Meldrum [02:08:38] was I had to meet Tanya.

John Dehlin [02:08:40] Okay, that's where you met her.

Rod Meldrum [02:08:42] So even though the business aspect of it all kind of fell apart, one of the greatest blessings in my life was to meet her the day before. I was heading back for. For home, kind of licking my wounds after a pretty hard summer and. And met this. This sweet gal and. And so then we started back and forth. She came over for. For Thanksgiving. I went over for Christmas and so forth and realized it was costing us more in phone bill. This is back in the day when actually phone bills, they actually charge you by the minute. Remember that day statements. Yeah, exactly. So. So. So it was costing like four or five hundred dollars a month just for phone bills. I said, you know what, we can actually back in those days you could get it, you know, you could get an apartment for practically that. So I said, yeah, it's going to be almost cheaper for us if we, if we decide that this is the right thing. And she kind of knew it right away and it took me a little bit longer to figure it out. Kind of a little more hard headed that way. But anyway, so, so then we, we ended up getting married there in Logan Temple and, and I moved down to Arizona. Realized that I got about a year and a half, almost two years of. Of school in, at Utah State before, before, before I took a position with Weather Shield Windows with Weather Shield Manufacturing as a, as a rep for them for the state of Arizona.

John Dehlin [02:10:07] For the sake of time you don't have to mention all the major things.

Rod Meldrum [02:10:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:11] Mention the ones that sort of tie in to.

Rod Meldrum [02:10:14] Well, this ties into. A lot of people basically are going well, where's your credentials? You know, I mean, you know, we're not going to listen to people who don't have, you know, PhD or master's degrees or something like that.

John Dehlin [02:10:25] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:10:26] In their particular realm that they're speaking in. And so that's presented a bit of a challenge for me because I don't have any credentials. I mean realistically I don't have even a degree at any university. But I've always had a very curious mind. I mean I love learning. I just don't like learning things that I, that I feel are not correct and not true. There's a lot of that that goes on at the university level. You're taught a lot, a lot of things that are philosophical and so forth. And I, I'm kind of more of a realist, I guess. So anyway, so I, I decided I was going to work. I would eventually come back and I'd finish my degree and then, then life happened and we had children and, and so that, anyway that, that, that kind of plays into it. So over the course of time I worked with window and door companies for a while as an architect rep for Andersen Windows. And then, and then I started my own business and, and a lot of. I will have to say this though, that a lot of the guidance that I've had from my life or in my life has resulted from a patriarchal blessing that I had when I was 17 years old that gives some outline of things in my life. And so that has been, has played another major role for me.

John Dehlin [02:11:49] What is your patriarchal blessing? What Are the main points of your patriarchal blessing that have influenced.

Rod Meldrum [02:11:53] Well, probably one of the most interesting things is the word truth is in my patriarchal blessing, like 13 times. It's more than any other word other than like is and the, and there's, you know, that I would be free to pursue truth, that I would recognize truth, that I'd be able to, to be drawn to other people who are seeking truth. And it, and it's in there like 13 different times. And there's, there's, there's a lot of other things, obviously in patriarchal blessing, you know, you know, share with as, you know, but basically had this, you know, this, this feeling that that somehow truth was going to be an important part of my life's mission.

Credentials, Expertise, and Working Outside Academia

Guest [02:12:32] Can I ask a follow up, though? Yeah, and I don't mean this disrespectfully at all. So you mentioned that people or, you know, ask often, where are your credentials? So if truth was so important, was it ever on the table for you to go back to school so that the truth that you were going to be learning and teaching other people would have some backed credentials behind it, so the truth would kind of stand on its own some more?

Rod Meldrum [02:12:52] Well, honestly, it would be a lot easier.

Guest [02:12:54] Sure.

Rod Meldrum [02:12:55] Yeah.

Guest [02:12:55] That's, yeah, that's kind of my.

Rod Meldrum [02:12:56] If I had the credentials and say, well, I'm a PhD, and so just take my word for it. But what it's done for me, though, Kara, is that it's made me.

John Dehlin [02:13:03] But did you consider.

Rod Meldrum [02:13:04] Not really. Well, yeah, I, in fact, it's still on the table that at some point, if something in my life calms down, if I get hit by a bus and, and can just only go to school, I don't know, online or something, I don't know that, that I would go back and finish that, finish that degree and probably, you know, maybe even look at getting something else. But I mean, higher degree, like a PhD or, you know, masters or whatever. But, but, oh, what was I gonna. My point was, is that I've had to. Because I don't have those credentials. I can't just say, well, take my word for it, because I'm Rod Meldrum and I have a PhD, and you should just believe me because of that, I've had to back up what I'm saying with actual, you know, facts or information or research from others that is credentialed. That makes sense.

Guest [02:13:57] Yeah. I think the, the natural argument to that though, would be that if you did have a PhD, you would have learned a certain method of Discovery that wherein your current level of what you call facts, you would probably not have that same lane that you'd be staying in if you did go through a credentialed program. I think it'd be the argument.

Rod Meldrum [02:14:14] Yeah, there's definitely a possibility of that because I think that a lot of education has that, you know, there's, there's, I think too much of this, that in education today is the teaching of what to think instead of how to think. And so I think there's a lot of just rote memorization and things that goes on and just accept us because this is the current.

Guest [02:14:37] Well what about in like higher academics? Like I could understand that and maybe like a schooling setting up until 12th grade. But I think once you get into higher academia you're encouraged to go out and write thesis like write and perform experiments and make your theory stand on their own.

Rod Meldrum [02:14:53] Yeah, and, and, and when it comes down to the educational areas that we're, that we're talking about specific, specifically with higher education, I think that there is a lot of. A, A, a tendency towards, specifically with the, like the Department of Education and so forth. And I can only speak on the kind of, towards the scientific aspect of this and not education in general. But in the scientific realm there's, there's, in higher education you have to go out and you have to basically create money for the university. You have to get grants, you have to write grant papers and so forth. You have to go to the sources of the funding of that money in order to get funding. So as an example in the scientific realm there's three primary scientific organizations that, that, that get with Congress and so forth. They lobby Congress and they get the money that is, that is generated for scientific research, for example, is funneled through Congress through one of these three scientific organizations is that there's the nas, the National Academy of Sciences, the aaas, the American association for the Advancement of Science and the nsf. I definitely call them the non sufficient funds. That was the National Science foundation. Okay. Those three organizations receive the funding from Congress and then they get to decide who they're going to give grants to for scientific research. Interesting enough, by their own internal surveys they are about 97% atheist. They self identify as atheists, basically the upper echelons of those three organizations. So if you think that they're going to get funding for scientific research that doesn't go along with their current understandings and current thoughts, then you're fooling yourself because you're not going to get funding for things that would directly go against and contradict what they want to have taught in the schools.

John Dehlin [02:17:03] And I, that makes sense. This is a, this is a, we

Guest [02:17:06] could get, we could get into this for a while.

John Dehlin [02:17:08] I don't want to get. But, but it's a fair question. Like I, I, I did spend six years, I spent nine years getting two masters and a PhD. And I can say that a graduate degree brings you into an understanding of the scientific method of research and of the scientific community and the standards of excellence that is really useful. And that makes you, that gives you a set of sensibilities and allegiances and a knowledge base that really helps inform positions you take or assertions you make or claims you try and develop later on and care. I just think you're saying, man, Rodney, wouldn't, wouldn't you have really benefited from some masters or PhD level work to inform and shape the theories that you've ended up kind of.

Guest [02:18:04] Yeah, I was just trying to tie it back to if your patriarchal blessing had truth so much in it, why

John Dehlin [02:18:09] didn't you go to grad school?

Rod Meldrum [02:18:10] Why did I do that?

John Dehlin [02:18:11] Yeah, like, and I think you're gonna say life got too busy.

Rod Meldrum [02:18:14] Well, well, and well, there's that aspect, but I really think that is higher education where all truth is manifest.

John Dehlin [02:18:23] And no, again, that's kind of a straw man because no one's going to say that higher education has all truth.

Rod Meldrum [02:18:28] Right? But, but it does play into the overall question, which is basically why didn't I go and do that? Really? The first answer is that, you know, life got busy. But the second answer is, is that if, if higher education isn't, if, if much of what higher education is actually teaching is not founded or based on observation and, and so forth, but based rather on philosophy and, and theory and so forth. And that's your, and you can spend an awful lot of time learning about things that are simply, you know, not correct.

John Dehlin [02:19:02] So is that, is that kind of your base view?

Guest [02:19:04] Yeah, I have a follow up question though.

John Dehlin [02:19:06] But is that basic? So I just want to establish that your base view is that what's taught in master's level and PhD level, maybe the majority of what's taught in master's or Ph level education is theoretical and not based in practical.

Rod Meldrum [02:19:22] There's a, there's a few fields that probably are more susceptible to that.

John Dehlin [02:19:26] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [02:19:26] Things that you can't actually do. I mean, when it comes back to, for example, engineering, mathematics, you know, I mean, things as benign as like English or, or history or those kinds of things. I Mean, history is obviously fraught with all kinds of different ideas. But, but there's, there's some of them that are more, more susceptible to theoretical.

John Dehlin [02:19:49] And what are those fields that you think are more susceptible to?

Rod Meldrum [02:19:52] Well, you would, you would.

John Dehlin [02:19:53] That are relevant.

Rod Meldrum [02:19:54] You would think so, but for example, rocks.

John Dehlin [02:19:56] So geology, you would say geology is more theoretical.

Rod Meldrum [02:19:59] There's, there's a lot of things that are theoretical in geology. There's, there's aspects I don't want to

John Dehlin [02:20:04] dig into that just give the high level. So geology, I've been going to guess you're going to say physics, theoretical physics.

Rod Meldrum [02:20:12] Most, a lot of physics is based on real observation and so forth.

John Dehlin [02:20:16] Geology. What about biological sciences?

Rod Meldrum [02:20:21] Yeah, biological science is probably the one that I would have the most problems with difficulty with.

John Dehlin [02:20:26] Because of evolution?

Rod Meldrum [02:20:27] Yeah, primarily because. Yeah, we can get into that. But geology is where everything else. Geology is really kind of the foundation upon which all the other natural sciences are based on.

John Dehlin [02:20:39] And you're saying you view biological sciences and geological sciences, for example, biology.

Rod Meldrum [02:20:45] Biology can't tell us the ages of the earth, for example. That comes from geology. But if the ages are different than what geology says, then that, that obviously going to affect evolution. If you don't have millions of years, then that.

John Dehlin [02:20:56] I think biologists would say that DNA can actually do a really good job of helping us understand the age of human life.

Rod Meldrum [02:21:03] Just like what's his name? Cricket? I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:21:06] I don't even know.

Rod Meldrum [02:21:07] Anyway, go ahead.

Guest [02:21:08] Yeah, okay.

John Dehlin [02:21:09] I don't want to get derailed here, but.

Guest [02:21:11] Sorry. I have. As the only self identified atheist on the podcast, I have a follow up question. So you mentioned, did you say 97 of people in these fields that are self identify as atheists? And I wanted to question you.

Rod Meldrum [02:21:26] That was, that was back in 90. I mean, no, it was 2000 and it doesn't matter. Eight or something like that.

Guest [02:21:32] It's probably when that's fair enough. It's true.

Rod Meldrum [02:21:34] It was an internal survey. They didn't. They actually published it anyway.

Guest [02:21:37] Okay, so fair enough. So I just wanted to read. So there's a definition for motivated reasoning, which is the phenomenon in cognitive science and social psychology in which emotional biases lead to justifications or decisions based on their desirability rather than an accurate reflection of the evidence. So would you say that atheists in the scientific field have a motivated reasoning, that they have something more, a different bias to draw the conclusions about science that they do?

Rod Meldrum [02:22:05] I would say that everybody because of their life experiences has certain biases.

Guest [02:22:10] Sure.

Rod Meldrum [02:22:11] And the hard part is getting people to admit what biases they have. So I've admitted my bias. Obviously, in this particular case is you've

Guest [02:22:20] done a great job.

Rod Meldrum [02:22:20] I'm a believer, basically. Right. Kind of thing. I think a lot of times that bias, it doesn't come into play, or people don't tell what their biases are. But. But I think just the experience of being human gives us biases. I mean, each one of us go through different life experiences that create certain outlooks, and then we look at everything in our life through those lenses and care.

John Dehlin [02:22:45] The first point on my bullet for part two is epistemology. So we are going to get to that.

Guest [02:22:49] Okay, fair enough. All right, we'll repeat this section later.

John Dehlin [02:22:54] It's just stories. If too long, the stories drag on forever.

Guest [02:22:58] Yeah. So I think that all kind of ties it back again, that we, you know, we can all agree that to a certain point, we have our biases and that from the beginning, Rod talked about.

Rod Meldrum [02:23:06] I mean, science is not without its own bias and neither is people. You know, I mean, everybody has a bias.

Guest [02:23:11] Yeah, we'll get into that. But I think it's important that we talked about throughout Rod's story of, like, you, you just kind of admitted that your bias has to do with having this emotional experience and mtc recognizing the Book of Mormon is true, and then living your life in a certain way congruent with that.

Rod Meldrum [02:23:25] So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [02:23:27] Okay, so the important parts of your story that lead to the heartland stuff without going into too much detail, like, what brings you into the heartland?

Rod Meldrum [02:23:36] All right, so. So essentially after. After I had a business that I was helping people with with food and food storage and that kind of stuff, I had a manufacturing company called High Country Gourmet. I got. I got it just for. Just for those listening here. I do have a relative by the name of Jeff Meldrum, but I think he's at Idaho State University. He's probably the world's foremost authority on Bigfoot. That's not me. I'm not him. He's not me. We're different. Okay. So are you buds? We know each other. I mean. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:12] You're.

Rod Meldrum [02:24:13] No, we're not homies. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:14] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [02:24:14] And. And in fact, I would probably say that I. I would disagree with the Bigfoot research, but anyway. But nevertheless. So where were we going with it? Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:24] Oh, how you got into the heartland stuff.

Rod Meldrum [02:24:26] Yeah. So. So essentially what was happening, I had this. This manufacturing business. We were providing soups for all these different companies and so forth. We wholesale Manufactured it. And then Y2K. You know, I mean, the predictions and the prognostications there were, were pretty grim. You know, everything was going to shut down. You know, at midnight on 1999 and beginning of 2000, all the computers are going to go haywire. And basically that didn't happen. And so we had a big. There was a big build up. People kind of freaking out about that. And, and we, we were supplying food for that. And at the end of that, there was no breakdown. And the bottom line is that the food storage industry basically went completely bust. And I found myself sitting on about $780,000 in accounts receivable that I couldn't collect from all these different companies that we were doing business with. And so that led to another one of these crises, if you will, about things. And, and, and that led to still another. My computer. We didn't plug it in.

John Dehlin [02:25:39] So maybe Jen can plug it in while you're talking. Go ahead.

Rod Meldrum [02:25:43] Yeah. Anyway, so that actually was another low point in my life. I was like, you know, I'm having to. I'm looking at bankruptcy. And, and we had to close down our business. We had 35 employees. We had to let them all go. And. And things just got real ugly.

John Dehlin [02:26:02] So your soup business goes bankrupt.

Rod Meldrum [02:26:04] Yep. This is the suit business right here. This is the canning line and the other stuff that we did here, the fully automated canning facility here. And some of the other pictures as my kids working in the thing that child labor laws. Yeah, just kidding. They were just helping clean it up one day. So there we go. You've had a rough day. You're trying to stay positive. It's great. It's great. Everything's great. Right. You ever feel like that kind of thing? Right. So then this is, this is something I thought was, was really helpful for me at least. And I said, don't tell God that you have a big problem. Tell your problem you have a big God. And, and I had a big problem because I had creditors coming after me and every different direction. And we had to shut everything down. I couldn't even sell the equipment. I mean, nobody wanted it. The entire industry evaporated overnight. And basically it was a big problem. But again, going back to the original thing, sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. And one of those better things was I called up a friend of mine down in Arizona that I'd met for years before that. And he said, rod, he says, how's it going? I says, honestly, it sucks. Life sucks, and my business has failed we are going through the throes of all kinds of issues going on there. He says, he says, actually, he says, you know what, it's kind of what I've been praying for for the last couple of years. I wanted you to come and help me work on this project. Who is this person? This is Dean Sessions and the Universal Model. And I said, well, yeah, I could, I could use a job right now. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm dead in the water. And so that's kind of.

John Dehlin [02:27:45] What was his, what was his business background, Dean Sessions, business background?

Rod Meldrum [02:27:48] His business background? Well, he graduated at BYU and I think it was organizational psych. And then, then he started a company in Arizona that's actually still there. It's called KS Appraisal. He was a, he's a commercial real estate appraising company that's still there. And he was about 30 something, 32, 33 years old when he essentially decided that it was time to retire. He bought a bunch of properties and then was able to sell them and so forth and was blessed to be able to do that. So he. And, and part of his patriarchal blessing talks about being involved with science. Anyway, so he started this project and that's when I got involved with it. And so for seven years he and I worked together. And the scientific aspects of this, it's actually kind of nice. This is just some of our outings there, the Grand Canyon and this is other stuff here. So. All right, we'll just kind of do that. But bottom line is.

John Dehlin [02:28:44] So can you describe in like 30 seconds what his vision was for, why he hired you?

Rod Meldrum [02:28:49] You.

John Dehlin [02:28:49] I'm hiring you because I want to, what would he say?

Rod Meldrum [02:28:53] Help with the research of what, Being a primary researcher for the universal model.

John Dehlin [02:28:58] Why would he want to create a universal model? What was his motivation? What was his.

Rod Meldrum [02:29:03] Well, I have to let you model.

John Dehlin [02:29:06] Why was a universal model even needed? Sure. He would have given you a vision. Here's the problem that I'm solving for, that I'm trying to develop a new scientific model for. What, what was the problem that he was solving for?

Rod Meldrum [02:29:19] Well, just that there's, there's certain things like for example, creation, the flood, things that you've already talked about, you know, Adam and Eve, age of the earth and those kinds of things. And, and you know what, you know, where did all this kind of start from? You know, where did, where did, where did the scientific understandings that we have today. What, what was their foundation? What was their basis? And so that's what we're kind of doing. Anyway, so that's just some of the images from that. I'll just.

John Dehlin [02:29:47] No, no, let me just. This is, this is actually really important. So. So Dean Sessions, you sort of realize at some point, man, Mormonism's got a problem or Christianity's got a problem because the scientific, the scientific consensus that's emerging is, is completely conflicting with the fundamental, fundamentalist reading of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

Rod Meldrum [02:30:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:30:08] Rod Meldrum, you just went bankrupt. Come help me develop a new scientific model that can challenge the prevailing overwhelming sort of consensus of just what's the truth of science?

Rod Meldrum [02:30:21] What's the truth.

John Dehlin [02:30:22] But he's not a scientist either. He probably doesn't have a master's or PhD in science.

Rod Meldrum [02:30:26] Right, right.

John Dehlin [02:30:27] So it's two non scientists developing a new scientific model that, that consumes or that is an umbrella model for all of the scientific disciplines in aggregate, which

Rod Meldrum [02:30:41] is really hard to believe. How. I mean, yeah, in fact, when we first started this, I was going, wait a minute, we're talking about some pretty fundamental things here about science. I mean, could all of science possibly be wrong? And the other. Another big question that people have to be aware of. And I like to bring this up, or I don't bring it up often, but occasionally when it's needed, I bring it up. And that is that have people who are, who are Sensa PhDs. Have there been people who've made major contributions or even have gone against scientific consensus and so forth that have made huge contributions to our knowledge base as humans? And I think the answer to that is. Yeah, I mean you look at some of the, some of the founders of Apple or Microsoft or so forth. I mean, how many of Those guys have PhDs in their particular field?

John Dehlin [02:31:38] No, no, no, I get it. We don't have to drill down.

Rod Meldrum [02:31:40] So what I'm saying is I think that there are people like myself and Dean and others and there's millions of other people who have made or can make really significant contributions to the knowledge base of humanity without a PhD.

John Dehlin [02:31:53] Of course.

Rod Meldrum [02:31:56] That's what I'm saying.

John Dehlin [02:31:56] That's all true.

Rod Meldrum [02:31:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:31:58] There are, I'm sure in history there are non scientists that have made important

Rod Meldrum [02:32:01] contributions and, and scientists who have, that are.

John Dehlin [02:32:05] But, but also I'm saying that it is. You are acknowledging that it's a really audacious thing. It's pretty to non to Mormon non scientists decide they're going to develop this grand unifying theory of science that helps to explain a global flood and a 14,000 year old earth and that evolution is not true. And dinosaur bones, well, not to make

Rod Meldrum [02:32:26] any comparisons with other people that we all would recognize, but I mean pretty hard to believe that a carpenter's son or that could what. Or a farm boy in New York or Those are just things from the church. But what about, I mean there's lots of other examples that have nothing to do with any kind of religion that know that, you know that people have risen to be able to make big contributions to things when they had humble circumstances. You know, I mean look at, you know, if you go in the political realm, I mean Abraham Lincoln, I mean what was his circumstances? Did he, did he influence things? Did he change people's lives? Did he, did he affect the direction of an entire nation? Did he have a PhD? Was he highly educated? So I guess my people have I think too much of a tendency to put too much emphasis on the education of a person and rather than what's the truth. So let's just. So that's. That, that's what I, that's. I think let's talk about truth.

John Dehlin [02:33:31] All agree.

Rod Meldrum [02:33:32] Talk about truth all day long.

John Dehlin [02:33:33] I love that we can all agree with that. And I hope you would agree that the idea of two kind of Mormon non scientists coming up with a grand

Rod Meldrum [02:33:44] unifying theory is a pretty hard thing to believe.

John Dehlin [02:33:46] Science is, well, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's almost as fantastic as Jesus resurrecting and being the creator of the universe. I mean it's not quite there.

Rod Meldrum [02:33:58] Well, no, it's not even in that realm, I don't think. But it's pretty, it's pretty close out there though. I, I totally get it.

John Dehlin [02:34:05] Depending how much you respect science, it is actually pretty.

Rod Meldrum [02:34:07] But see that's the thing that's so nice about it though John, is that people don't have to take it based on what we say. This is one of the things I loved about being a missionary is that in the church said don't take our word for it as missionaries, you read the book and you pray about it and you find out that way. But there's a problem with that and that is that if the book is claiming to be a historical record and there's no evidence for its history, its historicity, then why would anybody want to read a book that claims to be a history book that, that there's no history to back it up.

John Dehlin [02:34:43] Yeah, you guys are basically trying to re. Trying to ex. Re explain science in a way that saves Christianity and Mormonism. It's a. There's a real. The core of your motivations are to save Christianity, what's the truth, save the Bible, to save Christianity and to save Mormonism from secular slash scientific theories and explanations that undermine all of the things you hold that are godless.

Rod Meldrum [02:35:11] Well, basically, I would put it this way.

John Dehlin [02:35:14] Well, was what I said wrong?

Rod Meldrum [02:35:16] Yes, because. Because the primary motivation isn't to disprove or to prove anything. It's what's the truth? Just what's the truth? No, but there's. How do we get to that?

Guest [02:35:29] I could argue. I could argue for one, like when I was at the Book of Mormon Evidence Conference and Dean Session talked about how science goes in one way. When the like church was restored in this year, we had like Darwin's theories being unveiled the same year. And so he gave, he gave a speech about how science goes one way and the church and the. The truth of the gospel goes the direct opposite way. And the more I studied what he said, I felt like he had strict motivated reasoning to push science and say things that were actually quite untrue about what the scientific consensus is, even is about the creation of the Earth for the strict reason that I think he was trying to make them look polar opposite so that people had to choose one and they had to force themselves into a stricter lane where if you don't want to choose Darwinism, you don't want to choose evolution and you don't want to choose the scientific method, you're going to have to kind of walk on our line over here, which is Joseph Smith's restored gospel. So I feel like since I know a lot of the things Dean Sessions teaches, I feel like. I feel like I already know too much to really believe that, that they don't work in concert with each other.

Rod Meldrum [02:36:34] One of the things when you go to the conferences, kind of the assumption is, is that people have already kind of gone through a lot of the other previous stuff. That's one of the reasons why I really appreciate John, you know, let me come and kind of give the basis why we believe these, these things that we believe, you know, and, and because without that basis, there's really. I mean, it's kind of like trying to explain, you know, physics to somebody who's just learning their multiplication table.

John Dehlin [02:37:04] Okay, but.

Rod Meldrum [02:37:04] But. Doesn't make sense.

John Dehlin [02:37:05] We could talk about this next session. But I just want to say this. I think we have established the basis of. What's the model called? Universal model.

Rod Meldrum [02:37:14] Yeah, universal.

John Dehlin [02:37:15] The basis is tell me if I'm wrong. It's not that you love truth, although I believe you do love truth.

Rod Meldrum [02:37:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:37:23] And I believe you're sincere.

Rod Meldrum [02:37:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:37:24] But I don't think that's the basis. I think the basis is you had that witness, that emotional witness that the Book of Mormon's true, which means Mormonism is true, which means Mormon prophets have been true, which means the Bible's true. And there's all this prevailing science now that is challenging your sacred beliefs. And like you, like you admitted, and I'm not. This isn't a gotcha. I really think I'm staying true to what you've said. You admitted that when your cherished beliefs rub up against science, if you have to pick one, you're going with the cherished beliefs. That is the core of the universal model.

Guest [02:38:00] Yeah, that's what I was trying to say.

John Dehlin [02:38:01] You are not building, you are not just unbiasedly truth seeking, gathering evidence and then interpreting it, which is what science at its best tries to do. You're not doing that. You're saying we have all these things that prophets have said, things that are in the Scriptures, things that are in these historical books that we think are historical. Science is really undermining that and challenging it. So we got to figure out a way to come up with a new science.

Rod Meldrum [02:38:28] Okay, so that, that's based in truth in general. I would, I would say that that is a pretty close assumption, but, but not 100. That makes sense.

John Dehlin [02:38:38] That's fine. That's fine.

Guest [02:38:39] That's fair enough.

Rod Meldrum [02:38:39] You know, so, so the, so this, the situation as I see it is basically. And again, it's going to sound like circular reasoning, but, but you have to kind of had the experience that, that I had kind of thing to be able to understand. You know, the, Basically it's like this. If what, the experience that I had was the truth. Okay, if that, if that was, if that really established my baseline and so forth, then, and like, like you've already stated the, if there's a discrepancy between the two, then yes, I'm going to be looking very hard at the, at the scientific aspect of it and saying, okay, so if there's a discrepancy, where's the discrepancy? Why is there a discrepancy? What is the discrepancy specifically? And is there, is there ways to, to address that? How did we come to those, those conclusions in the first place? Like just kind of give you one quick example in the science realm?

John Dehlin [02:39:45] Well, I just think, I don't, I, I don't know, I, I don't think we need. I just, I just, I, I think it's enough if we're talking about your story, which is the emphasis of this episode.

Rod Meldrum [02:39:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:39:56] I think we've established your, your faith as a foundation and what you're trying to do with the universal model. And I mean, I just don't.

Rod Meldrum [02:40:05] Well, there's a lot of people, not just Mormonism, but I mean, you have the Muslims, you have Jews, you have all of Christianity. I mean, pretty much anybody who uses ancient world history, whether it's through the Popol Vu or the Torah or the Quran or the Holy Bible, all of those are ancient histories. Are they all wrong? They all have similarities. And for example, Noah's flood is pretty much universal throughout all of the ancient, these ancient texts and so forth. Were they just, you know, were they just imagining this flood or was it a local flood or what? You know, what, what was the deal with this flood and what were the mechanisms? Are there any scientific mechanisms to explain potentially how, I mean, where did all the water come from? Where did it all go?

John Dehlin [02:40:58] Right.

Rod Meldrum [02:40:58] You know, those kind of questions. It's questions that really. And maybe this would be a good, a good point to. I brought, I brought a couple of, of things here, I think.

Building the Heartland Research Movement

John Dehlin [02:41:11] Well, what I want to talk about really quickly, just to finish out your story. How did you get from teaming up with sessions to do the universal model? Just tell us briefly how you got from there to becoming the heartland model guy. Like, what was just the high level chronological touch points.

Rod Meldrum [02:41:29] Yep, yep.

John Dehlin [02:41:30] Okay, so you're helping him do.

Rod Meldrum [02:41:31] So he was just working on universal model stuff.

John Dehlin [02:41:34] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [02:41:34] And then, then that's when it came out to. With my first book. So the very first book was actually this one right here. Okay, so let me go back into how, what was the catalyst that kind of got me involved with the heartland research, because prior to this point, it didn't really matter to me whether it happened in Central America, North America, whatever, just. And like a lot of members of the church say, you know, it doesn't matter where it happened, it just matters that it happened.

John Dehlin [02:41:58] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:42:00] But to me, where it happens, I mean, there's over 550 passages in the Book of Mormon that specifically talk about geography. So I'm thinking, well, obviously I think that they wanted us to know what the geography was. Right.

John Dehlin [02:42:12] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:42:13] And so they did it. You know, again, this is based on the assumption that the Book of Mormon is a historical record, which obviously is my foundation. Okay. So the, the, the heartland research really started Because I had. I was the young man's president of our ward. I had this young man in our ward, won't name any names or whatever, but he was just a great young man. And for whatever reason he'd been, he turned 19 and was not going on his mission. And we're going, well, I wonder what's going on with the family or whatever. Anyway, so long story short is that, is that they moved. We helped him move to. Into another place. And then his mom shows up at my doorstep about three or four days after the move, and she had this DVD in her hand and she came up and says, no, Brother Meldrum, you do. You do scientific research, right? And I said, well, yeah, we've been doing that for a number of years. And she said, you need to watch this. And I took the DVD from her and it's the dvd, it says DNA versus the Book of Mormon by Living Hope Ministries up out of Brigham City, Utah.

John Dehlin [02:43:15] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:43:16] And I went, oh, okay, I heard about it, but I didn't really know much about that at the time. And I said, well, why do I need to watch it? She says, because it's true. And, and she and her family were in the process of, of leaving the church. And it became kind of, kind of a personal thing to me at this point. I'm going, well, okay, so number one, why. Why would DNA. I mean, how could DNA evidence disprove the Book of Mormon? And number two, is there an answer for it? And so I started looking at apologetic sites and so forth. You know, Fairmormon and Maxwell Institute, which by the. They hadn't actually made the change over. They were still farms at that point in time. And so I started looking at some of the stuff. They had just published a book about the DNA stuff and essentially saying that there's no DNA evidence, that there's, that there's, you know, it's inconclusive, there's no way we can know one way or the other. And so forth. And I was just like, well, I had access because I was still with the Universal Model Project. And so I had access to some of the top research libraries in the country. And so I started doing my own research basically on that. So it was, it was kind of a personal decision to, to do that. And then another catalyst was I was up at the, the April General Conference in, in what year? 2002, I think it was. And there's the. Right. The Winter Olympics had just happened and so forth. And it was. No, I GUESS it was 2003, this

John Dehlin [02:44:52] is the Book of Mormon title change you're about to say? Right?

Rod Meldrum [02:44:55] No, no, no. Okay, now, although we can talk about that too. But, but basically. So there was actually an interview that was done by a German reporter with President Hinckley at the time.

John Dehlin [02:45:05] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:45:06] And. And basically says, so what's going to be your church's position when DNA analysis shows that there's no evidence that there were Hebrews basically here in America? Whatever. And, and President Hinckley got, I mean, he's almost visibly, I don't know if he's going to say, perturbed at the question or whatever, but, but he, you know, he, he kind of just stopped the guy and basically said, wait a minute. That, that hasn't been established. Nobody knows the answer to that. Not at this point. That was in 2002, if I remember correctly. And. And this is just before the Winter Olympics. Well, then it turns out that, that actually, I mean, for better or for worse, it turns out to be kind of a prophetic statement because right after that, in 2003, articles began to come out about the DNA research that we'll talk about in more detail later on. This is a little, you know, promo for next episodes. So, so, so that led to the next April conference. I was there with my family and there was these big signs that outside the conference center says, DNA proves the Book of Mormon is false. And so that's. I sit standing there, they had the big lines because they had just put in the protocols for, you know, the. They had to check everybody, you know, for security and all this kind of stuff. And before you just walk in now, they had to go through all the security checkpoints and stuff. Anyway, so I said, well, you know, okay, so is there an answer? Because this became personal Because I have, I have this family and this young man is a friend of mine leaving the church over this thing. Is there an answer? And now I will have to say, though, that in my heart of hearts, I think my bias kicks in and said, there's got to be an answer because I already know the book is true. Right. So there's that bias, and I totally recognize that. But on the other hand, you can't just make up an answer. I mean, you have to go look for it. You have to go digging. And so that's what I decided to do, using the resources that we had with the universal model and started to look into the DNA research, which then, if we keep this at like the 30,000 foot level. So the DNA research then led to, well, wow, there's I mean, there, there is no evidence for any Hebraic peoples down in Central and South America. The Mayans and the, the people that, you know, the Toltecs and Olmecs and so forth that are down there. There's no evidence for any Hebraic bloodlines down there, which doesn't bode well for the Book of Mormon. And then I started finding out about this haplogroup X, and we'll talk about that again in more detail later on. But then that led to, well, when did Joseph Smith know about this? And so I started doing a lot of deep dive research into anything that Joseph Smith might have said or done that we have historical documentation about that may indicate his particular viewpoints on where the Book of Mormon may have taken place. And then that led to going into the Book of Mormon itself and saying, okay, well, it has these prophecies in the Doctrine and Covenants in section three, it says the reason why the plates were preserved was so that the prophecies and the promises that are contained within them would be made known in the latter and last days and so forth. So I said, well, what are these prophecies and promises? I couldn't find anybody written any really major books or treatises on the subject of these prophecies in the Book of Mormon. So then that led to, well, what are they? So we did, I started working with Brute Bruce Porter and, and we, and we came up with the first book, which is called Prophecies and Promises, which is about the 36 prophecies in the Book of Mormon that are describing a latter day nation that was going to be established and raised up and lifted up and set up and so forth, and what nation in the Americas best fit that description. And so that went into that aspect of it. Okay. And so then the second book that came up was this book that's on the screen right here, which is the show. The first book, I don't have a copy of it because Costco sold it all out.

John Dehlin [02:49:14] What's it called?

Rod Meldrum [02:49:15] It's called Exploring the Book of Mormon in America's Heartland.

John Dehlin [02:49:18] That was your first book?

Rod Meldrum [02:49:19] Well, no. Okay. The first book was this book which is the Prophecies and Promises book.

John Dehlin [02:49:24] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [02:49:25] Okay. It's the heartland model, the Book of Mormon and the United States of America. So basically that was your very first book. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:49:32] Okay, so you were.

Rod Meldrum [02:49:33] Myself and Bruce Porter.

John Dehlin [02:49:34] So you were studying DNA, but that led you to come out with the book about Heartland. Yeah, just in like a couple sentences. Explain to me why didn't you Do a book on DNA in the Book of Mormon.

Rod Meldrum [02:49:48] Okay. Well, yeah, I figure we'd probably get into that in a lot more detail,

John Dehlin [02:49:51] just at a high level.

Rod Meldrum [02:49:52] But the high level basically is the DNA evidence that the reason for the controversy about DNA in the Book of Mormon is because of the complete lack of any Hebrew, you know, lineages or bloodlines in Central and South America, or actually, originally, I thought it was throughout the Americas. And there's. There's four primary groups that I don't

John Dehlin [02:50:15] want to dig into that I'm just at a high level.

Rod Meldrum [02:50:17] But there was.

John Dehlin [02:50:18] You were studying DNA, but you came up with the Heartland Book because.

Rod Meldrum [02:50:22] Because of this haplogroup X DNA type.

John Dehlin [02:50:24] So the DNA led you to look

Rod Meldrum [02:50:27] to North America, northeastern North America and southeastern Canada, because in your view, the

John Dehlin [02:50:32] way you read the DNA evidence, there were North American, Native American tribes that had a genetic makeup, by your interpretation, that would be more favorable to a historical Book of Mormon than Central American, than your reading or interpretation of Central American DNA. Is that right?

Rod Meldrum [02:50:50] Yeah, but it's not. It's not my interpretation. It's. It's the journal articles that talk about, well, specifically, yeah, there's four primary groups that are Asian.

John Dehlin [02:50:58] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:50:58] And then there's one. There's only one group in the genetics field that is non Asian. It's. And that's the haplogroup X. And so I said, well, where is the haplogroup X located? Well, it happens to be northeastern United States and the Algonquin speaking language groups of Native American Indians. So that's where the DNA led me to Joseph Smith. Because I go, well, where did Joseph Smith. It turns out that Joseph Smith and his Revelations. In Doctrine and covenants sections 28, 30 and 32, he's told to send missionaries unto the Lamanites. And the term Lamanites is used in every one of those sections. And so they immediately dispatched. Was it Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer Jr. And Parley P. Pratt and a guy by the name of Ziba Peterson, he got the very first copies of the Book of Mormon that just came off the Grandin Press there in Palmyra. And he sends them on a mission to go to these Lamanites. And in section 32 in the doctrine and Covenants, he says, well, assuming that you believe that it's the Lord speaking here, the Lord says, and I myself will go with him. So I'm looking at this and going, I think this is like a personal guided tour by the Lord himself to people that the Lord calls Lamanites. And so if you believe that the Lord knows who the Lamanites are and where they're located, you got to kind of pay attention to this. And so that's why it led to Joseph Smith and then that led to, well, where did they go? And partner P. Pratt writes in his journal and later on in his autobiography, he says that they go to New York and Ohio and Missouri, and they met with these particular tribes. And these particular tribes today, when we sequence their DNA, they don't come from the Mayans. Their ancestral people are these people called the Hopewell Mound builder people, who are in the central part of the United States, not the central part of America. And so that's where the, really, the research of the heartland kind of, that's the stemming. That's where it kind of came from. So. So we had basically Joseph Smith, the prophecies, and then the Book of Mormon itself that are talking about people that are not down in Central America, talking

John Dehlin [02:52:59] about Ohio and Missouri and people who

Rod Meldrum [02:53:02] have DNA that's not Asian.

John Dehlin [02:53:04] Canada. Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:53:05] I mean, because we don't have. We don't. We don't know for sure what kind of DNA. Lehi and Sariah or Ishmael or his wife. We don't even know her name, for heaven's sake. But we do know a couple of things about what they're not. So it's kind of deductive reasoning. And we know that they weren't, you know, Asians. We know that they weren't Africans. I mean, they, they were, they were Hebrews, at least if the Book of Mormon is true. And then you should be looking for a Hebrew type of a lineage.

John Dehlin [02:53:33] Oh, yeah, that.

Rod Meldrum [02:53:34] Hebrew traditions and Hebrew culture and so forth. And those, those are quite unique. And there's some things that would be left over archeologically for people who are Hebrews should be.

John Dehlin [02:53:45] Yeah. Okay, so the first book, you were saying, is the first book.

Rod Meldrum [02:53:48] Yeah, so the first book was the one I was just holding up, which is the prophecies and promises. The one on the. In the picture here is called Exploring the Book of Mormon, America's heartland. By that time I had gone back and done research and had taken photos of some of these because, I mean, how many people in the church or really even in the Midwest know anything about these, these mounds out there?

John Dehlin [02:54:10] All the mounds of dirt, the mounds, the mound building stuff, Mound builder stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:54:15] I mean, people live in Columbus, Ohio, and they, and they have no idea that these mounds even exist, number one, or, or anything about their history or Anything like that. It's kind of, kind of been a forgotten history.

John Dehlin [02:54:26] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:54:27] And so I started to say, well, you know what, let's take, let's go take a look and see, you know, does it match up? I mean, what, what aspects do, what aspects don't match up? You know, do the timeframes line up? I mean, you know, does the archeology in the, in the ground actually meet up with the, what the, what's described in the Book of Mormon? You know, does the weather, the climate, I mean, you know, metallurgy, I mean, did they have swords? Do they do smelting? You know, I mean, all of these different things, what kind of language did they have? You know, all these things play into it. And quite honestly, and I think you're going to love this, but, but it just. The evidence for it in Central America is just not existent or miserable. Yeah, I mean, that's not even there.

John Dehlin [02:55:13] That's something you care and I could unanimously agree on.

Rod Meldrum [02:55:18] So that's one of those things that basically, I mean, the time frames don't line up, the linguistics don't line up, the, the animals and plants don't line up. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:55:27] There's no way the Book of Mormon happened.

Rod Meldrum [02:55:28] Things that you could even point to. And then the DNA thing is really a nail in the coffin as far as their.

John Dehlin [02:55:35] 100.

Rod Meldrum [02:55:36] As far as they're concerned.

John Dehlin [02:55:37] 100 agree with you.

Rod Meldrum [02:55:38] Yeah, I think you probably like that particular.

Guest [02:55:41] There's no way the Book of Mormon happened, comma, in South America.

John Dehlin [02:55:45] Central. South America. Central America. Okay, so really quickly, I think we're almost at the end. So you start coming out with books that talk about the heartland theory and then how does your movement grow? So. Oh, quick. Firstly, who's paying your salary these years that you're doing all these research and writing these books?

Financial Struggles and Making a Living as an Apologist

Rod Meldrum [02:56:03] I am. I just. So by selling books, we struggled mightily. We struggled. In fact, I remember one time we were. It was getting to be the fourth of July and you know, people's hearts and minds go to barbecues and family and reunions and hikes and national parks and so forth in the summertime and they're not thinking about Book of Mormon stuff. Right. So the first dvd actually, actually the first thing that I put out was actually not a book, it was the dvd. It was called DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography and it was four bloody hours long. Okay. I had so many people say, rod, you know what? Nobody's going to sit down and watch a four hour long show. Nobody. I say, okay, so which part should I take out if you start talking about Joseph Smith? No, not that well. DNA. No, not that well, the geography itself stuff now finally just kind of throw their hands up near say, okay, fine, you got to have it all in there. I'm grateful that I did because it gave people enough information that they don't get shot down every time somebody asks him a question about like, well, how come I never mentioned snow in the Book of Mormon? You know, which is, which is a valid question. But it's. But another valid question is, well, if it happened in Central America, then why didn't they mention rain a lot? Yeah, he's only mentioned to happen twice.

John Dehlin [02:57:26] Right.

Rod Meldrum [02:57:26] So you did thousand year history.

John Dehlin [02:57:27] So you did a DVD, you did some DVDs on DNA.

Rod Meldrum [02:57:30] Yeah. And so that started going not viral in the Internet sense because this was 15 years ago, you know, 16 years ago. So it was, it kind of went viral and we, we ended up having about 50 or 60,000 of those DVDs that went out those 2006.

John Dehlin [02:57:47] Ish.

Rod Meldrum [02:57:47] My first presentation about this was in 2006 and then seven and then this came out in the beginning of 2008.

John Dehlin [02:57:54] Wow. So you started doing your stuff after Mormon stories had already started. I didn't realize that.

Rod Meldrum [02:57:59] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:57:59] And, yeah. And, and when I, and when I asked you about how you made a living.

Rod Meldrum [02:58:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:58:04] You were basically saying, let me just summarize what I heard. You guys were kind of super struggling financially for many years as you were doing this.

Rod Meldrum [02:58:12] I was working a full time job and doing this on the side.

John Dehlin [02:58:15] And the job was doing what?

Rod Meldrum [02:58:16] Just, I worked for Interact Medical devices. It's a 3D training for surgeons and so forth for medical device companies.

John Dehlin [02:58:26] So you've got a job that you're doing to keep your family alive, doing

Rod Meldrum [02:58:29] these DVDs and I'm killing myself. I'm down to like two or three hours a night, you know, I mean, I'm trying to stay up with this. I'm. We're trying to, you know, get a website together. I've got no extra money. We got, we got a family of four. I mean, well, six of us, you know, parents and poor kids. And it's a struggle, I mean, you know, but I just felt really strongly that this is something that it was at least a hopeful answer to the DNA question, which was plaguing a lot of people's minds. There were a lot of people leaving the church over the DNA thing, because DNA is, I mean, let's face it, DNA is used in courts of law, you know, you can't fudge your DNA. You can't fake it. It's not, you know, when, when they sequence it, it's not theoretically sequencing. It's. It's real sequencing right now. There is, there is a hypothetical theory part of it.

John Dehlin [02:59:18] Let's not get there there yet.

Rod Meldrum [02:59:19] But the data itself is the data.

John Dehlin [02:59:21] Okay, so. Yeah, okay, so it's. I got the sense that when you went to work with Sessions, he was like paying you.

Rod Meldrum [02:59:28] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:59:28] But then did you guys have a falling out? Why did.

Rod Meldrum [02:59:31] At what point the fund the funding for that? Actually, well, actually we had an experiment phrase where we were doing experiments and so forth and doing the research and so, so forth. But once we got the research kind of gathered and so forth, it had to be all kind of coalesced into, you know, what was going to be written in the book. Yeah, and that doesn't take a team necessarily.

John Dehlin [02:59:51] I mean, basically, he didn't need you for that part.

Rod Meldrum [02:59:53] So. Yeah, so. And plus the amount of money that would, you know, basically kind of the deal was when we first got going is that, yeah, well, we can pay you enough to keep, you know, keep the wolf from the door kind of thing.

John Dehlin [03:00:07] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [03:00:08] But. But we had to put off, I mean, I'll just tell you, I mean, basically between two and $3,000 a month and, you know, with a family of four and. And so forth, I mean, that's not a lot of money.

John Dehlin [03:00:18] No.

Rod Meldrum [03:00:19] Right. So. So there's a lot of things that got put off. A lot of things that you would normally do is upkeep and maintenance on your house and your properties and so forth that we just didn't do because we didn't have the money. And so I said, you know what, I need to go make, you know, enough money so I can get, like, roof fixed on the house and we've got appliances that are falling apart and we've got to do some stuff, and I've got to make enough to do that and you don't need me right now anyway. I will circle back around. And plus, by that time, the, the research on the DNA and the Book of Mormon stuff was getting to the point where I didn't have time to really help him with the universal model really anymore.

John Dehlin [03:00:53] Got it.

Rod Meldrum [03:00:54] And so I basically started to move over into. Into that arena more. And so that's where. That's where so I took the job with Interact Medical.

John Dehlin [03:01:04] I'm so grateful that we're covering this because this really helps me understand your story and Your motivations and your history. So as you leave working with sessions directly, start creating DVDs and books. You, you mentioned you kind of had a marketing problem. This was kind of pre social media, Pre Facebook, pre YouTube even. How do you, how do you start marketing your DVDs and books? Are you selling them at Desert Book? Are you selling them at. Just on a random website? And then how do you amass what becomes a really large following? How do you amass. I'm asked that.

Rod Meldrum [03:01:35] My, My, My initial situation was, is I just wanted to let people know that there's. There's at least a, a logical answer to the whole DNA question, you know, that, that we've done. And like any research, I mean, it's always ongoing. I mean, there's always, you know, more research to be done.

John Dehlin [03:01:54] But how'd you spread the word? How'd you get.

Rod Meldrum [03:01:56] I just started doing presentations. Just, you know, people at what I started actually with my own ward, and we have a clubhouse in our ward, Willowbrook, and, and, and said, hey, you know, what state is this? It's in Provo.

John Dehlin [03:02:09] Okay, okay.

Rod Meldrum [03:02:10] The state of confusion.

John Dehlin [03:02:11] Okay,

Rod Meldrum [03:02:13] no, anyway, so we have, so we did this. I did this presentation for this group there in my ward, and they're going, oh my gosh, we'd never heard any of this before. And then that kind of started to spread. And then basically for almost about a year and a half, I just did presentations up along the Wasatch front here. No charge. I mean, I was just, you know, I just wanted to let the word get out there that there's, there is a, at least a, a reasonable answer to the whole DNA, you know, controversy that was going on. And the apologetics community was answering it with what I consider to be kind of a non answer, you know, essentially that the, the, the apologetics community of the church was essentially saying there's no evidence for the Book of Mormon either for or against. It's kind of a neutral deal.

John Dehlin [03:03:03] Yeah, it was basically like the. Yeah, there was such a. It was in Central America and it was such a small population that there were already existing Native Americans here. And they went to a.

Rod Meldrum [03:03:14] And they got diluted into the Mayan culture, and that's the reason why there's no Hebrew DNA and so forth. The only problem with that is it doesn't follow the Book of Mormon storyline.

John Dehlin [03:03:24] No, we'll cover that. We'll cover that later. But I'm just saying, just generally speaking, what they wanted to do is shrink the target, like Farms and Maxwell Institute. They wanted to shrink the genetic DNA target to as small as possible so you could never. Plausible deniability. Oh, there were other people here. So the reason why the DNA ties back to Asia is because when the Jaredites and or Lehigh got here, there was already a bunch of other people who had Asiatic DNA. And they were in the small, super tiny area in, in Central America. So that once they all got killed out, their DNA got swamped and killed off. And that's why we have Asiatic DNA in Native Americans to this day.

Rod Meldrum [03:04:06] And there's no Hebrew DNA. Right. That's pretty close to about. Yeah, pretty accurate there. Okay, but, but a couple of things that were.

John Dehlin [03:04:16] And you're just like, that's not good enough. That's not going to fly with a lot of people.

Rod Meldrum [03:04:20] Well, the thing about it is some of the, some of the genetics research behind it is actually accurate. I mean, like, for example, they have an Icelandic study where there was a small, small group of individuals that came into Icelandic population within four generations. Their, their DNA didn't really show up anymore in mitochondrial DNA analysis and so forth or sequencing. In other words, you couldn't, you couldn't find their markers specifically. So there's, there's, there's accuracy as far as that, that could happen that way. But again, that's based on one big assumption, that that is not in the Book of Mormon, which is that Lehi and his family came in and assimilated with another larger population. Where is that in the Book of Mormon?

John Dehlin [03:05:01] Yeah, and we're going to talk about that next section. Yeah, so, so you start doing these firesides all along the Wasatch front.

Rod Meldrum [03:05:07] And then that just. I'm. Pretty soon, I'm. Every weekend I'm just booked with this different stuff and I've got, you know, it's costing me gas, it's costing me time. I'm spending my money, I'm running on fumes with, you know, I'm trying to stay up with things. I've got emails pouring in left and right.

John Dehlin [03:05:23] I really,

Rod Meldrum [03:05:26] I mean, I've got to do something because I can see the handwriting on the wall is that if I'm going to continue to do this, I can't continue to work full time and do this because I'm going to kill myself in the process. Right.

John Dehlin [03:05:39] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [03:05:40] And so that's basically where I was kind of coming from. And so that's when one of my good friends was Hartman Rector Jr. Who's a journal authority.

John Dehlin [03:05:49] And a lot of people, you know that guy, that's Lila Tuller's. Dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest [03:05:55] We've got some stories about him. Not so positive, though.

Rod Meldrum [03:05:57] Yeah, yeah. But anyway. But just that. But he was one of the first people who I would say was kind of in the, in the leadership role within the church that actually took a really hard look at this. And he'd actually even been down to Central America and had a nephew of his that actually took people down to Central America and did tours down there. And so it was kind of a big thing for him to. To make the switch. But after he saw the research, he was like, wow, this makes a lot of sense. So he, he suggested that we. That we record it because I was wearing myself thin trying to do presentations all over the place. And so the only way to really get the message out faster would be to record it and have that go out. Right. I mean, okay, really what we're doing right now, you know, basically going out to hundreds of thousands of people for

John Dehlin [03:06:44] our, for our non Mormon listeners and for people that don't kind of know the 80s and 90s, Harmon Rector Jr. Was a really, really super popular Mormon general authority who gave super charismatic and sometimes very controversial general conference talks. Very more orthodox.

Rod Meldrum [03:07:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:07:01] We interviewed his daughter, Lila Tuller on Mormon Stories podcast. It's one of our highly recommended, really important interviews. But you're saying as an emeritus general authority. So he had been put out to pasture. He had retired as a Mormon general authority. He gets excited about your work because he probably is concerned church.

Rod Meldrum [03:07:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:07:21] Losing members over the DNA controversies and modern historicity, scholarship. And so when a Mormon, When a, When a popular emeritus Mormon general authority comes to you, Rod Meldrum, and says, man, what you're doing is important, I really like it. What's that like for you? That's got to be pretty. It's got to be a nice endorsement, kind of validated.

Rod Meldrum [03:07:40] Well, it was a. Like I said, it was one of the first actual kind of leaders and a person in a leadership position in the church that actually had taken a hard look at it. And then. So then he suggested, well, you should probably record this. So we actually set up a time when we went and had a guy come and record it. And I was just standing in front of a screen. I said, well, it's not about me, it's about the research. So don't have me in the camera. Just kind of just have a picture of the screen. So he had this really boring situation with a screen that. And this talking voice in the background in the video. And we decided, you know what? That's not gonna, gonna fly. So. So another, another friend of mine, Bill Ingeman, he, he was a, he was a, he's his, his, I think it's his, his niece is married to Larry King. Yeah, the CNN news anchor guy.

John Dehlin [03:08:38] Right.

Rod Meldrum [03:08:38] And he had a house there in Provo and he wasn't using it, but a couple times a year, so, so we arranged for him to let me borrow his house to do a presentation like a Fireside, and that's when we recorded and that's became, that became the DNA evidence for Book of Mormon geography. Okay, so. So that's where that kind of came from. That was the four hour long.

John Dehlin [03:08:59] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [03:09:00] Beast.

John Dehlin [03:09:01] So really quickly, how many years did your family live in what might qualify as, as legal poverty, trying to do apologetics for the church? If you had to just estimate?

Rod Meldrum [03:09:12] Well, I wouldn't say we were in legal poverty because, I mean, I, I did, I was working for Interact Medical. You know, they, they don't pay a tremendous amount, but it was, it wasn't poverty level stuff at all. But then.

John Dehlin [03:09:24] Okay, how long did your family make huge financial. How many years did your family make huge financial or personal sacrifices to build up this research?

Rod Meldrum [03:09:36] Research, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:09:37] And to try and provide this level of apologetics to the church? How many years?

Rod Meldrum [03:09:42] Seven, eight, nine years.

John Dehlin [03:09:43] Okay. You paid dues of heavy financial and time sacrifices.

Rod Meldrum [03:09:48] Yeah, I was kind of leading up to this one particular fourth of July and, and, and nobody wants to, you know, nobody's looking at Book of Mormon stuff in the middle of July kind of thing, so. And I didn't have many, many presentations. And basically we had a house payment we had to make and I had no money. I mean, it was the 2nd of July and I had zero money to pay for that. And a friend of mine called me out of the blue and said, hey, listen, we're doing this thing down at the park here. You want to come down and talk to people? And it turns out that I didn't have any speaking engagements or anything there, but it turns out that other people did at this park thing. And then a couple of people didn't show up and so I ended up speaking in their place and, and, and, and had enough DVD sales basically that when we got done with the 4th of July that weekend, we had enough to pay the mortgage payment and 10 bucks.

John Dehlin [03:10:45] That's what we, that's a Mormon miracle, right?

Rod Meldrum [03:10:48] To me, John, it was, yeah, I'm

John Dehlin [03:10:51] not trying to mock you.

Rod Meldrum [03:10:53] It was, it was, it was, to me, it was like a miracle, miraculous thing. I mean, it was within $10 of our mortgage payment.

John Dehlin [03:10:58] Was that 08?

Rod Meldrum [03:11:03] No, I think that was after that because I still, because I still had some money that I had saved up to make the jump basically, you know, so I had to, I had to quit, you know, Interact Medical. And it was a total leap of faith. I mean, you know, I didn't know if we were going to crash and burn, go bankrupt or whatever, you know.

John Dehlin [03:11:22] And around what year was that, do you think?

Rod Meldrum [03:11:27] Between 89? Eight and nine.

John Dehlin [03:11:29] Eight, nine.

Rod Meldrum [03:11:30] Okay. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:11:31] So you made big sacrifices and then your love of truth and your desire to put all of my faith led you to 10 years of heavy financial or personal sacrifices.

Rod Meldrum [03:11:42] Well, one of the things that was, I think was important and people go, well, the firm foundation isn't even a foundation. I mean, it's not a 501c3 nonprofit. I know that's one of the questions that come up a lot. People going, well, your organization isn't a nonprofit. You know, you're a for profit deal. You're just about the money. And I almost have to laugh about that because I mean, if anybody knew, you know, the financial situations that we were in at the beginning, it's laughable. But the main, just explain to your audience why it is that we, but we didn't do a non profit was because of my tax accountant. He said, he said, I said, well, what should we get a nonprofit if we're going to do this thing? He says, well, he says, what is your, you know, how are you going to raise money? I says, well, I don't know anybody who's going to put money into this deal. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it myself basically, if I'm going to, if we're going to do this. He says, well, the only real reason why you need to have a 501C3 then is if you're going to basically get other people to pay for your stuff. And I said, I don't know anybody who's going to do that. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to go out of my own pocket in order.

John Dehlin [03:12:52] Don't you get a lot of donations and financial support?

Rod Meldrum [03:12:55] Not really. Not donations and so forth? Not really. We don't ask for donations. I mean, you look at our website, I've never really done that. We've basically just made the, the money that we, that we work off of is from the educational materials that we provide.

John Dehlin [03:13:11] Oh, and so you don't go to

Rod Meldrum [03:13:12] like conferences and, and. And now it moved into tours and so forth. We do some tours. I do like, I have three or four tours this year, and they're, they're sold out. And, you know, but I mean, you know, tours is not going to make a living by itself. And doing conferences sometimes is actually money loser, you know, so far. So it's really the educational materials, it's the DVDs, the books, and not just mine, but all the other infrastructure that we have. So we have a lot of other people who've written books and DVDs and so forth that we also have in our bookstore. And then of course, we buy those wholesale and then resell them. And so that helps to support our efforts. So. So we've never had to go out and actually go out and beg people for money. When, when people pay money to a 501C3, even though it's not supposed to happen, everybody knows that they, that they're also buying influence. Right? I mean, so if somebody is going to give a big donation to a 501C3, they want to make sure that the 501C3 is moving the direction that they want and so forth. And I just wanted to be free to pursue truth. So I didn't want other people saying, okay, well, if you're going to do this and you got to do this, you got to do that, you got to do this. And so it's given me a freedom. I think a lot of people don't have that opportunity to just do just research and just let it go where the research takes you. Okay, There we go.

John Dehlin [03:14:37] Yeah. Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [03:14:38] You look like you're about to.

Guest [03:14:40] I have a question. I just.

Rod Meldrum [03:14:42] I just don't know.

Guest [03:14:43] Every question I ask John's like, save it for next time. I didn't ask it anyway.

John Dehlin [03:14:47] Is it about a story?

Guest [03:14:49] It's a follow up to what he just said. Because I just want to tell you where my brain goes. Because it just. It doesn't really make sense to me that there needs to be a, like a system, a gospel, wherein the difference between somebody making it to salvation and not is a Rod Meldrum presentation or a book or a dvd. So it kind of puts this linchpin on, like people needing to buy things.

Rod Meldrum [03:15:14] They do it not doctrinal, so it's

Guest [03:15:15] not doctrinal, but like, that they would have an extra level of convincing that they might not have had previous to reading some of your evidences and that that's the linchpin that could save someone or send them to A different kingdom and change the trajectory of their entire life depending on coming into contact with your things. And so it does seem like there's somewhat of a financial incentive when you're selling something that people's salvation depends on. What do you have to say to that?

Rod Meldrum [03:15:41] Well, basically, when it comes down to it, everybody needs to have certain needs met. You know, they need to have money for food and, and shelter and so forth. Right. And there's lots of different ways to go about doing that. One way is a 501C3. You have nonprofit, get other people to. To pay you money to do stuff, what you're doing. There's also grants and so forth that people get for science.

John Dehlin [03:16:02] But she's talking about God's plan of salvation.

Guest [03:16:04] I'm talking about.

John Dehlin [03:16:04] She's saying, why does God's plan of salvation need Rod Meldrum? Basically for people to get saved.

Rod Meldrum [03:16:09] Probably doesn't really.

John Dehlin [03:16:10] No, you're doing. No, come on now. Let's.

Rod Meldrum [03:16:13] I mean, realistically, let's hold you accountable.

John Dehlin [03:16:15] You are worried about people leaving God's one true church and no longer believing in it. That you have already said that is one of the underlying motivations for everything you do. So that makes Claire's cares question really relevant. You're basically feeling like, yeah, maybe even called by God to save Mormons testimonies.

Rod Meldrum [03:16:34] I don't think I'm called by God to do it. I just feel like it's kind of a responsibility. You feel the responsibility if I, if I've had the opportunities to learn things from the Universal Model Project or, you know, how to do research using that kind of. That kind of methodologies and so forth. I think I have a debt to mankind, I guess, if you will, just like what you're doing. I mean, basically, I think you feel a calling to have people share their stories and so forth. And I really, maybe this is wrong of me and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a lot of people feel maybe what you do, Annette, is that the church was. I was brought up in this whole thing, and I went through all the seminary and institute and all these other things. And then I find out later that like Jeremy Reynolds and so forth, I mean, that's one of his big arguments. I feel like I was duped, you know, and that can certainly feel that way, especially when you have apologetics that basically is trying to straddle two different worlds. And I think you need to, you know, at least for me, you've got to decide which world you're going to be in. So I'm not really addressing your question.

John Dehlin [03:18:06] Oh, you are, because.

Rod Meldrum [03:18:07] Well, what would it go to?

Guest [03:18:08] I can restate it.

John Dehlin [03:18:09] The problem of evil. You're basically saying, why would God allow Mormons to lose their faith? And you're saying that it's a messy world. He's not claiming, Kara, that God put Rod Meldrum into his plan.

Rod Meldrum [03:18:23] No, but go ahead. Do you want to restate your question? I feel like I kind of interjected myself into his. Into something, but I just kind of feel like it's where much is given, much is required kind of thing, you know, and if I've been blessed to have the opportunities to learn and to find out more about the scientific research and so forth, I mean, why not share it? And, I mean, in fact, wouldn't it be wrong if you knew something that was going to change people's lives for the better, make them happier, and you refused to share that with them? Is that right? I don't think so. I think if you have something that makes you happy, that's the reason why I wanted to go on a mission. The gospel makes me happy. I want other people to be happy as well, in the same fashion as I am. Most people don't do it. Some people did. I'm glad for those that did.

Guest [03:19:16] Just a quick qualifier, though. So when you served a mission, do you feel like you were called of God to serve a mission?

Rod Meldrum [03:19:23] Well, I mean, I got a calling that I feel like was inspired, so

Guest [03:19:28] that was God calling you to Italy.

Rod Meldrum [03:19:30] But I was raised that way. I mean, you know, John and I, we both raised that way. Probably, you know, when you. When you get to a certain age, you're going to go on a mission. That's kind of the.

Guest [03:19:38] But do you, like, you, Rod, like, do you believe that there is a literal heavenly Father and he said to the, like, the administration of the church to call you to that certain place for that certain time? Like, is that how you believe God works? Okay, he was actually calling you there. I have a reason. I'm asking this.

Rod Meldrum [03:19:54] Yeah. I have been actually in the room where those callings are done and so forth. And do I believe that they're all, every single one, inspired by God or whatever? I don't know. Possibly. I'm not the one that's.

John Dehlin [03:20:09] Do you allow for error in all?

Rod Meldrum [03:20:12] I allow for the possibility that my going to Italy. I don't know. Was that somehow destined in my. Whatever.

Guest [03:20:21] That's kind of not a very orthodox answer, wouldn't you say?

John Dehlin [03:20:24] I don't think Rodney's orthodox in any way.

Guest [03:20:28] I just wanted to, because you just mentioned that you don't feel like you're called of God to do the work you're doing right now. Is that a representation of what you just said?

John Dehlin [03:20:37] Yeah, he did say that he feels where much is given much that he feels an obligation.

Rod Meldrum [03:20:43] I feel an obligation. But that's different though, than being like, am I like an Abraham or Isaac or something like that, or like a Joseph Smith? No, you know, I think they had, they had a calling. Maybe if I did, maybe, I mean, that would be great, but I don't know that I did, you know, have this calling to do this basically this

Guest [03:21:04] work you have to have.

Rod Meldrum [03:21:05] And I think it does change people's lives. And from what I can gather, most of the people that life has been changed. It's for the better. So I look at the fruit, you know, where's the fruit? What is the fruit of it?

Guest [03:21:16] We'll get into that in a second. Yeah, more just. I'm just curious, like in your personal relationship with God that every Latter Day Saint is supposed to have, I can't imagine that you think that God is indifferent about the work that you're doing. And that.

John Dehlin [03:21:28] Yeah, because to borrow on that, you talked about how many times truth was mentioned in your patriarchal blessing. So to you, you did say that you interpret that to mean that God through the patriarchal blessing, was telling you truth was important and that you should pursue truth.

Rod Meldrum [03:21:44] Right.

John Dehlin [03:21:45] So in that sense, Kara, I think you're saying there's some divine mission.

Guest [03:21:48] And like, you know, we as Latter Day Saints, we always try to hope that we're led by the Spirit. I'm assuming you can correct me if you're wrong, that you're. You feel like you're led to the answers that God wants you to find that will hopefully one day bolster other Latter day.

Rod Meldrum [03:22:00] A lot of times you're led to. To dead ends too, you know.

Guest [03:22:06] So what you're saying is like being

Rod Meldrum [03:22:08] called of God is not super important learning process. I mean, when you get to a dead end and you realize, okay, this is the wrong road, we got to turn back and look at a different road, you know, so. So really whether it's, whether it's, whether you get to a good spot in the road or a dead end, it still can help direct your path into the right path. Does that make sense?

Guest [03:22:31] We'll get there. Things will make sense as time unfolds.

Rod Meldrum [03:22:34] All right, all right. Okay. There was something though, you said, though that I thought would be important to make a comment about. And I can't remember now what it was.

Guest [03:22:42] I'm still trying to just seek out some clarity about how you view your role and what you feel like your mantle is from God. That if you.

John Dehlin [03:22:49] Does God approve of what you're doing? Does he love what you're doing? Does he support what you're doing? Do you have a sense for that? Is that what you're asking, Kara?

Guest [03:22:55] Yeah, if you want to put it in those.

John Dehlin [03:22:56] Is there another.

Guest [03:22:57] Yeah, okay, that's, that's the most straightforward terms. Sure.

Rod Meldrum [03:23:00] Okay. Answer that. I would say I hope he's happy with what I'm doing. I mean, I think, I really feel like if, if I had the inclination that he was unhappy with what I'm doing, I'd probably stop doing it, you know, but, but I mean, have I had some kind of a grand. Whatever that, that, that I'm here to save anything or save the church or save this or save that? The answer to that is no, I don't specifically feel that way. I feel like that if we just. It's kind of like right now in this room, there's probably 25 different radio frequencies, stations that are, that are coming into this room, but we don't hear any one of them because we're not tuned to that frequency. Right. So. So bottom line is, is that this particular, you know, so all these frequencies exist, they're all still there, but we're just not hearing them. Okay. So I guess what I would, what I would say in, in relation to that, I think the closer you can become to the frequency that basically light and knowledge is, or God is, then it leads you into that more frequency. In other words, the closer you can get into a signal on a radio station, the clearer it becomes. Right. So do I feel like I'm doing a bad thing now? Do I feel like I'm doing a good thing? Yes. Is it my calling in life? It might be, but I don't know that it is. I mean, it's, it's possible. I mean, you know, I believe in a pre existence kind of thing. So, so. So, you know, I mean, I think Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were probably, you know, foreordained to what they were doing and so forth was. I. I don't know. I guess I'll find out when I die.

Guest [03:24:52] Are you being like, like having some false humility here? It almost feels like it seems like somebody who would put all of their work into this. Like you should say that you're Confident that God is wanting you to do this work? Well, it feels like there's some false humility.

John Dehlin [03:25:02] I will just say that people like Avraham Gileadi or Denver Snuffer in this church, if you claim to have some mantle that doesn't come through priesthood lines of authority, you get excommunicated, you get cut off. So if I were Rod, I would want to be. I would want to be saying what you're saying.

Rod Meldrum [03:25:18] Okay, well, but. Okay, but I'm not trying to answer for you. That's one potential motivation. But the other motivation could be just the truth. And that is just. I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:25:25] Of course, I'm not saying it's. Yeah, I'm just saying.

Rod Meldrum [03:25:29] But it is great if it's not this. I'm not worried about it. Put that way, you know, I don't feel like I've been brought to this earth to, to correct anything or whatever. My, my life has been just. Okay, what's the truth? That's this, this. Can we, can we get down to the truth when we find out what the truth is and then adhere to it? That's really. So when it comes down to. I know the financial aspect of it is kind of another thing. Yeah, well, well, you know, so how do we support ourselves? That's. I think I kind of covered that to some extent. Then we have these, we have our conferences and so forth, and people come and present there. It has become, I know people just like some people just really hate when we say it's become a kind of a movement. It's more than just a movement. I mean, it's really a gathering of the more orthodox people who are TBMs, you know, true Believing Mormons or Chapel Mormons or as some of the apologetics communities said, you know. Well, there's the educated Mormons and then there's the ignorant ones who basically just accept everything on faith. Well, I guess I'd have to say we're somewhere. I'm kind of somewhere in the middle. I do take a lot of things on faith because I know that there's some things that we're just not going to know, and I accept that. But there's some things that if we push, if we strive, if we try to find the truth, maybe we just need to look for it in the right place or the, or be, you know, turn over all the stones and see what's going on. And that's kind of what we've done with the Universal Model Project is to turn over the stones, you know, that where do we get the idea that the Earth is full of molten magma? Who's been down there? How do we know that that's what it's full of? We know magma comes out of volcanoes, but does that really mean that the entire Earth is full of that stuff?

John Dehlin [03:27:25] We're going to get there.

Rod Meldrum [03:27:26] Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. So what I'm saying is it's the questioning with an open mind.

John Dehlin [03:27:32] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you went from DVDs and books to then. And lots of speeches.

The Book of Mormon Evidence Conference

Rod Meldrum [03:27:39] Yeah, lots of presentations. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of presentations all over the world. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:27:43] To then conferences. So you started a conference called what

Rod Meldrum [03:27:48] the first time it was called Book of Mormon Evidence Conference, and that was

John Dehlin [03:27:52] started around what year?

Rod Meldrum [03:27:54] Probably 2009. Okay, so it's right after the DVD came out, basically. And then that was held in Provo. That was held up at the Zermatt Resort.

John Dehlin [03:28:03] Oh, in Alpine.

Rod Meldrum [03:28:04] An Alpine or.

John Dehlin [03:28:06] No, sorry. He were Midway. Sorry.

Rod Meldrum [03:28:08] Yes. And technically in Midway. Yeah, yeah. But my. My dear friend Bob Fuller was the. Was the owner and perpetrator of that. Of that establishment. And he said, you guys can come up and have a conference and charge us practically nothing. And. And so I said, okay, well, we'll do a conference. So we had. I think we had 250 people that showed up at that conference. And. And it's like, wow, we had like four speakers. And. And then it's grown to where the. The last actual full conference before COVID that we did, we had 134 speakers and 165 classes in three days at the.

John Dehlin [03:28:46] How many attendees?

Rod Meldrum [03:28:46] Davis county convention center and 7,500 attendees. 7,500 attendees over the three days? I mean, 2, 500 per day.

Guest [03:28:53] That beats thrive.

John Dehlin [03:28:54] What's that?

Guest [03:28:55] So that beats thrive.

John Dehlin [03:28:55] Big thrives, Bob. But we're only in. Yeah, but you know, we'll probably never catch up to you, honestly, because nothing. I mean, fundamentalism has its own fuel that. That secularism will just probably never have. But really quickly, is the conference still called Book of Mormon Evidences?

Rod Meldrum [03:29:12] Yeah. So this is going to be the one coming up in about four weeks from now is again at the Davis County Convention center as it's actually, it kind of evolved as well. Okay. So I believe in evolution, just not human evolution, but anyway, just kidding. I believe that things do evolve. Anyway, so this evolved from the. From the Book of Mormon Evidence Conference. And this is the 29th consecutive semiannual conference that we've done. So that's how many years. So about two years.

John Dehlin [03:29:45] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [03:29:46] And we have, I think it's 85 speakers this time and about 140 classes. So.

John Dehlin [03:29:52] And it's called what.

Rod Meldrum [03:29:53] And we call it the Firm Foundation Expo.

John Dehlin [03:29:55] Why'd you change the name? What does Firm foundation stand for?

Rod Meldrum [03:30:00] Firm is a, it's an acronym. It's Firm. It's a foundation for indigenous research and Mormonism.

John Dehlin [03:30:05] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [03:30:06] Every, everybody had their, their, their, their four letter. I hate to say it but they're, they're, they're forward. Four letter.

John Dehlin [03:30:13] Fair Mormon.

Rod Meldrum [03:30:14] F word.

John Dehlin [03:30:15] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [03:30:16] Fair Farms. They're all four letter F words.

John Dehlin [03:30:20] You needed your four letter F words, so you went with firm. I love it.

Guest [03:30:24] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [03:30:25] And, and also one, one of my favorite hymns is How Firm a Foundation. And so, you know, nice. So anyway, that's kind of fun, but that, that's where I just, I needed to have something like, with an acronym. So Firm foundation just seemed to work because also we know from the, from the scriptures or from the, from the teachings of the, of the Church that, that you shouldn't start with, you know, theoretical things, but you should start from a firm foundation of something that's known to be true and then build upon that line upon line and precept upon precept. And so that's what we wanted to do. We wanted to start with that. A foundation that's actually more solid but

John Dehlin [03:30:59] that's not a nonprofit. The Firm Foundation.

Rod Meldrum [03:31:01] Correct. Not this point. Although I've had lots of people say, hey, you know, you need to, you need to make this a firm, a non profit organization. We've toyed with the idea. I've, I've just not felt that I, you know, again, the main, the main purpose of a foundation is to be able to raise money. And I've been blessed to be able to have the money that we need to keep running the operations and so forth. Just from the sales of the, of the educational materials that we offer so.

John Dehlin [03:31:29] And care. The thing you attended that you covered.

Guest [03:31:31] Book of Mormon Evidence Conference.

John Dehlin [03:31:33] So that's what we're talking about.

Rod Meldrum [03:31:34] Yeah.

Guest [03:31:35] It's probably titled something else.

Rod Meldrum [03:31:36] We call it the Firm Foundation Expo featuring the Book of Mormon Evidence Conference. Because, because Firm foundation is more than just Book of Mormon, as you know, Kara was there. So we talk about science and religion, we talk about, you know, constitutional studies, we'd have signs of the times, world events, you know, those kind of things.

John Dehlin [03:31:55] Prepper stuff.

Rod Meldrum [03:31:56] Kind of some prepper stuff. Yeah. I mean, things that would be of interest to other conservative minded people basically. They don't have to be Conservative to be there.

Guest [03:32:05] A lot of like pro liberty. There's a lot of God fearing Americans.

Rod Meldrum [03:32:08] Yeah.

Guest [03:32:09] Talk to a lot of people there at my time there, very respectfully by the way. And I'm assuming everyone can, can, can buy a ticket or not. Do you not encourage just anybody to show up?

Rod Meldrum [03:32:20] Hey, did we ask for an ID or a temple record?

Guest [03:32:24] No. But I did get screamed at and told she works for John de Line and to get out of there. And I was like, I am being very nice. Yeah, I was very nice. I had great conversations. I hugged everyone when I was done.

Rod Meldrum [03:32:34] Yeah. Cause I saw you actually somebody pointed you out and said hey. And I said great. I'm glad she's here.

Guest [03:32:40] I was there with my mom and dad, my husband. I was having grand old time talking to people. There's so many ideas.

Rod Meldrum [03:32:47] If somebody wants to get disruptive and start interrupt the classes and so forth, yes, we'll have them thrown out. But if somebody just wants to be there and listen to whatever we. Yeah.

Guest [03:32:55] Ask a million questions. I was asking a million questions because there are legitimate things I had never heard of before. Legitimate and good. And I am sorry if that sounds condescending to just to ask a question I had never heard. I did not know that that was the something that somebody believes. Is there a respectful way I can ask that question? And I found out no, apparently not. No. Just kidding. So I just wanted to get your take if anyone's welcome to go.

Rod Meldrum [03:33:17] It probably depends on the question. It probably also depends on the personality of the person you're asking the question to.

John Dehlin [03:33:23] So many. So the revenue, the revenue one of these conferences generates is probably pretty large, right?

Rod Meldrum [03:33:30] You would hope. But actually most of the time we're either just barely in, in the in the black or sometimes we've gone in the red.

John Dehlin [03:33:36] That's profitability. But revenue, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars per conference of revenue, right?

Rod Meldrum [03:33:43] Well, no, probably not.

John Dehlin [03:33:45] Oh, okay.

Rod Meldrum [03:33:45] I mean, I mean, I mean put it this way. How many, how many conferences do you know? That is a three day conference where you're going to have, have over 100 speakers and a lot of them are people that are, you know, pretty well known. I mean you have your Tim Ballard, your Alex Boyes, you know, you have, you have a lot of Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck and so forth. Now we couldn't get Glenn Beck to come to physically to the conference because, because it's too expensive. We can't afford to have his entourage of people he has to have around him to keep people from killing Him. Right. I mean, it's a legitimate deal. People want to kill him.

John Dehlin [03:34:18] Right, so pay your speakers.

Rod Meldrum [03:34:21] No, we don't, we don't spare speakers. So there's been an occasion where somebody is a speaker and they just don't have the wherewithal to actually buy an airline ticket or whatever. And so we've kind of helped cover some of the travel, but that's actually almost never happened either. Only happened in a couple of.

John Dehlin [03:34:36] So you were saying it's cheap with three days and all those speakers.

Guest [03:34:39] 40 bucks.

Rod Meldrum [03:34:40] 40 bucks for a three day conference? I mean.

Guest [03:34:43] Okay, so it's a deal.

Rod Meldrum [03:34:44] It's a deal. So.

John Dehlin [03:34:45] So if seven.

Rod Meldrum [03:34:47] We have vendors that, that, that pay mostly for the, for the venue. I mean, because we're talking about the entire Davis County Convention Center. So when you rent an entire convention center for three days, that's not chump change. Right. I mean, and that's all money that I have to upfront because you got to get that. That's how it has to be paid for at least half or more in advance before the event happens and then the rest of it within 10 days after the event kind of thing. But that can run into tens of thousands of dollars for just an event, a venue. And then there's also. You got to let people know about it. So we have advertising on radio and TV sometimes and Facebook ads and all that kind of stuff. And all of that adds up too. And so that pretty much is covered by the admissions that we get. And then the venue is covered pretty much by the, by the, the vendors. But when it comes down to the end of it, the vendors pay to have tables there. Last couple of conferences, by the time you get through all of it being done, it was either a wash or a loss.

John Dehlin [03:35:52] Right, that makes sense.

Rod Meldrum [03:35:53] But when I say a loss, basically it wasn't a loss for me personally because of the fact that we had educational materials there. And so we sell enough of those to, to cover the loss and still have enough to keep buying food.

John Dehlin [03:36:05] Yeah. So that's a couple hundred bucks. A couple hundred thousand dollars in, in,

Rod Meldrum [03:36:10] in, in gross revenue.

John Dehlin [03:36:11] In gross revenue and a couple hundred

Rod Meldrum [03:36:13] thousand dollars in expenses. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [03:36:17] But it's, but your educational materials must be flying off the shelf because they pay for your, your salary, your living. And do you have staff? Do you have like part time or full time staff?

Rod Meldrum [03:36:28] I have my wife, she does my, our shipping and accounting. Oh, and I have Ryan who runs our events.

John Dehlin [03:36:36] Is that run by volunteers?

Rod Meldrum [03:36:38] And he's partially Retired.

John Dehlin [03:36:40] So are the event staff volunteer or are they paid?

Rod Meldrum [03:36:44] Sometimes we pay some of the staff members, but most of them are volunteer.

John Dehlin [03:36:47] That's nice. Yeah, Sunstone's that way. Sunstone has volunteers.

Rod Meldrum [03:36:51] It depends because a lot of times the volunteers don't want to continue to volunteer. When they want to go see the presentations, they want to go hear the speakers. And so we, in order to have somebody who's kind of not associated with the whole event, so they, you know, we, we have to hire some people and, and usually it's just family members or something like that. We can, you know, just pay a minimum amount and just be at the table there to, to monitor who comes in and out and stuff.

John Dehlin [03:37:17] Okay, a couple more quick questions. Yeah, A lot of people, both with you and me, you know, there's this idea of priestcraft and Mormonism and it's evil to make, for some reason general authorities can sell their books at Desert Book and that's fine. But if anybody else anywhere within Mormonism or ex Mormonism making any money, people lose their mind. So a lot of people are like, how much do you make every year? Are you getting rich off of firm foundation stuff? Why don't you publish your, your salary annually? What is it you're willing to say about that?

Rod Meldrum [03:37:46] Yeah, and basically the answer to that is yeah, but probably one of the, one of my biggest concerns that I had personally in getting going, getting started with this is, well, okay, so is this, does this constitute priestcraft? So I actually did a lot of research involving what exactly is priestcraft? And as I understand, priestcraft is basically people who are, who are essentially telling non truths or partial truths or things that aren't true for their own glory or for their own, you know, money or to get rich or famous or something like that. And, and so I guess I look at it from a, from a two pronged standpoint. Number one, the first prerequisite is that it has to be something that's not true. As far as I am aware, everything that we try to do is the truth. I mean, we don't, you know, so I mean, we're not deliberately trying to, you know, to, to fake people out or to, or to, to mislead or misguide people. And that's why I said at the beginning of our, of our conversation that, you know, if I, if I ever am in a situation where I'm more and more involved in defending my position than in finding out the truth, then I want people to call me out. Right, Totally. Okay, so, so it's not prescribed. Because it's true for me, first off, it's true. And the second thing is, is if it's, if it's, you know, if, if it's being done so that I can become famous or rich and so forth. And I mean, if I was going to be famous, I mean, I'd probably have a Facebook account at least.

John Dehlin [03:39:23] You still have social media.

Rod Meldrum [03:39:24] I, I, I don't really do that. I mean, it's. Number one, I don't get it. Number two, I don't have time. Number three, I, but come on, you're more known than me. It's not about anyway.

John Dehlin [03:39:36] Well, no, but you are pretty well known.

Rod Meldrum [03:39:38] Well, because we have DVDs. And you're saying that's your motivation.

John Dehlin [03:39:41] Your motivation isn't to be famous.

Rod Meldrum [03:39:43] And I could care less about being famous. In fact, I mean, when, when fair Mormon and so forth, they were calling me out and so forth, they're going, you know, people go, oh, this is going to be the end of you. And like, you know, I don't really, I don't really pay attention to what they say. It's not even really a big deal about what they say because I don't care about being famous.

John Dehlin [03:40:03] I just care about what about being trash though? What about being denigrated and, and defi, you know, spoken ill of.

Rod Meldrum [03:40:10] You know what, anybody who isn't thick skinned enough. If you're gonna, if you're gonna be in this kind of game, you better be thick enough to, to handle a little bit of, of stuff. Now that doesn't mean open season on Rod here now. Okay, I'm just saying that, that being denigrated, I mean, you look at people in history, again, let's go to Abraham Lincoln. I mean, was he denigrated? Yeah. And here's this backward Southerner basically, who had a drawl and so forth and people thought he was a loser. I mean he lost way more times than, you know, even people like Babe Ruth and so forth, I mean they struck out way more times than they ever hit home runs, but they kept swinging, you know, so, so, so my, my thought basically, as far as, you know, being rich and famous, I could care less being smeared.

John Dehlin [03:41:13] You didn't summarize you're smeared.

Rod Meldrum [03:41:15] You know, I mean, fair Mormon spent almost six months of their entire organization this time, effort and whatever to debunk me. And do I have a response? I had like a three page response. My feeling is basically this, if I'm, if I'm doing what I feel like I should be doing, then I continue with it. And I'm not too worried about whether or not fair Mormon agrees with me or those guys. The only I do have a mantra and I'm probably going to get hammered for this, but this is my mantra in my life. A number of years ago I said, you know what, what is my life about? What I mean, why am I here? And I came up with a really short, simple thing and this is it. You ready?

John Dehlin [03:42:03] I'm ready.

Rod Meldrum [03:42:04] Okay. I basically just want to bring as many people as I can to Jesus Christ before I die. I think that he is the. I believe that he is the purveyor of truth. I mean basically the truth comes through him and of him and I love him. And the bottom line is that if that's the case, then what do I have to be afraid of as far as long as I'm trying to speak truth. And that doesn't mean I'm always going to be successful at it. I mean, I totally admit that there'd be times I'm going to be wrong and that's just part of life and living. But those times when you're wrong also give you an opportunity to correct. And that's part of the reason for my story here that I've been telling is that I thought that my thing about helping to bring people to Christ and so forth was helping to people prepare for last day's stuff with a food storage company. It went broke. You know, I was like devastated. Right. But it led to better things.

John Dehlin [03:43:23] I love that. That was beautiful to see the sincerity of your motivations. I don't mean to bring it back to money, but I just want to close off the two questions for people that say one, you're getting rich now, or two, they say just disclose your salary. What do you say to those two assertions or questions?

Nonprofit Structure, Donor Transparency, and Church Relations

Rod Meldrum [03:43:41] Basically it's kind of a two edged sword as I think anybody who's had a 501C3 would know. Number one is, is that you have to disclose like who's, who's donating and so forth and so on, which is fine. I don't have any problem with that. I really just think that you said you're not about donations. Yeah, it becomes about the money instead of about the message. And so I've had, I mean fair Mormon. I mean they were saying, oh, you know, he sold 60,000 DVDs, let's see, $20 a DVD, he made this much money and so forth and not, not even considering the cost of doing it or the fact that we discount. I mean, we were doing, you know, 10 DVDs for, for like 30 or 40 bucks or something like that. I mean, like three or four dollars a DVD so, you know, they don't need. In other words, it takes it off the message. The message is basically, Book of Mormon has evidence, and here it is. And we're not going to argue. I mean, you don't see on my websites, for example, you don't see all the reasons why Mesa America is wrong or anybody else is wrong. We just want to tell our story. Which is why I love the opportunity, John, to come and kind of just tell our story. Because as you've noticed, I mean, I haven't been trying to tear down the Mesa America stuff or anybody else or any other belief systems or whatever. I just want to have this information be out there so that other people can look at it and say, hey, does this work for me or does it not?

John Dehlin [03:45:12] Also, how much money is the church paid Daniel Peterson or Lewis Midgley over the years?

Rod Meldrum [03:45:15] I mean, they've been on salaries with BYU that benefits probably twice or three times as much as anything I've ever made in this whole, whole thing. I, I don't know that annually, you're saying, but I'm just saying. Yeah. And then annual.

John Dehlin [03:45:26] Plus the cruises, the. Daniel, it's kind of hypocritical for them to attack you on.

Rod Meldrum [03:45:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:45:32] Given how much the church has funded them over the years.

Rod Meldrum [03:45:34] It's, it's, it's an easy out for somebody if they don't agree with what you're saying. But, but they don't have any other good ammunition to say, well, they're just getting rich off of this deal. Right. And so, but if you get, you got to. I know some people talk about this. I think Glenn Beck says, follow the money. A lot of people say follow the money. Where it's going. Well, there's no money flowing in from. So I'm not beholden to anybody. And it's so liberating to be able to not have to suck up to anybody for anything when it comes down to that, because nobody's going to pull my funding because it's independently raised. And quite honestly, I also feel like it's kind of a sacred obligation for me. I feel like the money that comes in isn't mine in the first place. It's all. Everything comes from God and that means money and everything else. I mean, all our natural resources, everything that we, everything our society and life is built upon came ultimately from the earth, which, if you believe that God created the earth, basically, then that's everything comes from God, right? So it's not my money in the first place. And I may, I may go broke doing this. Right now we're in a situation where things are pretty good, a lot better. But what that means to me is I have more resources to do more good. My wife and I have pretty much for years we just said, you know what, we're going to live on about 4,000 to 5,000amonth. That's, that's what we did. If you were to see my tax returns, one of the reasons for not showing tax returns is because some of the years it was so small that it might encourage organizations that, that, that oppose us basically to say he doesn't make enough money to even defend himself. If we were to, if we were to throw a lawsuit against him or whatever, he wouldn't even be able to pay an attorney to, to, to even defend himself. So it opens you up for those kinds of issues as well. So not something most people have thought about. But when you make as little as we made for a lot of years, that's a legitimate concern. That makes sense.

John Dehlin [03:47:50] But the idea that you're getting rich, you would say to that

Rod Meldrum [03:47:56] you have to take a look. I mean, for years, I mean every car that we had had, you know, six digits on the odometers, you know, and so forth. Now it's been better. But also some people equate, for example, I've had opportunities to meet other people who've had investment opportunities and so forth that I've done that have turned out really very well and so forth. A friend of mine, Ridge Hartley, he raises money for high tech companies and so forth and he convinced me to put a little bit of money into a couple of different ones. And then they, they went public and went huge and we took the money out and invested in other things. And so I do have other investments besides this, you know, but basically to me, the money that comes in for this is earmarked for this. And so for example, we just started a program with our streaming website. We have over a thousand videos on our streaming website with about 350 present presenters and, and basically all the money that come in, a big percentage of it, about 30% of the money that comes in from subscriptions goes straight out to our content providers. Yeah, I don't, I don't have to do that. We didn't do that in the past. Is something that I want to do because I want to support our infrastructure, I want to Support the people who are doing the research behind the scenes and working in their basements at night and working full time jobs and so forth and, and just want to share information because they love the gospel, they love the things that they're finding and they're, they're teaching people that make sense.

John Dehlin [03:49:31] And what you said is basically you guys live on 5,5ish grand a month and you, it sounds like what you're saying is you earmark whatever profit beyond that you feel a responsibility to reinvest that in the cause, not to, not to have some huge fat.

Rod Meldrum [03:49:47] Yeah. And then, and then when we do get, when we had money come in from investments and so forth and we put that to different things. But I mean like for example, I'm building a house right now down in Fairview and it's, and it's a big house. I mean I, it looked a lot smaller on paper. You know, we were doing the plans, but it's turned out to be a bigger place. But that's going to give us an opportunity to have, we'll have ability to seat 80 people in a section above the, above the, the, the garage in this house that we can have presentations and have kind of a studio set up like you have here and things so we can help get the message out. So it's all, it's all the Lord's. And as far as I'm concerned, and so my deal is, is that if I can get the message out more effectively or more efficiently or with, with greater veracity, then then great. And if it blesses people's life, then great. And if it becomes a situation where it stops blessing people's lives, then, you know, then we'll, we'll end it.

John Dehlin [03:50:49] As far as like volume of books or DVDs sold, I, I think you've outsold John Sorensen. You've probably outsold, you know, Fair Mormon and, and outsold Maxwell Institute and Daniel Peterson. Like can you talk about the volume of sales? Just not for any other reason than just to. I think there might be some envy in why people attack you because of the success of your dissemination of information.

Rod Meldrum [03:51:16] Some people think I'm kind of a marketing genius. And I'm not, I'm just, I'm just a basic guy. Now I will have to say that, you know, I'm not, I'm not completely ignorant about, you know, marketing and so forth. I mean I did study, you know, business administration for the two years I went to, to Utah State. But the, but the answer to that, I think the, the First DVD actually went pretty, pretty viral. I mean, you think about how, how the, the number of members of the church and then you subtract the number of members of the church that don't speak English and all of our stuff is in English, and then the number of people who actually care about the Book of Mormon and the number of people who care about Book of Mormon geography. I mean, you're getting down to a very, very small little number here.

John Dehlin [03:52:04] Niche audience.

Rod Meldrum [03:52:05] Yeah, it's a very, very niche audience. And so, but the, the first DVD, I think our total numbers was about 65 to 80,000. And then I discontinued that DVD because we wanted to, instead of focusing on the DNA part of it, we wanted to focus on the, the, the prophecies and the promises, which is the primary reason for the Book of Mormon itself. Then the, the other DVD was in Deseret Book. A couple of interesting factors that we got into Deseret Book, and I got the very first book signing was going to be happening down at the Deseret Book on Fort Union here in Salt Lake. And then I was literally heading down to do the book signing for the first time. I'm pretty excited because I've, you know, never had a book before kind of thing. You know, this is interesting. And, and then I got a call from my publisher. He says, rod, he says, book book signing has been canceled. And, and. But Desert Book is pulling your book from the stores.

John Dehlin [03:53:00] Oh, no. Okay. So for years, did, did you sell your book and. Or DVDs through Desert Book?

Rod Meldrum [03:53:06] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:53:06] How many years?

Rod Meldrum [03:53:07] Not, not the first dvd. The first dvd. Desert Book. Never even anyone had that.

John Dehlin [03:53:11] So.

Rod Meldrum [03:53:12] And then this one, somebody called Desert Book and said that this book is full of false doctrine and they need to pull it from the shelves.

John Dehlin [03:53:19] Well, that would have been Daniel Peterson,

Rod Meldrum [03:53:21] Lewis Midgley, probably, but I don't know,

John Dehlin [03:53:23] Maxwell Institute, the Farms, Maximilian. Two people. But I just want to establish. So for years you sold your. Some DVDs and books through Deseret Book, Correct?

Rod Meldrum [03:53:32] Still do.

John Dehlin [03:53:32] Yeah, still do. Okay, so they have been a significant distribution channel for you?

Rod Meldrum [03:53:37] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:53:38] Yeah, that, that shows that in place.

Rod Meldrum [03:53:41] A lot of independence and so forth. Well, what happened was, is when we, when we first came out with this, this book, the Prophecies and Promises book here, it went into Deseret Book. I think it was like the middle to end of October. And so it's just a perfect timing for the Christmas season. You know, you got Black Friday coming up, you got Thanksgiving and so forth. And we thought, man, this is Gonna, we got a lot of books, you know, printed and so forth to be able to do that. And then. And then this, this book sign was going to be about a week before Thanksgiving, and then all of a sudden the book is pulled from the shelves. Somebody had called and had raised a red flag that this is. Oh boy, you got to watch out. This book has got false doctrine and so forth in it. And so it took Deseret book almost four weeks, about five weeks to review the book again a second time. They had all of their reviewers basically look through it and they said, you know what? This is one of the, the most well written as far as, you know. The, you know, the, the amount of, of documentation and referencing and so forth is in this book we rarely see in the, the LDS book market. And so they put it back on the shelves January 2nd.

John Dehlin [03:55:01] So it got back up.

Rod Meldrum [03:55:02] It did.

John Dehlin [03:55:03] It's still up.

Rod Meldrum [03:55:03] But we completely missed the entire Christmas season that year. How long ago was it because of that? I was. See where the book came out was that this is one of the. One of the printings. I'm not sure if this is this couple years ago. I think the original printing here was. This is the fourth printing in 2010.

John Dehlin [03:55:25] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [03:55:26] So in terms of volume, I think 2009. So we did four. We did four printings in a year. Basically.

John Dehlin [03:55:31] That's a lot. So. So in terms of volume of books and DVDs sold, do you even have a number estimate? Is it in the hundreds of thousands?

Rod Meldrum [03:55:42] Probably in total. I mean, I have personally about what, seven DVDs and then really three books. And I've kind of co authored other books. The Annotated Book of Mormon here, which is the latest one, which Kara actually has a copy. Show your personal copy. Look at all that.

Guest [03:56:03] It's actually not my personal copy.

Rod Meldrum [03:56:04] Oh, it's not?

Guest [03:56:05] Unfortunately. My mom. Did you steal it?

Rod Meldrum [03:56:06] What? Did you.

Guest [03:56:07] I borrowed it from a friend.

Rod Meldrum [03:56:08] Oh.

Guest [03:56:08] Yeah. Just so you know, my mom tried to get this for me, but unfortunately I lost my faith in the church just that same month, so. Oh, I borrowed this from a friend, but yeah, she's too late. Nonetheless, I have been reading this. This borrowed copy.

Rod Meldrum [03:56:23] Okay, well, wait, so this. So this particular edition is called the annotated edition of the Book of Mormon and it is in Deseret Book. And. But actually, surprisingly, hopefully nobody from Deseret Book is listening to this, but Costco actually has sold way more of our books than Deseret Book has. We're in 14 stores right now. I think. No 17 stores of Costco in Utah, Idaho and Arizona. But I think it's probably just the pricing situation that Costco just, you know, doesn't take much profit in their stuff.

Guest [03:57:00] You know, Mormon families, they got, they want to buy one of these for each one of their kids. That's what my mom did.

Rod Meldrum [03:57:05] She says yes. She's like, that has happened.

Guest [03:57:07] Get the big Costco cart, fill it up for all of my kids.

Rod Meldrum [03:57:10] That's right.

Guest [03:57:11] Buy one for each grandkid.

Rod Meldrum [03:57:12] That's right. Think about it. I mean, how many books can you get that's a leather bound golden boss, gold gilded for less than 100 bucks? I mean, really, you don't even see books like that. Hardly.

Guest [03:57:23] I'm sold anymore. I don't even care what's in it.

Rod Meldrum [03:57:27] No, but anyway, so, but you know, I mean, Deseret book is like 70 bucks. I think a Deseret book, which is our retail price, which, which is again, 30, $40 less than any other book in that is similar in quality and size and scope and scale and so forth. And then, and then Costco has them for like 40 something.

John Dehlin [03:57:46] So hundreds of thousands of books and DVD sold, probably over a million units sold.

Rod Meldrum [03:57:55] I, I have, I have never actually.

John Dehlin [03:57:57] It's fine. It's fine.

Rod Meldrum [03:57:58] It, it. To me, to me it's not about the numbers. It's just about just getting the message out.

John Dehlin [03:58:03] But you're way out selling Daniel Peterson, Michael Ash, John Sorensen. Correct.

Rod Meldrum [03:58:09] I don't know what their sales are and I don't care.

John Dehlin [03:58:12] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [03:58:14] I did hear an interview though, a couple of, about probably three or four years ago with John Sorenson and, and they were, and they were celebrating the fact that they had that his book, an ancient American saying for the Book of Mormon had sold 25, 000 copies over the course of the last about what, 35 years or something like that. And when I heard that, I was very much encouraged because I said, you know what? Because my, my, my book called this book that's on the screen right here, they explained the Book of Mormon, America's Heartland, that has had about 65,000 copies. And then the annotated Book of Mormon has had, I don't know, several thousands. I mean, we're on the second, second printing, but we did much bigger printing on that one than we did on the, these other printings were like 5,000 a piece. I talked to Cedar Fort Publishing, Lyle Mortimer there a long time ago because they were interested in publishing for us for a little bit and then they wanted to have the complete control over everything. And again, I don't. I don't feel comfortable with giving my baby over to somebody else to raise, you know, kind of thing. So, so, so I, I turned them down. But. But the bottom line is, is that he said. I said, what. What would you consider to be a successful LDS book? And he said, Anything that sells over about three or 4,000 copies.

John Dehlin [03:59:33] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [03:59:34] Would be considered a success. It says if you're a general authority or somebody well known, well loved or whatever person within the church, then maybe 15 to 30,000 copies would be, he says, but probably the top book ever. Only hit not even a million copies. So that tells you how much of a niche market this is. So to get 60,000 copies of my first book and then these other things and plus all the DVDs and so forth, I don't keep track of that stuff. It's not, it's not a. It's not a game or. It's not a race. It's just. It's just what it is, whatever it is.

John Dehlin [04:00:12] Sure. So I. The question I wanted to end with for this episode, we're like freaking four hours in now. I thought this would be two, but of course, how could I think that this is Mormon stories and I'm John de Lind.

Guest [04:00:27] John just got on me last week about how like he always is right about the time. Time. Now look at. You're wrong.

Rod Meldrum [04:00:33] Well, you got. You got two guys here who can yak with the best of them. Yeah. Right.

Guest [04:00:37] Just make no predictions.

John Dehlin [04:00:39] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:00:39] You and me. Oh, aren't you? Well, do you not consider yourself a yakker?

John Dehlin [04:00:47] I just ask questions, Rod.

Guest [04:00:50] You guys, we'll be like on. We'll do like a tick tock live stream. And the way I answer a question is like in 30 seconds or less. And John's like, let me get you the complete history. Buckle in for five hours.

John Dehlin [04:00:59] Okay. I'm loquacious. All right.

Rod Meldrum [04:01:00] I'm the same way, though. My question relate with each other that way.

John Dehlin [04:01:04] Oh, yeah.

Guest [04:01:05] Loquacious.

John Dehlin [04:01:05] I'm having fun.

Rod Meldrum [04:01:06] Yeah.

Guest [04:01:07] Even your words are long.

John Dehlin [04:01:08] Okay, go on. I know. I'm the worst. Okay, maybe I'll end on this. Have you ever had any interactions with church employees or general authorities where you kind of got encouragement or support or felt in any way? Kind of. And maybe not direct or official endorsement, but encouragement other than Hartman Rector Jr. Like, obviously. I mean, the fact that Deseret Book is selling all your stuff to me is a huge endorsement because I know all sorts of cool people that tried to sell their books to Deseret Book. And it's a hard no. So the fact that Deseret Book is willing to sell your books makes me wonder why the Maxwell Institute and Farms and Daniel Peterson would even bother to oppose you, because clearly Deseret Book has blessed you. Now, someone say, desiree Book just wants the money, but I. I don't think that's their primary motive. I think the primary motive of Deseret Book is to promote faith in the church. So what do you want to say about anything you can say about support, either indirect or unofficial, or support direct and official from the church? And Kara wants. Before you answer, I just want to

Guest [04:02:23] clarify for Never Mormons, what does that book is so that people know that it's owned by the church? Technically.

John Dehlin [04:02:28] Yeah. It's the church's official publishing house and retail outlet for selling books and music and knickknacks and little statues of Jesus and things like that. Yeah.

Guest [04:02:39] So just to clarify that it's technically owned by the church?

John Dehlin [04:02:42] Yeah, definitely. Directly, officially owned by the church. Absolutely. Thank you, Kara.

Interactions with Church Leadership and Deseret Book

Rod Meldrum [04:02:46] That was great. Something of the first presidency or whatever, right? Yeah, I think. Okay, so as far as my direct involvement with leadership of the church, let me start at the local level first. Okay. So I had a stake president when I first started doing this, and I wanted to make sure that. That my local leadership knew what I was doing. Right. Because I was doing this completely without any. I didn't ask anybody's opinions or ask for any permissions or anything. I just kind of did what I did. And so my first DVD came out. I went to our stake offices, basically there stake presidency offices, and I put a DVD in each one of the cubbyholes, my stake presidency leadership. And I said, you know, I just want them to know what's going on, because I live in a. In a state basically, that has got a lot of BYU people that live there as well. So I live literally about a mile and a half from byu Lavelle Edwards Stadium, which.

John Dehlin [04:03:50] That's Kerr's hometown.

Guest [04:03:51] Yeah, yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:03:52] There you go.

Guest [04:03:53] Are you in North Provo or South Provo?

Rod Meldrum [04:03:55] You know, our Grandview area is. Yeah, that's where we live.

Guest [04:03:58] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [04:03:58] Okay. So now. Now everybody can come and egg my house or whatever.

Guest [04:04:01] Anyway, guys, be nice.

Rod Meldrum [04:04:03] Yeah. So. So basically the situation has been. Is that the. That. So I just wanted them to know about what I was doing and what was going on and. But there was, you know, but by this point in time, I'd ruffled a few feathers. I guess there at some of the apologetics communities. And, and so I just wanted him to know that I wasn't saying anything really, you know, derogatory or whatever as far as the church is concerned and whatever. Anyway, and so then I, I'm not going to get into all the details, but basically kind of got called in by my ST president and he said, I'm. I'm really, you know, concerned about you and what you're doing. I said, well, have you, have you watched my dvd? He says, well, no. And I says, well, would you watch it? He says, no, I'm not going to watch it. I already know. And I already know kind of, kind of reminded me of Simon the other day when he was doing his thing. He said he hasn't read the Universal Model, but he knows it's not true. It's like, okay, it was the same kind of a thing.

John Dehlin [04:05:02] What year was this about?

Rod Meldrum [04:05:05] Probably 2009. It right after my first DVD came out and basically. And he was somewhat upset by the fact that Elder rector Hartman Rector Jr. Had actually done the forward. I didn't ask him to do the forward. He actually volunteered to do the forward. I said, well, that's awesome. Be. It does lend some amount of credibility, which I lack because I don't have a PhD, right. And I wasn't in Deseret book at the time or any of that stuff. So it's kind of nice to have a general authority who came on and he didn't give it a strict endorsement. He said, you know, it says, in fact, if you watch the beginning of the dvd, he says, you know, he says, we don't know where it happened. We don't say where it happened, but we think it's a good fit for where it could have happened. And that's actually almost a direct quote from what he said. So he didn't get himself in trouble and I didn't get in trouble, but my stake president was upset by the fact that I was using a general authority in my DVD to help promote my research. And so anyway, that's really the only kind of a negative encounter. It turns out I found out that he actually had served his mission in Guatemala. So it was kind of an interesting thing. But, but, but then after him.

John Dehlin [04:06:21] He left you alone. He left you alone. He didn't pursue it any further?

Rod Meldrum [04:06:25] No. Well, I mean, hopefully, you know, he. I don't think he ever actually probably watched it or the information, but he, you know, he was keeping a handle on what was going on. I do know that there have been People in the administrative aspects of the church that watch our stuff pretty carefully. I've actually been to some extent kind of disillusioned by the fact that I've, that I've had really no contact with the, with the leadership of the church. I've been, I've kind of thought, well, gosh, you know, if you have one of the best selling books and so forth on the Book of Mormon and you have all this kind of stuff that you would naturally, you know, somebody would be there kind of, you know, saying, hey, you know, okay, you know, do this, do that, whatever. And I've been kind of disillusioned by the fact that I have gotten nothing. I mean, it's, in fact, I've been kind of going, you know, why not? Kind of thing. You know, I don't know if that's because I'm a pariah or I don't think so. But basically the fact that it stays in desert book is a good sign. But there was definitely a deliberate effort to try to get my stuff out of there by some other organizations. I think that's unfortunate because we don't try to get anybody else's stuff censored or whatever. I mean, I kind of hate to say this, but this is a kind of a little political bent, but it seems like those of a more conservative persuasion are okay with people having whatever their opinions are going to be. People who are a little more on the progressive side, they don't like it when people have opinions different than them, so they try to censor things. So I see that happening in the, in the media in general, people being censored and so forth, because the people who own the media companies disagree with their opinions. Just my observation.

John Dehlin [04:08:14] Okay, so you wish sometimes you feel like you would have liked to some of the brethren to reach out and cooperate with you and collaborate with you.

Rod Meldrum [04:08:25] Yeah, the only thing that I've ever really heard, now, I probably shouldn't say that, but I had a friend of mine who was actually in the office of one of the, the apostles and he said, he said, by the way, I noticed your book was on his desk. That's all I know.

John Dehlin [04:08:40] Okay, that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

Rod Meldrum [04:08:42] It could be a bad thing too. Yeah, it could, could be either way. I mean, I have no idea what the position of that particular apostle is or whatever, but I'm just, you know, it was, it was just nice that it made it at somebody's desk at least.

John Dehlin [04:08:52] If you had to guess how many Mormon testimonies You've helped save or strengthen. Could you even estimate or guess?

Rod Meldrum [04:09:02] I don't know. I'd hope all of them, seriously. But I don't know. I mean I, I had, I had, at one point in time I was, I would, I was receiving, I mean I'd received like literally tens of thousands of emails and to the point I was getting 60, 70, 80 emails a day. There's just no way my wife was trying to help me go through them and whatever and she's just kind of flagged the one that were the most important. But for a while I was actually printing out any email that came out that said, you know, hey, you know what, I'm grateful for your research. I was going to leave the church and now I'm rethinking that idea or people who weren't even aware of the church and so forth and say, hey, I was just on your website and I saw this DVD and what are you talking about with this stuff and this sounds interesting or whatever. I had seven like three ring binders, you know, the big like the three inch, three ring binders, seven of those full of, just print off, printed out, you know, emails and so forth of people. I, I don't know, I don't try to keep track of it. It's not like I'm trying to keep records of it. I figure, you know, maybe if God's keeping records in the other side, maybe I'll find out then. But it doesn't really, you know, affect me really. I hope that the research that we do does affect people and does cause people to rethink their doubts maybe. I mean, we've all had doubts. I think, you know, everybody has doubts. I mean there's things that just sometimes don't seem to add up and we don't have answers to everything. But I wish I had the opportunity to address more of the concerns that Jeremy Reynolds expressed and in his you're

John Dehlin [04:10:49] about to thing, because that's what we're going to next.

Rod Meldrum [04:10:52] Really? Because, because again, I'm the kind of a person, if I don't have an answer for you, I'm just going to tell you straight up, I don't have an answer. I don't know this, but in areas where I've had the opportunity to do some, some deep dive research, I am, I'm ready to, to talk about it.

John Dehlin [04:11:10] Yeah. Yeah. I would just say that I found the apologetics from FARMS and, and Fair Mormon and the Maxwell Institute overall to be much more damaging and harmful to people's faith than Actually helpful. And that's what. And I find them, especially the, you know, the Peterson Midgley types to be not only disingenuous but also mean spirited. And so one thing that you and I share is that we've both been victims of what I think is, is mean spiritedness and cruelty and dishonesty at their direction. And. But the other, other thing is I think at achieving the goal of not just unit sales, which isn't your goal, it's probably not theirs either. But in terms of achieving the goal of bolstering faith, Caroline, if you'd agree with this, I think you've been way more effective at bolstering Mormon faith than Fair Mormon and FARMS in the Maxwell Institute. Because I, because they're as far as I'm concerned, they're revolving door. They're revolving door.

Guest [04:12:14] They're like RFM used to be a, you know, work for Fair and so did Bill Real. And there's just so many people who at some point those answers just kind of run dry. But at least where Rod's trying to go is something that has somewhat a scientific region to it, whether or not we agree on the findings. But it feels like it's, it goes back to that fundamental thing. They're not trying to nuance the answers and have a progressive take on things.

Rod Meldrum [04:12:37] Well, I think we're kind of like all in.

Guest [04:12:39] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:12:40] On the church side and I think you have credit.

John Dehlin [04:12:43] I think you have integrity in the sense that you're not throwing, you're not wanting your cake and eating it too. Of like, yeah, the prophets are prophets. Here's a revelators in the Book of Mormon scripture. And now we're going to make a bunch of explanations that basically say they're not really prophets and it's not really scripture and it's not really history.

Rod Meldrum [04:13:00] He throws both of them under the, the bus to some extent. That's the way I kind of see it.

John Dehlin [04:13:05] Now, some would say you try to

Rod Meldrum [04:13:06] reconcile the science and the religion and you're using. I look at it kind of like this. When I first came out with my research, basically everything in CES and so forth is all pretty much Mesoamerica.

John Dehlin [04:13:27] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:13:27] Right. And so they said, well, you have to address the questions that we want to ask. And I said, well, why do I have to do that? I have some new questions that you guys maybe haven't thought of. And it's kind of like playing on a soccer field and you play in the other team and the soccer field is raised about to this level towards Their goal. You're fighting an endless battle. There's no way you can fight them on their own field. So you have to level the playing field. And when you get the playing field level, then all of a sudden you go, wow, okay, this makes some sense. So that, so loving that playing field. In other words, I didn't try to go and publish through FARMS or FAIR or any of these organizations because I knew that they're not going to publish my stuff.

John Dehlin [04:14:12] Yeah. And I, and I would just say, Kara, this might be a slightly different characteristic than yours. Some might say that. Well, you might say that the Maxwell Institute Fair Mormon FARMS type people are kind of throwing the scriptures and the restoration and the prophet seers and revelators under the bus a little bit.

Rod Meldrum [04:14:32] Okay. I want to be really careful about how I particularly phrase this because I really believe that Dan Peterson and Lewis Midgley and so forth. Not so sure about Lewis because he and I had a run in one time and it was not pretty. But probably the rudest person I think I've ever encountered in this whole thing was Louis Midgley. But that's just between me and him. Dan Peterson, on the other hand, very likable, very enjoyable. We've had dinner together and so forth.

John Dehlin [04:15:00] In person.

Rod Meldrum [04:15:00] In person, yeah. But he can get a little mean spirited and so forth. My feeling is you don't need to attack the other person.

John Dehlin [04:15:10] But at home, ad hominem is the currency of modern Mormon apologetics.

Rod Meldrum [04:15:16] Well, it, and if that's the case, then that's, that's sad.

John Dehlin [04:15:21] And that's another area where I respect

Rod Meldrum [04:15:22] you way more than because, because you can, you can, you should be able to agree to disagree without being disagreeable and, and, and, and let people kind of make their own minds up. You know, you don't have to, you know, force feed or shove things down people's throat and you don't have to disprove somebody else to show that you're. That your information may be more correct.

John Dehlin [04:15:43] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:15:43] You know, so I don't, I don't have any really access to grind. I mean I've been, I've been, you know, I mean fairmore imminence, these guys and, and Maxwell Institute, they have spent. I actually shuddered to think of the money that they've spent in trying to debunk me and my research. But it just, but it continues on and you know, it hasn't squelched it. If anything, it's kind of like they're, it follows the process of paradigm changes basically. At first it's Ignored. And then it's violently attacked and then it's shown to be correct. And then it said, well, this is what we believed all along, you know, kind of thing. So the violently attacked part was one of the earliest stages. I think we're well beyond that. We had, we did have some amount of reconciliation. I actually got to meet people who were attacking me kind of thing. I didn't really know who they were and so forth. But we had an opportunity to go back east and actually take a number of these individuals and a bunch of church education people and administration people and so forth back to the heartland. And we spent four days out there showing them some of the archaeology and the, and other research that we've been doing.

John Dehlin [04:17:02] When was this?

Rod Meldrum [04:17:02] And I got to meet a lot of these guys and they're great guys, they're really nice, you know, especially in person.

John Dehlin [04:17:09] When was this?

Rod Meldrum [04:17:11] Probably about five, six years ago. And anyway, so I got to. Actually I'd never met, you know, Jack Welch before, you know, and you know, Roper and, and all these other people there. But, but they're genuinely good people. I mean they're nice guys. I don't know if I'd be buddies with Jack or whatever. But anyway, but at least they got to see that I'm not just a wild eyed crazy guy. I think that's kind of how they wanted to portray me. And our research is that some of the things that we've been called is well, you guys are nationalists and you're racist and so forth and you're white supremacy people and, and all these funny things. I think it's so hilarious because I think the one you came to, Kara, we had a Native American celebration with like 20 Native Americans and so forth. If that's racist or somehow white supremacist, I'm kind of like. And we'll be on.

Guest [04:18:13] We'll do things for interesting reasons. That's a different topic for another reason. Yeah, there was a singing of the Red man song at that celebration too. So that's neither here nor there in my opinion.

John Dehlin [04:18:22] Yeah, we'll cover that, we'll cover that topic in next, next part.

Rod Meldrum [04:18:26] But, but anyway, yeah, so, so, but, but I'm not going to apologize for things that I feel that the Lord said about America and the, and specifically the. Yeah, the founding fathers and so forth. I mean if he said he raised up men for the very purpose of establishing the United States of America and that America has a particular special place in the, in the, in human history, I'm not apologizing for that.

John Dehlin [04:18:52] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:18:53] You know what?

John Dehlin [04:18:54] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:18:54] Let these cards, you know, fall where they may, and we'll cover that.

John Dehlin [04:18:57] But you're basically saying you've been able to reconcile a little bit with, with the, with the other types.

Rod Meldrum [04:19:02] Yeah, it's calmed down a lot. I mean, the last several years, it's been pretty, pretty quiet on the Western front. You know, when it comes down to,

John Dehlin [04:19:09] it's super strategically dumb for a house to be divided. Like Lincoln said, a house divided against itself cannot stand. For the Maxwell Institute and Fair Mormon to be attacking you guys and Deseret Books, selling your books makes no sense. What's smart is what the Church apparently appears to be doing, which is to support multiple models.

Rod Meldrum [04:19:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:19:28] So that whatever you want to believe, you've got a model.

Rod Meldrum [04:19:31] That was kind of the goal of having this, this, this, this get together, if you will. The idea was basically we were going to go to, to the heartland and have us, myself and about five or six other heartland, you know, proponents of the Book of Mormon geography. And there was about 8 or 10 of the Mesoamerica proponents, and they were there. And then there was a bunch of church administration people and so forth as well, but with the goal of kind of some kind of reconciliation because, you know, it just stinks, you know, to high heaven to have, you know, I put something up online and then you got these, these apologetics organizations basically going in and hammering me and so forth. I'm like, guys, we're on the same team here.

John Dehlin [04:20:17] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:20:18] You know, if we were a football game or whatever, you know, I mean, we're trying to. We're on the same team. We're just trying to decide whether we're going to take it around the end or go up the middle or do a pass in the meantime, the other, the other side is kicking our behinds and taking it down the field.

John Dehlin [04:20:33] Okay, that was going to be my last question for this episode.

Rod Meldrum [04:20:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:20:36] Why? If your goal is to bring people to Jesus and by the way.

Rod Meldrum [04:20:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:20:40] I'm just going to say very specifically, our goal is not to cause people to stop believing in God. I'm talking about Mormon stories now. The Open Stories Foundation Care. I hope you agree with this. I think you do. Our goal is not to cause people to stop believing in God. It's not stop people believing in Jesus. It's not even to get people to stop believing in the Book of Mormon or the Church. It's to, It's. It's to provide information so that people can make informed consent. And then it's to promote healing and growth for people who find the church orthodox Mormonism going to work for them. But, yeah, that's. That's. So you. You're okay with that? Yeah.

Guest [04:21:14] You can quote me all the way back to my Mormon Stories interview, where I said that the church is always going to be around. And some people, like my parents, joining the church was their leveling up. And I don't know everybody's situation about what works best for them, but I do think the information should be as transparent and open as possible. And at Mormon Stories, we let people tell their stories, positive, negative, and people come to their own conclusions about how that. What kind of interaction they want to have with the church, especially going back to how they want to have their kids interact with the church. From. We just, you know, highlight issues with systemic abuse within the church. And then you have to then decide what your level of involvement is in an institution that often cares more about PR and money and authority than sometimes the children that are in the church. So I think making a very important and focused, informed decision about what kind of influence you want to have with your children in the church is how I would put it.

John Dehlin [04:22:01] Yeah. And that's just to say, I'm just telling you, looking in the eye, our goal isn't to tear down the church. Our goal isn't to even destroy faith. It's literally just we felt we weren't given all the information. We sometimes see the harm the church causes. So we feel like everybody deserves to have all the information and to. And the church needs to harm less people. And then we're here to help people for whom the church doesn't work. We're here to help them heal and grow in other ways. However, that was just a long way of saying, regardless of all that we're viewed, Mormon Stories is viewed as one of the top enemies of the Church. We've even been named as maybe the top enemy of the church. And we're viewed by people on, let's just say your aisle as tearing down faith, destroying faith, taking people out of the church. And so I was going to end with this question. Why in the world would you come on Mormon Stories podcast? Why would you sit in a room with Mormon Voldemort, as I like to call myself, which makes you Rita Skeeter. Who are you? If I'm Voldemort, who are you? Kara?

Guest [04:23:00] I don't know anything about Harry Potter. I'm not a very good.

Rod Meldrum [04:23:03] So you're. You're talking to two people who don't

John Dehlin [04:23:06] Know, well, if I'm. If I'm literally like modern Mormonism's core whore, why would you ever.

Guest [04:23:13] No, a better way to put it is there's a very nice supporter of yours that was in the chat, and I think it was the one that yelled at me when I was at the Book of Mormon Evidence Conference who told me to get out of here. Don't talk to her. She works for John de Lynn. So why would you come here where one of your supporters says, don't even talk to Kara. Don't let anyone talk to Kara at the Book of Mormon events conference? Why would you come to our podcast and talk with John and me? I'm one of your own supporters.

Rod Meldrum [04:23:35] How many people did you actually end up talking about at the conference?

Guest [04:23:38] How many people did I talk to directly?

Rod Meldrum [04:23:39] I mean, like, 20, 30, 40.

Guest [04:23:41] Oh, how many did I talk to directly?

Rod Meldrum [04:23:42] Yeah.

Guest [04:23:43] At least, like, six that I had good conversations with.

Rod Meldrum [04:23:45] Okay. And one of those.

Guest [04:23:46] Was one of those said, get out of here, Karen.

Rod Meldrum [04:23:48] I don't think everybody else was pretty okay.

Guest [04:23:50] Everyone else is okay.

John Dehlin [04:23:51] I don't think she's saying the bad conference has bad.

Guest [04:23:54] No.

Rod Meldrum [04:23:54] I would be disappointed if you. If. If everybody's like, no, no, I'm just.

Guest [04:24:00] I'm trying to, like, really hone down John's point that if there's somebody who's, like, in our chat right now who's watching this.

Rod Meldrum [04:24:05] Yeah.

Guest [04:24:06] Who, like, is trying to facilitate this. Understand that we're trying to facilitate a conversation.

Rod Meldrum [04:24:12] Yeah.

Guest [04:24:13] She was wondering at the conference, what's Kara doing here? Still, the question does remain, why would you come and talk to us?

John Dehlin [04:24:20] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:24:21] Okay. Actually, several. Several fold, probably one of the first things was, is the interview with Simon, you know, and so forth. I mean, he drew first blood. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, well. Well, the thing is, is that, I mean, he and I have actually had several, you know, back and forth and so forth on emails and so forth. I've never actually had the opportunity or privilege to meet him. You know, he seems like a nice guy and so forth, you know, so, you know, I'm. But then I'm kind of. I can be a little naive and it comes down to some stuff. But anyway. But then, so there was the direct throwdown of, you know, hey, if Rod Melder wants to come on this podcast and address what Simon's saying, you know, then you've got an open channel to be able to do that. So I thought, well, that was me. Yeah, that was you. Yeah. It's your fault. And then there Was, you know, and I'm going to be really candid here for a second and that is that I have had personal friends of mine who've had their kids and so forth, have watched Mormon stories and have, and have lost their faith. You know, so that's, that's, that's kind of another factor for me is be able to maybe, maybe we can address this from a, from not, not the same apologetics that we've been getting. I think we've had faulty apologetics. I mean, and that's, that's just my personal opinion. I think we've had a lot of people trying to have a foot in both camps and I think you're going to find through our interviews here that I'm all in when it comes down to the Church. So I think that we have ways that we can show why there's discrepancies and that's what the whole scientific conversation will be about, is that if the Book of Mormon and so forth is true and so forth, what about the creation? What about Adam and Eve? What about, you know, all these different things, Noah's Ark and all that stuff? And is there any kind of evidence to suggest any of those things may have actually happened? And so we'll address that when we get to that point. The spoiler alert. Anyway, so why would I come. I think I found that you have been less combative than a lot of, I mean, I'm almost embarrassed by some of the things that have happened with like fair Mormon and so forth. I mean, you know, but they've attacked and done some stuff and I'm like, why are you doing this? You know, is this really what Christian people do? And I think some of the, some of the times that, you know, the way that they've treated you and so forth has been, I think not a little bit more mean spirited than I would have liked to have seen. You know, Although I will have to say that I think you can dish it out pretty well as, you know, I mean, you're, you're not a novice in this situation either. So going into it, you know, eyes open, but I really feel like with the, with, with the, with the new information that we have to be able to share with a lot of your listeners who have, who have questioned and maybe have lost their faith or on the, on the verge or just want it, you know, where's, we need some answers. You know, hopefully through this, through this interview, my hope is they'll see that there's, that maybe there's a reason for faith Maybe there's a reason to stay involved. Maybe it's may seem a little hocus pocus to some people, but I think that when you take a look at the, really take a look at it, it's based on some really sound scientific things that are not pseudoscience. And I mean it could be considered pseudoscience because it's not mainstream necessarily, but the information that we're going to be using and talking about is from mainstream sources of data and just a different interpretation. And by just looking at a different interpretation of the, of the observations that we have in nature, we'll find, I think some real opportunities to say, hey, you know what, maybe there's something to this, love that and, and if that's the case, maybe some people who have, who have left the faith and, and have that, that, that feeling of being duped and, and, and, and so forth and you know, conned will come and come back around and say, you know what, maybe there's a, maybe it's not what we thought, maybe there's more to it. And that's, that's, that's the reason why I tended to come into the lion's den.

Guest [04:29:15] Thanks. And we've been nice as kittens here.

Rod Meldrum [04:29:19] I swear, you guys have been great. I, I will say so anyway, so thank you for that.

John Dehlin [04:29:25] Well, thank you. I really. There's so many people, you know, the Givens is the Bushman's, the Masons, like they used to come on Mormon stories but now they won't. And I, I've lost respect for a lot of them. They'll have their excuses, but I honestly believe at the heart of hearts, they, they, they know that they can't really defend what a lot of their arguments are claiming. And they'll do private firesides that are secret, but they don't want to say publicly the types of arguments they're making. And what I really respect is you're willing to stand behind your arguments and come, like you say, into the lion's den and look, look us in the eye and, and give us respect, but also share with us your positions. And so I, I really respect that and I really respect, I think there's a real integrity and a real sincerity to what you're doing. And I, I feel like I can see it.

Rod Meldrum [04:30:23] I think every soul is precious in God's eyes and that doesn't matter whether you're an Alma or a Nephi or Paul or whatever it might be. One of the things I really love about the gospel basically is that we get, do Oversight. We all get do overs. You know what? We make mistakes. We do screw up, so we think incorrectly or we find out information that turns out not to be correct. We rely on things that aren't necessarily true, and we may go off in different directions and so forth, but ultimately we can change. We can adjust. We can, you know, have a different trajectory in our lives. And. And I guess that's what my hope is. Maybe coming. Coming here and. And. And having this conversation with you guys is that maybe it will touch some people's lives, maybe it won't. Maybe it'll touch yours, maybe it'll touch mine. I don't know. But I appreciate the opportunity either way. Thank you.

John Dehlin [04:31:44] Beautiful.

Rod Meldrum [04:31:45] All right, that enough for this particular segment?

John Dehlin [04:31:48] That's. I think we hit 4 hours and 30 minutes. So, Kara, how you doing?

Rod Meldrum [04:31:53] Dang.

Guest [04:31:53] I'm actually doing really good.

John Dehlin [04:31:54] This is fun.

Guest [04:31:55] John knows that I came in this morning kind of on, like, a NyQuil hangover where I was like, I don't know how this is gonna go.

Rod Meldrum [04:31:59] You said you had a fever even.

Guest [04:32:00] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:32:01] Where's your mask, young lady?

Guest [04:32:02] I know. Six feet apart.

Rod Meldrum [04:32:04] I am, like, kidding.

Guest [04:32:05] It's just a sinus infection. You'll probably heard me, like, you know, snuffling. But anyway, this has been a really good four and a half hours. Can't believe we still have more to do.

John Dehlin [04:32:13] So thanks to all. Well, first of all, thank you, Rod. Kara, you're amazing. Thank you so much for helping to make this happen. Thanks to Gerardo that makes all this possible. Jen is over there doing time notes, show code, time codes. So thanks, Jen. And yeah, thanks to all our viewers and who are making wonderful comments. We've had pretty much close to 500 people this whole time sustained on the live stream, which is a pretty big number for middle of the day, Wednesday,

Rod Meldrum [04:32:44] middle of the week, middle of the day.

John Dehlin [04:32:45] Yeah. And just thanks to everyone who makes Mormon stories possible. We couldn't do it without you. Okay, so I have a problem. And care. We need to talk about this like, real time.

Guest [04:32:55] So we didn't expect this to go till 3pm we did not expect the

John Dehlin [04:32:59] part one to go four and a half hours.

Rod Meldrum [04:33:02] That was part one. I thought it was part one and part two.

Guest [04:33:04] We didn't. No, we didn't get into Heartland. We didn't get anything.

John Dehlin [04:33:07] I want to talk about how you. How you view the gospel, like Joseph, the history stuff, the Jeremy Reynolds stuff, Like, what is your. What is it? How do you. In the gospel? And what is your kind of how do you. How do you still believe in 2022? I kind of wanted to do that. And, and what explanations do you give for just the high level problems that the critics make with, with the church, like Seer Stone and the hat.

Guest [04:33:36] I want to know, I want to know how my mom went from believing in one Book of Mormon translation theory and then she went to one of your conferences over a course of years. And then when I'm like, mom, Russell M. Nelson has his fate, face in a hat, looking at a stone in a hat, saying, this is how the Book of Mormon is translated. She sends me a bunch of your stuff. So I want you to explain, explain that whole Book of Mormon translation thing to me because it just don't make no sense. So we have to have a whole other part.

Rod Meldrum [04:34:00] We can do a deep dive into that if you'd like.

Guest [04:34:02] That would be one day.

John Dehlin [04:34:02] Well, I'm just saying probably we'll run out of time.

Guest [04:34:04] Probably.

Rod Meldrum [04:34:05] Maybe not now. I don't know. Whenever I would.

John Dehlin [04:34:06] I'm just saying I would love to understand Rod Meldrum's faith and testimony. That would be my part two.

Rod Meldrum [04:34:13] I think we kind of covered a lot of that.

John Dehlin [04:34:15] Well, the foundations of it, but I mean the details of it. I'm. I'm curious what you think about Joseph Smith's treasure digging. I'm curious what you think about the translation of the Book of Mormon. I'm curious what you think about his polygamy, his polyandry and some of the

Rod Meldrum [04:34:29] things I have opinions about and researched and done research on and some of those I haven't. So I'll tell you when I haven't.

Guest [04:34:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:34:37] And just what does scripture mean to you? What do prophets mean to you? We've covered that. Maybe it's only an hour discussion, but anyway, I came in wanting to have that conversation as a second conversation. And then the third conversation is the conversation about the Heartland theory and three o'.

Guest [04:34:53] Clock.

John Dehlin [04:34:54] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [04:34:54] What?

John Dehlin [04:34:55] Yeah, so I don't. So what we're gonna have to do is have a talk about whether we try and cover all this today or whether we schedule a part two. But even after, even if we do a part three, which is about the Heartland theory, I still want to have at least a part four or five where we get Simon or Thomas Murphy or others in the room with you and we have scientists talking to you about both the universal model and about the heartland theory and the scientific problems that that might be addressed. So I guess I'm saying viewers and listeners, I'm not sure exactly what parts two or three or four are going to look like. And I'm not even sure about what today's live stream is going to be like. Kara, do we want to end this live stream and start a new one or do we just want to keep this live stream going, take a break and then come right back and keep the live stream going? Do you have an opinion?

Guest [04:35:45] I think we should end it and start a new one.

John Dehlin [04:35:47] Okay. All right.

Guest [04:35:48] It's own separate YouTube video.

John Dehlin [04:35:49] So we're going to be doing a part two today. At least a part two today. And for those of you who have been watching and want to partake in part two, you're just gonna have to watch the YouTube channel, Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel, or the the Mormon Stories Podcast Facebook page where we'll be soon putting up part two. And then we'll decide, we'll see whether we have time for a part three today. And regardless, listeners, viewers, whenever you're viewing or listening, you can count on, at least from our commitment, at least a part three, if not a part four, where we talk about the heartland model in depth and we bring scientists on to have sort of Rodney Meldrum talks to scientists, hopefully in a non combative, constructive way. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Rod Meldrum [04:36:38] Yeah, Sounds good to me.

John Dehlin [04:36:39] Good care.

Guest [04:36:40] Amazing.

John Dehlin [04:36:41] You good? All right, so thanks everyone for joining us and thanks, Rod, again. You're awesome in so many ways and we disagree with you in some fundamental ways or we see things differently and that's okay too.

Rod Meldrum [04:36:53] That's right. And we'll make the world go around and different. Different ideas, different thoughts, different opinions.

John Dehlin [04:36:59] Yeah. So we'll, we'll see you guys all back really soon for another episode of Mormon Stories podcast and for more with Rod Meltram. See you guys soon.

Meldrum's Traditional Mormon Testimony and Beliefs

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 1554

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is February. No, March. March 2, 2022. Everybody's laughing at me. It's been a long day. We are here in the midst of an epic long form interview with the one, the only, Rod Meldrum, the founder and leader of the Heartland model slash community for the Book of Mormon. I just butchered that opening, but here we are quite. We just spent a good four and a half hours just having Rod Meldrum tell his story of what led him to, well, his Mormon upbringing and then what led him to create the Heartland Theory of the Book of Mormon and then how he became a publisher of books and of DVDs and the organizer of conferences that led to the creation of the firm foundation, which then has led him to be, I think, one of the most well known and prominent voices in modern Mormonism outside of, you know, the Mormon Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and First Presidency. I would say Rod Meldrum. Carrie, you may or may not agree, but I think Rod Meldrum is probably, well, more well known than like the presidents of the, of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Right? I mean, don't you think so? Could your mom name.

Rod Meldrum [00:01:22] I doubt it.

John Dehlin [00:01:23] Could your mom name the, the presidents of the quorum of the first quorum of the 70?

Rod Meldrum [00:01:28] Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:01:28] Over me? Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:30] I'm saying your mom likes. Your mom knows Rod Meldrum better than she does the general authorities.

Guest 2 [00:01:35] Yeah. In terms of, like, well, there's certain, there's certain factions of Mormonism. I do agree that some people have, like, who are they paying the most attention to? Who are the thought leaders? And I think Rod is definitely a thought leader for a lot of modern people in the LDS faith. Yeah, definitely.

Rod Meldrum [00:01:51] Well, yeah, really thought of myself as being that situation, but I've. Yeah, hopefully it's good.

John Dehlin [00:01:57] I think so. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're making a difference. And so we spent the first four and a half hours just talking about that.

Rod Meldrum [00:02:04] That was. Four and a half hours.

John Dehlin [00:02:06] My goodness.

Rod Meldrum [00:02:06] That was, it was, that was fast.

John Dehlin [00:02:08] It was wow. But, but I really enjoyed it. And so please go back and watch and listen to that. It's a super interesting and valuable episode about why Rod does what he does. You know, spoiler alert. He does. He doesn't do it for the money and he does it to bring people to Christ and he doesn't do it for the fame. So that's, that's my summary. Is that fair?

Rod Meldrum [00:02:29] Well, maybe infamous would be probably more likely.

John Dehlin [00:02:35] Yeah. Yeah. So now that we've covered that, the second thing that we wanted to cover, that I wanted to cover, and I think Kara also wanted to cover, this is just. I'm always perplexed with informed modern Mormon belief. People who lose their faith in the church, who feel betrayed by the church, who feel like the church wasn't honest with them, or once they read the church history or study the problems with Mormon scripture. So many people are losing their faith, but there are. There are others that know all the problems, know all the history and. And still choose to believe. So this part two is just going to be a broad exploration of. Of what you believe as a Mormon, and not an in depth, but just a brief. Maybe a brief explanation of how or why you believe in. In various aspects of what I would call a traditional or an orthodox Mormon testimony. And then after that, we'll do a part three at least, which will be a deep exploration of the heartland model.

Rod Meldrum [00:03:43] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:03:43] And it'll either be in that part three or in a part four, where we bring on. Bring on scientists like Simon Southerton or Tom Murphy or others, so that we have scientists there to be able to talk with you about the universal model and about the Heartland theory. How does that sound?

Rod Meldrum [00:03:59] Sounds like a. Like a good deal. Okay, let's do it.

John Dehlin [00:04:02] Care and always I have my partner in righteousness and truth and goodness, Kara Burrell with us. Hey, Kara.

Rod Meldrum [00:04:11] Hello.

Guest 2 [00:04:11] I hope everyone's not so sad that I'm leaning back and I'm not quite in focus. You're gonna be okay with that?

John Dehlin [00:04:17] John, you're back. We. We've. We've taxed the endurance of your back today already. Is that right?

Guest 2 [00:04:22] You guys know that I have to sit up at any given time and be ready to jump to action, so I'm gonna be more relaxed for this one. We're just gonna have a chill conversation. I'm gonna lean back.

John Dehlin [00:04:31] All right. And. Yeah, so we're gonna. We're gonna dive in and. And we. We are live streaming. So for those who are joining us on Facebook or YouTube, we. We welcome your comments and questions. And for those who want to play it back on Facebook or YouTube, you can watch this later and see the. See the comments in the live stream and even participate later, so. All right, you ready to. You ready to rock, Rod?

Rod Meldrum [00:05:04] Okay, here we go.

John Dehlin [00:05:05] Okay. All right, so I am just going to go through kind of my structured perception of kind of orthodox Mormon beliefs, and I'm just going to ask you a gazillion questions, and you, like We've already established this. I don't know is a perfectly acceptable answer. And you can be as brief as you want. We're not going to want to go into depth, but I really want to understand your beliefs.

Guest 2 [00:05:28] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:05:29] All right, let's do it.

John Dehlin [00:05:29] All right, let's do it. Okay, so let us begin, I assume. Well, what do you believe about. You already talked about this last episode, so I'm just going to acknowledge that. But in terms of God, what. How would you describe your beliefs in God or Heavenly Father?

Rod Meldrum [00:05:51] Okay, wow. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:05:54] Orthodox.

Rod Meldrum [00:05:55] Totally orthodox, yeah. I mean, basically there's a Father and a Son and a Holy Ghost and there was a pre existence and although as I understand it, the God of that we talk about Elohim, basically there is a council of the gods also and some other things like that that was discussed kind of briefly by Joseph Smith and some other things there.

John Dehlin [00:06:23] So maybe God has a God.

Rod Meldrum [00:06:26] There may be a council of Gods, basically. I don't know if God has a God or whatever. If there are, if it's a big council, I would assume that they're all kind of at the same hierarchy or whatever.

John Dehlin [00:06:37] But there is this idea that as God is man once, as man is God once was, and as God is man may become. Is it within the possibility of your beliefs that current Heavenly Father was once a human like us in another world who had his own Heavenly Father, and then he advanced in the states of God of righteousness to the point where

Rod Meldrum [00:06:59] he could become a God himself, as I understand it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:03] You're okay with that?

Rod Meldrum [00:07:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:04] Which would mean that for you, God, Heavenly Father is anthropomorphic, meaning ten fingers, ten toes, that, that, you know, literal body.

Rod Meldrum [00:07:13] We're in his image and. And we are in his likeness and male and female. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:07:19] Okay. Oh, well, that reminds me.

Rod Meldrum [00:07:21] There we go. So I thought that would probably. Heavenly Mother out there.

John Dehlin [00:07:26] So yes or no? Heavenly Mother?

Rod Meldrum [00:07:29] Yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:07:30] What about heavenly mothers? Plural,

Rod Meldrum [00:07:34] potentially.

John Dehlin [00:07:35] Where do you lean?

Rod Meldrum [00:07:37] I've had this. I've had discussions with different friends of mine and so forth about this kind of little bit. And I don't know, this may be a little unorthodox, but we'll see. But basically, if our Father in heaven is the Father of all of our spirits, and if the process of procreation basically is similar to what we experience here on the Earth, that's a lot of time procreating and. And maybe that's the case. But bottom line is I really think that maybe we were actually in. In a familiar state and in A family situation in the pre existence as well. Don't know this. There's. There's almost no doctrinal thing. I just make, just to me it makes sense that there would be. To create all the spirits that would be coming here to the earth. I don't think one woman would be able to do that and I don't think it's from one sire either. I think it would be going on, I don't know. It's a little speculation, total speculation on my part. But nevertheless, I think that there was families possibly in the pre existence and then there's families here on the earth and there will be families. It seems to be kind of an organizational thing that, that, that God likes family.

John Dehlin [00:09:11] So. So in your mind, because Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother or mothers have physical bodies and we know that, that they are the creator of our spirits, there are parents in a spiritual sense. In your mind, there's a likelihood that they engage in procreation in a physically, in a similar way that we here on earth would engage in the creation of babies and that that's literally a physical act that father and Heavenly mothers and potentially others all engage in to create spirit children.

Rod Meldrum [00:09:51] I would say yes. Wow.

John Dehlin [00:09:53] Okay. Yeah. I mean that's consistent with what Joseph Smith taught. Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:09:58] And it's, and I think it makes sense that that's, you know, how, how things kind of continue on basically, you know, grandparents and parents and so forth.

John Dehlin [00:10:09] Anyway, I mean there's a lot of Christians that just don't think of God as having a body that way at all.

Rod Meldrum [00:10:15] Right.

John Dehlin [00:10:16] But then there's also a lot of people that are just like, that's like, I guess a modern Mormon feminist perspective is like, I don't want to think that my job is to go up to heaven and just make babies all the time. Like that's. There are people that are, there's some, there's some that are excited about that possibility and then there's others that feel like that's.

Rod Meldrum [00:10:37] Yeah, I think there's a lot more going on than just procreating. Okay, but there is pro side. Yeah, but yeah, I mean if we're, if we're in his image and her image, I guess it would say with Heavenly Mother. So if that's the case, then yeah, I don't see any, I don't think that it's just amoebas that are separated kind of thing anyway.

Theology on God, Eternal Marriage, and Heavenly Mother

John Dehlin [00:11:03] Kara, I'm confused that we haven't heard any response from you on this topic yet.

Guest 2 [00:11:07] I am collecting my thoughts there we Go collecting.

Rod Meldrum [00:11:09] Okay. All right.

John Dehlin [00:11:13] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:11:15] Would you say that that's kind of a orthodox view as far as. But what you were taught growing up, basically both of you?

John Dehlin [00:11:21] Thousand percent.

Rod Meldrum [00:11:22] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:11:23] Thousand percent. And you must know that in the modern corporate Mormon church, the church seems to want to distance itself from that teaching these days, or at least that's how many view it. That the church maybe to not be viewed so strangely or oddly maybe to curry favor with evangelicals or other of our Christian friends, that the church isn't really excited. And even Gordon B. Hinckley, when he's interviewed and he's asked about, excuse me, about men becoming gods, especially after the God Makers and the way that that kind of embarrassed the church, it seemed like Gordon B. Hinckley even said, I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. Wanting to kind of walk back and. Or distance itself from that teaching. That absolutely is core to Joseph Smith's theology and every prophet, Syrian revelator from then until now, because we know Russell and Nelson has multiple spiritual wives, multiple celestial ones here.

Rod Meldrum [00:12:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:25] Anyway, what, what. This is kind of a sidetrack, but what do you make of the church seeming to want to distance itself from this teaching that you probably feel is pretty core?

Rod Meldrum [00:12:37] I guess I would take a little bit of a. Of a different thought pattern there. I don't necessarily see the church itself distancing per se. I mean, maybe it's just my perspective

John Dehlin [00:12:51] or my perception when Hinckley said, I don't know that we teach it, I don't know that we emphasize it.

Rod Meldrum [00:12:56] I think there's some things that are kind of like temple ceremonial rites and so forth that just things that probably kind of like the discussion about procreation and in the pre existence or whatever, you know, I. Yeah, that. That's in an area that I think is a little bit. Probably a little sacred for just general consumption. I guess maybe I would say that.

John Dehlin [00:13:20] So you interpret Hinkley as basically saying, that's something I don't want to talk about on national television.

Rod Meldrum [00:13:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:25] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:13:26] All right. Pretty much.

John Dehlin [00:13:26] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:13:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:28] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:13:28] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:13:31] Okay. But for you, I mean, we're going to ask this later, but we've already touched on it. So DNC 132, that's got eternal marriage and polygamy.

Rod Meldrum [00:13:41] You.

John Dehlin [00:13:42] You believe what DNC132 says and what Joseph Smith and all those other prophets taught that that if you make the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, you will likely have a man, will likely have multiple wives. Is that.

Rod Meldrum [00:13:58] And the answer is probably. I mean, you know, it does in the Old Testament. I mean, you know that. I think that part of the reason maybe for that could be because men are less likely to follow God's law than women. I don't know. Maybe that's a possibility. Maybe women are better at becoming celestial. I don't know. That's a thought that. So is there polygamy in. In heaven, so to speak, or, you know, in the. The kingdoms and haven't been there. Don't know. But I would guess that there probably

John Dehlin [00:14:37] is because Joseph Smith taught it and it's in the scriptures. Yeah, that's consistent.

Rod Meldrum [00:14:43] Although Tanya would be very probably not happy with that.

John Dehlin [00:14:47] What does she believe? What does she believe about that?

Rod Meldrum [00:14:49] I think she's. I think she's okay with having 1. 1. 1. 1 husband and one wife.

John Dehlin [00:14:56] So, anyway, yeah, big thanks to the super chat from KP that just came in. For those of you joining us on YouTube, we always appreciate your support, so thank you. All right, so that's God and Heavenly Father. Let's see. Before we talk about Jesus, do you. Do you have any beliefs about the gender of the Holy Ghost or anything like that? Like, some. Some have wanted, like Fiona Gibbons likes to teach that the Holy Ghost might be a woman. Do you have any thoughts or feelings about that?

Rod Meldrum [00:15:30] No, I think. I think I really do believe, though, that that if men and women were created in the image of God and our Heavenly Mother, basically, that there are certain innate traits and characteristics. I think that we complement each other very well and that the intact nuclear family is still the. The best way for children to grow up having the most advantages and the most ability to have a successful life and whatever that success means to them.

John Dehlin [00:16:06] Yeah. Okay. So the. So the gender of.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:11] Of Holy Ghost, I actually had. Had, you know, people. I've never really had that particular question, but so I've had. I would. I would assume probably a man, but I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:16:23] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:24] But I mean, it's usually referred to in a. In a masculine sense, I guess, if you. In most of the scriptures that I'm aware of.

John Dehlin [00:16:33] Okay. And then.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:36] But the influence of the Holy Ghost seems like that would be. Could be, you know, to. And with anybody, obviously. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] Okay. As far as Jesus goes, is Jesus Jehovah and God of the Old Testament is that. That's a pretty traditional orthodox view.

Rod Meldrum [00:16:58] Yeah. Kind of God of this world, so to speak.

John Dehlin [00:17:01] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:17:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:03] So when. When God's talking in the Old Testament, it's actually kind of premortal Jesus Christ

Rod Meldrum [00:17:10] depends on the situation there. But yeah, basically, I mean the Trinity idea, there's some aspects of that that I think actually can be understood to be. I mean it says right in the Book of Mormon, God the Father and Christ are one. And then he says that he exhorts everybody to be one, like I am with the Father. That doesn't mean that they're the same person, but it does mean that they are, that they are one in, in, in scope and in purpose, basically. That makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:17:46] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:17:46] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:17:48] Okay. All right. So pre existence, a third of the host of heaven were cast out following Lucifer. I've just, I'll just ask just for fun, like isn't that kind of a cruddy plan that like God loses a third of his children right off the top? Do you have any, have you thought about that?

Rod Meldrum [00:18:05] Well, yeah, that's gotta been painful. I mean, but if one of the goals of God is to allow his children and spirit children to be able to actually have their agency, be able to make decisions, basically bottom line is that how can you become like he is if you don't learn how to make decisions like he makes? The only way you're going to be able to make those kind of decisions is by experiencing things and making wrong choices and making right choices and then moving constantly towards the, you know, towards making better and better choices. So I think that's, that's, you know, one way to look at it as far as that makes sense. Yeah, what I was just saying there. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:55] And the idea that we are eternal intelligences that have always existed and that our intelligences inhabited spiritual forms that again

Rod Meldrum [00:19:06] were created by basically grew and yeah, yeah, but that we had free agency. But there's a lot of different things about that. I mean, you know, Satan, you know, and, and the whole plan really plays out. It was, it was, you know, if we understand it correctly in the pre existence those who maybe are not familiar with this, that you know, that there was a plan that was, that was put forward. And the plan basically was we get, we come down to this earth, we, we obtain bodies, we, we learn what it's like to have a physical, you know, I mean physical body and all the challenges and, and blessings that that are, that are part of that. And then we have two, two sons basically that came, you know, the two sons of God basically that came and said, hey, this plan looks good. The other one says, you know what, this plan kind of stinks. I mean, you know, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of these Children are not going to make it. They're not going to come back and be with you. So tell you what we'll do is we'll, we'll make it so that everybody, sorry, make it that everybody gets back, but we're going to kind of make them get back. So it won't be by their own will and their own choice. It'll be because we make them come back. And I don't think that, in fact if you think about it, that really would be impossible. I mean how is somebody supposed to become like God is if they don't learn how to make the decisions that God makes? So, so they have to go through this, that, this, this, this trial period if you will, to be able to do that. So Satan's plan would have, would have been thwarted in the first place because if somebody makes you do everything and you don't have any choice in the matter, you basically just do what you're told. You're never going to really know how things really do work and don't work and what does work and what fall on its face and so forth. You have to go through those experiences, I think. So there you go.

Race, Skin Color, and Book of Mormon Teachings

John Dehlin [00:21:18] What do you make of theories that have been advanced in the past that are station in this life? Whether we're a certain race or skin color, whether we're in the church or not in the church, whether we're wealthy or poor. Attempts to tie valiance in the preexistence to your station here in life. What do you make of that? And specifically the, the theories taught that dark skin was something that was given as almost a punishment for people that were less valued in the pre existence.

Rod Meldrum [00:21:58] I had somebody actually one time on my mission, ask me says so he was a man. We were sitting on a train together. He was, he happened to be black and, and he said so what color is God? I never really had considered that before. And as I pondered that over the years I kind of come to the conclusion that God is basically light. And light has all the colors of the spectrum in it.

John Dehlin [00:22:29] You don't mean light skinned. You mean light like the sun or light bulb has light. All the colors of the spectrum.

Rod Meldrum [00:22:37] If I understand correctly, Adam and Eve were basically, you know, they, they had, you know, light skin. I guess it would, I would say

John Dehlin [00:22:45] so it is kind of white skin.

Rod Meldrum [00:22:48] Well, a lightness. I mean basically, you know, so that, that aspect of it as far as what kind of, you know, did we merit a certain skin color for example here in, in this world. And I, I don't know the answer to that, but I'm saying probably I don't, I don't think so. I think that there's, there's families in the pre existence and, and that whatever family you were in there, you're probably going to be in, in this life as well as, as, as also in the next life.

John Dehlin [00:23:18] So when. Yeah, yeah.

Rod Meldrum [00:23:19] So my, my, my, my parents now I don't know if they were my parents in the pre existence or whatever or that but, but my hope is is that I get to be with them and that's what ceilings in the temple and so forth are to do is to seal me to them, you know, throughout the attorneys as I understand it. So that, that will be a family situation.

John Dehlin [00:23:39] So when Joseph Feeling Smith or Bruce Armaconke and they probably got it from their predecessors when they taught that, that African Americans were cursed with dark skin, curse of cane because of less valiance in the preexistence. This appears in the book Mormon Doctrine. What do you make now of those teachings?

Rod Meldrum [00:24:04] That's a good question. And I would have to say basically when it comes down to skin coloration, some of that goes into genetics obviously. And, and the, the, the difference between skin color from the number of alleles and so forth is, is so minuscule. I mean we, we, there's, there's very little genetic difference between a Caucasian or an African American or an Asiatic person or whatever. They share very similar. In other words, it's just a little bit of melatonin changes, a few tweaks here and there in the DNA and voila, there you go. Okay, so back to the original question though. My understanding as far as from Cain is concerned is that, is that it was both a curse and also a blessing because he was. Now I know that there's been controversy about people saying well when it comes down to skin color and so forth, you know this, was it a curse, was it a blessing, you know, that kind of thing. In fact, I think recently Brad Wilcox got hammered for making some statements involving the priesthood. So I think that when it comes down to it, skin color is a lot less important than your righteousness and your obedience to God and his ways. I mean maybe, I don't know if that kind of a roundabout answer I guess, but there you go.

Guest 2 [00:25:48] What does that say for people who proclaim to be prophet seers and revelators who are just like in line and step with a lot of the racist theories of their day though? What does that say to their credibility?

Rod Meldrum [00:26:00] I think that if our, if our conversation in the beginning was about that Prophets can have their own opinions, they can have their own understandings. Ancient prophets obviously had different understandings than we do at this juncture and time. God doesn't change, but our understanding of what he does, I think can change over the course of time. What we really understand the, the idea of, of having more or less obedience in the pre existence. I don't. Not something I've really thought a lot about and so forth. I think that everybody has a fair shake when it comes down to it. Everybody has the opportunity to, to accept the Gospel but if you think about it from that standpoint, to be Israelite basically to be part of the House of Israel, anybody can be grafted in as we understand that. As I understand it, anybody can be grafted in. But that's a particular lineage, the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lineage. There's a lot of people who are out there that are not from that lineage that came from Japheth or from Ham instead. So all of them can be part of that. But how, but how that all works in the, in the post existence, I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:27:36] So part of this was I. When care was coming in, I, I lost a tiny bit of track of what you were saying. So I just want to. I want to make sure I understood your answer. So as far as the teaching that Bruce Armaconkey offered that African Americans were cursed with dark skin because of less valiance in the pre existence, your belief

Rod Meldrum [00:27:57] is what I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:28:04] Well, you don't know, but we don't know anything for sure. Do you tend to believe that because Bruce R. McConkie taught it?

Rod Meldrum [00:28:11] There was quite a number of things in Mormon doctrine and so forth that Bruce R. McConkie was asked to remove or to take out. I think, you know, it's one of those things. I just don't. I don't know that much about that particular area. I know I have personal friends who are every different descent doesn't, you know and so where do you lean on it?

John Dehlin [00:28:39] Do you tend to believe that teaching or tend to not believe or tend to not want to either say or, or even think about. There's. That's another option that you don't want to say it.

Rod Meldrum [00:28:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:53] Or, or you don't want to think about it because it's a really unpleasant. It's unpleasant to think that an apostle might be wrong, but it's also unpleasant to. To believe something that God would curse someone with dark skin because of wickedness in the pre existence and to believe that where do you lean in terms of your personal belief on that particular teaching?

Rod Meldrum [00:29:17] Well, the Book of Mormon actually also gives some amount of maybe direction, if you will, as far as that's concerned. I know that there are those who have said, well, the Lamanites, for example, the dark skin that's mentioned there in that situation. So what is the deal with that? I think part of it has to do with, let me. Just because Book of Mormon is kind of my thing. So what about that situation? Was it actually dark skin or was it just a dark countenance? Was it just because they were non believers and so they became kind of dark in the sense of they didn't have as much of the light, that kind of stuff. And I've had people argue different directions. I've listened to most of the arguments in that situation. I think the Book of Mormon, though, is fairly clear that when they talked about a dark skin, dark features, that that was what they meant. They meant dark skin, dark features. Now, for me, one of the ways that I have come to maybe potentially reconcile this is when you have Lehi and his family who are Asiatics or excuse me, not Asiatics, they are Europeans and they move into an area where there are also other peoples who are Asiatics, basically considered like Mongolians. Okay, this goes into the DNA discussion we'll have later. But basically. And those Mongolians have certain physical features. They have dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes, you know, and, and so forth. So if you, if you have somebody who has light hair, light eyes and light skin and they intermarry with somebody who has dark features, the dark features are going to win out most of the time. Because in genetics, basically you have recessive and, and dominant genes. And so the vast majority of children resulting from that, that union would basically have the features of the dark, dark skin. Right. So if the Lamanites, basically, one of the things that was interesting, and this is pretty much goes through the whole Bible and so forth, and that is that you have people like, like, like Abraham is told that he's supposed to marry within his, what they call it, his, his familiar group. I can't remember what the name that they, that they call it, but, but anyway, that kind of means not only his, his ancestral people going back to Shem, but also his people who also share his basic belief systems. Okay, so that's part of the reason for getting right from I, for Isaac and so forth was that was part of that reason. And, and, and, and, and they were, they were kind of told to stay, you know, to Marry within that, that kindred. I think that's the name of they, they call it their kindred. Okay. That means basically Shem's lineage and so forth. Anyway, so back to the, so that, so if, if when the Nephites came to America and they began to, to find there were other people here and those people were Asiatics, basically Mongolian based kind of DNA types in the first generation, that they would have children together, their children would have, would have the darker features as A general rule, 80% or so I think is the genetic dominance versus recessive genes and so forth. And they would show that the Naamanites had actually broken their covenant to marry within their kindred, which is, again, that's throughout the Bible we see that happening to marry within their kindred. And they had instead married outside of their kindred, had married the Asiatic people. And their children would show that tendency towards the darker features, the dark hair, dark eyes and dark skin. Okay, so I think that that may be a possible explanation as to how the Lamanites received the mark, that they intermarried outside of their kindred and by doing so their children had the darker features that make sense. And so, so it's not necessarily. And that way the Nephites could actually tell by sight the people who had broken the covenant and had. And had married outside of their lineage, whatever, and the people who had not. So there you go.

John Dehlin [00:34:13] So to summarize, if you were asked, do you believe what the Book of Mormon states, which is that God turned Lamanite skin dark because of wickedness and to make the Lamanites loathsome or ugly or repugnant to the Nephites who are white skinned. Would you say you believe that?

Rod Meldrum [00:34:42] Nuanced, you know, somewhat, but, but, but yeah, but yes. I mean the Book of Mormon actually does call it a, a what do they call it?

Guest 2 [00:34:53] Curse.

Rod Meldrum [00:34:54] I think with, with, with. I think it's the Bible that actually calls it a curse, doesn't it? As far as the, as far as Cain, they call it the curse of Cain kind of thing. In the Book of Mormon it is, you know, that they were, they were given a mark, I think is what they called it, a mark, but it

John Dehlin [00:35:11] talks about dark and loathsome and.

Rod Meldrum [00:35:13] Yeah, it does, yeah. Basically. It wouldn't be as enticing, I think as a technical term in the, in the, in the Book of Mormon that they would not be as enticed to, to intermarry with people who had broken the covenant.

Guest 2 [00:35:26] I wonder why it wasn't the other way around. I Would like to ask God that why not make the white people loathsome and the dark skinned people? Is it maybe because that was already.

Rod Meldrum [00:35:34] Well, maybe those just different, you know, just something that's different. I mean, whether it's, whether it's red, yellow, white or black. I mean, basically there's, there's a, there's a whole color range of choices that could have been done. You know, I don't know that it makes a difference whether they were dark or if they were Asiatic or any other color, so to speak.

Guest 2 [00:35:55] I can see that like the, the Occam's razor in us would say the, the simplest answer is most likely the correct one, is kind of where most of us lean towards that there were already racial ideas going around at the time and that people writing these things into the Book of Mormon, they just needed a little bit more oomph, a little bit more backing from God to demonize people of darker skin colors and elevate people of lighter skin colors. And so even if that happened, I don't even debate whether or not that happened in the Book of Mormon. I still just have a problem with a God telling us to worship the kind of God that would do that because there is still so much racism evident in Mormon culture from that. So whether or not God did that is almost irrelevant. It's just telling me that, like, I don't want to have any part of that. Do you understand that?

Rod Meldrum [00:36:44] Yeah, I think I do. Which also brings me to another point, and that is that basically when it comes down to it, if you were God and you have all your children and so forth. But there's got to be some way that you can help people to differentiate between believers versus non believers. Obviously, skin color is one way you could do it. I mean, you could make them all shorter or taller or heavier or bigger heads or smaller heads or whatever, the different ways you could do it. But skin color is probably a really simple way to do that. But basically the connotation that black is somehow negative, that it's a bad thing actually comes from our understanding of evolution. So I don't know if most people don't realize this, but evolution is probably one of the most racist theories that there is. Because evolution is where you get the dark skin as a bad thing. Because if we came from apes, okay, if we, if humans came from apes, okay, and what color are apes?

John Dehlin [00:37:53] Well, this is something I learned from Tom Thomas Murphy. Yeah, apes, like primate skin is actually white or light. Their hair is dark.

Rod Meldrum [00:38:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:04] But if you, if you shave A gorilla. Their skin is maybe whiter than yours.

Rod Meldrum [00:38:10] Well, chimpanzees, that's the case. But I think gorillas actually have dark skin, but maybe that's a common ancestor.

Guest 2 [00:38:16] I see your point, though. Okay.

Rod Meldrum [00:38:17] The point is, though, is that Darwinian evolution was such that actually he was actually making communications with another individual, Morgan Lewis Henry Morgan, I think it was. And they actually had writings back and forth with each other.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] And.

Rod Meldrum [00:38:35] And then Louis Henry Morgan wrote a book called Ancient Societies. And then he categorizes all humans into three groups. They have the ignorant savages, they have the barbarics or barbarians, basically. And then you have the Caucasians, the wonderful us thing. But basically the whole point of that was that the reason why dark skin was considered to be a negative thing is is because they hadn't evolved as far from the black apes. And so white people had evolved further. And so that way we could treat otherwise other human beings with darker skin as inhuman. And actually, I mean, there were scientists that actually took black people and actually put them into cages in New York and offered them as the evidence for evolution because they hadn't evolved as far as we white people had. And so that. I mean, you've had to talk about racism. There's. There's your. There's, you know, so do I believe in that? No, I don't believe it at all. If we came from Adam and Eve, okay, and the skin coloration thing was done not to necessarily chastise or castigate a whole group of people, but rather to differentiate between. So those who remained faithful to God, basically, you know, would be of one particular way to differentiate them from the others. Is.

Guest 2 [00:40:07] But I don't. I just don't understand, because one of the articles of faith is that we're supposed to be, you know, judged for our transgression. Our transgressions, not for Adam's transgressions. And that we talked about in the last episode, about how there's always second chances. They're always the atonement. How does that pair with people's skin color being changed and then their children and their children's for generation being marked with, like a bad skin color that makes them undesirable.

Rod Meldrum [00:40:33] But who said it was necessarily bad?

John Dehlin [00:40:36] Well, it is a curse. Like in the Book of Mormon, it's described as a curse. And the curse of Cain is also Bible.

Rod Meldrum [00:40:43] It's called the curse. But I'm not sure if that's because of the translation word or whatever. And the Book of Mormon, they usually call it a mark. But Anyway sink.

John Dehlin [00:40:52] So, so, so yeah, let me see if I can try and restate what I hear you saying. Is that okay. And you can.

Rod Meldrum [00:40:59] Yeah. Tweak it if we need to. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:41:01] Okay. So as far as the question about pre existence and worthiness, I asked you where you lean in terms of like were African American. What Bruce Armani said, were African Americans

Rod Meldrum [00:41:15] less valiant kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:41:16] Less valiant in the pre existence you lean towards what I've heard that haven't

Rod Meldrum [00:41:22] given a lot of personal thought about that. You know, I think it's, you know, Mormon doctrine was not considered to be. So you're, you know, standard works or whatever. It was more of a compilation of general beliefs at the time.

John Dehlin [00:41:41] So what I'm hearing you say is

Rod Meldrum [00:41:44] you,

John Dehlin [00:41:47] you believe that Bruce R. McConkie could have had that wrong because you believe prophets and Mormon apostles can get either way.

Rod Meldrum [00:41:54] It could be right or wrong.

John Dehlin [00:41:56] It could be right or wrong.

Rod Meldrum [00:41:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:58] So that's a possibility for you. But you're saying, let's put it this

Rod Meldrum [00:42:04] way, if there was progression in the pre existence, if we went, if we moved from intelligences to spirits and so forth, I mean it would make some sense that, that some spirits would be, you know, have progressed potentially, you know, further or not. Whether that has anything to do with skin color or not. It may be timing when you get to come to the earth or when you don't or what kind of parents you have or whatever.

John Dehlin [00:42:27] But I mean. Yeah, Bruce Alma Conki didn't mince words. He said the African Americans were less valued in the pre existence and that's why they.

Guest 2 [00:42:36] Not African Americans, just Africans.

John Dehlin [00:42:38] Africans.

Rod Meldrum [00:42:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:39] We're less valued in the pre existence and that's why they were sent to become.

Rod Meldrum [00:42:44] I think that was a dominant idea at the time and probably was for a lot of years. Well, I know it was kind of a dominant idea even amongst the secular community for a long time.

John Dehlin [00:42:55] And I'm just trying to get a sense for. So what you've said is you don't know. But when I've asked where you lean, your answer is I don't really have

Rod Meldrum [00:43:05] a lean at this point. I don't know enough to be able to lean one way or the other I think on that and is, is

John Dehlin [00:43:13] part of that because you. It's an unpleasant question. So maybe you'd rather not have to think about it.

Rod Meldrum [00:43:19] It can be but I think given in the, in the right context I think it would make, it makes sense that there's, that there's ways of, of like for example, I mean, if you think of the three sons of, of Noah, assuming that, you know, the flood and all that stuff happened, you have Ham, Shem and Japheth. Well, Ham was married to Egyptus and Egyptus was a direct descendant of Cain. So this is how the, the dark skin would have come through the flood. So God made sure that the dark skin made it through.

John Dehlin [00:43:51] So we have a whole episode on this with John Larsen. So you do believe that when Cain killed Abel in the Bible, that God gave Cain dark skin as the curse for killing his brother?

Rod Meldrum [00:44:07] I, I think maybe the, the Catholic Church put that word as far as a curse is concerned. I think it's a differentiation. Cain, when you read the biblical account, you have, you know that Cain was the, yeah, he was the, the, the, the sheep herder basically. Right. And, and Abel was the vegetarian, if you want to call them. And so the killing basically that went on there would have caused these two groups of people, the farmers versus the ranchers, I don't know if you want to call it that. It was a way to differentiate between them, that this was something that is on them. One of the interesting aspects about DNA is that there's so many different sites on DNA that I could be carrying information through the DNA that comes from my 14th great grandfather. Right. And some of the information, who knows, we don't even know for sure what all DNA stores, but it may be even, you know, you know, thoughts or emotions or whatever that all play into our DNA overall concept. So.

John Dehlin [00:45:30] Okay, but, but yeah, but I just want to make sure. So you, you, you do believe that God turned Cain's skins dark as a consequence of him killing his brother. Separate the two and that Cain's descendants carried that dark skin and carried whether or not you call that a curse. But, but, but then to Kara's point, about, about, like, about us being punished for our own sins and not for Adam's transgressions or our forefathers. The fact that Cain's kids and grandkids, they're just born and all of a sudden they've got this dark skin which is viewed as a curse. And literally when God gives Cain the dark skin, it's like so that you can be known and marked and run around like, it's basically suggesting that the dark skin is like, this is going to cause you grief because you're going to be made slaves and you're going to be treated really poorly by lighter skinned people. Like, that's, I think that's why Bruce Armaconki would have said, well God's fair, so these descendants of Cain who end up being African, that it can't be that God was unfair, so they must have not been very righteous in the pre existence. And so they're just getting what they deserve for not being righteous in the pre existence. That's where I think Bruce Armaconki might have. That's the thinking, yeah. And you're saying what about why God would make Cain's posterity dark skinned?

Rod Meldrum [00:47:08] Well, actually in the Bible it actually says that one of the reasons why Cain received the dark skin was to protect him so that the descendants of Abel would not rise up and retaliate and so forth. That there was some kind of a protection. Now I don't know exactly how that protection works, but when you read the Genesis account and so forth there, it does say that Cain's dark skin was also a protection for them.

Guest 2 [00:47:41] Maybe like a protection against a sunburn. But other than that, I think a lot of black people would disagree.

Rod Meldrum [00:47:44] I wouldn't see that. I don't know. Yeah, it's a possibility. But the thing is, if we believe as I do, that God is not a respecter of persons and so forth, I mean, is it possible that somebody was less valiant? I mean, I don't know. Maybe that's a possibility. But does that mean that he's loved less?

John Dehlin [00:48:03] Okay, so what I think I just.

Rod Meldrum [00:48:05] You're Asiatic. Does that mean that God loves you somehow less? And I think the answer to that is an absolute no.

John Dehlin [00:48:10] So what I think I just heard you say is that it is possible in your view that, that people with dark skin were received dark skin in their mortal probation because of their valiance in the preexistence.

Rod Meldrum [00:48:29] It's again, I don't know that I would, I would not say that. I would basically say that, you know, that depending on what family they were associated with in the, in the pre existence, maybe continued, you know, on here. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:48:45] Well, I mean, if you. And I'll give a reference for our show notes, it's called Exterminate the Brutes on hbo. It's a really, really important series on colonization and the treatment of people of color and specifically people of African descent and of aboriginal Native American descent. It just shows how modern Western cultures, European cultures and American North North American cultures have treated people of color savagely genocidal for, for centuries and centuries. And it's been religion that has often been used as the justification for that,

Rod Meldrum [00:49:24] that brutal treatment, kill the descendants of Cain kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] And and the Native Americans, et cetera. Like yeah, like if you believe that God is all loving like you said, God loves everyone the same. Yet some people are given light skin which between 50, let's just say 1500 and 20. 20 is a pretty good deal. If you're going to pick man, I want to. I'll choose the light skin or I'll choose the dark skin. If you want a happy healthy life and you're up in the preexistence, you're probably going to go with the light skin versus like be enslaved and tortured.

Rod Meldrum [00:49:58] Not if you live in Africa.

John Dehlin [00:50:00] What I'm. What I'm.

Rod Meldrum [00:50:01] Well, what I'm basically it's, it's that, that, that that kind of the connotation of being bad or good is a lot cultural.

John Dehlin [00:50:11] I guess what I'm saying is that it's, it's pretty much indisputable that for the past 500 years people of darker skin have been treated really inhumanely and brutally and predominantly.

Rod Meldrum [00:50:22] And predominantly lighter skinned white or, or even Asiatic. I mean it's not just a white thing.

John Dehlin [00:50:28] Right.

Rod Meldrum [00:50:28] Black. Black people have been to somewhat ostracized in any society that's not black.

John Dehlin [00:50:34] Right.

Rod Meldrum [00:50:35] And white people have been ostracized in communities that are primarily black. And it's human nature.

John Dehlin [00:50:42] But you know, normally we would just go well humans don't always treat each other well. Except for we have the Bible which is tying dark skin to bad behavior. And then you have the Book of Mormon which continues that. And I'll read Gerardo wanted to make sure.

Rod Meldrum [00:50:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:58] That I, that I read this. This is second Nephi chapter 5, verse 21. And he had caused the cursing. So it does use curse in the Book of Mormon.

Rod Meldrum [00:51:09] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:51:10] Yeah, he had caused the cursing to come upon them. Yea, even a sore cursing. That's twice he used the word curse because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him and they had become like unto flint, which is as I understand it, white. Right. Wait, well, is hard. Hard. They come into Flint wherefore as they were white and exceedingly fair and delightsome. And I think he's talking about skin color there. That they might not be enticing like you said unto my people. The Lord God did cause a skin, not a countenance, a skin of blackness to come upon them. Like I, I think that it is saying curse and it is saying dark skin and it is saying as a result of wickedness and, and I tend

Guest 2 [00:51:58] to take God's scriptures at their word and you do?

John Dehlin [00:52:01] Like, like. And this, this really does. This is in some ways really the heart of the matter. Because when it talks about a 14,000year Earth or 7,000year Earth or literal Adam and Eve or a global flood, you're like, literal, literal, literal. And then all of a sudden when we're talking about dark skin being a curse because of less wickedness and Bruce Armor Conkey saying it's tied to less valiance in the pre existence, you're like, I don't know about that. Like, I'm not so sure.

Guest 2 [00:52:25] The only difference is like a couple hundred years. But from the time that that was written till now, the only difference is a couple hundred years of like scientific sensibilities and racial progress. Because if we were sitting 200 years ago.

John Dehlin [00:52:37] How about 20, 20 or 30 years ago?

Guest 2 [00:52:39] Sure, yeah. I'm just saying.

Rod Meldrum [00:52:41] Let's address the elephant in the room though. Do people have different skin colors?

John Dehlin [00:52:47] I would say yes.

Rod Meldrum [00:52:48] Yeah. Okay, so if that's the case, then what is the, you know, what caused the skin color changes?

John Dehlin [00:52:58] So my understanding is that depending on where you live on the Earth's atmosphere. Equator, equator, the equator, the closer you live to the earthquake equator, you're going to need darker skin, more melatonin protection to direct sunlight.

Rod Meldrum [00:53:14] Right.

John Dehlin [00:53:14] And then the farther you live towards the north or south pole, potentially you might have lighter skin because that's.

Rod Meldrum [00:53:20] Except for the Eskimos have darker skin and they live.

John Dehlin [00:53:23] It could have been because of northern.

Rod Meldrum [00:53:24] The northern.

John Dehlin [00:53:25] Yeah. I'm just saying that's, that's what I think science would say. Science would say that's right. The genetic explanation or the epigenetic explanation.

Rod Meldrum [00:53:34] But the biblical explanation is basically him, Shem and Japheth. You know, the Japheth was the, was the Asiatic. The father, if you will, of the Asiatic peoples of the world.

John Dehlin [00:53:44] I don't think the Bible says that, does it?

Rod Meldrum [00:53:46] Well, basically, Japheth was blessed by Noah that his seed would exceed all, which I'm assuming means that in numbers. And there's more Asiatic people in the world than. Well, that's Ham and Aegyptus was where the black race basically came through the flood again, showing God's. If God wanted to delete a race, he certainly could have done it during the flood. But he loves all races. I think this is another example of God's love for all of his people. Cain's seed wasn't left out of the ark. Okay, but you're okay, he was there and so was the Asiatic people. Basically, Japheth and so was Shem.

John Dehlin [00:54:31] So then why aren't you just saying God curses people with dark skin because of their less value?

Rod Meldrum [00:54:37] I think maybe we just don't understand what the, what the word curse means. I mean, I understand what curse means to us. The question is, does that mean the same thing to God?

John Dehlin [00:54:47] Okay, and what I hear you saying, to give you the most charitable interpretation, what I hear you saying is that dark skin is not inferior to light skin or white skin. You're making it very clear that you don't see white skin.

Rod Meldrum [00:55:00] Look at the NBA and the NFL. I mean, you know which, which one's superior.

John Dehlin [00:55:03] Right? So you don't, you personally don't. You don't place a value judgment on, on skin color to worth or God's love.

Rod Meldrum [00:55:13] Right.

John Dehlin [00:55:13] Your interpretation is God is changing skin color to differentiate between people, not because he thinks white is better than dark.

Rod Meldrum [00:55:24] Right.

John Dehlin [00:55:25] But then, but then in the same

Rod Meldrum [00:55:27] fashion that I don't think that there's any difference as far as, you know, the value of a person, the value of a Alex Boyer or somebody else is are they somehow less valuable? And the answer to that is absolutely not. They're all. We are all children of God. Whether we have black, white, red or yellow skin has very little to do with our. In fact, has almost nothing to do with that. I think it's differentiation and I think it's association also. It's just a simple fact that people that were from the lineage of Ham settled in the areas there in Africa, basically Northern Africa and Egypt. They were the ones that actually created Egypt, which is one of the greatest civilizations in, in human history. The original people, they were black.

John Dehlin [00:56:15] Right? But, but you still.

Rod Meldrum [00:56:17] They're every bit as, as advanced as anybody else.

John Dehlin [00:56:19] So I totally get that. What you're saying is that worth and skin color don't, don't, don't correlate. But what you're not. What, what. I still want to have you kind of address what. I don't understand why you're not just saying it is. It's pretty clear that God is associating certain skin colors with cursings or with bad behavior. God is doing that. God is saying, I'm going to give Lamanites dark skin because they're, they've done bad things. And I'm giving Cain and his descendants dark skin. And then Bruce Armaconki is saying that dark skin because it's problematic, because it usually is associated with suffering. It must be because they weren't worthy in the preexistence. And because Bruce Armor Conkey said it and because it's in the Book of Mormon and because it's in the Bible. Like, I'm wondering why you're not just going, yeah, I believe that.

Rod Meldrum [00:57:15] Okay. I think part of the reason is because basically, when it comes down to it, God's plan, okay, like, for example, Abraham was given a. A charge to take the gospel to all of the nations of the earth, right? Well, in order to do that, you have to have some nations who have not been associated, have lost it. They're not part of the gospel. So in other words, you have to have. In any good novel, you have to have a protagonist and you have to have the villain and so forth. Right. In this particular plan, there's going to be. There's got to be good and evil. So people have to make a choice, so they learn how to make choices between good and evil. So to me, it's kind of like, you know, Cain possibly was. Was the, was the, was the one that drew the, drew the card that says, you know what? You have to be the one to keep these other people in line. I mean, I don't know. You're still part of the plan. If you look at the Book of Mormon, how much love does the Lord show towards the Lamanites in the last days? If that was a curse, if he wanted to get rid of them, it certainly could. But basically, instead he says, abraham and your seed, you are responsible to be a nurse, mother, to be a blessing, and to make sure that your Lamanite brethren are brought the gospel in the last days and so forth. So that doesn't sound like a, A God that's trying to curse anybody that was there a dark skin. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna deny that they had a dark skin because that's what they said in the, in the Book of Mormon. But was it a curse in the same sense that we understand. I don't. I just don't think we understand God's understanding as well as we should. Before we make a judgment as to whether skin color is bad, good or indifferent, or if it's just a differentiation.

John Dehlin [00:59:12] But, but it, But God is saying in the Book of Mormon, I'm cursing them with dark skin. Now you're just saying curse might be more sophisticated than.

Rod Meldrum [00:59:21] Maybe there's more to it than just what we're. That we're. That we're thinking. And also remember that this is being written by who? By a Nephite, right? So it could be from the Nephite Perspective. It was a curse. And so they put down the word

John Dehlin [00:59:35] curse, but the God didn't want that word to be used.

Rod Meldrum [00:59:38] But that, but that, but maybe it was. But we do know is that they were commanded not to intermarry with them. Right? I mean that was the kind of the point. Well, what would be the point of not intermarrying with somebody? Well, maybe it's because they, they hold a different cultural understanding than you do. Or maybe they have different cultural things that would make them more likely to rebel against God. I mean, who knows? I mean, you know, there's different cultural things that like, you know, like pornography or whatever. There's different things that go on that, that can affect how, how well people follow God.

John Dehlin [01:00:17] Gerardo's texting me furiously and he should, He's. He is of.

Rod Meldrum [01:00:22] That's good.

John Dehlin [01:00:23] He is of Latin American descent. He is of Native American descent.

Rod Meldrum [01:00:26] I don't think, I don't think God loves the Latin Americans any less.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] No, you've made that clear. Yeah, but, but what he's also saying is he's asking what do you make of like the teaching in the Book of Mormon and that Spence W. Kimball and others taught that if Native Americans, if the Lamanites became more righteous, that their skin would lighten and they would become white and delight some again and blossom like a rose and become lighter skinned even to the point where supposed to be Kimball is like in the 60s and 70s, sort of when the Indian placement program happens and they start bringing Native Americans into the church, it's almost like they're wanting to see their skin turn light as a fulfillment of prophecy. What do you make of the, the whitening of skin by Spencer B. Kimmel and others being associated with an increase of righteousness?

Rod Meldrum [01:01:11] Well, maybe to address that we can go to both pre existence and post existence where we different colors in the pre existence. And my understanding is probably not. I think we're all the same color. And when we are resurrected with perfect bodies, are we going to have the same color? You know, the colorations that we have now? And I think the answer to that basically is well, what color is God? You know, is God black? Is he Asian? What, what physical features does God have?

John Dehlin [01:01:45] What do you think?

Rod Meldrum [01:01:47] And my personal feeling is, is that he is light. He has all the colors. His, his, his children are every color. I mean, I mean obviously not like green and purple, but basically. But all the natural colors that human beings come in are all part of his seed, all part of his group. And I think when everything is Said and done. We're all going to be basically the same light. When I say light, meaning light has every color in it from a scientific standpoint. Light has all the different hues and all the colors.

John Dehlin [01:02:21] Right. What about facial features? Will people who were of African descent here have the same type of hair?

Rod Meldrum [01:02:28] I would think they would probably have the same kind of hair, the same kind of skull structure, probably the same kind of bone structure, you know, teeth structure.

John Dehlin [01:02:37] I mean, no shape.

Rod Meldrum [01:02:40] Because each of those things have, over the course of time have, have, have evolved. Okay. Into, into, you know, I mean my descendants are going to, are not going to look like the same as, as, you know, anybody, you know, somebody else's descendants who are Asian, for example.

John Dehlin [01:02:57] What about height? Will height persist in the afterlife?

Rod Meldrum [01:03:00] I, I hope so. You and I are pretty tall, so I, I think that, I think there's some advantages to being tall, but there's also some disadvantages to being tall. You whack your head on stuff that other people don't whack their heads on and you, and you can't fit into certain cars.

John Dehlin [01:03:14] But you're saying that, you're saying that skin color won't persist. But, but racial and bodily features, I

Rod Meldrum [01:03:22] think you'll be able to tell facial

John Dehlin [01:03:23] features and bodily features will.

Rod Meldrum [01:03:26] Again, don't know, haven't been there, haven't seen it. So don't.

John Dehlin [01:03:30] But that's what you believe.

Rod Meldrum [01:03:31] It's not really a belief, it's just more of a. Yeah, probably.

John Dehlin [01:03:35] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:03:36] Because if you didn't have the Caucasian features that you have, your facial structure and so forth, you wouldn't look like you.

John Dehlin [01:03:45] Okay. And I, and just a good faith, good faith interpretation. We know you're not saying that there's any correlation between worth or God's love and anyone's skin color.

Rod Meldrum [01:03:56] I think, I think our understanding is basically it has to do with what exactly the word curse means in this particular sense. But what I think it comes down

John Dehlin [01:04:06] to what I think I'm still. There's two things that I want to say and then care. I want to know if there's anything you want to add. One is that it's scriptures that introduced this, this idea association. Yeah, it's scriptures and modern day Mormon prophets, seers and revelators that have introduced into all of our minds the association of bad behavior with dark skin, both in this life and in the premortal life.

Rod Meldrum [01:04:31] But who is it that made that connection with bad skin bad? I mean there's, there's something in the scriptures, but there's also cultural things. I mean, you know, you look at the early part of the United States and so forth and, and the slave trade and so forth there, you know, the idea of black skin being bad was to some extent extended by like Lewis Henry Morgan's book and so forth where they basically said, you know, if you're, if you're, the darker your skin, the less evolved you are. That all plays into this cultural baloney that was going on at the time.

John Dehlin [01:05:10] Yeah, yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:05:11] So, but, so, so what?

John Dehlin [01:05:13] This is what I was hoping you'd say. This is what I was hoping you'd say. I was hoping you would say that like what probably happened, like you've already allowed for prop Mormon prophets and revelators to be wrong. And you've even said just now that in the Book of Mormon personal biases can enter into what the prophets right in Scripture such that we can't always rely on a literal interpretation of either the Book of Mormon or the Bible because sometimes personal biases carries.

Rod Meldrum [01:05:41] I mean just because the Book of Mormon was written by the Nephites, I mean yes, they're going to have a bias, okay, but bias against the laymanites. But see that's where their perennial enemies.

John Dehlin [01:05:52] This is where Kara's, you know, question earlier really comes into play. If we go with Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation, where I was hoping you would go would be to say that the history of humankind has been colonization, war and subjugation and in the past five to six hundred years it's been the dominance of Western cultures, the rise of European cultures in terms of power and influence over the darker skinned civilizations for a number of reasons. You can read about in Guns, Germs and Steel with Jaron diamond or other books like that. Yeah, but that, what happened is, is that horrible genocidal racism has been our history for the past five or six hundred years at least, if not for longer. And that as a way for who as the author. Let me just finish. As a way for white skinned people. This would, this is what Thomas Murphy would say as a way for white skinned people to find a way to justify or feel better about their genocidal racist treatment of dark skinned people. They wrote into either the Bible or interpretations of the Bible or wrote into the Book of Mormon or modern day prophet, seer and revelator statements. They wrote into that, their racism and that, that's, that's none of that, none of that association between good behavior and skin color, of bad behavior and dark skin color. What I was hoping you would say is that none of that is from God. That's the mistakes of humans written into scriptures, interpretations of scriptures or history or doctrine and theology. But you did.

Rod Meldrum [01:07:50] Yeah, I think part of that also goes into for example, the Asiatic people. I mean, what color are they? Well, just, are they lighter? But can you stick Caucasians? Because I know, I know I have personal friends who are Japanese and they're way lighter skin than I am.

John Dehlin [01:08:07] Okay, but I don't want to lose the question. Can we not lose the question though? Like, so can it. Why, why don't you just. If you can allow that a Nephite writes something as a white skinned person and that that might be his bias. If you can allow. Yeah, if you can allow that. That maybe Bruce, Brigham Young got the Adam God theory wrong. Maybe if you can allow for prophets or revelators to get things wrong, why would establish that?

Rod Meldrum [01:08:36] Right.

John Dehlin [01:08:37] So with all this, so with all this talk, all this correlation of skin color with good or bad behavior, what's kept you from just writing all that off as the weaknesses of men? And then you don't have to make any explanations about Ham and Japheth and Shem and, and Cain and Abel and you can just say it's all racism. It's all horrible, awful racism that humans interjected into both scripture and, and prophetic utterances. In the, in the case of the Mormon Church.

Rod Meldrum [01:09:08] Well, in, in particular case of the Bible, I mean that wasn't the Mormon Church that put the, the so either one. Cain and Abel.

John Dehlin [01:09:15] So I'm saying just, why can't you just dismiss all of the association with skin color and good and bad behavior? Why can't you just write all that off as, as the frailties and the inaccuracies and the racism of humans and not associate any of that to God?

Rod Meldrum [01:09:32] I think actually I would associate most of it with, to, to the opposite of God to, to Satan and basically Satan wants to, you know, divide us and put negative stereotypes and so forth on different colors, different races and so forth. And, and I, you know, which I, which I disagree with. So this thing on a personal level. So when Brigham Younger, so when Brigham

John Dehlin [01:09:57] younger, Bruce McConkie made those statements that they were under the influence of. I mean, I'm not trying to like they were under Satan's influence a little bit.

Rod Meldrum [01:10:07] No, I think, I think a lot of it may have been a cultural thing. Maybe we don't understand what they were actually thinking. It'd be be good to know sometimes is racism satanic? I would Think so.

Guest 2 [01:10:19] I mean, basically, if someone who's acting as a prophet is acting in a racist manner, are they not acting under Satan's influence? Does not like that. Just seems like one follows the other logically.

Rod Meldrum [01:10:29] Am I wrong again? To some extent. I think it depends on your perspective. Because the bottom line is that if all of God's children are his children and all have an equal opportunity to become like he is, then is God being racist? Obviously not. So what is the purpose for the races? And that's really. And I don't know what that purpose is, I wish I did, but we do. What we do know is that there are races, that is, that, that is a physical reality. Right. And, and we know that basically when it comes down to these races, they primarily go back to the three sons of, of Noah.

John Dehlin [01:11:14] We could talk about the science later, but my understanding is most modern scientists say that race is not a really accurate way to describe the human experience. There's so much of a spectrum of all the different races, something. Race is a human construct. Genetically. There's really no basis.

Rod Meldrum [01:11:34] I think when it comes down to it. Does God see everybody in a particular race? I think probably not.

John Dehlin [01:11:40] Let's hope not. Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:11:43] Well, I think God loves all of his children. And whether you look African American or whether you have the Asiatic eye or you have high cheekbone features or low cheekbone or high skull, whatever, these are anamorphic things that make us each different and individual. And I think we're going to maintain that in the next life. Which means that if somebody is born African American or Asiatic or Caucasian, those traits and those features will be carried through to the post existence and you're going to still be that way. Whether the color aspect of it is going to be a color or whether it's just light, I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:12:27] Okay, so to summarize, you condemn racism in all its forms and call it

Rod Meldrum [01:12:31] satanic, basically, let me put it this way. Anything that you have no choice about, in other words, it's coming from your DNA, through your ancestry and so forth, those kinds of things, there should never, should never be any kind of. Discrimination or whatever about those kind of things. I mean, if somebody has blue eyes or brown eyes or hazel eyes or

John Dehlin [01:13:01] blonde hair or red hair or whatever, no discrimination.

Rod Meldrum [01:13:06] Anything that the DNA basically says is this is how you are going to be, you have no choice in the matter. So why should anyone be discriminated against for things that are, that they had no choice over?

John Dehlin [01:13:19] And then what about association with those features with good or bad Behavior, that's

Rod Meldrum [01:13:24] a human construct, I think, don't you?

John Dehlin [01:13:28] But then the scriptures and the prophets have all made those associations.

Rod Meldrum [01:13:32] Well, in order for there to be people who are teaching the gospel, you have to have people who don't have it. That makes sense. In other words, you have to have the light and the dark in order to be able to see, to be able to focus. If you're talking about cameras and so forth, if all you have is just light, every color is there and all you have is just brilliant white, you have to have all the hues and so forth to be able to create a mosaic that you can actually see and get depth of perception and so forth with light and dark. In other words, what I'm saying is basically when it comes down to the plan, Abraham was given a specific charge to take the Gospel to all of the other nations of the earth. And so you have to have other nations of the earth that don't have the gospel in order for him to be able to do that. And so some of those other nations of the earth were basically the descendants of Shem and Ham.

John Dehlin [01:14:27] But you don't have to introduce skin color and righteousness or murder or wickedness. You don't have to create that association. But, but the Bible and the Book of Mormon and Mormon prophet citizen revelators have made that association and it's led to a century and a half of racist beliefs and justifications within Mormonism. So we've got that, that's just a fact of our history. And so why did God, why did God let the scriptures, Mormon scripture and the Bible and Mormon prophecies and revelators make those racist associations?

Rod Meldrum [01:15:04] And again, I don't, I don't necessarily see that that's what a, that those associations I think that we place meaning who we as human beings, basically. So you don't think we place these, these, you know, dark skin as a, as a, as a negative thing?

John Dehlin [01:15:26] No, God does. In the Book of Mormon, in the Bible, God does that. In the Book of Moses, in the Book of Abraham, God does that.

Prophets, Racism, and LDS Church History

Guest 2 [01:15:31] Here, let me, let me. My turn.

Rod Meldrum [01:15:34] Okay, go ahead.

Guest 2 [01:15:35] Okay, so you mentioned the elephant in the room, like, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes ago, was that people have different colors of skin. I would describe the elephant in the room is more that we are trusting in prophet seer, prophet seers and revelators to tell us the future, to show us the way that the prophet can never lead the church astray. Stay in the boat. All of that kind of talk when we Know that the church is always 20 years behind the civil rights movement and that it's usually progressive agendas and different civil rights agendas that are leading the way, where the church is kicking and screaming, holding onto ancient scripture, holding onto words from prophets like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, where it takes a level of scientific belief that we're talking a lot about this realm of, you know, that the church is usually pushing against. So the elephant in the room to me is how do we. How do we trust the prophets, seers and revelators to lead us in the correct direction when they usually are quite far behind? Because I don't know how else you can read, you know, Brigham Young's words about two people intermarrying with different races or slavery is always like, slavery is what is supposed to be for the black person. Different quotes like that. I don't know how else.

John Dehlin [01:16:52] If a white person marries a black person, they should be killed on the spot.

Guest 2 [01:16:56] So just to restate my question, where do you get your confidence to call these people prophets when we know that they've led us astray and it's actually been secular civil rights movements that have led us in the right direction?

Rod Meldrum [01:17:08] Okay, a couple of quick things. I think one of the things that would probably be something that would be pointed to would be, for example, the introduction page in the Book of Mormon that originally said that the Lamanites are the principal ancestors of Native Americans. And then it was changed in 1980, something, 83 or something like that, to the Lamanites are among the ancestors of Native Americans. Was that something that was a direct response to the DNA research? And I think probably yes. That wasn't the original Book of Mormon. It was the introduction page, which was obviously added later on. I think it was originally done by Bruce R. McConkie, if I remember correctly. And then it was, and it was changed. So back to that. Why was the change made? It probably was. Actually. I'm guessing it was probably made because of pressure from the DNA research and so forth that shows that most of the Native Americans in. In North, Central and South America are of Asiatic descent. And only. Only one group is not, as the haplogroup acts, they're Caucasian descent or they're.

John Dehlin [01:18:20] And Thomas Murphy would disagree with you on that, but we'll talk about that later.

Rod Meldrum [01:18:23] Yeah, well. Well, I mean, but. But Thomas Murphy would be going against the mainstream genetics.

John Dehlin [01:18:28] We'll talk about that when we have geneticists on the show.

Rod Meldrum [01:18:30] I'm just saying there's haplogroups, A, B, C and D, which are all accepted in the mainstream genetic community as being Asiatic based. And then there's the only one that's not Asiatic based is haplogroup X. And, and, and he wouldn't argue with that. Okay, I'm sure maybe he's watching if you, if so, so was. Those are the five founding haplogroups that are pretty much widely accepted in the genetics field.

John Dehlin [01:18:51] So. Did Brigham Young teach racist things?

Rod Meldrum [01:18:55] Possibly. I mean, you know, it's not just

John Dehlin [01:18:57] not, it's not just a yes for you.

Rod Meldrum [01:19:01] I haven't studied his word. So I, I, I, I need, I need to see what the source documentation is. We'll get into that when we get into the stone in the hat stuff. Okay. What documentation are we using for those things? Was it actually his words? Did he write them? Did other people write them about what he, what they thought they heard him say? I mean, there's a lot of things you got to kind of, there's some

Guest 2 [01:19:20] things like, you can't deny that Brigham Young tried to make Utah territory the only western slave territory because he believed that that's what black people's, that that was their mantle, that was their responsibility,

John Dehlin [01:19:31] that he owns slaves.

Guest 2 [01:19:33] So like, just based on that, somebody who's a prophet, who's supposed to be the mouthpiece of God, who's carrying on the restoration, it's really hard for somebody like me to hold those two ideas at the same time that God's mouthpiece can hold slaves and push for slavery.

Rod Meldrum [01:19:46] Okay, well, a couple of things. Number one is, is that I don't think that Joseph Smith had any slaves as far as I'm, as far as I know. Slavery is something that has unfortunately plagued mankind in every different thing. Even, even blacks had their own people as slaves. Slaves. Slavery is not something we don't understand. Slavery like it was understood back in that time frame. It was, it was a way basically for some people to, to, you know, have people do the labor for them. They got basically room and board, if you want to call it.

John Dehlin [01:20:20] You're not going to nuance, you're not going to nuance the ethics of slavery. Are you tell me you're not going to.

Rod Meldrum [01:20:25] What I am saying is that there were a lot of, there were a lot of black slave owners who owned blacks. There were, there were sometimes other races

Guest 2 [01:20:33] are implicit in their marginalization. That is without a doubt.

John Dehlin [01:20:36] But, but you won't just find out, say that Brigham Young was racist and that he taught super racist things and he owned a slave, owned slaves and that that was super racist. You're not comfortable just condemning those teachings and behaviors of Brigham Young as racist?

Rod Meldrum [01:20:55] I. Yeah, I guess I'd have to say, I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:20:58] Is it because you're uncomfortable calling one of the Lord's anointed racist?

Rod Meldrum [01:21:02] I would be definitely uncomfortable with that. But on the other hand, I know that there are races and the word racist is tossed out there an awful lot to mean specific things in our society that wasn't necessarily the same situation in their society.

John Dehlin [01:21:19] But there's Brigham Young quotes where he's just calling, saying awful things about black people, and you're basically saying you haven't really studied that. But if Brigham Young said awful things about black people or owned slaves, that we must. His scribes must have written his words down wrong. And then the Church, in the Church's publications.

Guest 2 [01:21:37] I've never considered that before, to be honest. I have never considered that maybe that there was some scribes who were, you know, trying to take down the Church and completely got everything Brigham Young said. Completely.

John Dehlin [01:21:51] Well, that's the apologetic response to the entire Journal of Discourses that.

Rod Meldrum [01:21:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:55] That even though it was written by church leaders, edited by church leaders, published by the Church, that if there's anything in the Journal Discourses that we find distasteful today, we're going to blame it on the scribes and not tie it back to the. The people who are attributed to have made the utterances. And that's a way of. Of not holding Brigham Young accountable. But you've also got Bruce McConkey that said those. So are you uncomfortable saying, bruce, I'm a conkey.

Rod Meldrum [01:22:23] I think it comes down to. Was Brigham Young speaking as that, you know, thus saith the Lord God Almighty, the black people are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or is he speaking as his own personal opinion?

John Dehlin [01:22:36] But then why wouldn't you say in Brigham Young's own personal opinion, he could have been racist and that those sayings were racist?

Rod Meldrum [01:22:43] Okay, because then the response from you would be, well, if he was racist and he was a prophet, then no, that.

John Dehlin [01:22:51] Actually my response.

Rod Meldrum [01:22:52] Okay, that's what I would expect that the response would be, no, no, no. That means he's not a prophet because he had racist ideas.

John Dehlin [01:22:59] No, no. It all depends on what your definition of a prophet is. But I know lots of progressive Mormons, and me, before I got kicked out of the Church, I would have said a prophet can be anyone who's trying to say and do good things, and they can be super flawed and still be prophets. Of God.

Rod Meldrum [01:23:16] Yeah. Which, which brings me to another. Another just kind of a side issue, and that is that, you know, just some Mormon, you know, beliefs that are. That are wrong. Okay. Is for example, the idea that there can only be one prophet at a time on the earth. You know, I mean, basically in Isaiah's time, there were several prophets on the earth.

John Dehlin [01:23:37] And I don't, and I don't want to get sidetracked with that, but I think what I just heard you say is that you actually are open to the idea that Brigham Young was a racist, but you didn't want to admit that to me because you were worried that I would then.

Rod Meldrum [01:23:50] I believe he was a prophet. And so does the prophet mean that everything, that every utterance that comes out of him or that he writes down is the will and so forth of God? And of course, the answer to that is no.

John Dehlin [01:24:06] So it could be that Brigham Young,

Rod Meldrum [01:24:07] it's possible he was a product of his time as well as other people and other prophets.

John Dehlin [01:24:14] So it could be the Brigham Young or Joseph Smith or Bruce McConkey or Joseph Felix Smith were racist or said racist things. But, but you don't want to necessarily say that because you really respect the office of prophet and because when he

Rod Meldrum [01:24:32] was speaking as a prophet, I believe he was a prophet. But. But otherwise.

John Dehlin [01:24:36] And why can't you condemn the racist things Brigham Young said? And yeah, he wasn't speaking as a prophet when he said the racist things, but he said racist things. Why can you say that now? Or do you just put it this way?

Rod Meldrum [01:24:49] I'm still a bit uncomfortable with that idea.

Guest 2 [01:24:52] Yeah. Racism is uncomfortable. Imagine how black people feel.

Rod Meldrum [01:24:54] It is. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:24:57] But you don't want to. You don't want to. You're not comfortable saying that any of God's prophets and revelators were racist.

Rod Meldrum [01:25:03] The thing about it is the connotation of what, what a racist is today versus what was going on back in that time frame is. It's much different, I think.

John Dehlin [01:25:13] Are you comfortable saying that Brigham Young was a racist by modern standards?

Rod Meldrum [01:25:17] By modern standard, I'd probably say yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:20] And Bruce Arma Konkey and by.

Rod Meldrum [01:25:23] It's kind of like the whole polygamy thing and people going, well, you know, Joseph Smith, he's a pedophile because he's marrying these 14 year old girls and so forth and those kind of things. But back in those days, marriage at 14 years old was normal. It was. In fact, if you got to be 16 or 18 years old, you're considered an old maid.

John Dehlin [01:25:40] So you're saying it's important in history, if we're context.

Rod Meldrum [01:25:43] Right.

John Dehlin [01:25:44] That we, that we not judge people outside of their context. Right now there are people that are going to argue.

Rod Meldrum [01:25:49] We're applying our current day understanding of what we consider to be racism to people who lived, you know, 150 years ago. And the entire, you know, culture was different.

John Dehlin [01:26:02] But there were people during Brigham Young's time, like Abraham Lincoln, who, who definitely thought slavery was bad.

Guest 2 [01:26:10] Yeah. There were people like they were tied a slave to them. Like the way that Brigham Young was given green flake. Like if some, there were people back then that if they were given a slave, they would say, no, thank you, I do not want it because I do not believe in slavery. But you have jealous of Brigham Young.

Rod Meldrum [01:26:25] One of the planks of his platform when he was running for president was to abolish slavery.

John Dehlin [01:26:30] Was it though? So. Well, some question what his motives were. But let me ask you one last question about this.

Rod Meldrum [01:26:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:37] Why wouldn't God, I mean, given the slavery, the murdering, the genocide, the abduction, the demonization of not only Africans and people of African descent, but also of Native Americans, why wouldn't God look at that as being a super important thing to write into scripture and to give to his prophet seers and revelators to be coming out against racism and against slavery, not just in the Bible, but also in the Book of Mormon, the doctrine and Covenants, in the Book of Moses, Book of Abraham. Why wouldn't God have gotten ahead of the racism and through his one true church, prohibited it and condemned it versus what he appeared to have done, which is to create associations between dark skin and wickedness that was then used by Christians and Mormons to justify the poor treatment of people of color and subjugation. Why did God allow that? Why did Mormon God allow that to happen?

Rod Meldrum [01:27:36] That. That is a great question. And let me, let me address that by basically saying in order to answer that question, I would have to know the mind of God.

John Dehlin [01:27:44] Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:27:44] And I don't.

Guest 2 [01:27:47] I was just gonna, I was gonna say, put more simply, is that religion can motivate people to do a lot of things for good or for bad with different religions. I think we can all agree that, that telling people that their salvation, that there's an almighty creator that wants you to do X, that will move a lot of bodies to do a lot of things.

Rod Meldrum [01:28:04] Yeah.

Guest 2 [01:28:04] And it's very disheartening that there is a God that a lot of people worship. That that God could have motivated people to Stop racism, but instead wrote it into their scriptures.

Rod Meldrum [01:28:15] I think to some extent, though. I mean, it's kind of like the whole plan of salvation in heaven. Basically. You have to have good to have bad, right? You have to have evil to have righteousness. There has to be the light and the dark in order to be able to see these things and to be able to make choices and make decisions about things. So when somebody says, why would God allow X Or why would God allow. I mean, after the Columbine murders and so forth, why would God loves people? Why would he allow this to happen? Well, in order to answer that question, you have to first off understand something about what God is and who he is and what is his plan. Because we all look at this from our mortal perspective. God has a whole different perspective. I mean, somebody dying, whether it's horrific or through natural causes, what is that to God? Basically, it's just a transition from this life into the next one. We continue on. So it's a continuation either way.

John Dehlin [01:29:22] That's easier for the people not getting tortured and killed to say that are living in privilege and wealth and social status. It's easier for us to say that

Rod Meldrum [01:29:31] also, John, there has to be evil so that righteous people will stand up and put a stop to it. Because if there was no evil going on in the world, then what's the point of having righteous people stand up and say, you know what? Enough is enough. We're not going to do this anymore.

John Dehlin [01:29:46] I.

Rod Meldrum [01:29:46] Through the whole world. The United States was the first nation to stand up and say, you know what? Slavery, okay? The founding fathers said people go, well, Founding fathers had slaves and so forth, and they condoned slavery. They put it in the Constitution. But actually, if you read their writings, they wanted desperately to abolish slavery.

John Dehlin [01:30:05] Some did.

Rod Meldrum [01:30:05] Right at the very beginning.

John Dehlin [01:30:06] Some did.

Rod Meldrum [01:30:07] But there was a. Yeah, there was some of the southern land landowners and slave owners who basically said, no, this is our workforce and we're taking good care of them. And so the vast majority of slaves were actually getting food and so forth, but they were starving.

John Dehlin [01:30:22] I don't think we want to say that slaves are treated well, but.

Rod Meldrum [01:30:25] But there was definitely some that actually were. Were horrible. There's no doubt about it.

John Dehlin [01:30:31] Maybe all like, well, your slaves.

Rod Meldrum [01:30:33] Well, it's not all because there was. There was a lot of the slaves that actually went to fight in the Southern war. Right? There were. There were. There were blacks fighting for the South.

John Dehlin [01:30:41] All right, well, let's.

Rod Meldrum [01:30:43] In the war, let's.

John Dehlin [01:30:44] Let's go ahead. So Anyway, so just to summarize.

Rod Meldrum [01:30:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:50] What I think you come around to say is that maybe Brigham Young and Bruce Armor Conkey and Joseph Felix Smith and other Mormon prophet revelators maybe was

Rod Meldrum [01:30:58] a product of their time and maybe

John Dehlin [01:31:00] they were racist based on modern standards.

Rod Meldrum [01:31:05] Yeah. Based on the standards that they had at their time is probably pretty. Pretty normal at the time. Based on our standards now, it would probably come across as being very racist.

John Dehlin [01:31:14] It would be racist. Not come across as racist. Actually be racist.

Rod Meldrum [01:31:19] Well, I know you're just really trying to get me to say that, but it's a different situation, different time frames.

John Dehlin [01:31:26] I understand. You respect the office and you're trying to show respect to the office. That's what I'm sensing.

Rod Meldrum [01:31:30] And I believe that he was a prophet.

John Dehlin [01:31:33] Yeah. I'm not. And I'm not. To me, those aren't necessarily. To me, a prophet can kill somebody. Moses killed somebody and probably so did Nephi. Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:31:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:42] So anyway, Moroni. Okay. But this idea.

Rod Meldrum [01:31:46] This idea that probably beat this horse completely to death.

John Dehlin [01:31:48] Yeah, we have. That we have. All right, should we move on? Kara, is there anything else you want to say?

Guest 2 [01:31:54] No.

Rod Meldrum [01:31:56] No.

John Dehlin [01:31:57] About the race question.

Guest 2 [01:31:58] About the race question.

John Dehlin [01:32:01] In the scriptures.

Guest 2 [01:32:02] I mean, just generally, overall, we can talk about the. I. There's so many things we could get into, and everything always comes back to the nature of God and what the. If God is trying to teach us what to care about and he. And the way that he communicates that is through the scriptures. I just look at it as a whole gobbledygook of a bunch of things we could really edit out that are not necessary for our survival. Like, we could improve the morality of the Bible and of the Book of Mormon and of anything modern prophets have said by just like, taking out anything about slavery being a. Okay, therefore, like, just by that, we all agree slavery bad. Right? We all agree slavery bad. Right, Rod? Under any circumstances.

John Dehlin [01:32:44] Is that a yes?

Rod Meldrum [01:32:45] Yeah.

Guest 2 [01:32:45] Yeah. So like, like, therefore, it's just like, why would God want slavery in any way, shape or form, any mouthpiece of his, whether in scripture or in modern prophets? Why would he ever allow himself to be characterized as somebody who allows slavery under that one factor alone, not even mentioning subjugation of women and children and throwing babies against rocks like in Old Testament. There's just so many things that if I were God, I would never even want to be associated with. But then we do have lots and lots of adherence to the Bible and the Book of Mormon who are able to make sense of all of these things and still worship this God, whereas I would not. So that's not really a question. That's just kind of a general vibe of I would edit a lot of things out of the Bible if I

Rod Meldrum [01:33:32] were God and maybe just to address for just a second. So assuming that you are God, would you want to give your children opportunities to make mistakes, to do stupid things, to, to learn, to grow, to develop, or would you just want to make it everything's nice and rosy and nothing, nothing ever bad happens because I'm God and I'm going to let bad things happen?

John Dehlin [01:33:57] Well, I mean, yeah. And this is Mormon theology.

Guest 2 [01:33:59] And this is Mormon Theology 101. I, I know I can't even grasp the concept of, of that question because I can't even grasp the concept of people having free will. So that's, that goes in a whole other weeds direction that we don't need to get into. But I understand the question that. Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:34:15] That you want people basically. Yeah, we're make everybody be nice.

John Dehlin [01:34:19] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [01:34:20] And, and, and, and that's, that wouldn't have worked because having God could have some bad lived out.

Guest 2 [01:34:29] Don't you think? God could have, he could still have his plan.

Rod Meldrum [01:34:31] Yeah.

Guest 2 [01:34:31] So I pretend I'm not God because, but like still I think that God's

Rod Meldrum [01:34:36] kind of a fun thing actually.

Guest 2 [01:34:37] But anyway, I'm trying, I'm trying. Don't you think that God could still live out his plan? It's not Satan's plan. People still can choose between right and wrong with him revealing himself a little bit more, being a little bit more clear on the details. Slavery, bad, we could have just deleted that from mankind and people still could choose right and wrong. We could just delete.

Rod Meldrum [01:34:55] We could apply that to everything. That would be considered a quote unquote sin. I mean why not Just the Lord say, okay, you know, every, you know,

Guest 2 [01:35:03] if you like all childhood cancers, there's no such thing as kids getting cancers. But God wants to allow those things. There's just a whole buttload of things that seem to me with my natural eye. Occam's razor tells me that it's just a natural.

Rod Meldrum [01:35:17] But that's, but that's our human ideologies basically applying to what, what we think God is. You know, if it wasn't for children's cancer, you know, kind of idea. I mean it's heart wrenching and you see the parents and what they go through and so forth. But you also see on the other side of that you see compassion, you see love, you see people Taking care of these kids. You see people giving up their hair and having their hair cut off so they can make wigs for these kids that don't have hair.

Guest 2 [01:35:45] Because sometimes, sometimes they just die in a pit in Afghanistan. Sometimes they do.

Rod Meldrum [01:35:48] Sometimes they do.

Guest 2 [01:35:49] Sometimes. I mean, for most of human history, most people do not have a lot of, like, of that balance. Some people just die miserable deaths.

Rod Meldrum [01:35:56] But you have to have. What I'm saying is you have to have both in order to really have true passion. You have to have true misery.

John Dehlin [01:36:03] Now, this is Mormon theology, and it's one way to explain suffering in the world.

Rod Meldrum [01:36:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:08] Another way to explain suffering in the world is that things just happen. It just happens. And humans are, you know, sometimes awful to each other. And there's no real good explanation. What I, what I was.

Rod Meldrum [01:36:20] I think saint is a pretty good explanation.

John Dehlin [01:36:22] That's one. If possible. If you believe in spirits. If you believe spirits and.

Rod Meldrum [01:36:27] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:36:28] I just want to say that I hope you recognize and maybe you don't, and I'm not trying to be preachy here, but it is a real. It is a position being born out of a lot of privilege as, as men, straight white men of European descent who have been maybe the principal authors of so much pain and suffering and bigotry and torment and racism and misogyny and homophobia. For us to say that, oh, this is God's wisdom and we don't understand God's wisdom and there needs to be suffering in the world. When we're living to the age of 90 in our big homes with lots of money and, and influence and power. It is. We can say things like there needs to be suffering in the world. That, that's born out of a lot of privilege, where if we were on the receiving end of slavery, of being captured and abducted and put in slave shipped and sold and divided from our families and having our limbs chopped off and our eyes poked out and being subjugated for our lives in brutal ways. It exterminated genocidally. Maybe we would be a little bit less eager to go, oh, well, God needs there to be adversity, so that's just the way it happens. But maybe our willingness to push this off on God and say it must needs be to have this adversity is that maybe that's a function of our, of our white straight male privilege.

Rod Meldrum [01:37:57] Okay. And in answer to that, I think that when you have been given certain privileges, if you want to call it that or whatever, then you also have a greater responsibility to, to help your fellow Man. So I mean, who, who was it that actually pushed through and got basically worldwide the idea of slavery being. Being a bad thing? Primarily whites.

John Dehlin [01:38:22] Well, we don't want to give white people credit.

Rod Meldrum [01:38:24] We can't give white people any credit for any technology advances that have blessed the lives of everybody throughout the entire world.

John Dehlin [01:38:30] World. That's a deflection. But that's a deflection.

Rod Meldrum [01:38:33] Deflection.

John Dehlin [01:38:33] That's a deflection from us taking responsibility for the. As white, straight, heterosexual, European descent males, you've been blessed. If we're deflecting it to look at all the great things white people have done. I think we're not sitting in the responsibility we may have collectively.

Rod Meldrum [01:38:49] I think we should celebrate all the great things that every different color have done, whether you're black, white or Native American or Asiatic or whatever. But, but to say that that one particular race has. Or the white people basically in our particular culture, which is primarily was, you know, I mean, you look at the, the overall culture is primarily. What is it? The percentage of whites is. Is What? Good grief, 70%, probably 70%. Well, if you go, if you go into China and so forth. Well, their culture is a lot more monogamous than ours is, as far as that's concerned. I mean, not monogamous, but you know, they're almost all Chinese.

John Dehlin [01:39:31] So what I'm trying to have you reflect on.

Rod Meldrum [01:39:34] Have Chinese people done bad things to Chinese people? Oh, yeah, right.

John Dehlin [01:39:39] But, but that's.

Guest 2 [01:39:40] This is.

Rod Meldrum [01:39:40] This is not a white thing. This is my point. You're trying to make it a racist, a racist whole argument. And if you take a look at. Throughout all of history and you add in the Asiatic people and the.

John Dehlin [01:39:51] I'm just trying to say something very simple, which is over the 500 years, white men of European descent here in America and in Europe and elsewhere have wreaked.

Rod Meldrum [01:40:04] Not in, not in China, not in Africa.

John Dehlin [01:40:07] I'm saying what, I'm saying that, that men in a specific area, men of European descent.

Rod Meldrum [01:40:13] Right.

John Dehlin [01:40:14] Have wreaked genocidal havoc and untold brutality and genocide on generations of people of, of darker skin colors. And that that's a horrible and an awful thing.

Rod Meldrum [01:40:31] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:40:32] And to say to then just say, well, there needs to be opposition in all things and God's ways are higher than our ways doesn't reflect our. Our as white men of European descent. Our. Reflect our adequate reflection on the brutality and the severity and the awfulness of what we've sort of done.

Rod Meldrum [01:40:55] Okay, but John, it really, it really, to a large extent Depends on what you decide to focus on. You know, if you focus on those, those white. Shouldn't we focus on that? White men who have done certain specific things. But you look at Genghis Khan, you look at why, why do you have to redirect?

John Dehlin [01:41:10] Why can't you just say, yes, we've done horrible things?

Rod Meldrum [01:41:13] And, and that's nobody, nobody's saying we haven't done horrible things.

John Dehlin [01:41:16] But yeah, you're not. I'm not saying.

Rod Meldrum [01:41:17] What I'm saying is, is that it's not a white only thing. I'm not saying that every race has done miserable, awful things to other races.

John Dehlin [01:41:25] I'm saying that's, that's deflection. And I'm.

Guest 2 [01:41:27] John, remind me of the point again of why you need to, why you were bringing that up. Just remind me the base point of that was what again?

John Dehlin [01:41:33] I'm just saying that.

Guest 2 [01:41:35] Oh, that's, it's, you're saying like, that's nice for us to say because we need, we're, it's nice for us to sit in this position to say like we need good and evil to blame

John Dehlin [01:41:43] it on God, which is what mor do way too often these days. If something horrible happens, God did it. God did it. I mean, look at, look at you. You weren't, you weren't wanting to say Joseph Smith was a racist, Brigham Young was a racist, Bruce. You were like, I don't want to say that, but you're super cool saying God did it. And that's a way to not take responsibility for what we've done as a, as humanity.

Rod Meldrum [01:42:05] But don't, don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say that God did it. Basically what I'm saying is, is that I don't think we understand why God did what he did and that we as human beings have placed labels and so forth on it. But to God there is no difference. That makes sense anyway.

John Dehlin [01:42:23] There's telling me I'm too animated.

Rod Meldrum [01:42:27] All right, well, it's all good. I think I understand where you're coming from though, John, because basically there has been in the past, there's been things that appear, at least in our modern day understanding to be racist and so forth that have gone on. The question is, what do we decide to focus on? Do we focus on that? Do we focus on the good things that have been done? You can look at the things that Brigham Young may have said there. But then what about the good things about the peopling, the towns and so forth that were developed here in Utah? That got water and so forth and created more. More agricultural land and so forth because of canals that were dug and things like that. There's. There's a lot of good things, too. What are we going to choose to focus on? Just, oh, he was a bad guy because he did this one thing. I would hate to have somebody, here's one to me in my life and say, well, you know what, Rod? You did this one thing. And I'm just going to focus and hammer on that one note over and over again and forget about everything else you did in your life.

Guest 2 [01:43:35] It's usually people, not systems, is what we like to say here at Mormon Stories. So I don't think somebody would come to you and focus on one, drill down one thing that you did. And we don't drill down just one thing that Brigham Young did. We're drilling on the system of prophets and the system of people who have subjugated certain people based on their race or their gender.

Rod Meldrum [01:43:52] That was something.

Guest 2 [01:43:52] So if you look at it from a system. So, Rod, all we're trying to say is look at it from a systemic. Look at it from a systemic place, and we're not trying to focus on one person.

Rod Meldrum [01:44:00] If it was. If racism and, and having slaves was systemic, then why didn't any of the other prophets after. After Brigham Young have slaves?

Guest 2 [01:44:07] Here's why. Here's.

John Dehlin [01:44:09] Here's why. Here's why I'm bringing this up. It's not to focus on the negative. It's not to condemn prophets, Mormon prophets. It's not to take people's faith away. It's. It's because in 2022, racism is systemic. Racism is not only still alive and well in the United States and elsewhere, but it is disadvantaging and harming entire large groups of people, whether it's immigrants that come to the United States, whether it's. Whether it's African Americans that live here. And as we're considering policies today, if we're sort of like, oh, we've moved past racism, and yeah, it's something in the past, but God did it, or we don't understand it, but everything's fine now, and look at all the good things white people have done.

Rod Meldrum [01:44:57] Do.

John Dehlin [01:44:58] Do we. Do we get to understand the harm that has been done, care about it, marinate in it, so that we can care about it, so that then when we elect people to office today and make policy decisions today, we don't just continue perpetuating that racism and a racist ideologies and a racist system that in our, in our behaviors today and going forward. I do think you have to understand it and it's like the Mormon Church's repentance process. To be able to fully repent, you have to, you have to acknowledge, you have to see it, you have to acknowledge it, you have to make restitution. Right. And then you have to stop doing it and not do it again. And I don't know that as a people, as a Mormon people, as, let's just say as, as white people in the United States, as citizens of the world. I'm just trying to, I'm. It's not, I'm just, I'm asking like

Rod Meldrum [01:45:58] you're talking about if we, if we

John Dehlin [01:45:59] just focus on God did it and deflection. And white people have done great things too, and there was a time when Asians or black people also did bad things. If we don't really come to understand the effects of, of systemic racism here and abroad, then, then we don't then take a real look at how we make things better going forward. Because racism, you ask any person of color today, why is Gerardo like texting me non stop, right? Why is Gerardo freaking out? He's a person of color, he's an immigrant. And the beliefs of Mormons and others really impact

Rod Meldrum [01:46:37] Hispanics, Latin Americans that come

John Dehlin [01:46:39] to the United States.

Rod Meldrum [01:46:41] Yeah, my own wards and so forth. We had a guy who was in the military and so forth. And

John Dehlin [01:46:50] I'm drooling. Charis, tell me I'm drooling.

Rod Meldrum [01:46:51] Yeah, he's drooling. Yeah. But he was made a bishop of a ward over in, I think it was Eagle Mountain or something like that. He was in our ward for a while. He's black and his wife is white and they met in the military and so forth. They got married and they have these wonderful kids. Anyway, he went over there and when they made him the bishop, there was a bunch of people who were like, that's my point, I'm not really into that kind of thing. And people laughed and so forth. But the fact that the church actually had him be a bishop or be black state presidents and so forth in Africa, everybody's in the leadership positions are black. So is that systemic? And I think the answer to that is absolutely not. It's clearly not systemic. If you have black state presidents and so forth and black leaders in the church, there can still be systemic in their individual respective areas, like in Africa, it makes sense and so forth. When you have a predominantly white population, you're going to probably have a Predominantly white bunch of leaders.

John Dehlin [01:47:53] But there could still be systemic racism with exceptions to them.

Rod Meldrum [01:47:56] There can be.

Guest 2 [01:47:57] You never know how many.

Rod Meldrum [01:47:58] And a lot of times it's individual, I don't think. But what I'm saying is it's not coming from the brethren, so to speak, it's coming from individuals.

John Dehlin [01:48:06] But that's where, that's where I think we fundamentally disagree because I think Christians

Rod Meldrum [01:48:10] and Mormons, how many blacks are being denied to be, you know, have, you know, the office of prophet?

Guest 2 [01:48:20] All of them. There's no black leaders in the top leaders of the church.

Rod Meldrum [01:48:25] I mean, because of, because of the leadership being, you know, the way that they go, you know, in the, in age or when people, when they came into whatever.

John Dehlin [01:48:32] The church has had racist policies for

Rod Meldrum [01:48:34] 200 years, there's never been a predominantly white community.

John Dehlin [01:48:38] I'm just.

Rod Meldrum [01:48:39] For the first 150 years, I think there weren't many blacks out here.

John Dehlin [01:48:43] We have a. But we were. Because we were enslaving them and subjugated imports and import.

Guest 2 [01:48:49] Well, sorry, whole operation's going down.

Rod Meldrum [01:48:51] I'm going down.

Guest 2 [01:48:52] Camera over.

John Dehlin [01:48:53] Here's all I'm saying, Rod. Here's what I'm saying. Here's what I'm saying. There's. All he's saying is, is that, is that racism is still alive and well. It's a really serious, significant problem. The Mormon Church has played a significant role in 200 years of racism. We haven't adequately atoned for that as a church and as a people.

Rod Meldrum [01:49:13] And because of that kind of atonement. Would you want an apology?

John Dehlin [01:49:17] How about an apology? How about a denunciation of the past doctrines is racist?

Rod Meldrum [01:49:21] How about, how about, doesn't it count that the, that the policies were overturned?

John Dehlin [01:49:29] That's, that's like that. No, I, I don't mean that.

Rod Meldrum [01:49:32] Isn't that kind of an a, A?

Guest 2 [01:49:35] It's like, what do they say when you send people to prison? Like, you can't do the crime, don't do the time, can't do the time, don't do the crime. It's like there's so much after lagging of all of the effects of 200 years of the church's policies, that there's going to be at least 200 years of some kind of like after atonement of paying for the price, wouldn't you say? It's like you can't just undo the policy and expect everything and all of the, all of the thoughts and justifications. Because even to what you just said when John was going like I'll just say this, this is what Carol will just say. So when you were talking a while ago about it almost felt like a kind of justification. I don't know if you'd use that word of like the light with the dark. You have to have certain. Do you want to phrase that again how you said it before?

Rod Meldrum [01:50:15] You have to have basically good and evil. Any good novel has to have a villain and a, the protagonist.

Guest 2 [01:50:21] And. Yeah, and the whole reason we got into this whole hero, this whole thing here with John is because he's like, well, that's easy for us to say as white people. That's easy for us to say from this certain level of privilege that we sit from. And that's. Yeah, that's John. Do you have anything else you want to say to that? Okay.

Rod Meldrum [01:50:40] Systemic racism. And I think the answer to that is, you know, it, it certainly appeared that way based on, you know, the fact that here we have a church that is predominantly here in the intermountain area. Most of the people who came here were from Europe, they were European descent, they came here, they built communities and so forth. And the same kind of thing happens like in Africa or in Asia. People are comfortable around the people that are there.

John Dehlin [01:51:08] But this is God's one true church. This is God's one true church led by prophets. You would think that with God's one true church, with the people that he's speaking to, he could have like, started out with, racism's awful. Slavery is awful. We as a church stand for the love and equality of all people. And Brigham Young would have never had slaves or said that white people that, that have sex with, with dark skinned people should be killed with the javelin through their heart. And the Book of Mormon would have never associated dark skin with, with evil or iniquity. And, and Bruce Armaconki would have never said the blacks, that people of African descent were dark skinned because of wickedness in the preexistence. God would never have allowed that happen in his one true church. And if he did, what's the purpose of prophets in scripture if they can get something that's caused so much pain and difficulty? What's the value of a one true church and of a God and of prophets, seers and revelators in scripture if they're going to get something so important, if they're going to either ignore it or avoid it or get it so wrong?

Rod Meldrum [01:52:13] Well, I think the answer to that basically is that is one aspect of an overall, the overall plan. In other words, basically we need to have, for example, we need to have, you know, priesthood restored. We need to have priesthood power restored. We need to have all of these different things that the church reorganization or I should say, you know, re redoing.

John Dehlin [01:52:39] And all I'm saying is the ability to say, oh, that's that racism, slavery thing is just one small part of a big part of God's plan. The ability to say that comes from a position of a, of a white European descent male who has the luxury of saying that because you aren't living today under systemic racism still and your ancestors were inflicted with the pains of genocide and slavery and systemic racism. And that's why I think I would ask you to consider, as a fellow straight white male, I would ask you to consider not dismissing or downplaying or focusing on other things because it comes off as being insensitive to the pain and the suffering of generations of people.

Rod Meldrum [01:53:28] Yeah, but again, it's like I said though, what do we decide to focus on? The past and the future moving, moving forward in a positive manner? Or do we look constantly backwards and say, okay, we made mistakes here and we're going to basically flog ourselves for the rest of eternity for mistakes that were made? The other thing is, is that I look at.

John Dehlin [01:53:50] No, I just say we follow the steps of repentance that the Church taught

Rod Meldrum [01:53:53] us, that we, that we acknowledge something that you can't.

John Dehlin [01:53:57] I'm just trying to get you remember the first step of repentance is just acknowledgement. So like, I'm just saying follow the Church's own teachings of repentance, which is to acknowledge it, to admit it, to forsake it, to not do it again.

Rod Meldrum [01:54:13] Has it been forsaken? I mean, it's been hard for.

John Dehlin [01:54:15] I think it's been hard for you. I think it's been hard for you to acknowledge it. And I think a lot of people

Rod Meldrum [01:54:20] would say I'm acknowledging the fact that, that, you know, priesthood is available to all worthy men, whether they're black, white, Asian or whatever. And that kind of thing. But that policy changed because of political pressure possibly. You know, I mean, you know, it very well could have been that situation. But the fact is, is that it's been, it has been addressed and that is not, it's not systemic as far as that's concerned right now, as far as that particular aspect of it. Is there still racism within the Church? Well, there's, there's still.

Restitution, Systemic Racism, and Responsibility

John Dehlin [01:54:52] Okay, what about the step of restitution? So, so changing. So like I killed a bunch of people.

Rod Meldrum [01:54:57] How are you Going to restitute somebody that was, that's a. Back in the day, that's a great

John Dehlin [01:55:01] question, but it's worth asking because you believe in restitution. Right? And, and it's not just adequate to kill a bunch of people, let's just say, and then say, well, I'm not killing anymore, so everything's fine. No, you have to pay the price, you have to fight. And you're basically advocating for like the skipping over the whole restitution part because, oh, it's difficult. So, yeah, we don't have to do restitution.

Rod Meldrum [01:55:24] I think there's going to be restitution, but I don't think it's up to you and I as current day people. It's kind of like, you know, black people today basically saying, hey, you know what, our ancestors, yeah, it was, you know, 15 generations ago, but our ancestors, they were wronged. And so we need to get payment for what happened to them a long time ago. My personal feeling is basically this, Christ is the best judge and the judgment will happen and the restitution that's going to be required will be, will happen at the judgment and it will be that time.

John Dehlin [01:55:58] But that feels like, that feels like a punt. That feels like white people saying, yeah, that restitution feels really messy and hard. So in the afterlife, God, if somebody

Rod Meldrum [01:56:06] kills someone else, how are they going to restore that?

John Dehlin [01:56:08] I don't know. It's a hard question.

Rod Meldrum [01:56:10] That's right. You can't do it.

John Dehlin [01:56:12] It's hard. But is it worth trying? And that's just. You yourself believe in restitution.

Rod Meldrum [01:56:18] Okay, so like if, if I had way back. Let's just, if we turn the page the other direction. Say, okay, so let's say that the black people were enslaving white people and so forth and then, and that was my great, great, great, great great grandfather. I feel like I am owed some kind of a restitution for what somebody did to my 14th great grandfather. Realistically, come on.

Guest 2 [01:56:48] I mean, we're getting into tricky territory we probably shouldn't be talking about.

Rod Meldrum [01:56:52] What is the chance that I'm going to get restitution for that? Number one is I don't expect restitution because it didn't happen to me. It happened to an ancestor that was so far ago that I don't even know their names. Okay. So I think it's used as a political football to try to extract some kind of a payment due to somebody who never had the problem in the first place. That makes sense.

Guest 2 [01:57:19] Yes. That makes Sense. But let's change subjects because we are. Sounds like we're circling. We're going into circles. We're getting in circles here. But what I will say to Rod's point, right there is there are such things as generational trauma and then inherited wealth. So there's. There's a lot to unpack there. And we could be here all day,

Rod Meldrum [01:57:35] but at the time when it happens, there's going to be restoration made. I, I can't repent for something that my grand, My great great grandfather did.

John Dehlin [01:57:43] But we as a. We as a group of people in modern times can.

Rod Meldrum [01:57:48] Yeah. But work hard to make sure it

John Dehlin [01:57:51] doesn't acknowledge anymore and to try and right the wrongs.

Rod Meldrum [01:57:54] If we can't go back in time.

John Dehlin [01:57:56] No, but we could maybe elect officials, create policies, political policies that help to

Rod Meldrum [01:58:05] flog ourselves because of something that our plug. Our great, great, great 14th great grandfather did. We're going to flog this for the rest of eternity for that.

John Dehlin [01:58:13] It's to try and make it right somehow through, through elections, through voting, through

Rod Meldrum [01:58:19] discontinuing the wrong thing.

Guest 2 [01:58:22] What do you mean?

Rod Meldrum [01:58:23] That's, that's the only really restoration you can do in this life. I mean, once somebody dies, you can't restore anything to them. Right. Because that's. It's over. So the only thing we can do is to make changes in policies and so forth that will cause that. That problem doesn't happen again. And that's learning from history.

John Dehlin [01:58:40] And so do you think. Do you. And we'll end with this and maybe we'll have.

Rod Meldrum [01:58:45] Just have this episode we didn't even get into.

John Dehlin [01:58:48] We'll end this episode as a discussion. Discussion about race. And then we can have the third part be theology again. I didn't intend this to happen, by the way. I didn't even expect race to come up until we got to the Book of Mormon part. So this was not.

Rod Meldrum [01:58:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:58:59] What I thought.

Rod Meldrum [01:59:00] I know. That's a big, A big issue, though, that has been around. It's something that it's kind of an easy target to go after if you're trying to go after the church. Because, you know, it's like.

John Dehlin [01:59:11] Well, it's not just the church, but like, when you look at Hannah Syriac and others, one of the criticisms of the heartland model is that it, the model itself, and a lot of the people who adhere to the heartland model are often described as racist. And so I wasn't. I know. I'm not saying it's a lot of people saying that. I'm just Saying that's, that's often, that's often mentioned when I've mentioned Heartland theory before I really knew anything about it.

Rod Meldrum [01:59:38] Oh, there are a bunch of races.

John Dehlin [01:59:39] I had a bunch of people say to me, this is a bunch of racist people and these are racist theories. And we can get into later the fact that the mound builder myth was literally based on racist ideologies prior to Joseph Smith.

Rod Meldrum [01:59:53] But yeah, there was, there was some of that going on for sure.

John Dehlin [01:59:56] I do think that this was an important thing to talk about in association with the hardline model, if nothing else, to just get it out in the open and clear the air.

Rod Meldrum [02:00:04] Yeah, but I, I appreciate the opportunity to kind of, you know, to talk about some of these things. Some of these things are a little bit more, you know, not really in my main wheelhouse as far as that's concerned. But, you know, obviously I have some opinions about it. I don't know if they're right or wrong necessarily, but I'm willing to at least discuss it. But, but, but hopefully I'm given an opportunity to, to kind of look at some things. And you know, what, like, for example, the reparations thing, you know, how do we, how do we ever do that? I mean, basically, do we bankrupt our nation today because of something that happened to. It's didn't happen to anybody who is alive today. And somehow I, they. They're expecting some kind of a massive payment that, so they don't have to work or do anything else for the rest of their lives. I get that because of that.

John Dehlin [02:00:47] All I'm saying is I think we

Rod Meldrum [02:00:48] just make the changes and then move forward.

John Dehlin [02:00:50] And I say, I say the way where I come down is let's look at what's been done. Let's look at where that's left a lot of people today, and let's, let's

Rod Meldrum [02:01:02] make sure it doesn't happen again.

John Dehlin [02:01:04] Let's care. Not just about making sure it doesn't happen again, which I agree with. Are there. Let's see if we can elect public officials and create public policy that does the best that we can to right the wrongs that we have contributed to as a people. That's, that's what I think.

Rod Meldrum [02:01:22] But, but you, you will admit, though, I mean, you will agree that there's, there's no way to make some things right.

John Dehlin [02:01:27] I'm not.

Rod Meldrum [02:01:28] Once people are dead, there's no way to make it right for them.

John Dehlin [02:01:31] But there might be ways, there might be ways to create public policies that try and atone for or Help out in whatever ways we can. Creatively. Large groups of people that we have abused and disadvantaged and that, that, that's beholden on us today as white people.

Rod Meldrum [02:01:55] Yeah, but John, to care about that

John Dehlin [02:01:58] and not just say, time to move on. Okay, we did a bad thing, but now we're going to move on.

Rod Meldrum [02:02:02] Can I suggest, though, if you believe that there's going to be a judgment.

John Dehlin [02:02:06] But, but to me, that feels like

Rod Meldrum [02:02:08] hunting because somebody, those who were involved with and so forth, they'll, they were, you know, my personal feeling is they'll get theirs.

John Dehlin [02:02:15] But that's.

Guest 2 [02:02:15] Couldn't that argument be used like, during slavery, though? Like, people could have say, we're not going to end slavery because people who are holding slaves, they'll get theirs in the afterlife. Christ will judge them. It's like, no, Christ told us to still, like, do things and actually work.

Rod Meldrum [02:02:28] I agree.

John Dehlin [02:02:29] Yeah, that's only legitimate if there is an afterlife and if there is a judgment.

Rod Meldrum [02:02:32] And so for me, that's kind of a given.

John Dehlin [02:02:36] What's, what's, what's in front of us is we've still got racism in America. We've still got lots of systemic racist problems. And our.

Rod Meldrum [02:02:46] Yeah, but, but Christianity is all about forgiveness too. I mean, what, where is that? Isn't there a room for some forgiveness in here too?

John Dehlin [02:02:53] It's of kind. Just, it's clear to me you're uncomfortable kind of just sitting in this a little bit because you keep wanting to deflect a little bit. And I just want to say, for me, I'm just saying for me now, you don't have to answer this. I'm now just wanting to make sure I state what I think and feel, and that's that our history. Exterminate the brutes. Our history of white people subjugating people of color, teaching racist things, enslaving genocide of Native Americans. Our history is so atrocious, so terrible, so awful that our job isn't to say God did it or we don't understand God's ways or, well, we've stopped it, so now let's just move on for me.

Guest 2 [02:03:37] Or that he needed to do that because of like manifest destiny and that's just the way that he wanted things to go. And God is kind of a brutal.

John Dehlin [02:03:43] God is kind of right for me. Our job is to condemn all that, all those racist teachings as not being of God, as being the wickedness of men, scripture, prophets, whatever, condemn it all and to really sit in understanding the pain and the suffering we've caused people as white people. And then to really think hard about are there things we can do now, whether it's with the legal system, whether it's with the judicial system, whether it's with poverty, all those things. Are there things we can do now to try and make it better, to try and right the wrongs? To actually try and right the wrongs? You don't have to answer that. I just needed to say what I think, and that's what I think. And I think we've given you a chance to make clear what you think. Kara, is there anything else you want

Guest 2 [02:04:34] to add as somebody who was very much a more like, call it right leaning person, who wouldn't have. Who probably would have been very defensive to what you just said three years ago? John, let me kind of rephrase so that it may. It would have made better sense if you were to explain it to me three years ago in these terms that all of the genocide and all of the subjugation that definitely happened and I would have agreed with. I was not aware. I was not educated on the ways that though that. That systemic. Those systemic problems still exist. Okay. And so when you say like that us white people, it makes it sound like, yeah, like John, like Rod was saying, like, we're flogging ourselves. Which Rod as just like a friend, don't use flogging. Again, in terms of racial things, it was just like bad taste. But anyway. But like, I would have been like, oh, you're trying to beat up on white people. You're trying to make me hate my race. There's all this stuff. A better way to phrase it, I think, is just what are things that I have? I know privilege is a word that's thrown around a lot, but are there certain advantages that I have that a black person has never or statistically would not be able to have and enjoy? And one of them that comes to mind is like the death rate of like, black women giving birth in hospitals. Black women are not listened to as much in hospitals as much as a white woman of her same socioeconomic background or things like that. So something that a woman that's my exact same in every way, but has different skin color and maybe comes from a different neighborhood, is not cared for in a hospital hospital the same way that I would be. That is something that's left over that's systemic from all of the brutality that I would never have to experience. So what does that mean for me as a white person? And what do I need to do to make sure that I push for the right types of things in the world that change the way that medical doctors are educated and see people of different skin colors. Because unless we talk about it and we say, I'm a white person, I don't have to experience certain things. You're a black person, you do have to experience those things. Just tell me all about it. Hey, everyone who exists in this field of study, medicine or journalism or like the military, there's, you know, a million different subjects as Americans that we have to deal with. People in that area, there are still systemic problems that people that I don't ever. As. Me as a white woman, me as a straight person, that I don't ever have to deal with. Hey, medical field, listen to the people who still have systemic leftovers. Hey, people in the military, listen to people who still have systemic leftover. Hey, people in the, in the, you know, police in the. Who are policing us. Let's listen to people who are supposed to be served by your system, but are also at a disadvantage because of all of the, the genocide and the slavery that John just mentioned. So that's what I think John was trying to get across. I just wanted to explain it from my brain three years old, three years ago, that that's the only way that I would have. Understand if somebody explained it to me. So all we're trying to say is that sometimes religion unfortunately gives people a reason not to care. And that's super unfortunate because the type of Christ that I worshiped when I was a Christian, I was like super into. What do we have to do to give people the most advantage in life, to give them the best boost in life. And that's attacking systemic problems. That's attacking the places where they're not on equal footing because of what Satan has done, right? So instead of saying we're like, oh, you have to have the light in the dark, you know, that. That doesn't actually do anything, in my opinion, to solve the problems that we face in front of us. So.

Rod Meldrum [02:07:59] Okay, well, just a couple of final, final comments, I guess, as far as this particular thing is concerned. And that is when it comes down to, man, so many different thoughts going through my head at the particular moment.

Guest 2 [02:08:11] But you got seven minutes.

Rod Meldrum [02:08:14] A lot of things that we, that we are talking about are things that we as, to some extent choose to focus on. Like, for example, you know, instead of basically condemning ourselves because we're white straight guys and so forth, who. Who is it that basically went to war and. And fought and died so that. No. So that nobody. Not blacks, not Asians or not even whites would be ever slaves again. What nation was it that brought that, that, that idea out and basically stopped slavery to a large extent throughout the world? You know, it was primarily, it was white males that fought in the Civil War.

John Dehlin [02:09:05] I just want to say among them.

Rod Meldrum [02:09:07] And hold on.

Guest 2 [02:09:09] If your point, hold on. If your point is that white people have done good things.

Rod Meldrum [02:09:13] Right.

Guest 2 [02:09:13] No one will deny that.

Rod Meldrum [02:09:15] Okay.

Guest 2 [02:09:15] But also, if you want to talk about the reasons why the Civil War was fought, that is way too nuanced to get into when we have, like five minutes left. But if your point is white people have done some good things in the past, I agree. Go with that. All right. White people are not completely terrible. Nobody says. They all are saying, okay, well, they've

Rod Meldrum [02:09:30] done some sort of. Sounds like it. When, when you, when you go, when you go through a litany of all the bad things that white people have done.

John Dehlin [02:09:36] That's not the argument I make. That's another straw man. I'm just saying that have we as a people sufficiently understood and grasped in the suffering that we've done?

Rod Meldrum [02:09:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:47] Or have we just.

Rod Meldrum [02:09:48] I don't know.

Guest 2 [02:09:48] I mean, that we've benefited from that.

John Dehlin [02:09:50] We've benefited.

Guest 2 [02:09:51] That we don't have to explain that.

Rod Meldrum [02:09:53] I mean, seriously, how do you even quantify that?

Guest 2 [02:09:55] Don't worry about that.

Rod Meldrum [02:09:56] How do you say when is enough is enough? When is the repentance enough and it's finished and we're done? I don't know. The repentance is all.

John Dehlin [02:10:02] I just think we're not there yet.

Guest 2 [02:10:03] Don't let. Hey, Rod, Rod, wait. Don't look at John, look at me. Don't let the need to quantify it scare you from just getting started. Don't let this when will it be enough idea.

Rod Meldrum [02:10:14] We have started and hopefully we'll continue on the path. But going back and trying to reverse time and go back and try to fix something that was 150 years ago or 200 years ago, I think is unrealistic and not trying to reverse time,

John Dehlin [02:10:29] just trying to make it better now if we can.

Rod Meldrum [02:10:31] Well, and that's what. I'm totally with you, John. I mean, I think we try to make it better now, but that does not necessarily quantify to basically that we have to, you know, pay reparations in a, in a monetary standpoint.

Guest 2 [02:10:48] Let's not, let's forget reparations. Let's talk about just in terms of the LDS Church.

Rod Meldrum [02:10:52] Yeah.

Guest 2 [02:10:52] In terms of.

Rod Meldrum [02:10:53] That's good.

Guest 2 [02:10:53] The point. The, the leftovers after 1978 that if you ask just about any person of color in the church, whether they're like Native American or.

Rod Meldrum [02:11:03] I've talked to Alex Boyer. I mean, he. He's had racist things. I mean, one time he was. He got. He was getting pulled over for something rather. And he. And he. And he asked his wife said, you know what, Maybe we should hurry and switch seats because, you know, so it's. There's. There's still racism. I think we should, but nobody's denying that.

John Dehlin [02:11:22] Yeah, I think we should. I think we should probably end, but.

Rod Meldrum [02:11:25] Yeah.

Reflections, Wrap-Up, and Closing Thoughts

Guest 2 [02:11:25] All right, we're done. I was going to wrap it up because Mormonism Live is about to start. Guys, everyone go switch over.

Rod Meldrum [02:11:33] All right, Listen, John, thank you. And, you know.

Guest 2 [02:11:36] Yeah, thanks, Ron.

Rod Meldrum [02:11:37] Keira.

John Dehlin [02:11:38] Well, I didn't plan on this episode being about race. That wasn't my intent. It's just where it went.

Rod Meldrum [02:11:43] It went there.

John Dehlin [02:11:44] But I'm glad we talked about it because we were going to have to at one point or another.

Rod Meldrum [02:11:47] It's not. It's not my wheelhouse, typically, but. But hopefully, you know, I. I think there's a lot of things we can do better.

John Dehlin [02:11:55] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:11:56] And we need to do better. And there's been things that we've done wrong in the past, and I think that's. That's clear.

John Dehlin [02:12:01] Yeah.

Rod Meldrum [02:12:02] Let's just move forward and move forward with faith and move. And that we can. That we can do better. That we agree on.

Guest 2 [02:12:08] That we can do better.

Rod Meldrum [02:12:10] Yeah.

Guest 2 [02:12:11] Yep. I will summarize in my. My dad's. One of. My dad. Who's a supporter of yours, by the way. My dad. Good old.

Rod Meldrum [02:12:18] Shout out to you, dad.

Guest 2 [02:12:19] Good old Phil. Shout out. One of his favorite phrases that we both agree on is thank goodness that we're not. We're not where we used to be. And thank goodness that we're not. Oh, I forgot it. Sorry, dad. It's. The main point is thank goodness we're not where we used to be. And that's one sentiment that I can agree on. And I have to always look at what got us to move forward. Why aren't we. We're used. Where. Why aren't we where we used to be? And Yuk and I could probably disagree on why we aren't where we used to be, but we have to think about it.

Rod Meldrum [02:12:53] I totally agree that there's probably been political pressure that has been applied in certain different areas and so forth, and we can talk about that in a future episode.

John Dehlin [02:13:03] Well, thank you so much for being willing to sit in the Hot seat. And I didn't intend this to be so intense. Karen, Jen were waving at me, saying, chill out, John. We can chill out. You're getting too animated. I was driving, drooling at one point to spittle down my mouth. I'm sorry that. I hope I didn't.

Rod Meldrum [02:13:19] Well, you know, if you ever had it, you drool out of both sides of your mouth. Right.

John Dehlin [02:13:22] I hope you don't feel disrespected. I. I meant no disrespect. We didn't. I didn't even tend this episode to go here.

Rod Meldrum [02:13:27] You've been. Actually, I. I think it's like a good journalist. You're. You're prying, You're. You're. You're trying to get information and so forth. And. And I think that's good journalism as far as that's concerned.

John Dehlin [02:13:40] Well, thanks. And we. And we still have to talk about just your basic Mormon beliefs, which we won't have covered enough today or in this episode. And then we still have to get to the heartland model, which was actually the main reason we brought you on. So we're gonna have to have a

Rod Meldrum [02:13:56] power reason was to talk about the genetics and the DNA stuff, but that'll

Guest 2 [02:14:00] be a whole nother day.

Rod Meldrum [02:14:01] Another scientist, another time.

John Dehlin [02:14:03] We got one thing done for sure. Well, two things done. We got your story out, which I'm really glad we did. That's what stories is at its core.

Rod Meldrum [02:14:11] That was this. Maybe not many people know that. I've not shared that because, again, it's not. It's not about me. It's about the research.

John Dehlin [02:14:18] Well, this may be the. The most comprehensive interview you ever do about your story. And so I'm. You know, we got to do that.

Rod Meldrum [02:14:24] So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:14:25] And then we got to talk about race in depth. Whether or not we did a good job, I'll just acknowledge. We should have had people of color in this space. People are saying Gerardo should have been here. We tried to get Gerardo to come. He had a last.

Rod Meldrum [02:14:36] Where are you?

John Dehlin [02:14:36] Kept him coming.

Guest 2 [02:14:38] But we should have had texted a little bit. We tried.

John Dehlin [02:14:40] We should have had people of African descent in this discussion, but we didn't. So.

Guest 2 [02:14:44] But you have our commitment Mormon Stories listeners that we have lots of awesome guests lined up in the future.

John Dehlin [02:14:48] We hope to.

Guest 2 [02:14:49] So not because we're like, trying to fill a quota. Honestly, genuinely, because we all kind of. In this post Mormon, progressive Mormon or orthodox Mormon or fundamentalist Mormon. There's all. It all does center around race. And so people. People of color actually sitting in this chair. And telling us their experiences is so important for us to understand everything else that, no pun intended, colors a lot of things here. So it's really important that we have people who have been affected by these policies and these doctrines here. So you don't worry. You have our commitment on that.

John Dehlin [02:15:19] Yeah. So thank you. Well, I'll just add one more comment. Melissa writes, stop the bleeding. White people talking about race is uncomfortable. I agree. Our apologies to anyone who felt disrespected or embarrassed. Yeah, my apologies flat, full stop. For anyone, any people of color that heard this and felt disrespected or that felt like we didn't do it justice or that we had no business even talking about this. My sincere apologies.

Rod Meldrum [02:15:51] And, but I mean, just say one, one last thing. And that is basically, I think that you and I are in complete agreement, all of us are in agreement, that God loves every single one of his children here, period.

John Dehlin [02:16:08] And how about we all denounce racism in any form, past, present or future?

Rod Meldrum [02:16:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:16:15] Yeah, Kara. Yeah. All right. So we still hope at some point in the future to cover Rod's Mormon beliefs and the heartland theory and to have some scientists be able to talk with Rod about.

Rod Meldrum [02:16:29] What's it called? Universal model.

John Dehlin [02:16:31] Universal model. But we'll have to figure out when that is. Whether that's tonight or another time I

Rod Meldrum [02:16:35] didn't get to show you. So, you know, just a few things to look forward to. So when we get together another time, we can. We can talk. I brought some of these things in here. Just a couple deals here. So I'm not going to tell you what that is. It is quartz, but it's how we got this quartz that will be of interest. And it has to do with fossilization and dinosaurs and all that kind of stuff. And then also the heartland research and some of the cool stuff we've got going on. We're buying this. In fact, we've got a ship now that actually has done two of the three voyages of the Book of Mormon. Kind of cool. A lot of people, not people know about that, but it's pretty cool.

John Dehlin [02:17:18] Can't wait to talk about that.

Guest 2 [02:17:19] Cliffhanger.

Rod Meldrum [02:17:20] Cliffhanger. All right, all right. Thanks, John.

Guest 2 [02:17:24] Also, one more thing. Can I just say.

Rod Meldrum [02:17:26] Thanks, Kara.

Guest 2 [02:17:26] Thanks, Rod. The quote from my dad was, sorry, I had to remember because I don't want to, like, leave you. We're at the end of, like, the 15 hour day, by the way. It's, oh, we're not where we should be. We're not where we want to be. But thank goodness we're not where we used to be. And when I, when my dad and I, we've been sharing that quote since we were younger, and it's just in 2020, when my dad said that to me, I think it was June 2020. I'm trying to remember what went on during that time anyway. But the point is, I, me and my dad were able to agree on that and then have an actual, real discussion about why we're not where we used to be. And that was a beautiful catalyst into discussing all kinds of things that were really beneficial for him and me. So I just want to make sure that I got that phrase actually out there and didn't cut it off. And I also sincerely apologize if we should have had a trigger warning or something at the beginning of this, because we definitely got into some seriously sticky topics. And we're just thankful to Mormon Stories listeners for sticking it with us, even though it kind of feels like we went in circles a lot of times and we probably were not the right people to have this discussion. But we're doing our best. So thank you, everyone, for your patience.

John Dehlin [02:18:32] And if you, if you hear at the beginning this, Our intent was not to make this episode about race. So that's just what happened. And that's. So, yeah, our apologies. And we'll find a way to make it right to whatever extent we can. Thanks, Rod. Thanks for coming on.

Rod Meldrum [02:18:45] Thank you, man.

Guest 2 [02:18:46] What a day. What a day.

John Dehlin [02:18:47] Cara, thanks for being my co host.

Guest 2 [02:18:51] Thanks for letting me be your co host. This has been an incredible day. I don't even know what to say. We're wrapping up.

Rod Meldrum [02:18:57] We covered a lot. Started even though we didn't.

John Dehlin [02:19:01] Yeah. And Jen, thanks for doing time code and show notes. And Gerardo, thanks for your.

Rod Meldrum [02:19:08] Your wherever you are text. Do you have a. Do you have a. Do you have him up on the screen or something?

John Dehlin [02:19:14] You can just texting us. Anyway, thanks, Gerardo.

Rod Meldrum [02:19:16] We look forward to meeting you and.

John Dehlin [02:19:18] All right, you guys take care. We'll see you guys all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Bye, everybody.

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