Introduction and Trevor's Background

Part 1 of 7 · Ep. 711

Guest 1 [00:00:29] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is March 24, 2017, and we have kind of a super cool show in store for you. We're gonna do something we've kind of never done before. Maybe a couple things we've never done before.

Guest 1 [00:00:49] So to give you a little bit of background today on Mormon Stories, we're interviewing Trevor. Trevor reached out to me a while back and let me know that he was going to be meeting with the General Authority to talk about his faith crisis.

Guest 1 [00:01:04] This meeting happened just a few weeks ago. It happened on March 3rd. And the general Authority that Trevor met with was Don R. Clark. For those of you don't know, I'll just read a little bit from Don R. Clark's biography. John R. Clark was sustained a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy in April 1, 2006, but then a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy in Apr. 2, 2011. He served as president of the Central American area from 2007 to 2011, and he's currently serving as an assistant executive director in the Missionary department. So he's a high up bureaucrat in the LDS Church for the Missionary department and, and he's area assistant for the Utah North, Utah Salt Lake City and Utah south areas.

Guest 1 [00:01:52] So he's up there and I'm guessing he works very closely with the Presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy. So that's Don Clark. Trevor met with Don Clark and he met with another gentleman named Matthew Grow. And I'm going to pull up Matthew Grow's profile as well because it's also very interesting.

Guest 1 [00:02:17] Matthew Grow, if you go ahead and check his bio on the Joseph Smith Papers Project, you will find that it says the following. He's the director of publications at the Church History Department and a general editor of the Joseph Smith Papers. So he was very, very involved in the Joseph Smith Papers Project. He's co authored or authored several books by, by Oxford University Press, Yale University Press.

Guest 1 [00:02:43] He's done work on LDS Church history. He has a PhD in American history from the University of Notre Dame. And if you listen to the recording that we're going to be sharing, what you'll notice is that he is that Matthew Grow says that he was heavily involved in those essays that were released. So what we're gonna do for this interview is kind of fun. We're gonna start with interviewing Trevor a bit about his story. Trevor's got a cool story. It's definitely worth hearing. Then what we're gonna do that's new.

Guest 1 [00:03:20] The first part that we're gonna do that's new is we're actually gonna play the audio recording of Trevor's interview with the General Authority, Elder Don R. Clarke and with Matthew Grow of the LDS Church History Department. And for me, it's a really fascinating interview because, you know, number one, it's with the General Authority. Number two, the General Authority stays silent for a lot of it and lets Matthew Grow answer his questions. I think it's really interesting to hear how, let's just say one of the arch apologists for the Mormon Church, somebody who's deeply embedded in the Church History Department, Joseph Papers Project, the essays. And interesting to hear how someone like that answers, you know, questions about polygamy, answers questions about Book of Abraham.

Guest 1 [00:04:10] And this is sort of the cream of the crop for Mormon apologetics, I would say. And so that's going to be fascinating. I think it's a really worthwhile hour and 20 minutes to listen. And then finally we've invited some brilliant panelists.

Guest 1 [00:04:26] Lindsay Hanson park of Sunstone in the Year of Polygamy, John Hamer, who's also who's on Infants on Thrones podcast, but he's also supported the John Whitmer association and right now he's the pastor of Community of Christ in Toronto, their congregation. And he's been a real leader with Community of Christ and helping them sort of pursue what's called the Seekers program, which is providing a landing place for members of the LDS Church who leave but who still want some sort of restoration based spiritual life.

Guest 1 [00:05:02] The Community of Christ Seekers program has been really useful and John Hamer's really been supportive of that. And he's just been on Mormon Stories a million times and he's brilliant and we love him, yada, yada, yada. And then finally we're also going to have on our panel Glenn Osland. Glenn Osland is the founder or co founder of Infants on Thrones podcast. He's brilliant. We've had him on Mormon stories before and we're just super excited to have kind of a mini infant smackdown with Lindsey Hansen park joining to sort of dissect this audio interview of Elder Clark at General Authority and Matthew Grow of the LDS Church History Department.

Guest 1 [00:05:40] So we are in for a really fun three hours. So those of you who are joining us live on Facebook, we want your comments, we want your questions, we want your feedback. So please be aggressive there and we'll take your questions and comments throughout the show. So that's a long intro, but Trevor, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Guest 2 [00:06:01] Hey, John, how are you?

Guest 1 [00:06:03] Good. It's super happy to have you.

Guest 2 [00:06:06] Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

Guest 1 [00:06:07] I really appreciate you reaching out. So we'll talk in a bit about why you wanted to share your audio recording of your meeting with Elder Clark and Matthew growing. But let's save that, because I think what I really like to do first is set the context. And I think you've got a really interesting story about, you know, your commitment to the church, your experiences as a Mormon prior to your mission, your mission experience and then after your mission experience, what led to your faith crisis and then what enabled you to get a general authority and Matt grow to meet with you. So do you mind starting with your story?

Guest 2 [00:06:46] That sounds great. Do you want to kick it off with a question or should I?

Guest 1 [00:06:51] Yeah. So are you. So let's, as infants, have primed us. Talk to us about your Mormon credibility scale, where, you know, do you have multi generational Mormon heritage? Start there.

Guest 2 [00:07:03] Yeah, so, okay, so I'll just start. I'm 35 years old. I live in South Jordan, kind of the Mecca here. And I grew up on the Wasatch front. Currently I own a production company called Hagen Creative, where we make films and produce video.

Guest 2 [00:07:19] But, yeah, I have kind of the classic Mormon story, I guess. You know, growing up did everything that a typical Mormon family would do in Utah. Family prayers every single night. You know, my parents were really good at that. We'd go through streaks where we would read the scriptures as a family. But it was definitely, you know, is definitely kind of taught, you know, that we read the scriptures ourselves, was taught tithing. You know, I always took that very serious. And I always, you know, I always prided myself in the sense that I never missed paying tithing. You know, I would even pay, like, more just in case I was like, somehow getting the math wrong, you know.

Guest 2 [00:08:00] And so I was always kind of trying to go, you know, go above and beyond. I would have fun with it. You know, I try not to take things too serious because, you know, I kind of wanted to attract people to the faith that way. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, that's pretty much it. My dad was my scout leader growing

Guest 1 [00:08:19] up, so

Guest 2 [00:08:22] I always joke that my dad got his eagle twice, once for himself and then second through me vicariously.

Guest 1 [00:08:28] That's awesome.

Guest 2 [00:08:29] Wasn't so much for me, but I learned a lot. I really enjoyed it. And. Yeah, but I mean, my parents, they raised us five kids. The best thing, you know, knew how to. With A lot of love and just had a really happy childhood. Great family.

Guest 1 [00:08:42] How. Talk about your. Your testimony. Did. Did you have a good experience as a Mormon youth? Did you attend seminary? Did you gain a testimony? Talk about that.

Guest 2 [00:08:54] Yeah. So I lived everything to, you know, the fullest. I think I was very. I was very, like, adamant on following, you know, like, the word of wisdom. Never touched, touch, drugs or alcohol. Was never even a temptation for me. But I. Yeah, I mean, I. I got my. What is it, Duty of God award. Graduated seminary institute. How deep do I go here? You know, I mean, I was a virgin when I got married. Yeah.

Guest 1 [00:09:27] So you were in it to win?

Guest 2 [00:09:28] Barely. Come on. You know, but we made it. We made it. And. But, yeah, I mean, just. I had a testimony, you know, I kind of received a testimony, I guess, kind of like twice, in a way, because the first time I got a testimony, I feel like it was kind of like a pressured feeling, you know, like crap. I. You know, I'm being expected to serve a mission for two years. I should probably figure out if this is true, you know?

Guest 1 [00:09:57] Sure.

Guest 2 [00:09:58] I think there's a lot of social pressure that comes down to that. I hadn't. You know, I mean, I always assumed it was true, but I had never kind of done, like, put Moroni 10 to the test, per se. So before my mission, I read the entire Book of Mormon, made a lot of notes. You know, I took it really serious. And then I remember praying, and this is right before I put in my papers. And I was sitting there, and I was just, you know, I was waiting for, you know, this big, you know, burning in the bosom kind of feeling, and it just.

Guest 2 [00:10:28] It wasn't coming. And so I kind of just, like. I remember like. Like wanting to feel it so bad that I feel like it was almost like a. Like a forced kind of, like, feeling. I don't know. I mean, that's. That's the first time that I kind of, like, I was like, okay, well, I feel good enough. I think maybe that's the feeling they're talking about.

Guest 2 [00:10:48] The second time I got a testimony was the real deal. That was in the mtc. And, you know, I. I know a lot of missionaries are, like, ready to get out of the MTC and get to the field. But for me, like, I didn't want to leave the MTC because I just felt the spirit so strong there, you know, and. And it was just. It was awesome. It was. It was a really cool environment. So that's where I was like, this is it you know, this is. This is true, you know, so it

Guest 1 [00:11:16] wasn't from, like, you know, kneeling down and reading the Book of Mormon. It was just the feeling that the MTC gave you. Just. It just felt amazing. And you knew it was true.

Guest 2 [00:11:26] Yeah, I mean, I always felt good about stuff. You know what I mean? But it wasn't like this. You know what I mean? Like, overwhelming spiritual confirmation, I guess you could say. So, yeah. So the MTC was. I mean, they know what they're doing there. You know, they got a good system, but it worked.

Guest 1 [00:11:42] Okay. Okay, but you were. But. But at least for a time, you were just absolutely believing and.

Guest 2 [00:11:47] Oh, absolutely.

Guest 1 [00:11:48] Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:11:49] I had no reason to question.

Trevor's Mission and Mission President

Guest 1 [00:11:50] Okay, so tell us again where you went on your mission.

Guest 2 [00:11:53] So I served in the Bolivia Santa Cruz mission.

Guest 1 [00:11:56] Okay, and your mission president was who?

Guest 2 [00:11:59] So. My mission president. So this is all going to kind of tie together. My first mission president was. Was. Was Elder Shumway, and then my second mission president is Elder Don Clark.

Guest 1 [00:12:13] Okay, and real quick, like, what type of mission did you have? Did you love it? Did you hate it? Were you. You know, leadership positions? What was that like?

Guest 2 [00:12:21] Yeah, I mean, it was definitely difficult. I mean, you know, the first six to nine months, I think, for any missionary is hard. The one letter that never made it home was my letter, you know, telling my dad that I wanted to come home because I wasn't gonna get the Spanish.

Guest 2 [00:12:36] But, you know, you end up figuring it out and. And then just really enjoying. I had a lot of fun with my mission. Some areas I was in, I felt like I was like, in a Planet Earth or, like, National Geographic episode. It was really remote. It's like, what am I doing here? You know, we would. You know, there wasn't much in ways of, like, commodities like, even heating water, you know, electricity, all that kind of stuff. And I remember.

Guest 2 [00:13:06] I remember filling the fonts up to baptize these people, and the water was so freezing that literally people would, like, go. Start going down into the water and like, like, totally just, you know, give, like, you know, my salvation is important, but not that important. Like, it was freezing, you know, and so we. You know, it was definitely, like, definitely an experience and. But I. I really enjoyed it. You know, we would give people blessings. They seem to get better. Seemed like we were doing good things. I did try casting the devil out a couple times, and that wasn't too successful.

Guest 1 [00:13:45] But the devil wouldn't leave.

Guest 2 [00:13:49] He just wouldn't go, man. Oh, he was insistent.

Guest 1 [00:13:52] What a pesky little booger.

Guest 2 [00:13:54] Yeah, yeah. So. But it was.

Guest 1 [00:13:57] So did you. Did you have. Were you district leader, zone leader, any of that stuff?

Guest 2 [00:14:00] Yeah, district leader, zone leader. I then went on to become AP as well, and so worked really closely with. With. With Elder Clark.

Guest 1 [00:14:08] Okay, so you were Elder. You were Elder Clark's Zoni or ap?

Guest 2 [00:14:12] Ap. Yeah.

Guest 1 [00:14:12] Okay. Wow. So tell us what he was like as a mission president.

Guest 2 [00:14:17] You know, amazing, actually. Very, very, very driven. He would teach us that nothing was impossible, to always find solutions. He was a very successful businessman, you know, prior to being a mission president. He took a lot of that into the mission and was really successful.

Guest 2 [00:14:39] There were a couple things that bothered me about the mission when he first came in. Mainly the big focus on baptism, you know, and I was noticing that the missionaries that were, like, most obedient or most spiritual weren't necessarily the ones having the most success. Seemed like, like the salesman type missionaries were the ones that were always, you know, getting. Getting the baptisms. And it was. It was just really focused on numbers, you know, on baptizing people. And. And the quality wasn't always great. You know, mostly it was.

Guest 2 [00:15:14] It was really, really like uneducated people or young people or kids, you know, and so I. I wanted to see that change. And, you know, when. When Elder Clark came in, I think he. I think he made a very.

Guest 2 [00:15:29] He was very determined to change that, and I think he. I think he started to change that kind of mentality in the mission, kind of focusing more on retention and such.

Guest 1 [00:15:39] Okay, so he wasn't just in it to score numbers. He was. He was trying to bring quality families into the. Into the church.

Guest 2 [00:15:48] Yeah, yeah, I think so. You know, I mean, obviously the focus was still there. Like, you can't get rid of that completely, you know, But. But yeah, the focus changed a little bit to, you know, to retention and, you know, and families and stuff like that.

Guest 1 [00:16:03] What was he like? Was he like a businessman? Was he like a spiritual giant? Like what? Well, with what personality did he leave the mission, Lead the mission?

Guest 2 [00:16:13] Yeah, it was a good mix between the two, but I would say a very, very, very heavy on the. On the business side because he would bring a lot of experiences, but, I mean, that's what he had to draw

Guest 1 [00:16:24] from, you know, what's his background? Do you know?

Guest 2 [00:16:27] I know he was in. I know he was in. Oh, you know, I. I don't even want to go there because I might screw it up. You know what I mean? But.

Guest 1 [00:16:38] No, that's okay.

Guest 2 [00:16:39] I think he consulted a lot of companies on sales and marketing and such.

Guest 1 [00:16:42] Okay, I'm just going to read here. Elder Clark earned an associate's degree from Ricks College and a bachelor's degree in business from byu. He completed a master's degree in business administration from Washington State University. His career included senior executive positions in several retailing companies. So he was a retailer basically?

Guest 2 [00:17:02] Yeah, he helped a lot of companies save a lot of money. So he figured out ways to do things, you know, less expensive, I guess you could say.

Guest 1 [00:17:12] Okay, cool.

Guest 2 [00:17:14] He's always, yeah, solution driven, just great guy. I really do have a lot of respect for him.

Guest 1 [00:17:19] And anything, anything that you want to share about your personal interactions with him. Did you ever, like, have problems that he helped you fix or things you were struggling with that he helped you or, like, really cool things he did on his mission or really cool moments you had with him? Anything, Anything you would want to share or is it just a normal, you know, mission president, missionary relationship?

Guest 2 [00:17:44] He would. He would call me sometimes. You know, I think we were supposed to get up at 6:30 or. Anyway, I might be off on that, but it's been a while, John. But so let's say, you know, 6:20 rolls around, he's calling me, you know, because as APs, we had cell phones. We're the only ones with cell phones. He would call me and he'd be like, good afternoon. As if I'd slept in, you know, like, I should always be up a half an hour earlier, you know, than it says I should be in. A half an hour earlier. I should be reading my scriptures, you know, a few minutes longer, whatever, you know. So, yeah, he was always expecting greatness from us. And I think that was something that I carried through my life, you know, after the mission.

Guest 1 [00:18:26] So did that kind of make you want to be better and do better? Was it motivating?

Guest 2 [00:18:30] Yeah, it was motivating, yeah.

Guest 1 [00:18:31] And.

Guest 2 [00:18:33] But also variant, like, he's an intimidating guy, you know, because he has had so much success in his life, you know, and he is very. He speaks very direct and very plainly with things. And so, you know, so at the same time, I didn't feel like I could always just like, you know, voice concerns or talk plainly with them. It was just kind of like, yes, sir kind of situation, you know, and I was fine with that, you know, because he, you know, what he's doing.

Guest 1 [00:19:03] Okay, cool. So last question. Any. Any big things happen on your mission, like scandals or, like, problems or major accomplishments with Elder Clark that, that you or President Clark at the time that are worth mentioning?

Guest 2 [00:19:19] Well, we Started having a lot of success in the mission. He kind of instilled in us this idea of nothing, you know, that you can do anything and everything's possible. And, and so when I actually left from being an ap, I actually went back into the field for four and a half months before I finished my mission. And just our zone alone, I believe there were seven companionships, but we were baptizing over 100 people a month. And that's just in one.

Guest 1 [00:19:45] Just in one zone.

Guest 2 [00:19:46] One zone.

Guest 1 [00:19:47] So what were total baptisms for the mission in a month?

Guest 2 [00:19:53] I mean, I would say maybe 600ish maybe.

Guest 1 [00:19:59] That's crazy. That's crazy. Six to 800 per month.

Guest 2 [00:20:04] That's a lot.

Guest 1 [00:20:05] That's the same old stuff, you know. Same old stuff, yeah.

Guest 2 [00:20:08] And so, you know, we're trying to focus, you know, the attention, but at the same time there's just, it's still a mission, you know, and I think, I think there are numbers that the church wants to see. Maybe, maybe there's a little bit of pressure on that side, you know, but, but the intentions had changed, you know what I mean? But the numbers hadn't changed.

Guest 1 [00:20:28] The numbers, but the numbers stayed. And those are, that's what you get

Guest 2 [00:20:31] praised for at the end of the day, you know, you want your, you want your zone to be the golden zone, you know, at the end of the month, you know, you want your, you know, your leaders and your, you know, your group to be feeling like, you know, they're part of the greatest zone in the mission, you know.

Guest 1 [00:20:47] And yeah, totally. Gary writes, I barely got six baptisms on my whole mission in Nebraska. 600amonth is crazy. Thanks for that comment, Gary.

Guest 2 [00:20:59] Yeah, that's insane.

Guest 1 [00:21:00] Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:21:02] And one thing that I, that I've noticed since I've been back is I've talked to friends that have served, like in Europe, and it's crazy because, you know, most of the time I'm like, so did you have much success? How was that? You know, and was it hard? And you know, they say usually it's, you know, maybe three baptisms, five baptisms or whatever. I'm like, wow, so who are these people? And I come to find out most of them are like immigrants from different countries, farmers, you know. I mean, like I baptized a guy and you know, in Italy, but he was from Peru, you know, or an 8 year old kid or something. And so, so yeah, and then I look at my mission. It's just insane, the contrast, you know.

Guest 1 [00:21:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you had a. So it Sounds like you left your mission just on cloud nine, right?

Life After the Mission and Marriage

Guest 2 [00:21:52] Oh, yeah, yeah. I got back, continue to live the gospel. Served in a lot of callings back home. I didn't let it, you know, slide, obviously. I started focusing on my life, my career, studying all that kind of stuff, but. But I did serve in the church and a lot of different callings.

Guest 1 [00:22:11] So talk. Just talk about, like. Yeah. Your trajectory. What, you know, did you marry in the temple? Did you go to school?

Guest 2 [00:22:19] Yeah, I first got married when I was 23. Got sealed in the temple to my wife. To my first wife, I should say. And to make a long story short, we were married for five and a half years, and that just didn't work out.

Guest 1 [00:22:33] Do you feel like you married too quickly? Like you didn't quite know her, right?

Guest 2 [00:22:37] Yeah, there was a little bit of that. We grew a lot in our 20s and kind of became different people with different goals. You know, she was a great girl. It was just kind of the odds were stacked against us a little bit. And so when I was 29, we. We got a divorce. And then I got. Then I went back to my mission 10 years later and decided, you know, to kind of, you know, go visit some people, and that's where I met my now wife.

Guest 1 [00:23:02] So, you know, you married someone from Bolivia that you met when you returned to Bolivia?

Guest 2 [00:23:08] I did, yeah. And I hadn't known her. I didn't meet her in the mission, but. But. But I met her there.

Guest 1 [00:23:14] And that's what they all say, Trevor.

Guest 2 [00:23:15] Yeah, I know. Yeah. I mean, you got it.

Guest 1 [00:23:18] No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Guest 2 [00:23:19] You know, I wish I would have met her, you know, 10 years earlier. Expedited the process a little bit, but, yeah.

Guest 1 [00:23:25] Did you marry her in the temple?

Guest 2 [00:23:27] We did. We got. So we initially got sealed in.

Guest 1 [00:23:29] Or.

Guest 2 [00:23:29] We initially got married in Bolivia, just civilly, because we wanted to get the immigration process going. And then I came back. We lived apart for about a year, which was hard to say the least, but the church was something we had in common, and it was something that we took very serious. We would pray together every single night. We would read the scriptures together. We felt very strong together. She got here, and we got sealed in the temple in Salt Lake Temple.

Guest 1 [00:23:56] Did you have to have your sealing to your previous wife canceled or not?

Guest 2 [00:24:00] So I tried, but. But, you know, she wasn't married yet. And so I guess the policy is, you know, for, you know, to reach the highest degree of celestial kingdom, you know, you need that saving ordinance. So I. Yes. So that Was denied. But, you know, I'm not complaining. I had two, two wives waiting for me, so it was great.

Guest 1 [00:24:23] Now, how did she feel about remaining sealed, your ex wife feel about remaining sealed to you while you were getting sealed to somebody else?

Guest 2 [00:24:31] I don't think she might. I don't know. I never asked her.

Guest 1 [00:24:34] But how did your, how did your second wife feel about staying sealed to your first wife?

Guest 2 [00:24:41] That's probably more. More of a. Yeah. So she didn't like it at all.

Guest 1 [00:24:49] How'd you like it?

Guest 2 [00:24:50] I mean, you know, I was, I was bugged by it. You know, I talked to local leaders about it. What do I got to do? And just kind of like, well, you got to wait until she decides to get sealed again, you know, and so that was something that would eat away at. Especially my wife, you know, Veronica, she didn't like that idea that I was sealed to two people, you know, and especially when a lot of people would talk about polygamy like, we don't practice it anymore.

Guest 2 [00:25:14] And it's like, are you sure? You know, like, because my husband sealed the two people, you know, but we didn't really let it affect our testimony. I mean, we still served in, you know, mainly Spanish speaking wards here in the South Jordan area. And I felt like that's where I could kind of, you know, use my talents to the best of the their ability and served as an executive secretary, worked in the elders quorum with the young men, taught. Anyway, so. Yeah,

The Beginning of Trevor's Faith Crisis

Guest 1 [00:25:46] okay, so what, so what, what started your faith crisis? What happened? How old were you? And what happened?

Guest 2 [00:25:53] All right, so I was. So this was 2015, so I was about, I was about 34 years old and I, you know, the policy came out and, you know, I don't think it's anybody leaving the church. I don't think it's ever one thing. Right. I think it's always a series of events that happen because there's a breaking down, like a deconstruction of your faith. Right.

Guest 2 [00:26:20] That was very true for me because, you know, the policy came out of children, you know, with gay parents not being able to participate, you know, in church. And, and I just, you know, and then that later became a doctrine, if I'm not mistaken.

Guest 2 [00:26:36] But I, it just didn't sit well with me. Like I, you know, I got a bad feeling about it. I, I was trying to, you know, look into all the positive reasons, justify it the best that I could, you know, but there was just something that just like, I don't know, it left me like a Sick feeling inside. It's like. It's like when you're eating a meal, this is the best way to put it. You're enjoying a meal, and then you look down about halfway through and you see something that kind of like, grosses you out, you know, like something doesn't look right or something.

Guest 2 [00:27:07] And you kind of like, you put that to the side, but. But it's not enough to stop eating. Like, you still keep eating it, but you're just a little more weary, you know, that's kind of. That's kind of where I was at, you know, I was just kind of. I started just looking at it a little differently.

Guest 2 [00:27:23] That's kind of where I started. And then. And then about six months later, I ventured off to do a film in Southeast Asia. And the film was.

Guest 1 [00:27:37] Tell us about the film. Just a little bit.

Guest 2 [00:27:39] Okay, so the name of the film is Jiji VI. Shit, it's spelled J I J I, V I S H A and it means in Hindu, the desire to continue on, to live on. So it wasn't so much about Buddhism, but it was kind of like a. Like a Planet Earth type, style, you know, silent documentary, if you will. But it definitely centered around Buddhism since, you know, all of the places that we were filming were, you know, cultures. It was about cultures and traditions that have lived on, you know, through. Through the ages in Southeast Asia. Super interesting, you know, and me and my buddy that co produced the film with me, we studied a lot about Buddhism, a lot about their culture and traditions for about a year leading up to this.

Guest 2 [00:28:27] And it started just kind of opening my mind to different possibilities, you know, but it wasn't until I actually went there and lived there for a bit and hung out with these people and saw the commitment level that they have to their faith and what they believe and the experiences that they've had, you know, the spiritual conviction they have. And I remember coming home and telling my friend, you know, if we were born in Thailand or Myanmar, do you think we would be Buddhists today?

Guest 2 [00:29:05] You know, it was just like a. Like a thought that I'd never really. I just never thought of that, you know, like, would I even have an open enough mind in that scenario to even look at something like Mormonism, you know, or would I lasso all of my spiritual experiences that I'd had up to that point in my life to Buddhism, you know? And so I started to kind of step outside myself and take a look at.

Guest 2 [00:29:30] At me, you know, kind of from the outside looking in. And my belief, I Mean, you know, I. I believed in something that I was handed. You know, I'd never looked into anything. I'd never read the Quran, for example, and prayed about it, you know, and so, yeah, so that. That just started opening my mind to things. But still, I wasn't, like. I wasn't to the point where I'm like, I'm gonna go investigate the church or anything like that. I was still very, like, determined not to look at any negative things against the church at that point, you know?

Key Doubts and the CES Letter

Guest 1 [00:30:04] So what changed?

Guest 2 [00:30:06] So what changed was summer of last year, and me and my wife, because she came along with me as well, and we've kind of been, you know, we've been talking, so we. We've been kind of opening our mind to things at the same time. But in the matter of, like, a week, we heard about this thing called the CES letter.

Guest 1 [00:30:29] Tell us, what year. What year was that about?

Guest 2 [00:30:31] This was last. This is 2016. Summer 2016. Believe it or not, I had never heard of the CES letter before and never even heard of most of these issues that are in the CES letter. And so we were just hearing it, hearing about it from so many different people. You know, like, we were at the park, and we talked to somebody that's now an apostate, and I'm like, oh, wow. If you don't mind me asking, like, what led to that? You know, and CS letter or, you know, I'm hanging out with some people, and it's like, oh, yeah, we decided to resign because of the CS letter. And, you know, it's just. It was almost like I felt like I was driven to look at this. And so luckily, me and Veronica, we decided to look at it and read it together. And that's where it all started.

Guest 1 [00:31:16] So you guys read. And she was open. She was willing to read it.

Guest 2 [00:31:20] Luckily, yeah, my wife was right there by my side. She didn't. I don't think her faith deconstructed or fell apart as quickly as mine did. We definitely had, you know, a few months where I was going back and forth, you know, and. And, you know, I. I would be like, no, this is it. This is done. But then I'd be like, well, what does it hurt? You know, what does it hurt to just go to church, you know what I mean, and just kind of play along or whatever? Like, you know, like, maybe this is still a good thing kind of thing. And we were going like that, but there was just too much that I read into to just let it be, you know, like, I know.

Guest 1 [00:32:02] What were the biggest issues bugging you? Just tell us the top three or five.

Guest 2 [00:32:06] Well, you'll see my top five in the recording, so I won't go into too much detail, but my biggest thing was spiritual, you know, confirmation, just epistemology,

Guest 1 [00:32:17] you know, don't other religions, don't other believers of other religions claim the same type of emotional or spiritual witness?

Guest 2 [00:32:25] Right, right. I would think that most people in the world are spiritual and most people that are religious tie their spirituality to a religion. So how am I any different? And I can't step, I can't step into their body, so I will never know if what they're feeling is stronger than what I'm feeling and vice versa. So pretty arrogant for me to say that, you know, what I have in this tiny little box that I was given that's the ultimate end all truth. And so that was probably my biggest thing. But obviously list them.

Guest 1 [00:32:54] Just list the four or five.

Guest 2 [00:32:56] Yeah. So Book of Abraham and just this whole gift of translation that Joseph Smith claimed to have. The Book of Mormon, all the, the anachronisms that go along with that DNA. No archaeological evidence that directly supports the Book of Mormon.

Guest 2 [00:33:17] Joseph Smith. I, you know, I feel like. So I got a lot out of the CS letter, but I was definitely cross checking it. And not only just cross checking it online, but I was also ordering a lot of books. I felt like I hadn't like, it was, I was like eating books like I hadn't eaten in a couple years. I was just plowing through information and, and I learned a lot about Joseph Smith and learned that he wasn't quite the man that I thought he was, you know, and I mean, I knew about a little bit about the polygamy, didn't look too much into that, but the polyandry is one thing that just really caught me off guard.

Guest 1 [00:33:57] And polyandry, you mean? What?

Guest 2 [00:33:59] So polyandry, meaning that Joseph Smith had had wives that were married to other men. A lot of times these men had the priesthood as well, and these men were alive, you know, I mean, why, why would a prophet of God need to get sealed to women that are already married to members of the church?

Guest 1 [00:34:23] And what about the 14, 15 year olds? Was that a problem?

Guest 2 [00:34:26] Of course. But you know, for some reason I think I kind of knew that. I just never let it bother me for some reason. You know, it's weird. It's weird. Now look like from the outside looking in, like, wow. You know, I mean, there are a lot of things, you know, but you Know, you just kind of. You go with it. You assume it's not a big deal.

Seeking a Meeting With Church Leadership

Guest 1 [00:34:47] So any big happenings prior to you trying to get an audience with Elder Clark? Anything you want to tell us about your story before we jump into.

Guest 2 [00:34:59] Yeah, yeah, I do want to say that, you know, a lot of people look, you know, maybe they'll look at a couple things. Maybe they'll peruse the, you know, see us letter, or they'll look at some of the concerns that people are having, and they'll see there's a defense with the church. Right. They'll see that the church has a stance or the apologetics have a stance. And a lot of people, I think. And a lot of times I think it stems from fear or comfort, you know, not wanting to step outside of something that's foreign to them. I don't know, there's probably a lot of psychological reasons to it, but they just look at the defense real quick.

Guest 2 [00:35:36] They just want to know there is a defense to it. Me, on the other hand, I was like, no, like, I really want to put this on trial. I want to see what the church is saying. I want to see what the truth is out there, you know, And I.

Guest 2 [00:35:51] You know what I mean? Like, I want to see what, you know, what stands up, you know, and so. And so I've been very sincere, you know, through this whole process. You know, I remember one day just whispering to myself, the church isn't true, you know, and it was the scariest thought I'd ever had.

Guest 1 [00:36:17] How long ago? How long ago was that? Do you remember what month this was?

Guest 2 [00:36:21] Probably November of 2016. Okay, November.

Guest 1 [00:36:25] So just four or five months ago.

Guest 2 [00:36:27] Yeah. And, you know, and this was something that I wanted to remember me being kind of a documentarian and, like, basically videoing my whole life. I did a lot of, like, video journal entries, you know, documenting my experience. And me now looking back on those.

Guest 2 [00:36:47] I mean, I watched a video just the other day from my experience, and it just. It tears me up inside because. Sorry. Because, you know, I was just. I felt so beaten down, you know, and confused, and I felt alone, and I felt like I couldn't talk anybody about it, you know, and. And, John, this is, you know, something I got to thank you for because, you know, your podcast saved my life.

Guest 2 [00:37:20] Because it's a hard thing, you know, it's not. This is not. I didn't want to leave the church, you know. Sorry. I didn't want to leave the church. You know, I was hoping that it would be true, but I couldn't go back on what I knew. It reminded me a lot of the Matrix. I'd taken the blue pill or the red pill, and I couldn't pretend that I'd taken the poop.

Guest 2 [00:37:51] But, yeah, I feel like there's a lot of people in my same boat. I know people personally that are going through this right now, and it's not. It's not an easy thing, and you don't quite understand it, you know, until you go through it.

Guest 2 [00:38:06] But the reason I document. I documented all these things was because people need that support. People need to know that they're not alone, you know, And I think that. I think that people need to know what the church's stance really is on this stuff. You know, when you make a.

Guest 2 [00:38:30] When you make a claim, you know, to be the only true church on the face of the earth, you know, I think it's important that you're honest, you know, if you have the most correct book that exists, you know, on Earth, I think it's important that that's true. I mean, these are big, big claims, you know, and so they should be able to back that up. And. Yeah. So anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there, but, yeah, I mean, that's beautiful.

Guest 1 [00:39:05] Thank you. And if I can just echo. If they're going to require 10% of your income, if they're going to keep you out of a temple and prevent you from attending the wedding of a loved one, if a faith crisis can jeopardize a marriage and a family, and if pronouncements about LGBT people or women can cause depression or anxiety or even suicide and death, the stakes are super high. And messages about sexuality that can lead someone who can't stop masturbating want to kill themselves or even cut themselves off, you know, cut. Cut off a part of them, because the trauma is so hard about not being able to stop being evil or dirty. The stakes are super high.

Guest 2 [00:39:46] And so, yeah, families are definitely being ripped apart by this. You know, like you said, people are killing themselves over this stuff. You know, and so I think they need to understand that people believe them in a very literal sense. You know, when they say they're prophets, seers, and revelators, we as members of the church, we believe that they're having this personal conversation or something or apparition with Jesus Christ, and they allow it to be assumed. And I think that's just not okay.

Guest 1 [00:40:23] Yeah, totally.

Guest 2 [00:40:25] But anyways.

Guest 1 [00:40:27] Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:40:27] I would like to say one thing that. I mean, maybe just kind of one last Thing that might help people out there that might be going through something similar. I know we want to get to, you know, to this recording and everything, but I just, I. You know, I feel like.

Guest 2 [00:40:48] Like a lot of people are afraid of leaving a religion, leaving the church, because you've had it your whole life, right? It's a scary frontier, you know, you don't know life without the church, but once you realize that you don't need a specific religion, like, life is, like, it's so exciting. Like, I wish I could talk to myself, you know, a year, six months ago or a year ago, and.

Guest 2 [00:41:17] And just say, like, it's gonna be awesome. You know, like, instead of assuming it's all taken care of, you can actually now go out and discover what actually brings you joy, who you really are, you know, what. What works for you, you know, so your life can. Can be the best life that you can be, you know, and you don't need religion. And John could. Could, you know, echo this, but you don't need religion to have God in your life. You don't need it to have morality or spirituality in your life.

Guest 2 [00:41:45] And I just. I learned how to separate those. But anyway, talking to my family about it, though, I. I listened to your panel discussion that you had, and it was.

Guest 1 [00:41:56] Which panel?

Guest 2 [00:41:56] So it was Mormon transitions. It was maybe in. I think it was January of this year, and maybe we can put a link to it after or something, I don't know. But you were talking about people transitioning, how to talk to people, and I think I was waiting for that. You know, I knew I had to talk to my family, you know, since I knew it wasn't true since November, and I was putting it off, putting it off. And it just got to the point where I was like, I need to deal with this. You know, this is not something that you can just forget about.

Guest 2 [00:42:27] And so, you know, it's like, I think everybody asks that, right? Do I write a letter? You know, do I. Do I make it all complicated? Do I just send a simple text? Like, what do I do? And I think one thing that helped me that, you know, kind of the conclusion that you and the panel came up with was keeping it simple, you know, and so when I talk to my siblings about was a conversation that we had, and I just said that my views had changed, you know, in regards to the church. And I'm, you know, we've decided not to participate. It's, you know, I don't want you to feel like I am going to ever try to Convince you this is what I believe, and I think it's important you know that.

Guest 2 [00:43:13] But, you know, we don't need to talk about it. It doesn't need to be awkward, you know, and if you ask me questions, obviously I'm going to be honest with you, but I'm never going to push any of this on you.

Guest 2 [00:43:26] The one exception was my parents. I kind of. And I, you know, and I regret that a little bit, but I think there were things said both ways that. That we regret, But I think it was just because I have such a close relationship with my parents. I just couldn't not tell them exactly why. And I gave them, like, maybe the CS letter and like in 20 minutes, you know, just.

Guest 1 [00:43:50] But.

Guest 2 [00:43:50] But all in all, I think it went well. Things are mending from then. It's been a couple months since I've told them. I don't feel like my family doesn't love me. I think it's all about love, understanding, patience on both sides, you know, and anyway, I told my parents, I said, I will talk to anybody, and, you know, we don't need to talk about it anymore. But if there's somebody you want me to talk to you about it, if it makes you feel better, I'll do it. And so they contacted my mission president, who's now Elder Clark, in the first quorum of the Seventy. He contacted me. We went to lunch first. And the first meeting, unfortunately, was pretty fruitless. I was disappointed a little bit because I was expecting to go in and get all these miraculous answers to all of my questions.

Guest 1 [00:44:40] How did you set up the meeting? You just emailed him and said, hey, let's talk. Did you.

Guest 2 [00:44:44] Yeah, we.

Guest 1 [00:44:45] Did you prime him in your email with your concerns?

Guest 2 [00:44:48] We talked on the phone. You know, I've stayed fairly close to him. He's been doing mission reunions, I mean, since he got back from the mission. Believe it or not, I was still going to mission reunions 15 years after my mission. So that'll give you. On the. On the member scale. I don't know. But anyway, so. So we've stayed very close. I talked to him on the phone, and we've had very open, sincere conversations about it, you know, and he used. Very kind and loving about it. But what was kind of disappointing was him not answering my questions and just more sidestepping everything and just kind of basically telling me.

Guest 2 [00:45:27] And I think he literally said. Said this. Look, I don't profess to know all the answers. I don't profess to be the smartest person, but I know people that do that. I'm too busy to try to figure all of that out.

Guest 2 [00:45:42] But there are guys that. That do spend their time doing that. And that was kind of scary to me because this is somebody in the first quorum of the 70s, somebody that could very well be an apostle for the church that says, I don't know. And that was. For me, that was.

Guest 2 [00:46:00] That was scary. You know, that was. It was disappointing. I just kind of. I left that meeting feeling very empty. He just. Every concern I had, he would say, just put it in an email. Go ahead and put it in an email. Put in an email.

Guest 2 [00:46:13] And. And, I mean, I guess I can understand. He wants to make sure he takes, you know, a good approach at it instead of debating it. He wants to maybe look through the things, you know, get familiar with it. But what ended up happening is he set up a second meeting, and this time it was with Matt Grow.

Guest 2 [00:46:35] And, you know, and so, as you know, Matt Grow is the director of publications for LDS Church History Department. So I was really excited to meet with this guy, you know, and this time I decided to record the conversation.

Guest 2 [00:46:53] And the biggest reason I decided to was because I wanted to have it for me personally, just to remember. Remember exactly what they said, what they believed, because I'm confused on their stance and what they actually believe. And I felt like this was a golden opportunity, a general authority with one of the top historians of the church.

Guest 2 [00:47:15] And I also wanted to have it so that I could prove to my parents that I was actually talking to these people, you know, and maybe share it with my close family, but that was it. One thing you'll notice when you listen to the conversation is it's not a debate. I didn't go in there with that mentality. I literally wanted to just go in and know what they truly believe. And so a lot of things I kind of. I went along with, but that wasn't my intention. You know, it was more just to be able to share with people what is at the heart of the church and what people are actually believing.

Guest 2 [00:47:52] And I honestly think. I mean, I honestly think them hearing this back or, you know, or finding out, because, you know, honestly, this is. This is gonna be a shock. They, you know, they are most likely unaware that this recording exists.

Guest 2 [00:48:10] I imagine they'll be shocked to find that I'm sharing it. But. But at the same time, I can't imagine them being too upset because this is what they believe and this is what they want to share with people, you know, so.

Guest 1 [00:48:24] So why wouldn't they? I mean, if he's a special witness for the church, if he's an authority figure, a general authority in the first quorum of the 70, what does he have to hide? Why would he want his testimony to be shared on the rooftops to all? And if Matt Grow represents the church history department, if he's at the highest levels, why would he not want to share with the world whatever wisdom he has to help people through a faith crisis? Right, Right.

Guest 2 [00:48:56] Absolutely. Absolutely. I believe this would be any message they would give to anybody that's doubting. And this is your audience, John. So I think they would actually be thrilled to be able to be talking to your audience today. So I hope that's how they see it, you know, because I, you know, I just. This is not like, hey, let's reveal who the wizard of Oz really is kind of thing. It's not like that. You know what I mean? It's. It's not in a demeaning way. I'm very sincere, and I want to share it with people that are in the same boat as I am.

Guest 1 [00:49:29] Right. And so real quickly, where did you meet? When did you meet? What was it like going into the room?

Guest 2 [00:49:36] So the second meeting, we first met in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and then Elder Clark walked me over to. And my wife came with me. She's so awesome. My wife came with me. She was holding my hand through the whole meeting. She was awesome. You won't hear her much. She laughs every once in a while, but she kind of leaves the talking to me. But she was there supporting me through the whole thing, which was awesome. We went into the Church History Museum.

Guest 2 [00:50:01] First thing I saw when I walked into the Church History Museum were those kind of bronze cut out, like, statues of the, you know, the witnesses with the Book of Mormon standing over the Book of Mormon, touching them, flipping through the plates.

Guest 2 [00:50:15] And I just got this just. Just sick feeling, you know, and just looking around, I was just like, wow. Like, I. Because I hadn't gone into some of these space, these spaces since I had left the church, you know, and so now to see it from a different perspective was crazy. Then he brought us up to whatever floor he was on. We walked around a little bit. Yeah. And we met deep inside this, The Church History Museum, up in his. Matt Gro's office.

Guest 1 [00:50:45] So you met in Matt Gro's office?

Guest 2 [00:50:47] Yep.

Guest 1 [00:50:48] Okay. I have to just ask. What was that like emotionally? You were an AP for this mission president who is so powerful now. He's a general authority. And you're not only meeting on his turf in the super powerful, ostentatious sort of environment, but you're admitting this super vulnerable thing, which is, I used to be up here in your eyes, and now I'm going to be down here in your eyes, and I'm going to be admitting that I don't believe anymore, and I'm really struggling. What's it like for you emotionally, to have to, you know, attend that event?

Guest 2 [00:51:28] A lot of nerves, A lot of anxiety leading up to it. It's not that I was nervous about the information that I was going to bring, but like I said, he's a very kind of intimidating kind of person, and I'd never quite stepped up, you know, and confronted him on anything or, you know, or anything like that. So it was definitely kind of a change as far as, like, how our relationship had been up to that point. And so, yeah, so it was. It was scary. I mean, it was similar to talking to my dad about it. You know, it's not the easiest thing, but it's something that needs to happen.

Guest 1 [00:52:08] Sure.

The Meeting With Elder Clarke and Matthew Grow

Part 2 of 7 · Ep. 712a

Guest 3 [00:00:00] Sa.

Guest 4 [00:00:28] For the next hour and 20 minutes, I'm going to play the meeting, the

Guest 5 [00:00:34] audio from the meeting that happened March

Guest 4 [00:00:37] 3, 2017 at LDS Church headquarters between Trevor and his former mission president, current General authority Don R. Clark, and Matthew

Guest 5 [00:00:48] Grow of the LDS Church History Department.

Guest 4 [00:00:52] Again, Matthew Grow's official title is Director of Publications at the Church History Department and general Editor of the Joseph Smith Papers. So this is a guy who more than anyone has seen and thought through

Guest 5 [00:01:08] the problems with LDS Church history.

Guest 4 [00:01:10] And we're going to hear how he and Elder Grow respond. Does that sound all right, everybody?

Guest 5 [00:01:17] Sounds like a plan.

Guest 4 [00:01:18] Sounds good. And we have panelists John Hamer, Lindsey Hanson Park, Glenn Oslin of Infants on Thrones, Lindsey of Sunstone and Glenn of Infants on Thrones. All are gonna be listening. And then after we play this recording, part three is going to be our reactions. We're just gonna kind of discuss it after we bring Trevor back just to talk briefly.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:01:42] Well, we really appreciate your guys time. I mean, you know, to give you a brief background of us in the church. She was a convert, she was baptized when she was 17. And so, and before that just I guess you could say evangelical.

Video Clip 1 [00:02:04] Yeah. And so that was a big thing that we had in common was the church, you know, when we met. And we both love the church. You know, I mean I grew up in the church, I'm third generation member and so it goes back a ways. And everybody I know is a member of the church. I mean it seems like, you know, I mean, not know, but my closest family and friends. Right. I mean everybody's a member of the church, you know, so, you know, leaving the church was not ever on my radar.

Video Clip 1 [00:02:40] Sure.

Video Clip 1 [00:02:40] It wasn't ever anything that I even gave any attention to or thought would ever happen.

Video Clip 1 [00:02:46] Yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:02:48] But it was, it was last, it was last year, last spring when I started having some doubts I've always had. Not always, but I would say over the last three, four years I'd had like certain things kind of pop up where I was like, huh, that's interesting. But you know.

Video Clip 1 [00:03:06] Right.

Video Clip 1 [00:03:07] We can't understand everything in this life. So I just kind of put it on the shelf or whatever, you know.

Video Clip 1 [00:03:11] Yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:03:11] And then, but then it was last summer when I came across the CES letter.

Video Clip 1 [00:03:16] Yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:03:17] You know, somebody had shared that with us and we read it together and you know, and, and basically, you know, I, the reason I looked into it was because I just, I started opening my mind a little bit because of all the travel that I've been doing. I guess we did a film on Buddhism last spring.

Video Clip 1 [00:03:36] And I remember as I was with these people, I was just thinking, man, if I was born here, would I have an open enough mind to even look at Mormonism? If I were born into a Buddhist family or Muslim or whatever, I would probably be Buddhist or Muslim just because tradition's strong. You know what I mean?

Video Clip 1 [00:03:56] Do I have an open enough mind to open my mind to additional ideas out there? You know what I mean? And so that's when I kind of. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm gonna just kind of look around. I'd never looked at another religion. I never read anything apart from the Book of Mormon and.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:14] Yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:14] And, you know, and the scriptures outlined by the church. And so I just started kind of opening my mind to it. That's how it started, you know, and that. And that's why I was open enough to read the CES letter.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:25] Right.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:26] And it was hard, you know. I'm sure you're familiar with the CES letter.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:31] Yeah. So let me just give you sort of.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:33] Yeah. Background.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:35] Background on me. So I'm a historian by training. I went to BYU and then went to Notre Dame for my PhD. Spent some time teaching at university there. And since I've been back in Utah in the past six years, my position here in the church history department as I'm our director of publication, which means I oversee the Joseph Smith Papers. I was involved in the production of the Gospel topics essays on sort of difficult questions. So, you know, as part of that, then I've had to, you know, and we also do some women's history projects, and we do the history section of lds.org so, you know, I've had, you know, that sort of opportunity through the Gospel topics essay process. Really?

Video Clip 1 [00:05:17] Yeah. You've definitely been exposed.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:19] Yes. So that's just kind of.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:21] That's awesome.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:22] Where I'm coming from.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:23] Well, great. Well, I'm glad to be sitting down with you. Yeah. Sounds like you probably know a lot more than the average time with it.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:30] Yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:31] Yeah, absolutely. But anyway, and then it just kind of, I guess, spiraled from there. You know what I mean? Kind of looked into that, and then I was like, there's no way.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:39] Yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:40] Because I just never heard of some of these things, and I'm 35 years old, and I was like, why? You know, and so I felt almost deceived.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:49] Yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:49] You know, for sure. And so. So it was. It was hurtful. I started looking into and not deceived from anybody that I know personally. You know, I mean, because we're all kind of. I look at us as. We're all in the same boat, but more just from like the upper ups of the church, you know what I mean?

Video Clip 1 [00:06:05] Yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:06:06] And I know that the church is trying to be a little more transparent with certain things, you know, but I think there's certain things that they just. They can't be without it, you know, losing some ground, you know. And so that's when I was just like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask these questions, you know. Yeah, I need to know. And so I.

Guest 4 [00:06:30] The first thing I did is I ordered how many books. Like, I mean, we were getting boxes and boxes from Amazon, you know, just Joseph Smith. And I felt like I was married to Joseph Smith last year. But.

Guest 4 [00:06:42] But read, you know, no man knows my history. Fawn Brody. I read Rough Stone Rolling. I read Mormon Enigma, you know, Emma's book, and then Mormon Origins, you know, An Insider's View by Grant Palmer. But I was also looking at the church's position as well, you know, especially when we first looked at the CES letter, I was cross checking and, you know, I mean, like, I had like five, six, seven different windows open, you know, and tabs. And I was just like, I couldn't believe what I was finding, you know. And so anyway, so.

Guest 5 [00:07:17] And in terms of the church's position, what do you mean by that?

Guest 4 [00:07:21] In terms of. Really, the church is claimed to be the only true church on the face of the planet. You know, that's, that's a, that's a really strong statement to make.

Guest 5 [00:07:32] Right, Right.

Guest 4 [00:07:32] Right. You know, and there's very few, if any, churches that make that claim, you know.

Guest 5 [00:07:37] Right.

Guest 4 [00:07:38] I mean, I think all churches believe that they're on the right path or, you know what I mean, the most correct or direct path to God. But I just, you know, with the LDS Church, it's very clear cut that it's the only true church, you know, and it has to be. Obviously, with the restoration and everything, it's kind of all or nothing. Right.

Guest 4 [00:07:59] So anyway, and so I. The first thing I did is I went to my bishop, who. He was Elder Amado. He's so. He was a. He was one of the 70. And I actually knew him from the mission. He would come and speak in Trinidad. Veronica knew him before and everything. And it's kind of cool that he's our bishop now. He's our bishop now, so it's really cool. Yeah. But we took. I took about you know, maybe 10, 10 big concerns to him, you know, and. And unfortunately, he, you know, he just couldn't answer them, you know, and. And. And I appreciate the fact that he wasn't making stuff up.

Guest 4 [00:08:33] Right. You know, I just said, look, if you don't know, like, it's fine just to say you don't know. But I just. Yeah, I want to know if. If you know something I don't. And so that was kind of a fruitless conversation, unfortunately. Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:08:47] And then. And then. Yeah. And then just started talking to other leaders in the church, other people that I know that are strong in the church. Recently I tried talking to my parents about it, and they won't have it, which was really probably the biggest blow to me, because when I first told my parents, confiding in my parents, instead of kind of a loving, I don't know, acceptance from them, it was more kind of like a disappointment.

Guest 5 [00:09:25] Right.

Guest 4 [00:09:26] Like I'm now the embarrassment of the family.

Guest 5 [00:09:28] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:09:29] Why would you have. Why would you even say that? You know, kind of thing? And they won't even look at anything.

Guest 5 [00:09:35] Right.

Guest 4 [00:09:35] And so that's when I started being like, wow, there's even more. More going on here than I thought. And that's when I started seeing the mind control happening. You know what I mean? And that's when. That's when I was like, the Mormon

Guest 5 [00:09:51] Church is a cult. Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:09:52] I mean, I know that's a strong word to say, but. But, you know, I've read. I've read books on. On, you know, on. On mind control and what is a cult and all this kind of stuff. And we always look at outside churches like they're crazy, like Scientology and.

Discussing the CES Letter With Church Leaders

Guest 5 [00:10:06] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:10:07] I mean, it's like, how can people even believe that? But now, from the outside looking in, I see it with the LDS Church, and it's really sad because I'm like Mom and dad, like, if you really care about me, you know, and you believe that my salvation is on the line, why wouldn't you at least sit down with me and go over some of my concerns, you know, But. But they won't, you know, and so that's scary to me.

Guest 3 [00:10:32] Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:10:33] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:10:34] I mean, you know.

Guest 5 [00:10:35] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:10:35] I mean, obviously you're. You're. You're. You're not in that boat because you look at the stuff.

Guest 5 [00:10:42] I mean, I'll just say, I think from. From both sides in that kind of a situation.

Guest 4 [00:10:45] Right.

Guest 5 [00:10:46] That being a member of the church is so much of who we are.

Guest 4 [00:10:50] That's right. Right.

Guest 5 [00:10:51] That is. It's painful when it's painful for me, that's very true. It's also very painful for them.

Guest 4 [00:10:56] Well, and I was having this conversation with Elder Clark is that it's tough to have a conversation like this with somebody you love and not make it personal because people's beliefs and who they are is so intertwined.

Guest 5 [00:11:07] Intertwined with our beliefs. Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:11:09] That you knock somebody's belief and you're knocking them as a person and I.

Guest 5 [00:11:12] Right.

Guest 4 [00:11:13] You know what I mean? And so I don't want that to come across ever.

Guest 5 [00:11:16] Right.

Guest 4 [00:11:16] But I've realized that I can't talk to the people that I care most about.

Guest 5 [00:11:20] Right.

Guest 4 [00:11:22] Regarding the stuff because it just. It's too damaging. Well, yeah, he's the exception. He's the exception. And I told him that. I said, you are the exception. I mean when I first told Elder Clark, the first response was that he loves us, you know, and so that was really awesome. And we had a real open conversation about it and he was just honest with me and has facilitated this meeting.

Guest 5 [00:11:49] Right. So I mean I'm hearing sort of a number of different sort of areas of concern. Right. There's an infinite sort of the universalism of the church versus kind of this particular church truth claims.

Guest 4 [00:12:04] Right.

Guest 5 [00:12:05] One is the sort of. The sort of. Is the church kind of a cult like mind controlling sort of behavior corporation. And then one is kind of, you know, what you would have encountered in the CDS letter. Right. Kind of like these specific historical or doctrinal.

Guest 4 [00:12:22] That's right.

Guest 5 [00:12:22] Sort of issues.

Guest 4 [00:12:23] You nailed it on the head.

Guest 5 [00:12:24] Okay, well then that would be it.

Guest 4 [00:12:27] And the third is obviously the biggest. The other two have come.

Guest 5 [00:12:31] The other two are kind of fruits of the third.

Guest 4 [00:12:33] That's right.

Guest 5 [00:12:35] So you know, I'm happy to talk through. The CS letter is an interesting thing. Most of the claims in the CES letter, most of the statements and I would say from my perspective, certainly a lot of what is the. There is factual. A lot is factual. But put in the, the worst possible light.

Guest 4 [00:12:57] Right.

Guest 5 [00:12:57] And then, then I think there's also errors in.

Guest 4 [00:13:00] Right. In, in.

Guest 5 [00:13:01] In the letter.

Guest 3 [00:13:01] So.

Guest 4 [00:13:02] So yeah. And I've read that Fair Mormon came in and sure did a debunking of it and I read that as well because I wanted to be, you know what I mean, fair on it.

Guest 5 [00:13:11] Right.

Guest 4 [00:13:12] And so I know the things that are exaggerated and we knew that going into it. It's like, okay, this is obviously from a Right disaffected members.

Guest 3 [00:13:20] Sure.

Guest 5 [00:13:21] So you know, there's, you know, and the letter of the CS director is sort of the, the kitchen sink approach. Right, right. Let's not look at one thing in, in a whole lot of detail, but did you know this? And what about this? And what about this?

Guest 3 [00:13:35] What about this?

Guest 5 [00:13:36] And what about this? Right. And, and, and, and, and, and I totally get that. That reading it through is sort of an overwhelming.

Guest 3 [00:13:42] Right.

Guest 5 [00:13:43] It experience. And you can say, well, even if half of this is true, what. What is going on here? Right, right. That, that sort of experience. So Elder Clark did share with me the email.

Guest 3 [00:13:54] Your.

Guest 4 [00:13:55] Your email.

Guest 5 [00:13:55] Just, just.

Guest 4 [00:13:56] So I saw my top five.

Guest 5 [00:13:58] Yeah. And, and so I, I guess, you know, where would you like to start?

Guest 4 [00:14:06] I mean, it's open right there.

Guest 5 [00:14:08] What could I do?

Guest 4 [00:14:09] Oh, is that it? Yeah, I just printed it out, actually. Cool.

Guest 5 [00:14:12] Yeah. Just to.

Guest 4 [00:14:13] Well, okay. So, no, I mean, and some of it may not apply to you as much as other.

Guest 5 [00:14:19] I'm not an archaeologist. Right, right.

Guest 4 [00:14:22] I would love your take on the stuff, though. I mean, you know, and if you don't have a comment on it, that's totally fine.

Guest 5 [00:14:28] Let's just kind of, just kind of

Guest 4 [00:14:30] brush through it, I guess.

Guest 5 [00:14:31] Right. So of course, your number one is this kind of question of the spiritual witness and this kind of universalism. And I guess my main sense of that would be that I think sometimes the rhetoric in the church has been, you know, or can be taken to be that we are the only true church and we are the only one with truth.

Guest 4 [00:14:54] Right, right.

Guest 5 [00:14:55] But I think that if we look throughout church history, I mean, there's very clear prophetic statements that truth is everywhere.

Guest 4 [00:15:03] Right.

Guest 5 [00:15:03] You know, there is truth in Islam, there is truth in Buddhism. There is. Confucius was a great spiritual teacher.

Guest 4 [00:15:11] Right.

Guest 5 [00:15:14] You know, I think one way to even look at Joseph Smith or to think about him was that he was willing to sort of get truth from wherever he could find it. Right. So, for example, one issue that kind of trips people up sometimes is masonry.

Guest 5 [00:15:32] Right. And my take on that would be that Joseph saw some truth in masonry, takes it, incorporates it into larger truth. Right. So he's looking for truth everywhere he goes. And I think that we should be doing the same. Right. I mean, there's truth in all the great world religions, and we shouldn't be scared of that. And then certainly I think what the church would say is unique is the sort of authority piece. Right.

Guest 5 [00:16:01] The priesthood piece on top of that. But I think, you know, so I think part of, you know, in growing up in the church, I think sometimes there's kind of these mixed signals. Right, right. And that's what I'm hearing from you in part, like, why didn't I know some of this stuff until I was 35? Like, that doesn't seem right.

Guest 4 [00:16:24] Right.

Guest 5 [00:16:25] Why wasn't the church more transparent? But let's maybe get into those transparency questions in a minute. So, you know, I'm not sure that I'll have a lot of great perspectives on that. Sort of. Is the church the only true church? But I think that's the way I look at it is that there's truth everywhere.

Guest 4 [00:16:41] Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:16:42] And then I think, you know, we're on really good sort of Mormon ground for saying that.

Guest 4 [00:16:47] Right.

Guest 5 [00:16:47] I mean, I think there's lots of prophetic statements in the past that, you know, there's sort of a first presidency statement in, I don't know, 1978 or something that says, you know, look at all these great world leaders or thinking, like, Confucius and Buddha and that sort of thing.

Guest 4 [00:17:05] Yeah. And our whole thing is, you know, you have truth. Let us add to that, you know, and that's kind of what I. That's how I always take it. What confuses me is when things are in direct contradiction to, like, for example, the breakoffs of the church, our LDS church, you know, faith or whatever. And it's like they have different prophets than we have, but yet their testimony is just as strong as somebody in the LDS Church.

Guest 5 [00:17:38] Or an evangelical testimony will be just as strong and just as heartfelt.

Guest 4 [00:17:42] But that one's not as in contradiction because you could say, well, of course, because they have the base of Jesus Christ and we just want to add to that. So I can see that. But the ones that are in direct contradiction to each other, those are the ones that get me hung up. Does that make sense? Because. Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:17:59] And you see that particularly, like, in a community.

Guest 4 [00:18:01] That's right. Like, I believe Warren Jeffs, you know.

Guest 5 [00:18:05] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:18:05] Was a true prophet of God and all this kind of stuff. And they're crying and, you know, and you feel the spirit and all that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, that's confusing. And so I'm not saying that like, you know, I'm just saying that for me, like, it just got to the point where I couldn't. I couldn't base everything on that anymore.

Guest 5 [00:18:23] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:18:23] Because there's conditioning that comes along with that. History, tradition, memories, spiritual experiences that I've lassoed to the church.

Guest 5 [00:18:32] Right.

Guest 4 [00:18:33] You know, and so I'm trying to just separate. Because, as you know, from my introduction, I do believe in God and I believe in spiritualism. I'm just trying to separate my spiritual experiences and religion a little bit.

Guest 5 [00:18:45] Right.

Guest 4 [00:18:45] And so that's kind of how that's my number one, is that. Is that, you know, I was basing everything off of that. Any concern that I would have, I would just sweep it under the rug because I'd say, well, I feel good about it.

Guest 5 [00:18:57] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:18:57] But that's what every other person could say, you know, in the world. Scientologists.

Guest 5 [00:19:02] Right.

Guest 4 [00:19:02] You know what I mean? People that are part of.

Guest 5 [00:19:04] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:19:05] Just crazy organizations. And so I think just because I've seen so much of that, I'm like. I put myself under the magnifying glass a little bit and realized, like, I can't. Yeah. I can't. I can't, like, accuse others of, like, you know, following a false feeling and not put myself in that same basket of judgment.

Guest 5 [00:19:27] Right. I understand that. And feel free to weigh in on anything. Elder Clark.

Guest 4 [00:19:31] Yeah. You're doing just fine.

Guest 5 [00:19:33] Yeah. So the second kind of area of concern is the Book of Abraham. Yeah. Maybe that's what, you know, obviously, is

The Book of Abraham and Scriptural Evidence

Guest 4 [00:19:43] more stuff that you might be able to help.

Guest 5 [00:19:45] And of course, you know, most of this would be drawn, like, directly from CEOs.

Guest 4 [00:19:49] Exactly. Exactly.

Guest 5 [00:19:52] Have you read the Gospel topics essays?

Guest 4 [00:19:54] You know, I've read them in parts, but I haven't read all of them. And I would say I've read probably 70%. Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:20:03] Okay.

Guest 4 [00:20:04] But I haven't read them all in their entirety.

Guest 5 [00:20:06] Okay. Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:20:08] But I have read what they do have on. On the Book of Abraham.

Guest 5 [00:20:11] Okay. So you read the Book of Abraham essay.

Guest 4 [00:20:13] Yeah, I did. And it didn't quite, like. Like. Like there was some justification. There is how I saw it, but it didn't quite, like, answer it 100% for me. You know what I mean?

Guest 5 [00:20:24] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:20:25] But talk to me a little bit about it.

Guest 5 [00:20:26] Just kind of give you my perspective on Abraham. Right. So we know that the problem is that on a surviving scrap of papyri, and of course, we have to remember we've only got 10 or 11 of these scraps of papyri. Everything else is gone. Right. Destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire and all this kind of thing. On one of the surviving scraps of papyri as part of facsimile one. Right. And we know then that what we know is facsimile one, Egyptologists would say, you know, is a funerary text.

Guest 4 [00:21:00] Right, Right.

Guest 5 [00:21:02] And we know as well that the scrap that we have of papyrus doesn't date to Abraham's time.

Guest 4 [00:21:11] That's right.

Guest 5 [00:21:11] Right. It dates to the 1st century BC or 1st century AD around there. So that's the core problem, right?

Guest 4 [00:21:19] Yes.

Guest 5 [00:21:19] And I think there's sort of. There's two basic ways to think about it, Right. One is that maybe Joseph had other things, you know, so we know he had these scrolls of papyru, and we know the other scraps of papyri don't seem to have anything to do with Abraham.

Guest 4 [00:21:36] Right.

Guest 5 [00:21:37] So someone.

Guest 4 [00:21:38] Maybe there was, maybe. And that's what I read, is that, you know, we're seeing what we have.

Guest 5 [00:21:43] Right.

Guest 4 [00:21:44] But it's so minimal in what Joseph

Guest 5 [00:21:47] may have compared to what he had. We know there's good descriptions that he has roles, papyrus, and we know we just have some scraps. For me, the more persuasive way to think about Abraham. And I think this goes along with sort of Joseph's career as a translator, if we can use that kind of terminology. Yes, yeah. So we know he has two impulses when he encounters an ancient text. One impulse is more what we would term a scholarly impulse or more of a kind of traditional translation impulse. And one is more of a translation, a spiritual impulse. So when he gets the Book of Mormon, one of his impulses is to take some of the characters to a scholar and say, do these match up? That's the kind of Charles Anthon story. And of course, we know then the other is this kind of of spiritual

Guest 4 [00:22:43] impulse

Guest 5 [00:22:46] when he wants to translate the Bible, you know, produce what we call the inspired version of the Bible. Right. So he's reading through. We know that he's consulting scholarly works as he does that. Right. He's got biblical commentaries, of course, and grew up. Right?

Guest 4 [00:23:04] Yeah. I mean, he grew up in a very Protestant heavy, I mean, people doing the tours. And I mean, he knew the Bible a lot more than we give him credit.

Guest 5 [00:23:14] Right. And so then his other impulse is he claims that, you know, he says that some of the Bible revisions just coming through straight revelation. Right. So, for example, the book of Moses, which is kind of the twin book in the Pearl of Great price Book of Abraham. How does the book of Moses come? Joseph just says it comes.

Guest 4 [00:23:33] Yeah, it's just Revelation.

Guest 5 [00:23:35] So he's working on the Old Testament with the Bible revision, and then it comes as Revelation. So there's kind of the scholarly impulse. You know, he's trying to study some things out. Then he says it comes through Revelation. So fast forward a few years. And of course, Joseph is fascinated by ancient languages.

Guest 3 [00:23:56] Right.

Guest 5 [00:23:56] I mean, he talks about, you know, can we recover the Adamic language? Right. I mean, there's real interest in language. He studies Hebrew, you know, all this. He studies Hebrew, he studies Greek, you know, all this sort of thing. What does he do when he gets the papyrus? They try to figure it out.

Guest 4 [00:24:14] Yeah. He treats it more of a scholarly kind of. Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:24:16] Initially, that seems to be very much what they're doing. So we have a set of records that we call the Kirtland Egyptian papers. They're mostly in the hands of Joseph scribes, but Joseph has some writing on those pages as well. And it seems like what they're doing is they're copying characters from the papyrus, trying to figure out how they might relate to each other. And of course, at this point, no one can read Egyptian. Right. The Rosetta stone is like 10 years earlier. No one knows about it. Right. So they're trying to. They're trying to kind of puzzle this out.

Guest 4 [00:24:47] Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:24:49] And then the book of Abraham comes. So another way to think about it is that the papyrus is the catalyst for the revelation. And the revelation. The text of Abraham may be on the papyrus or it may not be. Right.

Guest 4 [00:25:08] I could see how.

Guest 5 [00:25:09] But the papyrus sort of catalyzes a Book of Moses type experience.

Guest 4 [00:25:14] It kind of sparks. Yeah. Sparks the topic. And then he consults and gets spiritual revelation and creates a workaround. And.

Guest 5 [00:25:24] And one problem that we have with almost understanding almost all these issues is that we wish we had more records on them. So Joseph never tells us how he gets the book of Abraham. He never tells us how he translates it. Even his scribes tells very little about the book of Abraham. Wilford Woodruff tells a few years later that maybe he used his Urim and Thummim or his hearstone on it. Other one of the scribes says he just dictated by sort of the power of God. Right. And so I think those are the two basic ways that people would think about. One is that, well, maybe it's just not there because we don't have.

Guest 5 [00:26:06] And the second is this could be just a funerary text, or it could be a funerary text that, you know, is two millennias later from Abraham. But that doesn't mean that it couldn't contain writings of Abraham. Right. It gets passed down over time or something like that. But maybe the funerary text is the catalyst by which Jesus.

Guest 4 [00:26:30] And that's basically what the papers say, you know, And I can see that perspective. I can see that. You know what I mean? It's just unfortunate that everything that we have as a testable, you know, item, just to test his translation abilities is proven a fraud. And so that's. It's.

Guest 5 [00:26:56] Well, I'd say. I'd say it's untestable. Well, which is a different sort of. Which is a different sort of question than fraud.

Guest 4 [00:27:03] Right.

Guest 5 [00:27:04] So let me just throw in one thing.

Guest 4 [00:27:07] What about the facsimiles, though? Those are testable though, when we agree that the facsimiles from what the Egyptologists,

Guest 5 [00:27:16] I would say that it's not a correct Egyptological translation. That doesn't mean that there isn't revelatory power behind affectionately or that they're given a new meaning.

Guest 4 [00:27:28] Okay. So from the world standpoint, it can be viewed as straight up front, but they don't take into consideration the spiritual aspects of.

Guest 5 [00:27:36] Right, yeah. So no one's going to tell you that that facsimile one is a correct Egyptological translation. You've got people like John Key and others at BYU who would say, well, actually this God does match. I mean, they can put some interesting things on the table that'll kind of give you a pause and say there does seem to be some Egyptological things going along in this facsimile that Joseph wouldn't have had access to. But certainly, I mean, no one disputes that facsimile one is kind of this correct Egyptological translation. But I would say that doesn't mean that it's not imbued with new meaning in a new context, which is kind of what I was trying to masonry.

Guest 5 [00:28:16] Right. Joseph takes something out of one context and brings it into a different context and it's imbued with new meaning, new power, that sort of thing. I totally think that we need to follow the prophet and I honor the prophets at the same time.

Guest 5 [00:28:31] Should we march around the kids nursery to follow the prophet? Right. Because it sort of can create that sort of sense that you're talking about. I mean, I think we do need a better understanding about what a prophet is.

Guest 4 [00:28:44] Yeah, Everything that is testable from Joseph, even Zelph, you know, the skull that he found, he said, this is Zelph from the great Lamanite army or whatever. And that was, you know, proven false. So it's like anything that's, that's testable on his ability to translate or see ancient documents for what they are, has basically just been shot to heck for me. You know, I mean, obviously we don't, like you said, we don't have enough to be able to really test it.

Guest 5 [00:29:20] Right.

Guest 4 [00:29:20] I mean, we don't have the plates, we don't have all the papyrus. We don't you know, but just. It's a big concern because everything we do have points to the fact that he wasn't very good at it.

Guest 5 [00:29:30] And by everything, we're talking really sort of Book of Abraham and Book of Abraham.

Guest 4 [00:29:36] Yeah. And so. And I mean, there's other things we can look at with the Book of Mormon, you know, and you could come up with theories of how it was written. You know what I mean? But, you know, taking the view of Hebrews, the great, you know, the late war.

Guest 5 [00:29:53] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:29:53] You know, I mean, there's so many books that exist around that time. The 1769, you know, King James version of the Bible.

Guest 5 [00:30:00] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:30:01] I mean, you take all of that stuff and you can construct a story pretty easily based on material that he would have had, you know, that was written before the Book of Mormon, that he could have constructed it. But. But there's nothing testable like this, though,

Guest 5 [00:30:17] on that sort of stuff. I would say if.

Guest 3 [00:30:20] If.

Guest 5 [00:30:20] If, like, you have a. The Hebrews is, you know, you.

Guest 3 [00:30:23] You.

Guest 5 [00:30:24] You know, and I know CS director makes a big deal out of you of the Hebrew and the late Great War and all these things.

Guest 4 [00:30:29] Right.

Guest 5 [00:30:30] You know, I'd say, go read them.

Guest 4 [00:30:32] I've read them.

Guest 5 [00:30:33] Have you?

Guest 4 [00:30:33] I read. I read the view of the Hebrews, and I. And I read through the late war, but you get to page, like 20, and you're like, okay, this is. You know what I mean? It's not worth my time. It's just the verbiage, you know, and it came to pass. I mean, it sounds like you're reading the Book of Mormon, you know, so I could see that there's valid arguments, but the reason they're not in here is because they're theories.

Guest 5 [00:30:55] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:30:56] You know what I mean? And so.

Guest 5 [00:30:58] Yeah. And I think those arguments really get down to this question of the verbiage of the Book of Mormon.

Guest 4 [00:31:05] Right.

Guest 5 [00:31:07] The last couple years, I've worked a lot on the records of the Council 50. You may know a little bit about that group. Brigham Young has a really interesting statement in that council. He basically says, I wouldn't be stumbled if the prophet translated the Bible 40 times over. And it was different every time. He says, why? Because God always speaks in basically in the verbiage of his translator.

Guest 3 [00:31:37] Right.

Guest 5 [00:31:38] And so I thought it was a really striking, you know,

Guest 4 [00:31:45] that these are spiritual translations. They're not literal word for word like we do. You know what I mean? Like translator, Like Google Translate.

Guest 5 [00:31:55] Right.

Guest 4 [00:31:55] Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:31:56] He's more impressed interpreting his own language.

Guest 4 [00:31:59] Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Guest 5 [00:32:01] So Anyway, you know, I was going to mention earlier, so you probably have heard of Terrell Givens.

Guest 4 [00:32:10] Yeah, of course. Crucible of Doubt.

Guest 5 [00:32:12] Yeah, I read that book. Yeah. So I got to work with Terrell on a project once and I've heard Terrell talk about this. Basically says, you know, all of these questions at the end of the day are just going to be muddled. Right. Because. And you can march evidence on one side, you can marshal evidence on the other side. And that's the way God left it.

Guest 4 [00:32:31] Right.

Guest 5 [00:32:33] Because of that rule of faith or that role of, you know, so I think that's why.

Guest 4 [00:32:41] Except I think, I think that the Church, though, redefines how faith is though. Okay. Because before I thought, you know, where logic ends, you know, and science ends. You know what I mean? And God, you know, is I feel like there's a bridge of faith, you know, and that's, that's, that's like classic, you know, definition of faith. But I think the LDS Church redefines that in a way that's like, in spite of logic, science, DNA, archaeological evidence, all of that. In spite of that, have faith.

Guest 5 [00:33:16] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:33:17] And so that's, and that's my next,

Guest 5 [00:33:19] I think it's my next on all those questions. Those are, those are all in those kind of muddled sort of areas. But yeah, you know, you know, I'm no expert on sort of.

Guest 4 [00:33:30] Right.

Guest 5 [00:33:31] Mormon archaeology or things like that, you know.

Guest 3 [00:33:34] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:33:35] The DNA analysis, anachronisms, archaeological. I mean, what, why?

Guest 5 [00:33:40] Have you read the Church's essay on DNA?

Guest 4 [00:33:43] I have. And that's, it's kind of like the book of Abraham where it's like, okay, I could see it wasn't convincing to me, but if I, but if I were like, I'll just follow the spirit on this one kind of thing, you know, then I could maybe look past it. But, but the fact that like, there's zero. I mean, Jerusalem exists, you know what I mean? We have, you know, the Roman Empire, we have so many like, you know, just so much data pointing to the fact that those people actually at least lived. And I think that faith comes in at that point where it's like, okay, you know, Jesus Christ may have been an actual person, but I need to have faith to believe that he did all of the miracles that he did.

Guest 4 [00:34:30] That to me would be faith. If there was no Jerusalem and there's no evidence pointing to that the people actually even existed, you know, and it was a made up fictional story, I don't think you'd have nearly as many Christians in the world, because it'd be a made up story, you know, and that, that's how I look at the Book of Mormon is that if after, you know, 150, I mean, gosh, going on 200 years, we don't have any archaeological evidence directly supporting the Book of Mormon, that to me is a big deal because we're not talking a few hundred thousand people, we're talking millions of people that like, I mean, there was a war supposedly by Hill Cumorah that numbered in like a couple million, you know, and so where would the, I mean, maybe the bones and the hair, I mean, you would find that in the dirt, I think. But, but even if that went away, like, where's the armor and the swords and the. You know what I mean? Just anything.

Guest 5 [00:35:29] Right, right.

Guest 4 [00:35:29] You know, so that, that's, that's, that's probably. If there were a smoking gun for me, that to me was like, boom. That was probably the domino that started everything else.

Guest 5 [00:35:39] Oh, interesting.

Guest 4 [00:35:40] Yeah, yeah. So that was the big one.

Guest 5 [00:35:43] Have you read John Sorensen's work?

Guest 4 [00:35:45] Not as much as I would like

Guest 5 [00:35:46] to, but because, you know, if I were channeling John Sorensen, I think he would say actually there's lots of archaeological or textual evidence that the Book of Mormon is an ancient book. Right. There's traces in the book or there's traces. And certainly there's no sort of remains that say, like, you know, this is Nephite. Right, of course.

Guest 4 [00:36:10] But there's theories, though, is what I see from Sorensen. Sure, there's theories. And like this is where this could have happened.

Guest 5 [00:36:15] Right.

Guest 4 [00:36:16] You know what I mean?

Guest 5 [00:36:17] And there's lots of archaeological remains of people in the Americas. Oh, of course, right.

Guest 4 [00:36:20] Yeah. But not in the time of, of when the Nephites and the Lamanites would have lived. It's more like when I would go to the ruins.

Guest 5 [00:36:28] The Olmecaster is, you know, in that same time period.

Guest 4 [00:36:31] Right. Well, I know they found ruins that date back to 15,000 years ago in Texas. Yeah, but that's not Book of Mormon times. Yeah, but I'm just saying that, yeah, they found some stuff, but it just, it's not the Book of Mormon people, you know, and so I don't know.

Guest 5 [00:36:50] Right.

Guest 4 [00:36:50] I mean, when it's in the millions and you talk about them burying their swords, you know, and the streets that they would have had. I mean, they're talking about giant civilizations, man. I mean, they had to have had, you know, they had chariots.

Guest 5 [00:37:05] Talk about fortifications and cities.

Guest 4 [00:37:07] Yeah. And so I Don't know, it's, it's. That's to me where faith is redefined, you know. And so that section's a big one for me. Things like horses, cattle, oxen, sheep, swine, goats, elephants, wheels, like all that stuff just didn't exist before Columbus. And it's in the Book of Mormon. And so just no archaeologists would be able to stand by the Book of Mormon as a historical record.

Guest 5 [00:37:37] So. Yeah, I don't know if I can give you.

Guest 4 [00:37:39] Okay, that's fine.

Guest 5 [00:37:40] But. And the anachronism, I'd say that same thing about verbiage, right. I mean, Joseph only has the words that he has, right. So if they're describing an animal, a South American animal, let's say, and Joseph doesn't have the word for it, what word's he going to use?

Guest 4 [00:37:56] Right. And that's where you think, where you know, the tapir comes and you know, it's a tapir instead of a horse and all this kind of stuff. And I could see one or two or three things. But like, but like sheep, swine, goats, elephants. Like elephants, like, you know, like that.

Guest 3 [00:38:12] Sure.

Guest 4 [00:38:13] What would that be? But, you know, anyway, so.

Guest 5 [00:38:17] Right. And I do know that some of this stuff is disputed, like the steel of the iron.

Guest 4 [00:38:21] And of course there are, there are a couple things that are silk and stuff.

Guest 5 [00:38:25] Right, right, right.

Guest 4 [00:38:25] But I just threw them all in there because they're all issues, you know what I mean?

Guest 5 [00:38:29] Right. And the DNA is an interesting issue.

Guest 3 [00:38:32] Right.

Guest 5 [00:38:32] I mean, it's, you know, to,

Guest 4 [00:38:39] I

Guest 5 [00:38:39] guess I find more convincing sort of this idea that of course, you know, there's pre existing peoples in the Americas. Lehi and his family come here, who knows what DNA they have, first of all, Right. I mean, because we, you know, it's not like we have a sample from Lehi. The example in the church essay is this a geneticist who's Italian, who's a member of the church, and his DNA says he's Mongolian or something.

Guest 4 [00:39:06] Right.

Guest 5 [00:39:06] I mean, it's just, you know, DNA is tricky because we don't know Lehi's DNA. First of all, we don't know the founder DNA. So that's what you would call the founder effect. Right. So you don't know the DNA that you're beginning with. You don't know the extent of intermarriage that happens when they get here. Right. Was it the original Lehigh DNA kind of swamped by intermarriage with any pre existing peoples?

Guest 4 [00:39:31] Yeah, I've read, I've read on that. I Think your biggest point is what. Whether his DNA was Semitic or not.

Guest 5 [00:39:37] Right.

Guest 4 [00:39:37] Because, you know, when they brought the daughters of Ishmael and all that, I mean, from there you can kind of see that, but you don't know. I mean.

Guest 5 [00:39:47] Yeah. I mean, you're still starting with a relatively small group of people.

Guest 4 [00:39:51] That's right. That's right.

Guest 5 [00:39:52] Other thing population geneticists look at is if they're sort of, you know, big catastrophes in a civilization because those will change the DNA sort of makeup and you know. Or the catastrophes in the Book of Mormon. Well, you know, a few here and there.

Guest 4 [00:40:10] I mean, don't we believe though that Lehi and his family were one of the first ones in America?

Guest 5 [00:40:18] I don't think we know that. Okay. I don't think we.

Guest 3 [00:40:21] I don't think the church has that said that.

Guest 4 [00:40:22] Okay.

Guest 3 [00:40:23] We know that. We know the Malachites came different place. So. Right. Isn't impossible.

Guest 4 [00:40:30] The Jaredites are already here.

Guest 5 [00:40:33] Right.

Guest 3 [00:40:34] Jaredites were here long before.

Guest 4 [00:40:36] Right.

Guest 3 [00:40:36] And so it is not impossible to believe that other groups, for whatever reason.

Guest 4 [00:40:40] Right.

Guest 3 [00:40:40] Were here, did never keep their records. It's just like. Just like the twelve tribes of Israel left. Okay. Who knows where they went, how they got there and someday we'll have their record. But I think the trouble is.

Guest 4 [00:40:54] Oh, sorry.

Guest 3 [00:40:54] I think it's more this way.

Guest 4 [00:40:56] Yeah.

Guest 3 [00:40:56] And I think what CES letter tries to do is put everything this way.

Guest 4 [00:41:00] Right, Right.

Guest 3 [00:41:01] I mean, if you just think about this whole DNA thing, I mean.

Guest 4 [00:41:04] Yeah.

Guest 3 [00:41:04] It's interesting. People come over here, they now have a new family history. It shows what they're heritage. Was a guy that thought he was ex on tv. Excuse me, that's been on tv. The guy said he thought he was this. And he found out he was 70% Italian. Now he's wanting to do this because he had no. He thought for 100% sure that he was. And we have no idea where all of Lehi's. We have no history of Lehi. Right. So he could have easily been a conglomeration from other places.

Guest 4 [00:41:35] But doesn't the intro to the Book of Mormon say the principal ancestors of. And they changed it?

Guest 5 [00:41:41] That's right. I mean, I think it is true that, you know, people in Latter Day Saints in the 1800s generally assumed that all American Indians were descendants of Lehi. And I think over time we've understood that that's probably a misreading of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon doesn't say that.

Guest 4 [00:42:00] Right.

Guest 5 [00:42:00] Book of Mormon is kind of silent on this question. So it's an assumption that people have brought to the text.

Guest 4 [00:42:04] So the introduction was made after the fact. Yeah, right.

Guest 3 [00:42:09] Just said, wait a minute.

Guest 4 [00:42:10] Just trying to.

Guest 5 [00:42:11] Introduction. It's written by a church Committee in 1920.

Guest 4 [00:42:13] That's right. Which I'm sure was approved of the original, but I'm sure it was approved by the prophet.

Guest 5 [00:42:19] Right, sure. Just like I would say, you know, the Gospel Topics essays were approved by the First Presidency. There's a mistake in the Gospel topic is there's a historical error. There's a error in the science. I don't impute that to the First Presidency. I impute that to, you know, people doing the best they can at the time. And certainly the First Presidency, you know, weighed in on questions of doctrine and presentation.

Guest 4 [00:42:47] But don't these men talk to God, though, more than we do?

Guest 5 [00:42:50] Well, what do you think that means?

Guest 4 [00:42:51] Talk to God? That's a good question. Because I always thought that the prophet would go to the temple and talk to God almost face to face.

Guest 3 [00:43:01] Let's go back to what happened when they got the revelation of the priesthood.

Guest 4 [00:43:05] Okay.

Guest 3 [00:43:06] You know how long that took?

Guest 4 [00:43:08] Yeah, it took.

Guest 3 [00:43:10] So it wasn't that.

Guest 4 [00:43:11] It wasn't right away, actually.

Guest 3 [00:43:13] So it wasn't that President Kimball. Right. He had contemplated, thought about it, prayed about it, meditated on it. So it wasn't like, well, he said, I need to go do it. That happened that day. For them, it's a process, just like it is for you and me. A process.

Guest 4 [00:43:30] Right.

Guest 5 [00:43:31] And President Hinckley said that at the end of this process, most of the time what he feels is a still small voice. Right. So there's kind of an assumption in the church that the higher you get in the church hierarchy that the way you communicate with God suddenly changes. And I think that assumption is 100% wrong. Right. So certainly.

Guest 4 [00:43:52] So what would be the use of a prophet, then? I mean, because a prophet is a seer. He's a revelator. Right. And so that's a mantle on him, specifically, that not every other member has. Right. And so I was always under the assumption that as a prophet, seer and revelator, a prophet would have open conversation with God. I didn't view it as something. Okay, yeah. Communication.

Guest 5 [00:44:22] Yeah. And I certainly believe that communication happens, but I believe it happens mostly through kind of a refining of the process that we all go through to get spiritual communication.

Guest 4 [00:44:34] Right.

Guest 5 [00:44:34] Which is the influence of the Holy Spirit rather than sort of a. And I certainly. We have instances, I think, of great dramatic spiritual outpourings and. And of talking face to face with God and this sort of thing. But I think that's more the exception than the rule.

Guest 3 [00:44:49] Although I think that's probably. I don't think we can understand exactly when and how God talks to a Roman.

Guest 5 [00:44:58] Right.

Guest 3 [00:44:59] And I think that in the case.

Guest 4 [00:45:01] No, there is. There is no way to know.

Guest 3 [00:45:03] But is it that on the revelation on the priesthood, I think that was however it was done, like whether the heavens opened or whether however it happened, it happened.

Guest 4 [00:45:13] Right.

Guest 3 [00:45:13] And so I think prophets. What God tends to do with prophets is he tends to keep us in the right direction. It doesn't mean that. Marianne and I were talking on Web. She said, you know, you look at this, she says, what's my chances of keeping my kids in the right direction?

Guest 5 [00:45:33] Yeah.

Guest 3 [00:45:33] If I'm out of what this is.

Guest 5 [00:45:35] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:45:36] Right.

Guest 3 [00:45:36] Because here's where the world's going.

Guest 4 [00:45:39] Right.

Guest 3 [00:45:40] I mean, even in the church, we got problems, but inside the church, they really have problems. When the Jewish people come here, the first thing they do is say, how do you have it? How do you keep your kids? Right. Says, our kids are just leaving.

Guest 5 [00:45:52] Right.

Guest 3 [00:45:53] And we had another. We had a Jewish gallery yesterday. She said, oh, there's so many. So, yeah, you know, I mean, so I think there's two things that I think are important. You know, I know you have to leave about two, but, yeah, I think we'll come back.

Guest 4 [00:46:08] Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:46:08] Because I think it was great.

Guest 3 [00:46:09] I think what you have to think about is that this guy isn't any more honest than you think we are.

Guest 4 [00:46:16] Right. You know, and. Well, the thing is, is this isn't taken directly from. I mean, obviously these things are in

Guest 3 [00:46:21] the system, but I'm just telling you.

Guest 4 [00:46:23] Right.

Guest 3 [00:46:23] He's not anymore honest than we are in your mind.

Guest 4 [00:46:26] Right?

Guest 3 [00:46:27] Right.

Guest 4 [00:46:27] Yeah, absolutely.

Guest 3 [00:46:28] This guy's not. For example, I know this guy promised he wouldn't publish his book before his mother died. His mother didn't die and he published.

Guest 4 [00:46:34] Right, Right.

Guest 3 [00:46:35] Which, I mean, to me, of all the things you want to look at, somebody who's trying to get you to go somewhere is where. Who are they really?

Guest 4 [00:46:44] Right.

Guest 3 [00:46:44] Okay. And so if you don't honor your mother.

Guest 4 [00:46:47] Well, I think. I think it got to the point with him, though, is that he cared too much for it.

Guest 3 [00:46:51] Like, he cared too much for who he wanted to become. He's put himself over here as a.

Guest 4 [00:46:58] I think it's all in how you look at it. Because if you look at this as truth. Okay, Think about. I know it's crazy. But if you think of this as truth, wouldn't you want every person that you love to know the truth? You know what I mean? So I think it got to the

Guest 5 [00:47:13] point with him where he was like,

Guest 4 [00:47:14] no, I don't want to wait for my mom to die because I want to share this with you.

Guest 3 [00:47:17] Let's go one step further. So my only thing I would add with that is that this guy should lay down the other side. Also, the church didn't do that in the beginning. I agree with you. And I think we found out that that was a mistake. For whatever reasons I'm going to say wrong. But they are trying now to do the other. And he doesn't even try to do the other. So he lays this thing out with the plates, and it's book. I've read enough. It's kind of garbly book. Joseph didn't do anything with them. Right. Except one statement in one thing. He's taken and says, okay, that means

Guest 4 [00:47:52] Joseph's not a prophet, and that's not fair. Yeah, the Kinderhook plates, I could see that for sure.

Guest 3 [00:47:56] I mean, so. But he uses that as a big deal.

Guest 4 [00:47:59] Well, and I'm not saying that 100% of the CS letter is total factual because like you said, it's obviously skewed and, you know, and magnified in certain ways. But. But what I found is what he did do is he then. So Fairmormon came in and they did a debunking on the CES letter. And then what he did is he spent two years investigating everything that the church brought to him. And he was like, look, I want to make sure that this document is nothing but truth. And so what he went and did is he Revised it in 2015. So it came out in 2013. He revised it in 2015, and then he came up with a full essay, and it's giant. I mean, I think it's like it's over a thousand pages, and it's him. It's him looking at each point that the church made. You know what I mean? And taking them.

Guest 5 [00:48:46] That Fair Maid.

Guest 4 [00:48:47] Yeah, the fair maid. Oh, I should. I should say the church. I should say the fair maid.

Guest 3 [00:48:51] Right.

Guest 4 [00:48:52] Isn't fair, though. Hired from the church.

Guest 5 [00:48:54] No, they're totally separate.

Guest 4 [00:48:56] Oh, they're totally separate.

Guest 3 [00:48:57] Separate. It's a group of members of the church that have tried to weigh in to help people that didn't get the whole story.

Guest 4 [00:49:05] Right.

Guest 5 [00:49:05] But there's no funding for the church.

Guest 3 [00:49:08] Okay. These are good members of church worthy Church.

Guest 4 [00:49:12] Right.

Guest 3 [00:49:12] They're trying the best they can. Doesn't mean what they all put out.

Guest 4 [00:49:17] Yeah, well, I would love the church to then actually, because I think that the points are very valid. Yeah, I would love to see the church's standpoint, the official church's standpoint on these issues.

Guest 5 [00:49:29] I think the closest you're going to get is the gospel topics essays.

Guest 4 [00:49:32] Yeah, yeah.

Guest 5 [00:49:33] And I understand that the gospel topics essays don't cover everything in the CS letter, but they cover, I think, all the important points, with an exception here or two. They don't really get in the Book of Mormon archeology and some other things. But I mean, if that's what you want. Because even. And I will say there's. There's nothing on the witnesses on there.

Guest 4 [00:49:55] See, that was one thing that I really like. For example, I walked in here today and I see this, you know, like down below there's these awesome, you know, art renditions of the witnesses. You know, they're handling the plates, they're looking at the plates and all that kind of stuff. And that's the first thing you see when you come in the church history building. And that's not true. So that's where I see there's some whitewashing going on.

Guest 5 [00:50:21] Yes, I think it is true. So the eight witnesses, there's nothing about spiritual eyes. You know, you read their statement and I think the statements that are in the CS director, you know, it's kind of pick and choose. You're sort of thinking a lot of really, you know, later statements from antagonistic source and all that sort of thing.

Guest 4 [00:50:42] Well, they all end up leaving the church.

Guest 5 [00:50:45] Well, that's not true either.

Guest 4 [00:50:46] They all ended up following the Strangites.

Guest 5 [00:50:48] No, that's the.

Guest 4 [00:50:50] Even Emma. Yes, all the witnesses and Emma. And so they were saying several of

Guest 5 [00:50:56] them were dead by that time and some were dead. So you have to leave that caveat. I mean, Cowdery doesn't go strangite,

Guest 4 [00:51:05] I would say. Except for Cowdery. Except for Cowdery.

Guest 5 [00:51:09] But Cowdery, I'd have to think that

Guest 4 [00:51:11] Cowdery is a liar, a counterfeiter. How can I trust Oliver Cowdery? Joseph Smith said that he was a liar and a counterfeiter, you know, and

Guest 5 [00:51:21] so, yeah, Joseph and Oliver. But back to the point, I would say that the eight witnesses. I mean, I understand the CS director. The letter is basically saying that they're not saying they saw it in their natural eyes, they're saying they saw it

Guest 4 [00:51:34] in their spiritual eyes.

Guest 5 [00:51:35] I don't Think that's true with the 8 at all? Certainly the three are saying, yes, we saw it in vision.

Guest 4 [00:51:39] Right. They saw it in vision. Like, I see a city through a hill.

Guest 5 [00:51:42] Right. And none of the eight ever say, hey, like, I didn't sign my name to that. I mean, that's just.

Guest 4 [00:51:50] Right.

Guest 5 [00:51:50] That's kind of a big issue, I think.

Guest 4 [00:51:52] I think it's just the fact that they all ended up leaving or being completely, like, ostracized from the church and, like, all their credibility taken away from them from Joseph Smith himself was kind of like.

Guest 5 [00:52:05] Yeah, I think there's a lot of detail there.

Guest 4 [00:52:07] Right.

Guest 5 [00:52:08] We'd have to discuss each. Each one, because.

Guest 4 [00:52:10] Yeah. Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:52:11] It's sort of all over the place.

Guest 4 [00:52:11] You need to look at. Yeah, Each witness. Each witness is a different story.

Guest 5 [00:52:15] It's sort of all over the map. But.

Guest 4 [00:52:17] But the three for sure.

Guest 5 [00:52:18] Yeah, the three for sure.

Guest 4 [00:52:19] The three for sure testified that they had never seen. Seen them with their physical eyes. They saw them with their spiritual eyes.

Guest 5 [00:52:24] They say they saw them in vision.

Guest 4 [00:52:25] They saw him in vision.

Guest 5 [00:52:26] Yeah.

Guest 3 [00:52:27] Joseph saw the Father's son in vision. First vision. So that doesn't mean defining vision. It doesn't mean that it's not as touchable as he did. So I think what happens is we just have to be careful with all this stuff. Listen, there's a lot of unknowns, facts of life, but I think the trouble is that you have to be careful that this isn't as bad as this. So I think if we had smart people sitting in the room with this CES guy, he'd maybe sometimes win. Maybe. Maybe these guys would sometimes. What it means is that it's not exactly what he says it is. I'm not suggesting whether he believes it or not. I make a judgment of it. I'm not going to judge that. And he may believe everything he has, and he may believe he's done the best job possible.

Guest 5 [00:53:24] Right.

Guest 3 [00:53:25] Okay. He may well believe it, but it's not. All right. So that means that every part that I find wrong, does that discredit everything?

Guest 4 [00:53:35] Yeah, that's true.

Guest 3 [00:53:36] So what happens? So I want you to be careful. Another sign that every part you find wrong, that it discredits everything.

Guest 4 [00:53:42] That's right.

Guest 3 [00:53:43] Because it's not exactly what he says it is. And I'm not judging, but it's not exactly what he says it is.

Guest 4 [00:53:50] That's true.

Guest 3 [00:53:51] And I. The reason I brought you here is because I'm not as smart as he is.

Guest 4 [00:53:54] Right.

Guest 3 [00:53:54] Okay. I don't have to Be as smart as he is. I don't have time to be as smart as he is.

Guest 4 [00:54:00] Yeah.

Guest 3 [00:54:00] Unless I want to make it a full time job.

Guest 5 [00:54:02] Right.

Guest 3 [00:54:02] Okay. I can't do that. I have a million other things to worry about. What I hope that we can at least start today and we can get back together. Is right to understand that there are smart people.

Guest 4 [00:54:12] Yeah, yeah.

Guest 3 [00:54:13] That aren't just trained by LDS people. He went to Notre Dame. He's not just a Mormon. Flacco. That has tried to put perspective to some of the stuff today.

Guest 4 [00:54:23] Right.

Guest 3 [00:54:23] Is there stuff that maybe will be unanswered? The answer is yes, but it's not as bad as what people have led you to believe.

Guest 4 [00:54:32] Well, the difference would be that this guy is a man and he professes to be nothing more than a man. He's not running a religion, whereas.

Guest 3 [00:54:40] Oh, he is running a religion.

Guest 4 [00:54:41] No, he's.

Guest 3 [00:54:42] Oh, yes, he is. He's running the anti Mormon religion.

Guest 4 [00:54:45] Well.

Guest 3 [00:54:46] And that's what he's running. So where does he want you to go now? Because right at the end of the statement he said, when you follow me, that's what he told the. I'd have three other people saying that's what he tells you to tell.

Guest 4 [00:54:57] He doesn't tell you the answer. Actually, that's not from taking this. Well, this is not straight copy and paste.

Guest 5 [00:55:04] Right.

Guest 3 [00:55:04] Understand.

Guest 5 [00:55:05] Let's just take whatever.

Guest 4 [00:55:06] My whole thing is, if I find truth, I want to value truth over tradition.

Guest 3 [00:55:15] I don't think we would argue that at all.

Guest 4 [00:55:17] And so, and so I believe that if what I'm reading is true. Okay. In the sense that the Church has whitewashed their history and has not come forth with any evidence to support the Book of Mormon.

Guest 3 [00:55:35] You need to read this book by.

Guest 4 [00:55:37] And I'll read, I'll read, I'll read it more. But, but you know, after, you know, every, all the research that I've been able to do, I just. I'm not saying that the church is not inspired. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that it's not.

Guest 5 [00:55:52] Oh,

Guest 4 [00:55:55] yeah, yeah.

Guest 5 [00:55:56] The thing is way better.

Guest 4 [00:55:57] I'm not saying that it's not a good organization, but to say it's the only true church. It has very shaky grounds. More shaky than I thought, you know, because I was leaning on the spirit, I was leaning on the witnesses. I was leaning on the fact that there was, you know, some historical evidence for the Book of Mormon, you know, and then the last thing is, I would say is the more I got to know Joseph Smith, the more I kind of started to despise him because of how he treated women, of how he just did certain things, you know what I mean? And his rise to power and trying to, you know, and, and it was.

Guest 4 [00:56:36] No, it's no wonder to me now that they were driven out of so many states. You know, I mean, when you're, when you're committing, you know, crimes, you know, polygamy is not legal, especially you're trying to marry people that, you know, women that are tied to, you know, state leaders and, you know what I mean? Like, you're gonna have some issues with that. So my biggest thing was I didn't know the depth of the polygamy of Joseph Smith and I didn't understand the polyandry. Like, why would he, why would he marry women that are married to other men, Priesthood holding members of the church?

Guest 5 [00:57:15] That's a great question. I'll just say that I've had a very different experience from you in that I've spent a lot of the last six years reading what Joseph wrote and reading documents about him. Not an exaggeration to say that I've probably read almost everything Joseph wrote with some stuff as we get into Naboo because we haven't covered that as thoroughly. And it's been a different experience for me. I've come to like him better. I've come to think he was more genuine.

Guest 4 [00:57:53] Yeah. If you read his writings.

Guest 5 [00:57:55] And I've also read plenty of the ancillary.

Guest 4 [00:57:59] Have you read the journals of the women? Yeah. And you don't look at that at all as a.

Polygamy and Polyandry in Church History

Guest 5 [00:58:05] So I will say let's be careful here because one thing we have to understand about Joseph Smith and polygamy is that there's almost no contemporary records, so there's no journals. These women are not keeping journals. There are some reminiscences, and the reminiscences tend to, tend to support Joseph more than anything.

Guest 5 [00:58:31] Right. And so the difficult thing about Joseph Smith and polygamy, about Nauvoo polygamy in general, is we have almost no records that were created at the time. So we just have kind of reminiscent accounts from one side or another.

Guest 5 [00:58:47] There's a few small exceptions to that. And that also means that on questions like the polyandry where, where Joseph is sealed to men already married, it's really hard to know what's going on. You know, it's like, why would you do that? I mean, we know, first of all, we know it doesn't continue. Right, right. So we know that in later eras that this isn't part of plural marriage.

Guest 4 [00:59:16] Did Brigham Young practice polyandry at all?

Guest 5 [00:59:20] You know, I haven't looked into that.

Guest 4 [00:59:23] I know there's a lot of crap on Brigham Young, but I don't really care as much because my whole thing

Guest 5 [00:59:28] comes down to Joseph Smith. Yeah. So Brigham doesn't practice polyandry in the same way that Joseph does. Brigham marries some women who are legally married when they're sealed. But that has more to do with the difficulty of obtaining a divorce. If you're a woman in 19th century America and this happens all over the place, all sorts of people. I mean, Andrew Jackson marries a woman who's already married, and it's a big deal in his presidential campaign because you can't go divorce. Right, right. That's kind of the power of women in those days and that sort of thing. So polyandry, you know, that wasn't the

Guest 4 [00:59:59] case, though, with Joseph Smith.

Guest 5 [01:00:00] Yes. So we don't. Yeah, that's not the case with Joseph. So we don't have any statements from Joseph on polyandry. We don't have really any statements from any of the women.

Guest 4 [01:00:10] We do have statements of him lying about it, though.

Guest 5 [01:00:13] Well, we have. Well, not about polyandry specifically.

Guest 4 [01:00:16] Well, not polyandry, but polygamy.

Guest 5 [01:00:17] About polygamy. But on the question of polyandry itself, we really don't have any statements from any of the participants. So it's really difficult to know what's going on. I think from my perspective, there's a couple of possibilities. There's the possibility that.

Guest 5 [01:00:38] And one other fact that we know about the polyandrous marriages is that all. All of the statements from the women that we do have indicate that they were not marriages in a traditional sense. Joseph doesn't financially support them.

Guest 5 [01:00:56] None of the polyandrous wives testify that there are sexual relations. Now, we don't have statements from some of the wives, so it's hard to make totally blanket statements. But the ones that we do would seem that they put it in a category. These are seen sealings for eternity rather than marriages in this life.

Guest 5 [01:01:17] So I think that's an important fact to understand. But still there's this question, well, why most of the marriages. Most of the polyandrous marriages are not to women sealed or married to priesthood holders. Most of them are to women whose husband is not a member of the church, is a disaffected member of the church. So this may have been a way for, in their minds, for these women to have had Access to the blessings of eternity. Right. I mean if sealing is essential for exaltation and they can't be sealed to their own husband. So that's one possibility.

Guest 4 [01:01:51] See, that's why it's so messed up in my mind is that religion can justify really messed up things. Like Islam for example, okay, you look at that and these people going around killing people and all that kind of stuff, it's like, we're like, wow, who could actually do that? But we do that. We say it's fine for Nephi to kill Laban. Okay, you know what I mean? Like murder, rape, like marrying other men's wives, like that kind of stuff. Like when you look at it in a religion, right.

Guest 5 [01:02:25] When you say marrying other men's wives, that is a different connotation than this idea. Well, there is some sort of sealing relationship in the afterlife, but there's no sort of marriage in this life. And that's what we know about the polyandrous marriages from what I understood is

Guest 4 [01:02:42] they lived with Joseph. No, they had relationships with none of

Guest 5 [01:02:46] the polyandrous marriages that we know about. And we know statements by several of the women who were in these polyandrous marriages. None of them indicate that they lived with Joseph and certainly they don't live in his house. But none of them indicate that there was sexual relations. And the same thing is true with, you know, I know you bring up the, the very youngest case we have, which is Helen Marr Whitney Kimball from everything that we know about that would indicate that it was a ceiling for time rather than a marriage in eternity. And I know, you know, she's 14,

Guest 4 [01:03:23] like she has her whole life to find a priesthood holding God.

Guest 5 [01:03:25] Oh sure. You know, we do have to understand there's this sort of a different culture around marriage.

Guest 4 [01:03:33] It was illegal then though.

Guest 5 [01:03:35] Well, I read a book on a guy named Thomas Kane who is a Philadelphia aristocrat non Mormon. He was 31 and he married his 15 year old cousin. So the marriage takes place in 1853.

Guest 4 [01:03:46] Right.

Guest 5 [01:03:47] It kind of raised eyebrows, but not really. Right. So it's just a very sort of different. So I think it's the fact that

Guest 4 [01:03:52] it is that it was multiple, you know what I mean? And he was doing it because he was a prophet. They didn't fall in love, you know what I mean? Like a 15 year old getting married, they fell in love. I mean maybe back then, like it would have been a little weird, but people let it go.

Guest 5 [01:04:07] Right.

Guest 4 [01:04:07] But when you go to a 14 year old and you say that there's an angel with a flaming sword.

Guest 5 [01:04:12] So, so the angel with the flaming sword, we get that from one of the players wives and what she said is that Joseph told her that if

Guest 4 [01:04:19] he didn't, that the angel would kill Joseph.

Guest 5 [01:04:22] That the angel would kill Joseph. Not that if he didn't marry this woman specifically, but if he didn't go forward with polygamy.

Guest 4 [01:04:27] Right.

Guest 5 [01:04:28] Generally.

Guest 4 [01:04:29] Right. But I mean that's, that's a big threat. I mean to put on these little kids like.

Guest 5 [01:04:34] So, so in that case, the case that we know about, which is Zina, she's not, I mean she's, I don't think she's a teenager. I mean she, she's one of the ones in her 20s.

Guest 4 [01:04:42] In her 20s.

Guest 5 [01:04:43] But still, you know, I mean certainly from our perspective, you know, a 14 year old marriage is not what anyone like a daughter for anyone currently. Right. I mean it is sort of a

Guest 4 [01:04:54] different a daughter and a mother set and stuff like that. And the thing is is that all of this stuff goes against scripture. You know, it goes against the Bible, it goes against even DNC132s. Yeah. I just don't even like the idea of polygamy.

Guest 3 [01:05:11] Most people have a very hard time.

Guest 5 [01:05:12] And who does? Right.

Guest 3 [01:05:13] Marianne doesn't like the idea of polygamy.

Guest 5 [01:05:15] Right.

Guest 4 [01:05:15] But to enter into the kingdom of God we all have to be polygamists. And so that's something that women.

Guest 5 [01:05:19] I think that's just not true. The church doesn't teach that, but Brigham did. Brigham. Even in Brigham's statements you can find things that indicate that monogamous people are going to go to heaven as well. Guess the way I think about it

Guest 4 [01:05:35] is contradicting statement is all I'm saying, you know.

Guest 5 [01:05:40] Yeah, but I don't think the church has ever taught except in a few periods of the anti polygamy raids and Brigham Young's era when the rhetoric to defend polygamy sort of go sky high. Church is never taught that you need to be polygamous to enter the celestial kingdom or the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. And not since then.

Guest 4 [01:05:58] Not since then.

Guest 3 [01:05:59] Right.

Guest 5 [01:05:59] So you can find some statements.

Guest 4 [01:06:01] You can find some, but it's been a while.

Guest 5 [01:06:03] But you can find contradictory statements from the same era.

Guest 4 [01:06:05] You can, you can.

Guest 5 [01:06:07] And the way I think about it, you know, that particular question, we're told in the Doctrine and Covenants that the same sociology that exists among us here will exist among us in heaven. And the vast majority of Latter Day Saints who have been sealed in the temple have Been monogamous. Right. So if you do some sort of calculation over time, 98% of people say in the temple have been in monogamous marriages, not polygamous marriages. Why would we think that we'd get to heaven and 98% of people would be polygamous rather than monogamous?

Guest 4 [01:06:32] I don't know.

Guest 5 [01:06:33] Yeah, so

Guest 4 [01:06:35] that's why it's confusing, though.

Guest 5 [01:06:37] Well, what's confusing about it?

Guest 4 [01:06:38] Well, what's confusing is that there's contradictory statements, you know, like Brigham Young said.

Guest 5 [01:06:43] Yeah, but trying to hang our hat on every Brigham Young statement that we can find.

Guest 4 [01:06:48] Well, because you got Adam, God, you got blood atonement. I mean, Brigham Young is. He's got crazy doctrine. And said from General Conference.

Guest 5 [01:06:58] Yeah, there was sort of a different style in General Conference, a different style than there is now. But, yeah, I mean, there was more room for speculation.

Guest 4 [01:07:06] But what will happen in a hundred years to what the prophets are saying now, you know, against gays, against, you know, I mean, is that going to be reversed? Are we going to allow gay marriage in the temples, stuff like that? Because, I mean, there was a time where we wouldn't have ever allowed the priesthood to be given to a black man. And now today would be ludicrous, like, completely.

Guest 5 [01:07:26] Yeah, you know, I'm much better at the past than predicting the future.

Guest 4 [01:07:31] No, I mean, I'm just saying that. And here's the way the church goes, though. It just kind of adapts to whatever is kind of, you know, the norm for the time.

Guest 5 [01:07:40] I guess the way I see it, as historian, is, of course, we all, including church leaders, are enmeshed in the culture that we're born in. Right. So if we're born in 1830, we're going to be racist by the standards of today. Right. And there may be, no matter who you are.

Guest 3 [01:08:00] Right.

Guest 5 [01:08:01] No matter who you are. Even this Thomas King guy mentioned, he was an abolitionist. He went through more personal danger protecting runaway slaves than any of us would ever do for race relations. But by our standards, we're talking 1970. By our standards, 18. Yeah, but it's not like America was all that enlightened in the 1950s and 1960s. Right.

Guest 5 [01:08:28] Certainly there's change, but my point is that we're always enmeshed in culture. And I think sometimes the prophetic gift is to see beyond that culture to keep us on the path where we need to be. I mean, certainly, certainly there's aspects of culture that the church will always reject, but exactly where the church will be in a hundred years on any particular issue. So, you know, I think we can say there are core doctrinal principles that are clear that won't change a lot of other social media trappings, whether we'll still use organs. You know, I mean, I think there's lots of ways that the church will be different.

Why People Are Leaving the Church

Guest 4 [01:09:06] Do you think the First Presidency knows why people are leaving the Church?

Guest 5 [01:09:10] I think. I think this idea that the leaders of the church are not in touch with what's going on is 100% wrong.

Guest 4 [01:09:18] So why would the prophet not consult with God and get answers to these questions that go against the church? He's a prophet, seer and revelator. I want to believe it, you guys. I would. I don't. I didn't. I don't want to leave the church. Yeah, but this is too much like.

Guest 5 [01:09:35] I mean, these are.

Guest 4 [01:09:35] These are five of like a hundred, you know, and you can hear them come out, you know.

Guest 3 [01:09:43] Trouble is, if we get in tit for tat, this will go on forever. The next 10 that come after that, then the next. Yeah, listen, I think.

Guest 4 [01:09:51] Well, the thing is, is that it's not resolved, though, to me. Well, you know.

Guest 3 [01:09:55] Well, I think it. To resolve is a good question. I think what it is, is you have to at least know after today that there's at least different points of view on some of the things, right? There's these different points of view that are not dumb. It's not a dumb guy that's, you know, he's.

Guest 4 [01:10:10] I'm not saying anybody's dumb.

Guest 3 [01:10:13] No. But I'm saying that. I'm saying that because I think, you know, that are somewhat logical, maybe as logical as his. Maybe more in some cases. I don't know the answer. Okay.

Guest 4 [01:10:25] End of the line, though.

Guest 3 [01:10:27] When it all said and coming down. If you take away. Elder Oaks recently gave a talk. If you take away that things at some point in time have to be that you can communicate with God and find out whether it's true or not, they'll never get to the end because they're all odd. Always be another tit for tat. Okay.

Guest 4 [01:10:46] Why have a prophet then if he's just like us? That's my point.

Guest 3 [01:10:49] Just like us. Because he's sent the direction.

Guest 4 [01:10:52] I mean, right?

Guest 3 [01:10:53] All you have to do is look at the direction of this church, okay? That talks about eternal families and all this stuff, right? That's what prophets do. Prophets aren't going to resolve every one of your questions.

Guest 4 [01:11:02] Right, but they don't prophesy or see anything. I haven't seen, I haven't seen a prophet.

Guest 3 [01:11:08] I have to do. Just look at the proclamation on the family.

Guest 4 [01:11:12] I've read the proclamation of the family.

Guest 3 [01:11:15] Back then everybody said this is not a man and look how it relates to where the world is today.

Guest 4 [01:11:22] How so?

Guest 3 [01:11:22] And so in terms of beliefs about family, beliefs about marriage and beliefs about this.

Guest 4 [01:11:28] But see it's a very homophobic document actually because it's saying that homosexual people that are born homosexual. That's what I believe.

Guest 3 [01:11:40] We don't know. We would tell us we don't know how they get to where they're at

Guest 4 [01:11:44] but to not allow them to be happy and not be able to have a family, that's really sad.

Guest 3 [01:11:50] You have to look Trevor, you say that God must. If you believe in this God that set this whole thing up. If we were all homosexual there would be know pretty soon the thing just ends.

Guest 4 [01:12:02] Oh well I'm not saying that we all need to be homosexual but I'm saying let the homosexuals be live a happy life as homosexuals because they can't

Guest 3 [01:12:10] change like well we don't let people that aren't married have sex to live a happy life because that's what they believe they should have.

Guest 4 [01:12:16] Right?

Guest 3 [01:12:17] So I mean we let. I think the church has done lots over the last little while to try to help that group. Perfect. No, because some of them would want to be married and have partners or whatever they want to have. I think in terms of right to work in terms of all these other things I think we've tried to. In terms of if you have that, don't act upon it. Just like all these young people aren't married they can be worthy to go to the temple if they don't act upon what they would rather do and have sex and then get married later.

Guest 4 [01:12:47] Right? Except that they eventually get to have that right whereas homosexuals never did. You know what I mean? Like it's like hey just that's fair

Guest 3 [01:12:53] but you know, redefining.

Guest 4 [01:12:56] But see so if that's the, if that's.

Guest 3 [01:12:58] The prophet has told you how the family is divine.

Guest 4 [01:13:00] Right? But I'm just saying if that's the prophecy that we get from. You know what I mean? If that's what we point to that's the only. You know what I mean? Like I think we need to define what it means to be a seer, a revelator and a prophet because I don't see what I believe a seer, revelator and prophet should be doing. I don't see prophets after Joseph doing that anymore. I feel like it was cut off after Joseph and we're just kind of a rerun, you know, like every general conference. I'm looking for something perpetual.

Guest 3 [01:13:34] Education new. The number of temples we have today aren't prophetic.

Guest 4 [01:13:39] But the thing is, that's all stuff that, like the temple, it's not really helping people because masonry done in a building, like a really nice building, if you take the truth out of it, if you don't think it's true, it's not really doing service or helping anybody. You know what I mean? We're just dunking in the water. We're doing things that we think are good. But if you take the truth out of it.

Guest 5 [01:14:01] Well, if you take the truth out of it, that's a pretty big caveat.

Guest 4 [01:14:04] But, I mean, but you can. Certain. But I'm just saying you can serve others without a religious context.

Guest 5 [01:14:09] I understand how it can help.

Guest 4 [01:14:10] And so that's what I'm saying. Like, the temples aren't really helping people if people don't believe. You know what I mean?

Guest 3 [01:14:16] I understand. But for those that do believe, it's prophetic, right? Okay. So you have to. The prophet, he's taking. Listen, when the Savior was here, this is how many followed. The majority did. Okay. When Moses was here, this is how many really followed.

Guest 4 [01:14:34] Right, Right.

Guest 3 [01:14:36] So it's a. And so.

Guest 4 [01:14:38] But Moses came down with the ten Commandments. He had the burning bush. Like, they had miracles like that.

Guest 5 [01:14:45] He was a prophet.

Guest 4 [01:14:46] He was divided. I mean, these guys were dividing waters. Well, yeah. Like, why. Why can't prophets of today do what the prophets of old could do? Because trust me, if Moses lived today and he was doing that stuff, I'm all in. Like, I'm.

Guest 5 [01:15:01] I'm.

Guest 4 [01:15:01] Sign me up. Like, I would. I would be all for it. But. But prophets that don't reveal anything, they don't see anything. They're just like us. They don't, you know, communicate with God.

Guest 3 [01:15:12] That means they do communicate with God. I don't want you leaving here today believing that this.

Guest 4 [01:15:18] Right. No, you guys believe that, of course. But I just. I don't know.

Guest 5 [01:15:24] But I don't think it was all that clear to Moses. People either. Right. Or people at Christ's time, either. Right. So, I mean, I think there's just always this. We think if we were back in Moses time, there wouldn't have been a need for faith because we would have seen these miracles.

Guest 4 [01:15:40] Well, I'll tell you right now, I've seen more miracles come out of the Evangelical side of religion more than our church. I mean, if you want to talk about people that are actually doing miracles, man, look at an evangelical convention where they get people that are truly sick, they can't walk, and they're healing people and they're performing. Performing miracles. And I know. I know a guy is a traveling minister, and he does that. He goes to Ethiopia, he goes to Africa, and he. And he does true service. Like, he's trying to teach people, you know, how to get clean water, you know what I mean?

Guest 4 [01:16:13] How to work all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's so small compared to what we give, though. I mean, when you do the math, probably a lot, but for a church that makes, what, 10 billion a year? I mean, I would think it would be more than that. But instead they put it into, like, City Creek. Like, why invest in. Why be a corporation? You know what I mean? Like, why own.

Guest 3 [01:16:37] So that's why. That's why they make as much money. You can hold your breath on all that. Okay.

Guest 4 [01:16:46] I mean, but I don't understand why they get involved in that stuff. Because since it's all derived from tithing,

Guest 3 [01:16:51] originally, it didn't come from tithing.

Guest 4 [01:16:54] But, like, why. Like, why City Creek, though?

Guest 3 [01:16:56] Because you know what happens to downtowns when you don't. When you don't have something like City Creek. Do you want to go to Detroit? You want to go with me to Chicago?

Guest 4 [01:17:05] Well, I think there are a lot of great cities that don't need religious.

Guest 3 [01:17:10] I didn't say religious. It's not about religious. I'm talking about. The purpose is to keep.

Guest 5 [01:17:16] Keep the front door to Temple Square in a decent sort of.

Guest 4 [01:17:19] I can see that. I think they could do that and put. Make it more.

Guest 5 [01:17:25] Yeah, maybe. Churchy store.

Guest 4 [01:17:27] Right.

Guest 5 [01:17:28] We can all debate that, but, you know, but I think. I think that was the motivation. Right. To protect that downtown area.

Guest 4 [01:17:36] Right?

Guest 5 [01:17:36] Yeah. It's not about profits.

Guest 4 [01:17:38] Yeah. Yeah. It's more of a church.

Guest 5 [01:17:40] And I will say that until I worked here, I didn't have any sense of the extent of the humanitarian.

Guest 4 [01:17:49] Well, we don't know, because they don't release any of the financial documents. Like, I wish the church would be a little more transparent in that regard. Like, we're all paying, and we can't participate unless we pay. Whereas other churches, they ask for donations, and it's out of the goodness of your heart. Here you have to pay 10%. And that to me, to get into heaven, you have to pay. Like, there's a price for that. That's kind of messed up, I think, because tithing. I don't believe tithing was meant to be like that. I think tithing was meant to be give out of the goodness of your heart, help others, you know, I mean, so.

Guest 5 [01:18:24] So.

Guest 3 [01:18:25] Okay, so that's. That's.

Guest 4 [01:18:27] But yeah, like, I can tell you

Guest 3 [01:18:28] without tithing where this church would be. Okay. It was a bankrupt church until it was implemented by Snow. Okay.

Guest 4 [01:18:35] Kirtland Bank.

Guest 3 [01:18:36] Well, Kirtland Bank's a different.

Guest 4 [01:18:38] It's a different story.

Guest 3 [01:18:39] It's a problem.

Guest 4 [01:18:40] Yeah.

Guest 3 [01:18:41] No problem. There's going to be some more problems.

Guest 4 [01:18:43] Yeah.

Guest 3 [01:18:44] You know President Hinckley authorizing to buy these records. He was. He was suggested by somebody that should buy him. Okay.

Guest 5 [01:18:51] Right.

Guest 3 [01:18:51] It was a church historian or somebody over here that thought that they were true. And more importantly, the number of documents by that guy are huge. And they were every.

Guest 5 [01:19:00] Everywhere.

Guest 3 [01:19:00] This isn't just the church. Right.

Guest 5 [01:19:01] Okay, I wasn't.

Guest 3 [01:19:02] It isn't just the church that was sucked in.

Guest 5 [01:19:05] I was in a historical convention, but

Guest 4 [01:19:06] they were sucked in with.

Guest 5 [01:19:08] With people from papers, projects from around the nation. And someone, you know, listed off the. The sort of documents that Hoffman had forged in almost every group in that room. He had Lincoln, he had Jefferson, he had Emily Dickinson, and he wrote an Emily Dickinson poem that fooled the experts. Right. But anyway, it goes down to my whole profit.

Guest 3 [01:19:31] Papers are worth. No, I don't think he wasn't. I mean, he just decided to buy this stuff. We do a lot of things we don't go pray over. Okay. I mean, it's just like members that wait to pray over everything they're gonna do. They're never gonna do anything.

Guest 5 [01:19:43] Right. Right.

Guest 4 [01:19:45] All right. Well, hey, I appreciate your time. I'm not gonna take any more of it.

Guest 5 [01:19:48] Yeah.

Guest 4 [01:19:49] But I appreciate you looking at this stuff and just. Yeah.

Guest 5 [01:19:52] Could I get your email address?

Guest 4 [01:19:53] Yes.

Guest 5 [01:19:54] Maybe I'll send you a few other. I think you've probably got it. Yeah.

Guest 4 [01:19:57] You've got it.

Guest 5 [01:19:57] Yeah. Maybe I'll shoot you. Shoot me Some suggestions for reading. Would love it if I can make reading assignments. It sounds like you like to read.

Guest 4 [01:20:03] I love to read.

Guest 3 [01:20:04] Yeah.

Guest 4 [01:20:05] I mean, seriously, every night, three or four hours a night. I just. I'm reading.

Guest 5 [01:20:10] Yeah. Okay.

Guest 4 [01:20:12] Anyway, Matt, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Guest 5 [01:20:14] Nice to meet you. Trevor. Nice to meet Veronica.

Recap and Reflection on the Recorded Meeting

Part 3 of 7 · Ep. 712b

Guest 6 [00:00:29] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's March 29, 2017, and we are here to interview Trevor Hagen. And Trevor is going to be known to many of you and is not going to be known to others. But basically, let me just give kind of the rundown.

Guest 6 [00:00:56] We interviewed Trevor about sort of in episode one of this series, about his faith journey, about his mission in Latin America, about his temple marriage, about his second temple marriage, and about his faith crisis and all of that. And we did all that in episode one. And then in episode one, we talked about how we were going to be releasing in episode two, an audio recording of an interview that Trevor had with his former mission president, who became a general authority, Don Clark, and Matthew J. Grow, who is in the LDS Church History department. So that was what we had planned. We went ahead and released the audio recording from that meeting, and then we did a couple hours of analysis with Lindsay Hansa Park, John Hamer, and Glenn Osland, and we released it all.

Guest 6 [00:01:58] And those of you who have already listened to all that, please don't feel like we're expecting you to tune in and listen to more. But we decided after about a day of having released that, and Trevor, we can talk about this, but basically we decided to take it all down, and we reconsidered the effectiveness of sharing an audio recording that was made in private.

Guest 6 [00:02:28] And so that's true. However, Trevor still. And I still felt like Trevor's story deserved to be told. And so we weren't comfortable just sort of scrapping the whole project. And so what we've decided to do is to go ahead and have a conversation between me and Trevor where we talk about that meeting that he had with Elder Clark and with Matthew Grow, but not to release the audio from it. And it's just sort of a practical, pragmatic, and in some cases, ethical decision that we made. And so that's what we're gonna do over the next hour or two, we are going to have Trevor tell the story of the meeting that he had in March 2017 with Elder Groh.

Guest 6 [00:03:17] Sorry, Elder Clark and Matt Groh. And we're gonna have Trevor tell the story. I'll help him. And then we're gonna analyze those responses, and we're gonna release this as an episode on Mormon Stories so that Trevor's story gets told. So with all that disclaimer, Trevor Haugen. Welcome to welcome Back to Mormon Stories podcast.

Guest 7 [00:03:37] Hey, John, thanks for having me. This is like, take two.

Guest 6 [00:03:42] Yeah.

Guest 7 [00:03:43] Get it right this time.

Guest 6 [00:03:45] And we're doing the recording live on Facebook live, not because we expect more people to tune in. Again, if you've already checked all this out and you don't feel like you want to listen to it, please don't. But if you do want to, if you do want to tune in, and right now we have 73 people who have tuned in. We do welcome people to share their questions, their thoughts, their concerns. And throughout this discussion, and definitely at the end, we're willing to take questions not just about the meeting, but also just about, you know, our decisions to take things down, etc. And again, we don't expect anyone to tune in or listen, but we want Trevor's story to be part of the historical record and that's why we're re recording.

Guest 6 [00:04:32] At least that's why I'm re recording. So with all that, Trevor, do you want to say anything really quickly about the decision to take down the audio recording? What would you like to say about that?

Guest 7 [00:04:47] Yeah, you know, and I think, I think you did a great job and explaining just, you know, really the last couple days have been a little crazy for us. It's given us some time to kind of reflect on, you know, some decisions that we made. And you know, I mean, really the biggest thing is that, you know, my whole for coming on Mormon stories is to share my story.

Guest 7 [00:05:11] It's not to convince or persuade anybody. This is just a very. I wanted, I wanted to just be a very raw look at what happened and kind of how it felt for me. I'm not an educator or an expert. I'm just simply somebody with questions that happened to, you know, get a meeting with two very influential people, the church, and think. A lot of times I know what happened with me is when I, when I was meeting with my local leaders, it kind of felt like, well, you know, I might not have the answers, but somebody, you know, kind of higher up might have it or, you know, I want to introduce you to this person, this person, this person.

Guest 7 [00:05:50] And so it just kind of got to the point where that escalated and I found myself in this situation. And another thing to understand is that naturally I'm a documentarian. So I, up to this point in my, you know, in my journey, I documented everything since the first week when I started going through this, I just knew this was going to be a big enough deal that I should probably start, you know, videoing myself and my feelings and how I, you know, and just how this was all happening, you know. And so I'm really glad that I did that. And this was just kind of another piece of that for me.

Guest 7 [00:06:26] It was later on that, you know, after having listened to this several times, John, after sharing this with you, that we decided, you know, we wanted to share this. And I wanted it to be in the best light possible in the most accurate way possible.

Guest 7 [00:06:42] And so that's why, you know, we had originally kind of decided to share it. But I do understand that the people could view it as. Is unethical. And we don't want, you know, the means to any end to distract, you know, or make us less effective in sharing stories, you know. So that's my take.

Guest 6 [00:07:06] Yeah. Yeah. And it was a really tough call because on some level, the church makes such important claims. The church expects so much of its members, and it's not often forthcoming in these sorts of conversations that from a journalistic standpoint, there are many people who feel like it's fair game, especially if there's suicides or families at risk, that it's fair game to have them be on record, especially when it's legal to obtain that record. I think that's a fair argument, but it's also a fair argument to say it's a breach of trust and unethical. And so it's just a difficult choice. So, anyway, should we dive in?

Guest 7 [00:07:52] Let's do it.

Guest 6 [00:07:54] All right, so what was the date. What was the date that you met with Elder Clark and Matthew grow?

Guest 7 [00:08:01] This was March 3rd, 2017.

Guest 6 [00:08:04] Okay. And where. And where did you. Where did you meet exactly?

Guest 7 [00:08:07] We met at the church history museum.

Guest 6 [00:08:10] Okay. In a room. Just some room there, or is it in.

Guest 7 [00:08:13] Right. So we went up to the third floor, I believe, and that's where Matt Grow's office is. And we just kind of went in there and sat down and had a conversation. It was me and my wife and Matt Grow. And then Elder Clark was kind of sitting by the side of Matt Grow's desk there. And so it's kind of the four of us engaging in conversation. My wife didn't participate too much, but. And actually, Elder Clark didn't engage very much. Well, I would say, Gosh, 80% of it or so was. Was kind of a conversation between me and Matt Grow.

Guest 6 [00:08:52] Okay.

Guest 7 [00:08:55] So

Guest 6 [00:08:57] as we've talked about it, the meeting was framed around an email that you had sent Elder Clark and that had been shared with Matthew Growing. So I think as part of the structure for this interview, why don't you go ahead and we'll read each of the main questions that you offered and Then try to retell the story of what happened with each question. Is that okay?

Guest 7 [00:09:24] Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah.

Guest 6 [00:09:26] So why don't you read the first question or issue in your email and then I'll follow up.

Guest 7 [00:09:33] Right. And just to give a little context, too, I did meet with Elder Clark prior to this meeting. We went to lunch, and the purpose of that meeting was to just kind of have a candid conversation about some of my concerns.

Guest 7 [00:09:50] As you'll remember from part one, Elder Clark was my mission president, you know, and so I just. I figured the amount of time and, you know, and also his close relationship with the higher ups in the church, he would. He would know some good answers to these questions. You know, I.

Guest 7 [00:10:12] This to be, you know, completely kind of open with where I was at at this point. I was already disaffected. I mean, this is after I had met with my family. This was kind of the last, kind of my final prayer, if you will, just giving the church maybe one more shot. I wasn't going into this wanting to debate the issues as much as I was just wanting to kind of just understand one final time what it is they actually believe and how they believe it, you know, and so, and so I felt like I was going into it with an open mind, but at the same time, I did want to share my perspectives with these guys.

Guest 7 [00:11:00] And so when I originally met with Elder Clark, Elder Clark didn't have really anything to say about the issues. It was just that he knew people that were, you know, more maybe a little smarter than him is what he said on these issues. Just because he doesn't have time to really investigate all of this stuff. And so to put it in an email and he was going to share it with some people and see if he might be able to help me get some answers. So that's kind of what led to this meeting and the email that I drafted.

Guest 6 [00:11:37] Okay, so let's dig into the email.

Spiritual Witness and Epistemology

Guest 7 [00:11:39] So the first thing that I kind of addressed was spiritual witness.

Guest 6 [00:11:44] And

Guest 7 [00:11:46] that was a big thing for me. Should I just read it?

Guest 6 [00:11:49] Please just read it.

Guest 7 [00:11:51] So I just said every major religion has members that believe that the spirit of God has bore witness to them, that their religion is true, or it's the. It's, you know, the true path to God and heaven. Just. Just as it would be arrogant for a member of any other religion to deny my spiritual experience and testimony of the truthful truthfulness of the church, it would likewise be arrogant for me to deny their spiritual experiences or testimonies of the truthfulness of their religion. But every religion cannot be right together. And one main point that I had here was all of the different kind of breakoffs of the church.

Guest 7 [00:12:30] I mean, there's been so many and so many different prophets. And to go to a testimony meeting in the RLDS Church or any other break off would feel very similar to the LDS Church, but the prophets would be replaced. And so they can't all be right together. And so that was a big one for me.

Guest 6 [00:12:52] Okay. And I'm just gonna. I'm gonna let listeners know ahead of time that this is gonna be the first in a. In hopefully what is a series of five or six people who are gonna be sharing their experiences with Mormon general authorities, because we think it's a very common thing when someone's had a faith crisis to get an audience with the general authority. I did it. I met with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland twice. And we think that because that's a thing, because it's something that's done, it's something that isn't talked about, that there's historical value, you know, spiritual value, ethical value, moral value in people telling those stories so that in 2017 we can know what it's like to talk to a general authority during this past decade around these sorts of issues.

Guest 6 [00:13:37] So if anybody has had a meeting with the general authority that they want to actually talk about and share their story, I just want to make sure people know that we're not just doing Trevor, we're going to do five or six of these and hopefully have this sort of little repository of oral stories of people's experiences. Meeting with general authorities can be good, it can be bad. Ok, so Trevor, once you guys started talking about this question of spiritual witness, I'm going to go ahead and sort of speak back and summarize what we heard from Grow and from Clark. So what I heard was that Growing immediately went to discuss this issue of the only true church.

Guest 6 [00:14:20] And it seemed like his point was to say that there's truth everywhere, that Joseph Smith got his truth from wherever he could find it. If he could find some truth in the masonry ceremony, he would incorporate that into the. The temple ceremony. He talked about a general authority statement that basically said all the world religions have truth in them.

Guest 6 [00:14:42] And that was sort of his response to this question. There's truth everywhere. And the church is becoming more expansive. He also seemed to not want to. Okay, so then he basically talked about how authority was the point, that while there's truth in all the religions, that authority was where the LDS Church had the distinguishing sort of benefit.

Guest 6 [00:15:06] And so after that, it seemed like he kind of then said, so there's this question of the one and only true church. And. And I heard him actually say he doesn't have much to say about that. And he kind of even deferred to Elder Grow, and Grow didn't speak up at this point. So we're about 17 minutes into the interview.

Guest 7 [00:15:28] Yeah. And you mean Elder Clark.

Guest 6 [00:15:30] Elder Clark. I'm sorry, Elder Clark, thank you. So how did you feel about Grow's response to that question?

Guest 7 [00:15:38] Well, first of all, I was hoping Elder Clark would have been more involved, like you mentioned. And I think Matt Grow also was kind of wanting to lean on him a little bit as well, but Elder Clark was definitely just kind of letting him do the work. But I, you know, the thing is, is how I felt about that is this. I mean, this is something that I, you know, I. This is a response that I would have given, you know, in the mission. This was. This is something that I had already thought about. But there's. There's some.

Guest 7 [00:16:12] In my mind, there were just some kind of issues, some core issues with that, because when God the Father and Jesus Christ saw Joseph Smith in the first vision, they told him that every other religion was an abomination in his sight. And so to now go back on that and say, well, we kind of think that there's, you know, like, that there's good in every church. You know, we're just saying, hey, let us add to that, you know, that that kind of goes against, you know, what was initially supposedly said to Joseph Smith from. From God himself.

Guest 7 [00:16:52] When you say everything's an abomination, like, that's a pretty strong word, you know. And so we very much believe that this is the only true church. And I always understood that we had evidence and logic on our side, at least to a certain point, to back it up. And so one point that I. That I made to Matt was I just said, well, I know that a lot of it comes down to faith. I know a lot of it comes down to, you know, following the spirit. But where most religions have, you know, a lot of logic and science leading up to a point, then there's a gap to where you find God.

Guest 7 [00:17:27] Feel like Mormonism is redefining that faith in the sense that as Mormons, we have to believe and have faith despite science, logic, DNA analysis, I mean, all of that. And so what I was telling Matt was just, you know, help me at least, you know, make sense of this half of a Bridge that should be there, that's just not anymore.

Guest 6 [00:17:54] Yeah. So if I were to summarize, you feel like, you know, even in Doctrine and Covenants, I think section one, it makes it clear that all other churches are an abomination. That's been the narrative that we were raised on. And so to some extent now to just focus on the good and the truth that's everywhere feels like a bait and switch to you a little bit. Yeah.

Guest 7 [00:18:18] And another thing is, you know, I talked at the beginning when I first sat down with Matt and Elder Clark. We were talking about, you know, some different concerns that I had. And one of the things in the very beginning of the meeting was that I talked about as I've kind of stepped away from the church a little bit and been able to look outside in and talk to some of the members of the church. What scared me most is I've started to see what I see in, like, Scientology documentaries, you know, and I. And what I mean by that is this mind control going on when you have talks. Like Boyd K. Packer when he says, how can I bear a testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, the gospel is true? You know, they basically say the way

Guest 6 [00:19:08] to gain a testimony is by burying it.

Guest 7 [00:19:10] Yeah. He says the testimony found in bearing it. And to me, is that ethical? You know, how is that not bearing false witness? Is that not a part of this whole, you know, mind control thing, you know, that's happening? And so that scared me, John. That really scared me. And as I talk to people and they're unwilling to even open their mind to the opposite side, you know, of things, or just the un. Whitewashed history of the church and the hidden doctrine of the church. It's scary to me that people can't even entertain that, you know, and so. Yeah, so that's part of that whole thing as well.

Guest 6 [00:19:54] Yeah. Yeah. And I would just also add that in some sense, the church kind of speaks out of both sides of its mouth, because you can find these isolated quotes where we emphasize the goodness and truth out there. But make no mistake about it, our missionaries are there to convert people away from their faith. We don't consider baptisms of any other Christian church to be legitimate.

Guest 6 [00:20:21] We don't consider that they have any legitimate authority. And the prevailing, the dominant, the absolute narrative in General Conference through 2017 is this is God's one true church. Join it or you're not part of God's true church. And so for grow to be focusing on the good, that's Found everywhere. It's a nice progressive move. And you hear that from Patrick Mason, you hear that from Givens and others, but it's just not consistent with the prevailing authoritative narrative. And to say that those are in any way comparable or equal or deserve equal weight, it really can't be both. It's either.

Guest 6 [00:21:06] It's just like Gord v. Hinckley has said. It's either everything it's claimed to be, or it's the greatest fraud. You can find Holland saying that, you can find apostles and prophets saying that for dozens and dozens of years. They're the ones who've set it up this way, and it's still framed in this way. And so to claim that it's about goodness everywhere, just not living in reality, you know.

Guest 7 [00:21:34] Yeah, absolutely. And they did. And there was a part where Matt did. Did confirm, you know, the fact that it is kind of all or nothing with the church. It's all or nothing. So, yeah, that's. That's. That.

Guest 6 [00:21:50] That.

Guest 7 [00:21:50] That's a big claim to be the only true church on the face of the planet and yet just ask everybody to just follow the spirit. When something doesn't make sense, you know, or history, DNA, science, logic, disprove something, just follow the spirit. That, to me, can only get me so far, especially as I'm meeting other people out there in the world that. That are spiritual, that have had spiritual experiences, and they've tied them to the religion that they have, you know, and so I can't step into anybody else's body, John. I don't know what they're feeling. So I can never say that my feeling of the spirit is stronger than theirs. Does that make sense? So my whole thing was just. I could no longer rely 100% on the spirit alone to guide me. So things start. Started. I mean, they need to make sense, at least.

Guest 6 [00:22:46] Yeah. That basically called out the epistemology problem. How do we know if something's true? And. And the church's excessive reliance on feelings, irrespective of facts is just deeply problematic. Because some Muslims believe in Islam so much, they've had such a strong spiritual witness that Islam's true that they're willing to fly their plane into buildings. So you just can't claim that feelings are a reliable demonstration of evidence that something's true, because every religion relies on feelings as evidence that the religion is true.

Guest 7 [00:23:24] Well, and you want to talk. You want to talk about feelings. I mean, look at. Look at the. I mean, just look at the commitment, right? I mean, like you said, flying Planes into buildings and, you know, and these suicide, you know, these kamikazes, basically, they believe that God is telling them to do that. That's got to be a pretty intense feeling if we feel like we're feeling the spirit, you know. And another thing is you look at Buddhism, you know, and people committing their entire life to the practice of Buddhism. You look at evangelist conventions, you know, look at the spirit that you feel there. I mean, those guys are getting people on stage that haven't walked in years, that have been sick, and they're healing people. Talk about authority, talk about priesthood. How do you explain these things?

Guest 6 [00:24:14] Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. I think we've covered that one well. And I appreciate where grow is coming from, but I just. I think it's. It comes to me. It just doesn't seem consistent, and it seems a little bit disingenuous. It's sort of like saying these are not the droids you're looking for. When the stark reality is the brethren themselves, as official prophets, seers and revelators, frame it as the one true church with exclusive authority. And so to encourage people to lower their standards, I think is not consistent with the LDS Church. Okay, why don't you read question number two about Book of Abraham and just read the question. You don't even. Just read it straight so that we know what they read when we had the meeting.

Book of Abraham and Anachronisms Examined

Guest 7 [00:25:01] Okay. A lot of these aren't so much

Guest 6 [00:25:03] in question form, but I'll try whatever read the statement.

Guest 7 [00:25:09] So I just put. We have testable claims from Joseph Smith that can help us prove whether he was a true prophet or not. You shall know them by their fruits. One of these is the power of translation from God. Joseph Smith claimed that he could translate documents from Egyptian or reformed Egyptian to English, but nobody could cross check this at the time, since linguistics could not directly translate Egyptian at the time. Today, however, they can, and they have. We don't have the plates from the Book of Mormon. We don't have the Kinderhook plates, but we do have these scraps, as Magro would say, of the papyrus from the Book of Abraham and also the facsimiles right here actually still in the canonized scripture in the Book of Abraham that Joseph Smith supposedly translated.

Guest 7 [00:25:59] So the fact that Egyptologists found the source material for the Book of Abraham to be nothing more than just pagan funerary text of a deceased man named Hor, and that none of these descriptions actually match up with the facsimile, basically every. Every item that we have to test Joseph Smith's Ability to translate. He fails every single time. And so. So, yeah, so that.

Guest 6 [00:26:31] Okay, so that was the statement. So my, you know, my recounting of what Grove's response was was to first make the very classic apologetic claim that we don't have all the scrolls. I think he said that we have just 10, 10% of the scrolls that they, you know, a bunch was destroyed in the fire. So again, apologists are always going to the gaps to say maybe the truth is in the evidence we don't have. Right. As if the absence of evidence sort of proves something or at least allows for plausible deniability.

Guest 6 [00:27:06] He does acknowledge that these are funerary texts and that just as the essays acknowledge that Abraham, from what we have, Abraham's name, you know, pretty much doesn't appear anywhere. There's really no. And it doesn't. The dating of the scrolls don't date to the time of Abraham. He acknowledges that.

Guest 6 [00:27:29] And then he goes into talking about what he calls two impulses. He said Joseph Smith as translator had a scholarly impulse and a spiritual impulse. And that basically we know that there are times where he's trying to understand and learn Hebrew or Greek, and he's trying to, you know, really translate in the sense of the understanding of the word translate that we all have, which is trying to convert one language into English. But he says there's a second impulse, which is a spiritual impulse, where like with the Book of Moses, text just comes to him through revelation.

Guest 6 [00:28:08] And this is basically how he's trying to explain the Book of Abraham. It's a very classic. It's where apologists go these days, that in reality, the scrolls were a catalyst to inspire him to channel God's inspiration. And it's used with the Book of Mormon as well. And I'm not gonna editorialize yet on that, but that's basically what he said. And, you know, then he tries to say, Joseph never tells us exactly how he gets the Book of Abraham or the Book of Mormon. He it's just by the gift and power of God.

Guest 6 [00:28:44] And he was very hesitant to allow the word fraud to be used. Instead, he says it's untestable. And then you gave a really good response where you actually said the facsimiles are testable and they were attempted to be translated and the translations are all inaccurate, which he totally recognized.

Guest 6 [00:29:09] But he basically said from a secular intellectual standpoint, you might choose Trevor to use the word fraud, but from a spiritual standpoint, you can't say it's not revelation. And so that was basically the discussion of Book of Abraham. So how did you feel and what was your reaction to Gros response there? And again we have no response from Clark up through the 27 minute mark. And so again, Clark remained silent during this whole time.

Guest 7 [00:29:50] And I remember looking over to Elder Clark and hoping that he would chime in, but it didn't seem like he had too much to say regarding this. And I don't know if that's from his lack of understanding on the this subject matter. I mean, I can't assume either way, but. Or maybe he was just wanting Matt as the expert to kind of do all the talking. But yeah, I do got to give it to Matt on this one because like, it's not that like either of us are winning different points or anything like that. It's just, I'm just saying I can see where he's coming from from a faith promoting apologetic kind of, you know, perspective.

Guest 7 [00:30:37] However, for me it's just a little too convenient. When you say, it kind of reminds me of the whole idea of, well, sometimes Joseph spoke as a man and sometimes he spoke as a prophet, right? So whenever it's untestable or, you know, or he's right, he was speaking as a prophet. But when he, for example, whenever it's

Guest 6 [00:31:01] something we don't like, then he was right.

Guest 7 [00:31:04] Well, he sent Oliver Cowdery to go to Canada and sell the Book of Mormon, right. And that was Revelation from God. And then when they went up and did the whole thing and it didn't work out and nobody wanted to buy it and they came back, turns out that he was actually speaking as a man. So it's almost, it's a little too convenient to say that when he's wrong, he's speaking as a man, right. And when he's, you know, and we're, when we can't test it or when he's right, oh, that was him being a prophet. It's the same thing here. It's kind of like, well, yeah, when we can test it and it's proven false, that means it was a spiritual translation, right?

Guest 7 [00:31:44] It wasn't actual translation. That just seems a little too convenient for me. And like you said these, a lot of these things aren't spiritual, they're very literal. Like, how do you explain the facsimiles? Like, what kind of, like what spiritual thing am I supposed to get out of some of this stuff? Answers to the Hebrew word meaning rao ki yang. And so it's just weird. And no Egyptian could look at this with a straight face and like actually Accept this as historical legit.

Guest 6 [00:32:17] Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's clear that Joseph was giving people the impression that he was translating, not channeling spirituality. You know what I'm saying?

Guest 7 [00:32:29] Well, he had the Alphabet right. He was taking a very scholarly approach, and there are witnesses to that. And So, I mean, 86% or something like that of the book of Abraham is actually taken from the Bible. So why did he need to really, like, invent? I mean, if most of it was gonna be relevatory or spiritual anyway, why go through all of this pain of coming up with his Egyptian Alphabet and grammar and all this kind of stuff when really he could have just prayed or looked at his stone?

Guest 6 [00:33:08] Yeah.

Guest 7 [00:33:09] I don't know. It's just. It doesn't make sense to me. But that's. You know. But I can see Matt's point where, hey, just have faith on it. It's a spiritual translation.

Guest 6 [00:33:20] And I think. I think we probably should have started acknowledging how kind it was for Elder Clark to meet with you. Maybe you did. Or how generous it was for Matt Grow to meet that they were sincerely offering pastoral care. And at least on Grove's part, making a really sincere attempt not to demean you, not to belittle you, but to just share his best understanding of how this could be reconciled. So there's a degree to which they're working in good faith. They're trying their best to help you, and they deserve credit for their time and kindness and generosity.

Guest 7 [00:33:58] Well, yeah, these guys don't have time to meet with people like me every single day. I mean, if they would meet with people like us every day, I mean, they would have no life, you know, but that's why. That's why, you know, I wanted to share this with people, because I feel like a lot of people would love to kind of be in this. In this situation. I think it's ideas that are worth sharing, you know? But I do think it was very, very kind of Matt to take his time and Elder Clark. Absolutely.

Guest 6 [00:34:28] Yeah. And at least I don't know that people feel like Elder Clark came off very, very well. But I think most people feel like maybe Grow didn't give the best answers, but he came across quite well, quite candid, very, you know, very apologetic, but also not demeaning or belittling. So many people feel like Grow came out. Well, I just want to add something that maybe you've already just kind of mentioned Again, it's apologists always going to where the ground is unprovable to make their point.

Guest 6 [00:35:05] And at the End of this conversation. Grow basically says we need a greater and a better understanding of what being a prophet means. And in theory, that's okay, except for the fact that the prevailing orthodox narrative makes it very clear what a prophet is, which is to talk to God. And when an apologist takes that move of saying, well, I think we need to have a deeper understanding of what translation means or what profit means, what they're really doing is defining down. They're basically saying prophet.

Guest 6 [00:35:41] They're saying it quietly, they're saying it behind closed doors. They're saying it, you know, Givens will say it in a little secret private meeting with a bunch of people who are hand selected at a state conference. Okay, maybe profit means something different than what we thought. Maybe translation means something a little bit different than what we thought. But in reality, they're basically lowering the bar and lowering the standard.

Guest 6 [00:36:04] And that's not what we signed up for. That's not what people got converted to. That's not what my ancestors got converted to. That's not why I served a mission. And so it's just this constant defining down of these terms.

Guest 7 [00:36:19] Do we not know what a prophet, seer and revelator should be doing? Yeah, within the church that. I mean, I felt like it was.

Guest 6 [00:36:27] This comes up, this comes up later in the conversation.

Guest 7 [00:36:30] It absolutely does. Do we touch on it right now?

Guest 6 [00:36:32] No, let's wait. Let's wait. Okay, okay, okay. But I just. But I just wanted to mention that Grow brought bro starts bringing this up.

Guest 7 [00:36:39] Right.

Guest 6 [00:36:40] Okay. So the next topic that you wrote about was Book of Mormon. Why don't you go ahead and read your. And by the way, we have 165 people tuned in to Facebook. Facebook Live. I'll just read one comment. Spencer writes Book of Abraham should be the nail in the coffin. Can't see how anyone looks past that. I just want to agree with Spencer. If John Dehlin purchased some scrolls in 2017 and claimed to translate them and produced a text that then by Egyptologist standards could be clearly demonstrated to not even date to the time of Abraham, to not have the words of Abraham anywhere in it, Mormon apologists would say, John's a liar, John's deceiving people.

Guest 6 [00:37:26] He's a laughingstock. Ignore him. And so I just want to sort of agree with Spencer that what apologists do is they change their standard of credibility for Joseph Smith. Where that standard of credibility would not apply to any other non Mormon nonprofit in the history of the world, but they're willing to give Joseph Smith a

Guest 7 [00:37:47] power John, isn't that what the apologists say about you anyway?

Guest 6 [00:37:51] Yeah, yeah, they do. And we'll talk about that with Jeremy Runnels. And my only point is just that I'm just trying to reflect what Spencer basically said, which is the Book of Abraham is a smoking gun and it should by itself alone demonstrate that Joseph Smith was a fraud. But so many people just don't want to accept it.

Guest 7 [00:38:17] You know, the fact that it's still in the canonized scripture of the church, it just, just blows my mind.

Guest 6 [00:38:24] And I've actually heard rumors that Terrell Gibbons has been privately recommending to the brethren that the Book of Abraham be removed from the canon because it's not credible. Now he won't admit that publicly, but I have it on good sources that that's what he's telling people privately.

Guest 7 [00:38:40] Well, it makes sense. I think it would be a good move.

Guest 6 [00:38:43] Debbie writes, when the facsimiles are there clearly incorrect in the translation and they say, oh, that was a spiritual translation, do they not see that they're suggesting that God was fine with setting up his prophet to look like a fraud? That's a really good point, Debbie. She goes on to write that God, who surely knew that the Rosetta Stone would shortly be thereafter discovered and that Egyptian writing would be translatable, knew that Joseph would be revealed as a fraud if he claimed to have translated the papyru, thought using the papyri as an apparent source would be fine. Question mark. And I think that's, that's a really good point by Debbie.

Guest 7 [00:39:20] That would be really playing with our minds, wouldn't it be? I mean to say, by their fruits you shall know them and then just make their fruits completely just hoaxy feeling. That's, you know, that's misleading.

Guest 6 [00:39:38] Katie writes, if the Book of Abraham wasn't a literal translation, why the need to spend thousands of dollars donated by the saints in tithing to purchase the scrolls? That's another great point made by Katie Man. Our listeners are very thoughtful listeners. Please, please continue bringing up your comments and questions and we'll read them after our analysis. Laura writes, don't forget the Kinderhook plates. And of course that's, that's another example where Joseph Smith claimed to have translated something and it was a, they were made up plates with a made up language just to be able to show that Joseph Smith was just making crap up.

Guest 7 [00:40:16] Yeah, but they're not in the scriptures, you know what I mean? Like. Yes, that's a good point. I mean another thing that I brought up Is this Zelf? You know, anytime Joseph Smith would find anything like his. His credibility of being able to view ancient documents for what they really were is just completely unreliable.

Guest 6 [00:40:38] Right? Yeah.

Guest 7 [00:40:39] But the fact that the Book of Abraham is scripture, it's in the.

Guest 6 [00:40:42] Oh, sure, sure.

Guest 7 [00:40:43] It's insane.

Guest 6 [00:40:44] But there's just Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Kinderhook plates. Kinderhook plates isn't necessarily smoking gun, but if you put all those dots together, of course it forms a line. Annalisa writes, apologists always go to the ground of which is unprovable. And that's totally a great way to summarize. Okay, Trevor, why don't you go ahead and read Book of Mormon, if that's okay.

Guest 7 [00:41:05] Right. And. Okay. So many things to say.

Guest 6 [00:41:10] Did you want to follow up with

Guest 7 [00:41:11] one of the things I was gonna say? You know, one big thing that Matt did mention was this kitchen sink approach. And that that to me was, you know, and what he means by that is, you know, the CES letter.

Guest 6 [00:41:27] Yeah.

Guest 7 [00:41:27] You know, or a lot of people that are kind of, you know, questioning or whatever, they tend to spend a lot of time just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just kind of rapid fire concerns and brushing over a lot of things, but without actually going into detail. And my whole thing on that is because I've heard that before, but my whole thing on that is that's simply not the case.

Guest 7 [00:41:51] The kitchen sink approach is effective because it gives people a reference point to a lot of things that are going on. But it's not like these are shallow points. There are just a lot of things going on here. So these are my top five. But I got to tell you, John, it was really tough for me to pick five because I have hundred plus concerns. And these are not shallow concerns. You can do research on every single one and get very deep in every single one and see that they check out.

Guest 6 [00:42:24] And it's also a weird apologetic defense to say, oh my gosh, there's so much evidence. That's a problem when you bring too much evidence to the table. That's sort of a weird judo move. Because the truth is, if there's a mountain of evidence, that should speak to the lack of credibility of the claims, not to the integrity of the critics who are bringing the evidence forward. Now, the evidence is crap, but the evidence is not crap. The evidence is like completely credible on pretty much every front, you know, by most of the modern, whether it's Sandra Tanner, Gerald Tanner, Jeremy Runnels, Mormon think it's all credible.

Guest 6 [00:43:07] The essays, if they do anything is they confirm that what B H Roberts, Gerald and Sandra Tanner, Grant Palmer, Jeremy Runnels, Mormonthink, Mormon stories. What they've all been saying is absolutely true and legitimate. So don't use the argument, oh, you're bringing too much evidence. The kitchen sink. I'm overwhelmed.

Guest 7 [00:43:28] I would have loved to see the kitchen when I first started going through this. I would have loved to see the kitchen sink approach from the church in response to this. I would have loved to seen that. I wouldn't have complained at all. But the things that I see is like, oh, well, he got this fact wrong. He got this wrong. He got this wrong. And when I look into those where it's inaccurate. And again, we're talking heavily about the CES letter. I don't want to make my entire experience hinge on the CS letter. It's just that Jeremy Runnels did an incredible job summarizing all these points, but it's outside that, too. And what I was going to say is the points that they make where, you know, saying the CS letter isn't 100% accurate, when I look into those, it's like, well, you didn't get the spelling of this right.

Guest 6 [00:44:17] Yeah.

Guest 7 [00:44:17] Or the name of this place is wrong. Or, you know what I mean? Very small stuff. When fundamentally the issue still.

Guest 6 [00:44:25] Or the critics are bad people. We'll talk about that.

Part 4 of 7 · Ep. 713a

John Hamer [00:00:00] Sam.

Guest 8 [00:00:28] Okay, I've got my microphone going, so that's good. All right, so we're back and I'm a little bit exhausted. This is John Dehlin. For those who are still tuned in. It's March 24, 2017. We joke about people still being tuned in. If I check Facebook right now, I think we still have 222 people tuned in. So this is one of the largest live audiences in a sustained way that we've ever had. So let me begin with part three of.

Glenn Ostlund [00:01:08] John, John, why don't you just call them what they really are? They're members of your anti Mormon church. Yes, we have congregated here on Facebook.

Guest 8 [00:01:17] No, that's Jeremy. That's Jeremy Runnels.

Glenn Ostlund [00:01:19] Whatever, whatever.

Guest 8 [00:01:20] That's Jeremy. That's Jeremy. Thanks, Glenn.

Glenn Ostlund [00:01:24] The original false prophet.

Guest 8 [00:01:27] Oh, for those just joining us, welcome to part three of our interview with Trevor. Trevor just shared with us an audio recording from March 3, 2017 where he interviewed Mormon general authority Don R. Clark and Matthew Grow of the LDS Church history department.

Guest 8 [00:01:45] We spent about an hour with Trevor before in part one, talking about his story. It was a beautiful, touching story. And Trevor talked about his life and everything that led up to his meeting with Elder Clark and brother Grow.

Guest 8 [00:02:04] And then during the second part of our interview, we went ahead and listened to the recording. So we've brought on an amazing panel to do a tiny bit of a smackdown. But before we introduce our panel, we're going to have Trevor back just for a few minutes. And Trevor, we want to hear from you. Tell us what it's like to listen to that over again. And I want to hear how you felt when you left as the starting point.

Guest 9 [00:02:36] John, I don't know if I'm still on. Can you guys hear me?

Guest 8 [00:02:38] You're on. You're on.

John Hamer [00:02:39] Oh, great.

Guest 9 [00:02:41] Yeah. So I, you know, as you guys could tell, I, you know, I went into it not wanting to debate certain topics, just wanting to talk through things. But it gets to a point where obviously you get a little frustrated and you can definitely, you know, hear that in my voice towards the end and we kind of go into rapid fire mode a little bit there.

Guest 9 [00:03:04] But, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, at the end of the day I think everybody is passionate with what they believe and they feel like they need to justify it in a way because there's this, you know, there's pride going on and all that kind of stuff. But trying to cut through all of that and just look at the message for what it was, you know, I did get some positive things out of the meeting. I went home and I looked into some of John Sorensen's work a little bit more and brushed up on some other things. And unfortunately there was nothing here that would be earth shattering in ways of revelation or answers to any of my questions.

Guest 9 [00:03:52] I think most of it were theories and justified ways around, kind of tiptoeing around different things. But what was most, I think what was most powerful to me, most eye opening, was how much these prophets and leaders of the church rely on these kind of apologetic historians.

Guest 9 [00:04:17] You know, that was probably like my biggest, like, eye opener. But anyway, yeah, I'd be interested to kind of hear what you guys have to say about it.

Guest 8 [00:04:26] Well, before we let you go, just how did you feel? Were you excited? Were you discouraged? Were you sad? And how do you feel now?

Guest 9 [00:04:35] I think me and, me and my wife left there just kind of with our jaws on the floor like, wow, like that, you know, if that's the pinnacle, you know what I mean? Like, what's next? Do I need to sit down with like the prophet or something? You know what I mean?

Guest 8 [00:04:53] I'm not thinking Thomas s Monson in 2017 is gonna do better than Matthew grow.

Guest 9 [00:05:00] Well, he might, yeah. I mean, I need to be careful with what I say. But yeah, I don't think that it would have been that much different of a situation. Maybe that's the sad thing, is that I could imagine him sitting back and letting the historian, you know, do the work. But I mean, yeah, it was.

Guest 8 [00:05:18] What about the idea that that's not a prophet or a leader's job, that their job is to govern the church, to, to do revelation, to focus on the doctrine, to keep, you know what he said? He said the direction. What about that argument that that's we're expecting the wrong thing from prophets if we think that they're going to be experts in history?

Guest 9 [00:05:41] Yeah, that was, that was scary to me. That was scary to me because. Especially when he said, I don't have time, like, I don't need to know this stuff. Like, I don't have time to know this stuff. We have people working on this for us.

Guest 8 [00:05:54] What's wrong with that?

Guest 9 [00:05:55] Scared the crap out of me.

Guest 8 [00:05:56] Why?

Guest 9 [00:05:57] That's what inspired the question. Wait, so do the prophets and apostles even know what some of these issues are? Like how, you know what I mean? Like how blind really are we being led, you know?

Guest 8 [00:06:10] No, but they'd say that the prophets are busy leading the church and they're busy taking care of things and they're busy setting the direction history is for the historians. What's wrong with that argument to you? Why is that not satisfying?

Guest 9 [00:06:26] Because in a church where everything depends on one event happening, right, it's the keystone of our faith. And so for them not to understand all of the history and logic that goes to that one point in time that basically is a domino effect for the good or the bad, that's a big deal, you know, but it's, it's not just that, though. It's the way that they run the church today. You know what I mean? It's not just knowing about, you know, things from the past, but like, you know, he was saying about purchasing ancient documents, like, you know, the whole Hoffman thing. Well, they just, you know, they just kind of assumed that it was true, and so they signed off on it and all this kind of stuff. It's just like, where's the revelation? Where's the prophecies? You know?

Guest 8 [00:07:19] Well, they answered that. They said it was the proclamation on the family and the temples dotted the globe. Why was that not satisfactory?

Guest 9 [00:07:27] Well, you know, it kind of goes back to the whole, you know, it's all about the primary answers. Just, you know, you need to read and pray about it. Read the scriptures more, Read Moroni fast. It's. It's like I said, it's a rerun. Instead of wanting to actually face these

Guest 8 [00:07:42] issues, what about the Terell Givens argument that God intentionally leaves gaps so that we have to have faith and that's the way it's always been and the way it's always going to be?

Guest 9 [00:07:52] Well, I wish there were smaller gaps, that's for sure. And I definitely believe what I said there.

Glenn Ostlund [00:07:58] Where.

Guest 9 [00:07:58] I don't think there's a common little gap here where God exists and where, you know, logic and science end. I think. I think half of the bridge is absolutely gone. And so I would need to rebuild that bridge somehow. And that's what I was hoping they might be able to help me with because it's not like I need to see an angel of God to tell me this is true, but I just need at least the other half of the bridge to be able to bridge that gap.

Guest 8 [00:08:24] Any other parts that were important or meaningful to you, Glenn wants to raise.

Guest 9 [00:08:31] I think that's probably it for me. I'd love to hear.

Guest 8 [00:08:33] All right, well, Trevor. Oh, Trevor, really quick talk really quickly about why people are asking, did you get their permission to record the audio? And there's people that are going to say it's unethical. To record something in secret and to release it without their permission. We touched on this. But just repeat, how do you respond to those concerns?

Guest 9 [00:08:59] This is a big.

Guest 8 [00:09:00] And what's. What's in your heart? What are you trying to do here? Is this a gotcha?

Guest 9 [00:09:04] No, this is absolutely not. And I. And so that's why, I mean, obviously, I want to give this up to people that would love to be in the same situation that I was in, you know, maybe ask the same or similar questions that I had, you know, and really just kind of take off the gloves for a minute and really talk real, you know, because like we said, this is not a small thing. You know, this is not a small, you know, community organization here. We're talking about millions of people that literally believe this stuff or just don't even know that these problems even exist.

Guest 9 [00:09:38] And so, you know, I just think that, you know, as much as different people have sacrificed, opened themselves up and done different things that have helped me, you know, kind of get through this hard time, I want to be able to contribute to that. And I was very upfront, you know, saying that, yeah, there's a very high likelihood that they don't even know that this recording exists.

Guest 9 [00:10:04] I had a feeling that Elder Clark may have known because I set my phone up on the table and he kind of distanced himself a little bit. That might have been why he wasn't talking very much, I don't know.

John Hamer [00:10:16] But.

Guest 9 [00:10:17] But. But again, I'm very. I'm fully aware of that, but I. I hope that they can see that this is the sincerity of my heart, you know, wanting to share truth and information and everything that they said, I think they would stand by today. So it's not like a gotcha situation at all. It's just. It's in an open format, sharing ideas.

Guest 8 [00:10:40] Okay. And as far as, you know, is it. Is it. My understanding is it's legal in Utah to record if at least one party knows that the recording is happening?

Guest 9 [00:10:50] Yes, absolutely. And that was one thing that I looked into the day that we were talking about whether we should release this or not.

Glenn Ostlund [00:10:56] So it is legal.

Guest 8 [00:10:57] Okay. All right, Trevor. Well, I really appreciate it. I think this is going to be an important interview to sort of show in 2017 where premium elite Mormon apologetics are, where the general authorities are and where the church is and where it isn't. I think there's a lot of really powerful things in that interview that we're about to discuss with some amazing people. So, Trevor, thanks for joining us. Please keep in Touch.

Guest 9 [00:11:24] All right, thanks again, guys.

Guest 8 [00:11:25] All right, beautiful. Okay, everybody, it's time for the smackdown Mormon story style. And who better to do a smackdown than two of the if it's on Thrones crew, plus the brilliant Lindsey Hansen Park. So let's just do a quick introduction, and we'll. We'll do ladies first, if that's okay. So, Lindsay Hansen park, why don't you just quickly introduce yourself and tell everyone all the good things they need to. To do and follow that you're involved with.

Panel Discussion on the Meeting

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:11:54] Am I the token lady on this podcast? Is that what it is?

Guest 8 [00:11:57] No, you're not. You're. You're brilliant, and that's why you're here.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:12:02] My name is Lindsay Hanson Park. As John mentioned, I am the assistant director for Sunstone. I'm not speaking as Sunstone today. I'm just speaking as myself. I'm also the host of the Year of Polygamy podcast, where we cover the history of Mormon polygamy from the beginning until now. So I have some thoughts about the polygamy comments today.

Guest 8 [00:12:21] I bet. I was thinking of you quite a bit. Well, Lindsay, welcome and support Sunstone. That's my little plug. All right. So, Glenn, since you're the boss of Infants on Thrones, do I have to introduce you before I introduce John Hamer? Is that the way it works? Is there a patriarchy and Infants on Thrones?

John Hamer [00:12:37] We do everything in appointment order to follow each other.

Guest 8 [00:12:43] That's great, Glenn.

Glenn Ostlund [00:12:44] No, but if I think we're going in a scale from most feminine to least feminine, it's appropriate to have me follow Lindsay because John Hamer is a man's man.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:12:55] Much more.

Glenn Ostlund [00:12:56] Much more than I am. So I don't know.

Guest 8 [00:12:59] What do.

John Hamer [00:12:59] You

Glenn Ostlund [00:13:01] wanted to ask Tyler some questions? It's Tyler, right?

Guest 8 [00:13:03] He actually explicitly asked me not to include him in the panel, so. Sorry. Yeah, he. Maybe he'll. Maybe he'll respond in text, but just introduce yourself, Glenn, and tell us why. Why? You're awesome.

Glenn Ostlund [00:13:17] I am not awesome.

Guest 8 [00:13:18] Okay, but if it's On Thrones is your podcast, right? Along with several other cool people we've got.

Glenn Ostlund [00:13:24] We've got nine people, nine infants on Thrones that we have a lot of fun with that.

Guest 9 [00:13:29] So.

Guest 8 [00:13:29] All right, well, welcome back to Mormon Stories. This is not your first appearance, I should note, nor Lindsay's.

Glenn Ostlund [00:13:35] All right, well, first visual appearance.

Guest 8 [00:13:37] That's right. You look handsome. You're like Phoenix. Is Phoenix area good for you?

Glenn Ostlund [00:13:43] Okay.

Guest 8 [00:13:44] All right, Lindsay, you've got some hair. Go. Some hair color going on.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:13:47] Yes, I do. I Got it dyed red right before I went down to Colorado City. So I looked like a Gentile. Quite. Quite like a gentile.

Guest 8 [00:13:55] So you're looking great. Looking great. All right, John Hamer, you look great as well. So all three of you look great. And John, introduce yourself.

John Hamer [00:14:06] Well, I've been on several of your programs where we've been friends for a whole long time and also supporter of Sunstone. You and I and Lindsay are getting together here in Toronto, which is where I live, for Sunstone, very soon, and looking forward to that. I do a bunch of work.

Guest 8 [00:14:21] April, what are the dates? April what?

John Hamer [00:14:23] April 8th. Right?

Guest 8 [00:14:24] Yeah.

John Hamer [00:14:25] I should be plugging this properly. So Saturday, April 8, in Toronto. Here in Toronto. And then a lot of people are getting together the night before to go see Book of Mormon, the musical. So anyway, it's a wonderful.

Guest 8 [00:14:35] And the day after Sunday morning, we're going to attend one of your services at Community of Christ.

John Hamer [00:14:41] So a lot of people are going to come and see, well, what on earth could John Hamer's church be like? And so you can come to my congregation if you so choose. So, yeah.

Guest 8 [00:14:51] Well, thanks for. Thanks for joining us, John. All right. I really have nowhere to begin, but, Glenn, you really were jumping up and down. So do you want to. Do you want to start?

Glenn Ostlund [00:15:00] Well, I wanted to talk to him about what he really expected to come out of that sit down interview with the questions. And he mentioned in the wrap up there that he really did want to believe. He really wanted. He was hoping that they would give him something that could help him with his belief.

Glenn Ostlund [00:15:23] I'm gonna be a little bit skeptical about that. I don't know, maybe he really is sincere that he feels that that's what he wanted. But I didn't, as I was listening this, I didn't hear any times where he was taking what they were offering him and he was accepting it or, you know, really considering it. It was kind of like the same stuff. Oh, I've heard that. I can dismiss that and move on to another thing. And so a lot of the notes that I wrote are kind of along those lines where I just feel like it gets to a certain point where it comes to faith.

Glenn Ostlund [00:15:58] Like, you're either gonna accept these things because your faith says, yeah, I'm gonna believe in this, are true, or you're gonna say, no, I need more than faith. And when you've got two different people who are expecting different types of discussions, it just, I don't think that it really goes anyway. So that. That's kind of my overall response.

Guest 8 [00:16:20] Lindsay, then John.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:16:22] Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Hamer. So, yeah, I was writing notes too, and I'm just gonna kind of look at these. First of all, I was really impressed with mat kindness in the interview, and this has been consistent with my experience with church historians. I think these guys are really great. They know their stuff, probably more than the interview even reflected. And which is kind of a bummer that he didn't know that it was being recorded. I think that it wouldn't have changed the answers much, but I think that they really are put in a difficult situation. He led with. I don't know if you guys remember, but he led with the idea of truth is everywhere.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:16:54] You know, trying to figure out, find some common ground like Glenn was saying. And that's absolutely factual in the historical sense. There are quotes from our leaders saying that truth is everywhere. I think I'm wondering if there's a better approach in this interview because like Glenn pointed out, I think that the stated purpose was to maybe talk about some historical concerns and then Matthew Grow would address those and then everybody would be okay. But we've been in this business long enough. We know that that's not really what was happening in this interview.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:17:25] With respect to Elder Clark, I think that he was hoping that maybe there would be an answer and it would be resolved and everyone say, oh, I can't believe I never saw it that way before. I would give advice to anyone who is in this situation talking to someone with doubts or who has concerns.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:17:42] When you're dealing with someone who's doubting, who's lost their faith, you lead with validation first, always. And of course, Matthew Grove did this a little bit. He tried to validate that the CES letter has some historical facts and things like that. But when you feel betrayed by the church, like you already have the facts you need, I mean, people go into like a two month. In my case, it was like a five year deep dive into church history.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:18:08] And it's not like, I mean, you hear this with my Year of Polygamy podcast at the very beginning. I promise that if we have enough context, it's going to make this okay. And actually, the more context we get, the worse it gets. And so I almost feel like what you need to do is not try to fix the facts. You hypervalidate. I mean, we. It's like you have to overcorrect with validation. And I wonder if he would have come in and he would have said, here are my problems and they would have said, yeah, you know what, it sucks. It's really bad. I'm sorry if that would have had a better approach rather than. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But here are some ways that I look at it. I just, I don't know that. That effective.

Guest 8 [00:18:49] Yeah. Emotional.

Glenn Ostlund [00:18:50] Effective in achieving what?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:18:53] Well, I'm assuming that the goal would be to either first, you know, take care of Trevor or keep him in the church. And you know, I just. About the Book of Abraham too. He. Trevor's talking, saying that he looks for answers, he wants answers. But really Trevor at this point already knows the answer. He knows the Book of Abraham.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:19:14] I don't think context is going to convince him. I think if they would have said something like, you know what? It's a mess. All of us in this church are collectively trying to sort this out right now. It's a trial for our generation. We don't have a good answer. We're all coming to a reckoning with our faith. Maybe Trevor, maybe you can help us. You're the one in the seat right now. What would you suggest? Inviting him in? Because really, I think that this is a conversation about identity, not a conversation about correcting the facts. I mean, once you read the CES letter, it's not like you can critique maybe his approach or his methodology or scholarship, but at the end of the day, you can go somewhere else and find good, accurate scholarship on these issues that back up what, you know, Jeremy Reynolds is writing.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:20:02] And you're not going to fix those. There's not enough context or finagling or Terrell Givens approach that are going to straighten the facts, how you needed them to be. It's, it's, that's not what I think Trevor was looking for. That's my opinion.

Guest 8 [00:20:16] John Hamer, let's bring you in. What were you going to say?

John Hamer [00:20:19] Well, it's too late for what I was going to say now. There's another whole thing on the topic.

Guest 8 [00:20:25] No, let's have you have an opening statement. What, what was your reaction? What was the first thing you wanted to say after listening?

John Hamer [00:20:34] Well, what I was going to say before was reacting to Glenn. Now I would be reacting to Lindsay. If I'm going to go back to what I was going to say is something. It would be something different. I mean, I guess I didn't know what we were going to be listening to. When you said, hey, let's have. Do you want to be on a podcast? It's going to be something real cool. I said, sure. So anyway, it was very Interesting to listen through this, to be able to hear the recording, to hear how people are trying to. Had people trying to work through it. I thought that Matt, who was doing, Matt Groh, who's doing most of the talking, I thought he had approached this.

John Hamer [00:21:11] He was in a very, I think a quite earnest way. I mean, I think he was. Most everything that he was sharing was, you know, academically defensible. I mean there are a couple places where he's sending him to Sorensen and referencing the missing papyrus theory, neither of which are clearly not what Matt's, where Matt's hanging his testimony on or whatever. But you know, in other words, that's just in our arsenal. You can maybe go over there too. Those are not particularly defensible directions. But in general, everything that he was talking about was pretty, pretty reasonable.

John Hamer [00:21:44] But it was clear to me that, you know, so, so all the different things that Lindsay was suggesting that they do, you know, and it wouldn't have been, wouldn't that have been working better and all that kind of thing. I think that the problem here is that the person who was running the meeting and whose agenda it was, who put it together, the member of the 70, it was very clear he had no idea what the problem was. You know, and so because he himself doesn't understand the problem or the issues, he's just aware, well, we've got smart people on our side. That's as much as.

John Hamer [00:22:13] That's as well as he knows it. And so then his goal then at a certain point is to simply say, well, the person who's the head of the anti Mormon church over here has an agenda and you either going to believe them or you're going to believe us, you know, and that's, I mean that's pretty well as, as how he's framed it. And so he wasn't. He just wants to say, well, it's muddy everywhere and that's all you have to worry about. Right. And then see whose side it is to be on. But so that's, I think, why they couldn't possibly have led it the other way.

John Hamer [00:22:39] I think that if you were, if Matt Grow was having a meeting, you know, himself and he'd brought him, he would have probably done it quite differently.

Guest 8 [00:22:47] Yeah. So here's what I'm hearing so far from everyone, Glenn, you're, I don't know, is it fair to say, Glenn, you're questioning Trevor's motives, that he, he wasn't upfront or that he was disingenuous in some way, is that was that your opening concern?

Glenn Ostlund [00:23:04] Well, I'm sorry, that. That was my opening concern. That's what I led with. But, you know, that.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:23:09] That.

Glenn Ostlund [00:23:09] That's what I wanted to talk to him about before he jumped off that. Okay, that.

John Hamer [00:23:12] That was. That.

Glenn Ostlund [00:23:13] That was the reason I said, but you got to.

Guest 8 [00:23:15] You got. Did his first hour show you any sincerity? Heartfelt. Heartfelt desire to seek truth to. Did you see the part where he cried about how he didn't want this to happen and.

Glenn Ostlund [00:23:28] Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Guest 9 [00:23:29] Yeah.

Glenn Ostlund [00:23:30] I mean, I'm not doubting his sincerity as a person, you know, and his experience of leaving the church over the last.

John Hamer [00:23:37] What did he say it was.

Glenn Ostlund [00:23:38] It's pretty recent. It's been six months, a year. And so, you know, for me, I've been out a lot longer and, you know, so it may be my own arrogance that's looking at this and going, oh, I recognize that stage, you know, where I'm like, okay, I've learned all this stuff. It's rocked my world. I want to have a conversation with people and test out these new ideas, but also I want them to know. And so I think they're there. And I'm projecting myself onto Trevor at this point, which isn't fair to Trevor, but it's all like, you know, can do in that situation. If I was sitting there having this conversation with those two guys, I would have been wanting to drop everything that I know to kind of not really trip them up, but to get a response from them, especially if I'm recording it.

Glenn Ostlund [00:24:29] And I know, okay, this is going to be on record and regurgitating, and it's still part of, I think, him working through all of this himself.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:24:38] But.

Glenn Ostlund [00:24:38] But I don't get the sense that there was really anything that they could have said to him that would reverse the course that he had started months earlier. And the way that he was interpreting

Guest 8 [00:24:50] the information, I relate to him because I was able to meet with Elder Holland twice. And during those two meetings, honestly, it's true that I was skeptical that Elder Holland was going to resolve any of my concerns. And in fact, he didn't at all. In fact, he raised more concerns. But I don't think it's fair to say that I wasn't open or even the Trevor wasn't open. When I listened to Trevor, I hear him paying attention to what they say. I hear him processing it. And I did hear several points where he was like, okay, that's a fair concern. I can see what you're saying

Guest 9 [00:25:29] wasn't.

Glenn Ostlund [00:25:29] Weren't those Always followed up with the but.

Guest 8 [00:25:31] Well, yeah, but that's because. Is it also possible that they were not satisfactory answers?

Guest 9 [00:25:38] Absolutely.

Glenn Ostlund [00:25:38] And that's my point, that I don't think that there was anything that they could have said to him that would have changed the way.

Guest 8 [00:25:46] And all I'm saying is it's still possible. I'm just saying it's still possible to go to those meetings doubtful and skeptical that people are going to have an answer, but still hoping for it. And I believe that I was hoping for it when I went to Holland. I still stayed in the church years after Holland disappointed me, but I was hoping for it. And I think I would have been sincerely grateful if he had given something which he didn't do.

John Hamer [00:26:10] JOHN HAMER I was just going to say it's because we're maybe from this perspective aware that there's nothing that they could say, but you may be until you actually have had them, until you get to the point where you are aware, you know, there's nothing that they could say that you do know, you might still hope that there's something they could say. And so actually I thought that the places where one of the core places where they were losing him in the interview, would it be always when they. That then would. Would this faith component that you were talking about or that. That Glenn is talking about, you know, that this not having that be able to be bridged and that's where it ends.

John Hamer [00:26:42] So in other words, when they would admit would instead of saying, okay, no, it is this literal black and white, you know, God is communicating directly to the prophet kind of thing, kind of as you've always envisioned it, as two people talking to each other and they're saying, no, no, no, it's not really like that. So where they would use these kind of jujitsu ways of stepping away from making those kind of stronger faith claims, then that would then divide them further. Because then he said because. And that I think what he was always circling back to, which was, okay, I could believe all these things, but there's nothing.

John Hamer [00:27:10] But he was like describing it. When you take the truth component out of it or whether when you take that, that core faith claim component out of it, then what's there. That's.

Guest 8 [00:27:19] Yeah. And that was. Lindsay, Lindsay, please.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:27:23] Yeah, no, I think I agree with all of you. To Glenn's point, I agree with him in this in the sense that. Not that I'm questioning Trevor's motives at all, but I think when you're in that situation, you really do. It's sincere that you, you think that you're hoping for an answer to this, but somewhere deep down in your heart you already know the answer now that maybe the Book of Abraham isn't a literal translation. So anything at this point, anything that, that doesn't sound, that isn't validation, sounds like an apology. And I think that that is where the leadership really needs to get real about this.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:28:01] The essays are a good step, I guess, but really what needs to happen is not a better explanation about the Book of Abraham that sounds like an apology. What needs to happen is validation. Validation, validation, inclusion. How do we accept people into our identity who still like, who have found out these things? Those are the things that are not being addressed. And in, you know, Matthew Grow's defense, he was brought in to clarify these facts. But I think that it could have gone a lot further if he would have said, yeah, you're right. I've had church historians say that to me and it's so validating to be like, yeah, this is a mess.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:28:39] I don't know. I'm not sure I have an answer to that. Because that, to me, Trevor, that's what Trevor is really asking. He's hoping that the facts will back it up, but we all know that they won't.

Guest 8 [00:28:49] Well, Lindsay, you're making a great point. Validation is always the way to go. That's like psychology 101. If you're going to be a therapist, you just listen empathetically and show unconditional positive regard. That will get you 70% of the way there. In all of therapy, you don't even need an empirically supported form of therapy. If you believe in what you're saying, you just show love and empathy and people are going to feel great about it. I'm just going to disagree with you guys on one small point.

Guest 8 [00:29:17] When you're meeting with the wizard, when you're at Oz, meeting with the wizard, people that have unrestricted access to everything, if they were to come up with, actually we have a new DNA study that we've conducted that shows this or that or actually, if I could take you back to the vault, here's a piece of evidence that shows this or that.

Guest 8 [00:29:38] I think it's still reasonable to say, alright, I'm going to make sure with the people at the very top that there's nothing I haven't heard. And in that sense they didn't produce. And so it's a way to sort of say, okay, I've seen the Wizard, I stood behind the curtain. I got to ask my Questions and they got nothing. Now, having said that, Lindsay, I think you're 100% right that validation is the way to go. Let me move to.

Glenn Ostlund [00:30:07] Before we move off of validation, because I. Validation is great. Is it realistic in a situation where you've got a group of very staunch believers and somebody who's come to the conclusion that I'm not believing this, I'm not buying these arguments and he's seen them, that you can really validate each other. So I mean, what would that look like for.

Glenn Ostlund [00:30:33] And I'm forgetting their names. I'm sorry, I'm spacing it out. But Clark. And grow and grow for them to validate Trevor. Because grow did do that, you know. Oh yeah, I get that. I've heard that. You know, there was that. But he can't validate what Trevor really wants him to validate, which is your conclusion in studying all these things indicates that there really is a problem and there's no solution to that problem except to leave the church.

Glenn Ostlund [00:31:02] Well, I think they can validate up to a point to say, yes, this is a problem and this is where you need to have faith to fill in the gap. And if Trevor said, okay, yeah, I can have faith that fills in the gap then.

Glenn Ostlund [00:31:13] Because then Trevor would have to validate that faith is an acceptable stopgap, but he's not willing to validate them there. And so that's where I feel like you can validate up to a point, but where it really takes hold in a situation like this, it's not therapy. A situation like this, I don't know where it is. So I'd love to be instructed here. How can you get the validation at that level?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:31:38] I want to push back on one of your points, which is cool. You're saying that you can't validate, you can't agree with each other. This is what I disagree with is the part where you said, well, it come. He can't valid Matthew girl cannot validate the idea of, well, you know, there is a problem in the history. So the only solution is to leave the church. That's the problem. That that is our only acceptable choice is to leave the church. What I think would save pain, would save suicides, would save families breaking up, is if we could say, yeah, there's a problem, let's figure it out, rather than, yep, I guess you have to leave now because you didn't figure out the facts.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:32:14] And now we're to a point in the church development with. With this information that most people leave and there is support and it's not as bad as it was even five years ago. So I'm not trying to say that leaving the church is like, you know, a choice that shouldn't have to be made because clearly it's a good choice for a lot of people. But what I'm saying is this is where we're getting stuck on the old narrative that the LDS Church has given us for so long, that if you don't fall in line, you're out. And that's kind of what we hear Clark adhering to.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:32:43] And he can't even let his mind accept that there's a problem. So I agree there. They're not going to. I mean, they would have to start on the basis that there's a problem. Trevor is saying, hey, there's a problem. And Elder Clark is like, well, there's probably not. Just talk to someone smarter.

John Hamer [00:32:58] Right?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:32:58] That's. That's not a conversation. But Matthew Grow knows this. He knows that there's a problem. And like you said, I think he handled it well. But I think to argue on the points of history is a mistake because that is not where the solution.

Guest 8 [00:33:14] Right, right, right. All right, this is great. Let's jump into some of the content. The first point I wanted to talk about was he started out wanting to talk about epistemology and then kind of the one true church problem. One thing I noticed is I got the sense that Grow was focusing on the sense that the church pulls truth and sees truth everywhere. But that Grow did not want to actually answer the question about the one true church. And I've listened to this twice now. What I heard him say is, you know, if you want the. That issue of the one true church addressed, talk to Clark. But that's not gonna be coming from me. Did you guys hear that? And do you think it's safe to ask or wonder whether Grow himself isn't necessarily wed to this idea of one true church? Did anybody catch that or is that something. No one really.

John Hamer [00:34:04] He clearly, I mean, he actually, in that whole thing, he actually volunteered Joseph Smith thinking there's truth in masonry. Right. So he was actually. So that was. Which is. That's a bold, I don't know, example of finding truth everywhere. Since masonry doesn't have any ancient, you know, antecedent or anything like that. It's something that is invented in late medieval, more likely early modern times, and so therefore doesn't go back to Solomon and all that kind of thing. And you're kind of admitting that that's at the core of contemporary or if you, if you actually take people down that path, you would say, well, that's where Joseph Smith got a lot of this temple stuff.

John Hamer [00:34:40] And so in other words, finding truth wherever it may be. But then he. The one place that he did and he didn't address it then is he says, okay, well, we of that, therefore that there's truth everywhere. And then he says, but what's unique is the church's authority claim. And then he didn't follow that up. And actually nobody followed that up.

Guest 8 [00:34:55] Well, I heard him say, I can't speak to that. You got to talk to Elder Clark to speak to that.

John Hamer [00:35:02] Yeah, the church's unique claim of authority. So in other words, that's where he's like, in other words, there's truth all over the place. But the unique thing is this authority claim, and that's really the whole thing that it's all coming down to.

Guest 8 [00:35:13] And I didn't hear Clark address it. So at the minute Mark, he says, feel free to weigh in, Elder Clark. And Elder Clark gives no answer. Lindsay or Glenn, do you make anything of that, or is it. Was it not something that struck you?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:35:28] I mean, I think it's sincere. My. My experience with all. All LDs academics or academics that study Mormonism, I would say that they have very similar approaches to this, a more universalist, dualistic approach. I think that scientific, classically trained historians will and John Hamer can maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that that's the method being taught in academia. So I didn't hear that and be like, oh, that's some new radical shift in church ideology. I think that that's pretty consistent where scholars are.

Guest 8 [00:35:59] You kind of saying that Grow is acting as a historian, not as a church authority. So he wouldn't speak about the one true church.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:36:05] I mean, he led with that. He said, this is my role. I'm the historian. Which I think is another academic responsibility that he has. And the problem with all of us, and we come by it honestly, so this is not to blame the victim, but if you have a church name badge on, if you work for the church, we expect that validation. That's why I'm saying it's probably wrong. Headed for the system to expect that Matthew Grow could somehow magically solve this guy's problems. What they really need from anyone who wears a church badge is validation.

Guest 8 [00:36:37] Yeah, Glenn.

Guest 9 [00:36:39] Yeah.

Glenn Ostlund [00:36:40] Well, I don't know how quick it's going to be, but I'll try. I think that it's fair to infer from what we Listen to that. Matthew Grow is not. He's aware of this as a problem for ex Mormons, the one true church claim. And what he was trying to do was say it doesn't have to be black or white, that one church is true and all the rest of them are false, but it could be that there's truth in all of them, you know, so it's a way of softening that problem. And so in that sense, I think he was validating, he was showing an awareness of the concern.

Glenn Ostlund [00:37:11] He was validating a little bit and he was offering. Even though he's saying, I'm a historian, this isn't really my specialty, where I can help you. I'll tell you how I've reconciled this. I think that was where his answer was and that it's not that it's all or nothing, it's that we just have 100% and everybody else has, you know, 70, you know, something like that. But, you know, 70 is not bad, you know, so don't think that it's such a harsh claim that we're a one true church. Maybe that would help you stay, you know, or something like that. So I thought that's what his response was.

Guest 8 [00:37:44] Sure, sure. Okay, that makes sense. And I just do wonder, you know, some of the comments on the Facebook livestream. We're basically saying that Matthew grows sort of a new order Mormon, that he's certainly more like, you know, I would have been seven years ago, which is like, ah, the church isn't true with a capital T, but there's truth in it. And we have our own divine mission, but other churches are true too. And we're all, you know, there's many paths of map, many paths of Mount Fuji. Do any of you guys think that it's off limits to, to speculate reasonably that Grow might be sort of more new order mormorous than orthodox. Anybody have a thought?

John Hamer [00:38:31] He's gonna be, he's. When the answers that he gave, I mean, we'll get to it in the Book of Abraham. Right?

Guest 8 [00:38:36] Let's go to that. Let's go to that John. Let's. Let's talk about the very next thing, right? Joseph and scholar versus Joseph, Spiritual impulse versus scholarly impulse. Talk about that, John.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:38:47] Right?

John Hamer [00:38:47] And so I mean he, I thought that was one of the answers that he kind of spent the most time trying to explain. And so he was presenting the LDS apologetic arsenal. And so essentially he says, well, there's. We not going to totally throw out here the missing papyrus theory that some people would like to have, which I think is pretty irrelevant and doesn't, you know, isn't going to go anywhere. But then he actually didn't. He didn't say that that was where he was at. So like you say, he said that. What we always see with Joseph Smith, who is an intellectually curious guy who wasn't like Brigham Young who just thought all book learning was bad.

John Hamer [00:39:25] He was actually a guy who, wherever he had the opportunity to, he wanted, you know, they made the school of the prophets, of the apostles. He wanted to. They hired a rabbi or Hebrew teacher anyway to be able to teach them Hebrew. He wanted to learn that stuff. And they were trying to, in the, in the. Joseph's myths, Egyptian grammar and that. They were trying to put that, you know, try to figure out Egyptian in that kind of a sense. Although even then there's no clear cut, though it shouldn't be thought of as being like completely separated. Like, there's the scholar Joseph Smith and the.

John Hamer [00:39:54] And the prophet Joseph Smith. It's all intertwined in him, I should think. But anyway, that comes up with the proposal, though. He's saying, well, look, why don't we just. What if we see, though, the book of Abraham as the papyrus is merely being catalytic. So in other words, that this is another kind of, you know, direct revelation where Joseph Smith is the source here of the text entirely, and it's not actually any kind of translation in an academic sense. And so that's a new one, you know, quite a nuanced view that isn't probably going to be printed in a CES manual anytime soon. Right. And so if you're saying, does that make you a more nuanced, sophisticated LDS position? That's where he's at.

Guest 8 [00:40:38] It looks like it seems to be. A lot of the comments on Facebook were that Joseph did claim to be translating, really translating. And this is something that really struck me last week or the week before. Bushman Givens, Jana Reese, you know, Mark Brown, Rosalind Welch, Patrick Mason, they all descend on Utah State University. They spent a whole day. Phil Barlow was there. They spent a whole day redefining the term translation, trying to say translation doesn't mean translation. And Joseph didn't even necessarily mean translation when he said translation. Translation can be all sorts of other things that then allows the scriptures to still be valid, even if they're not historical. And my question is, is there evidence that Joseph meant translation when he said translation? And are they being a little bit muddying the waters a little bit?

John Hamer [00:41:33] It's probably said a lot of things that Joseph Smith says are said with deliberate nuance. In other words, he says things that he. There. There are multiple answers to. And he may well say he's legally meaning the one, but he's also then consciously trying to get people to hear the other. So that certainly happens when he uses phrasing that's nuanced. But I would say in this case, with the word translation, I think that there's a lot of evidence to see that Joseph Smith is maybe thinking of something quite different in terms of translation than what we think of today, or what even what the LDS Church recently has ever kind of presented this kind of thing as, because this word that they use at the time, you know, they use it biblically to say, like the city of Enoch is translated from earth up to heaven, that Moses body is translated and it becomes an eternal body.

John Hamer [00:42:21] In other words, they use that word translated. If you read the early patriarchal blessings that Joseph Smith Sr. Gave to early members, he says, thou shalt have the power to translate thyself from planet to planet. And so what he means by translate in that case is not that you're going to turn your body into a digital whatever, you know, some kind of other language. It means that you're going to transport it, teleport it from space to space. And so it is completely, I think, defensible to say that the idea here is you are taking something from the spiritual realm and bringing it to the physical realm.

John Hamer [00:42:52] And that may well be, in other words, as opposed to an academic translation. So I would agree with them in that conference and to that extent.

Guest 8 [00:43:00] So to say that Joseph Smith ever gave the impression that he was looking at a character in a foreign language, figuring out what it literally meant, and then translating that into English, they're also doing that. Did Joseph give the impression that he was doing that with the Book of Mormon or with the papyra, with the plates or the papyrus?

John Hamer [00:43:20] Yeah, he's doing that with both because he also gives out characters which he says are these, you know, these characters that he says are on the Book of Mormon plates. And so the idea is that those are actual. An actual character language. And then with the Egyptian, like Matt Groh was mentioning, they produce this entire Egyptian language and grammar where they create what they think of as a system for Egyptian and how it would work. And they take a. A character from the hieroglyphic, from the papyrus that they have, and then they try to create a system for it. But their understanding of hieroglyphics is completely wrong.

John Hamer [00:43:52] It's this. This idea that everybody had in the 17th, 18th, 19th century, that Egyptian language is entirely magical. And so each one of these little glyphs can be a whole paragraph. And that is actually. And their. Their basis for that. Then those same things that are happening in those glyphs, a lot of those same phrases enter into the Book of Abraham text as we have it. So it is not a completely separate thing like they like to do. It's intertwined.

Guest 8 [00:44:19] Glenn, what do you think about this?

Glenn Ostlund [00:44:21] Well, I don't even think that. I don't mean any insult to John Hamer, but I don't think you need a historian as well studied and smart as John Hamer is to answer the question that you're asking. You just need to look at the facsimiles that are in the Book of Abraham, because they're annotated. And Joseph Smith said in here, this place right here at number one says this. And the things that used to capture my imagination when I was a kid poring over this in sacrament meeting were the ones that would say, contains writings that cannot be revealed unto the world but is to be had in the holy temple of God.

Glenn Ostlund [00:44:59] And then figure nine ought not to be revealed to the world at the present time. Figure 10 also Figure 11 also, if the world can find out these numbers, so let it be. Amen. You know, I mean, just look at what's in the scriptures that are being published and circulated among Mormons today. And you can see that Joseph Smith was very literally assigning meaning to these characters and intentionally withholding and saying, oh, you're gonna get more of this later.

Glenn Ostlund [00:45:27] So to me, it's not really even a valid argument or response to take the Catalyst theory and to say that he wasn't working from that. But it doesn't. Again, listen, I'm going back to the question of validation. How do you show validation in a conversation like this when Grow is clearly saying, well, yeah, there's things like this, but you've got to take it on faith. And you got to look at all the other scriptures that he did and what was Joseph Smith and put it into all this context. And he's taking this very apologetic approach to it, but it's so that he can validate or justify his faith.

Glenn Ostlund [00:46:06] That's why I believe this. And they're never gonna get to a point where he goes, oh, yeah, you're right, boy. The facsimiles in the Book of Abraham are just wrong.

Guest 8 [00:46:16] Yeah, I'm pretty. And Lindsay, I want to bring you in here, but I'm pretty certain that Joseph Smith told people that these papyru were written by the hand of Abraham, if I'm not mistaken, that he believed that, that he told people that.

Guest 8 [00:46:30] And sometimes I just think Occam's razor applies. My nephew once said that nobody is postmodern about a label on the rat poison. You look at the words and you see what it is, and you don't mess with it. And I think sometimes Occam's razor applies. And in the case of the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, the use of the word translation, he meant to give people the impression that he was translating ancient records into English. And. And that's the end of story. And trying to expand the word translate to make it fungible, I think is just grasping for straws in a narrative that, you know.

Guest 8 [00:47:07] And I like to say this, that if I went to Patrick Mason or Phil Barlow or Richard Bushman and said, I've received ancient records from somewhere and now I've translated them, and look at what they mean. If there was a source translation for the original language, they would look at that. They would say that I was making it up, and they would say that I was a fraud. They wouldn't, you know, add, you know, give me credit for being able to channel some spiritual sort of knowledge. They would just say, John Dehlin is fooling people. He's a fraud. Ignore him. But they're willing to do that for Joseph Smith for whatever reason they are. Okay, Lindsay, what do you. What do you want to add?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:47:44] Okay, I'm going to get all Mormon feminists for a minute. Okay. Because when Mormon. When Mormons. Feminists talk about issues in the church, very rarely in feminist spaces are we talking about the Book of Abraham. So, like, when I'm hearing you guys talk about it, I'm thinking like, this is such a Mormon man conversation. And that's not derogatory.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:48:04] Certainly the Book of Abraham is an issue for a lot of women. That's not what I mean. But I'm just thinking, like, the way that you guys were taught and viewed to view the church was one way. Right. And the way that women are taught to view the church is another way. So women are taught in the church that we don't have authority. We don't have a power. The power. So we're always doing, like, these little shifts and moves to have it make sense. So I feel like women are almost more equipped to have more nuance in these things. And that's why the literalistic translation of Book of Abraham, I think doesn't matter to a lot of women because for us it's a, it's a different approach.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:48:37] So I'm going to bring that into it. And again, I'm speaking generally and more about my experience too. So I'm not trying to project my stuff. But we're like arguing fact for fact. We're expecting. Glenn, when you're talking about validation, I think what you're saying is you're expecting Trevor to go in and be validated on the facts. That's not what I'm saying at all because I think that's impossible. Let's throw the facts out. Let's say the book of Abraham is garbage, that Joseph Smith made it up. Whatever we want to say about that. There's this feminist thinker, Audre Lorde, who says this quote that you'll never for the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:49:15] They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And that's what I feel like this whole conversation is contingent upon. We're trying to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. We're trying to say, well, look, they're being literal about the book of Abraham and it doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. Like Glenn pointed out, the facsimiles are being taught literally. The problem in the church for me is that we teach people to think about this literally. And now, you know, we're reaping what we sowed with that. And so we're trying to have this conversation where we're beating fact for fact.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:49:49] And it's not much. It's not going to match up. It's not because Joseph Smith, the way he saw the world, the way that he did things were shady. A lot of times they were shady. And I think community of Christ has figured this out to say, well, why don't we, you know, Joseph Smith, instead of making him this one dimensional character, let's show that Joseph was, you know, a revelator and a prophet and a seer, but he was also a fraud. And he was also sometimes, you know, had sexual impulses and sometimes he was a criminal. And making people more dimensional, I think is the way to go.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:50:22] But even in this conversation we're trying to like, you know, beat them at their own game. And that game's done. That game was over a long time ago.

Guest 8 [00:50:30] Well, Lindsay, I love the, I love that you're bringing in a feminist Perspective. I love that you're saying there are lots of other things that are important than truth claims. That's absolutely true. I would just say that I think the truth claims do matter. I think this is all built on truth claims foundationally. That's what I think. And so I think both matter. I think the facts and the evidence do matter. I do think it tends to be a male conversation more than a female conversation. And I think what you're saying is true, which is there are 50 billion other things and sometimes way more important things that matter other than the truth.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:51:06] I don't think I'm articulating this right. It's not. What I'm saying is it is built on the truth claims. But if you're expecting Trevor to go and get those truth claims validated, they're not. They're not. I think Matthew Grow knows this. I think anyone that knows the history knows this.

Guest 8 [00:51:22] You're saying it doesn't add up.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:51:24] It won't add up. You're not going to find. Because like, like you said, well, what if they discovered magical DNA? Well, that would solve our DNA problem. That would solve one problem out of many, many problems. And that's what I'm saying. This approach, this whole conversation to me that the conversation was done once the record started coming out. So this is a problem that is not going to be solved. That's what I'm saying. So if we're looking for solutions, then there has to be a different approach. But you're not.

Guest 8 [00:51:52] I just think it's reasonable to expect that if they're claiming steel swords and millions of bones and all these civilizations, it's reasonable to expect that there'd be evidence. And none of us are debating whether the Roman civilization existed because we have all the evidence. And so I think it's reasonable to try and find them. I think given the claims, the evidence should be there.

Glenn Ostlund [00:52:15] So if you have a very strong belief in God and you're a Mormon, is it also reasonable to think that maybe that evidence that you're looking for, for Book of Mormon geography does exist, but it's just hasn't been discovered yet and you know, so let's keep an open mind and put that one on the shelf. You know, I think when you're saying that facts matter, I get in trouble a lot on infants, on thrones. When I'm saying no, they really don't matter. And what do you mean they matter? Well, they don't matter equally to everybody. You know, there are people that care about it more than Others. And so, yeah, I'm interested to hear more. And maybe we need to do this in a separate discussion, Lindsey. But talking about what validation is, then, like, because I think you're right, the type of validation.

Truth Claims, Evidence, and Church Narratives

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:53:14] This entire thing is not a conversation about facts. That is the conversation we have, because that's the script the church gave us, is to talk about the truth claims. The whole conversation when I heard that with Trevor is. It's an identity conversation. It's Trevor saying, how help me with this. You're my people. I've looked to you my whole life. I'm in pain. How are you going to make sense of this? My family's denied it. I'm here to get validation. Meeting with you gives me credibility to my family. This is the story I hear over and over and over with people, that facts become the language that we use.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:53:43] But what we're really saying is, what about me? Where. Where does this leave me? And so that is what I'm trying to say. I'm not giving it advice to people going in or to even Trevor. This is. I'm speaking to the Matthew Grows of the church. Like, if you want to have an effective conversation. Yeah, it's not going to be with the facts. That's what I'm training.

Guest 8 [00:54:01] That's true, Lindsay. That's 100% true. I love it. You're bringing a beautiful perspective, and I agree. No, it's not going to end well. The best thing to do is to validate and show love and empathy, to kind of follow Christ's example, ironically.

Guest 8 [00:54:17] Just unconditional love and support and empathy. Try and get into people's mind and heart and see where they're coming from and tell them that it makes sense, that they feel the way that they feel, that they're not alone, that they're not crazy. And you're right, Lindsay, that is 100% what they should do.

Guest 8 [00:54:33] And I'm going to say that facts matter really quickly. You know, we don't want to belabor this, but do we want to talk at all about the Book of Mormon conversation? You know, he mentions via the Hebrews and the late war, there was this interesting quote from Brigham Young that he pulls out, which is, I wouldn't be stumbled if The Prophet translated 40 times. It was different each time. God speaks in the language of translations. Then he talks about Gibbons saying that God leaves things muddied so that there's a role for faith.

Guest 8 [00:55:06] And then, of course, Trevor responds by saying it's the church that muddies the concept of faith. Again, he's saying that logic and science and DNA and everything matters. It should matter. Are we now kind of beyond the point of even talking about that? Is that kind of the same conversation? Lindsay would probably say yes.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:55:24] No, I mean, clearly. Listen, I think people might feel invalidated. What I said, facts matter to people like you guys just brought up. Because if that is how you hinder testimony, then that makes sense. Mine was a heritage based testimony. Mine was based on the pioneer stories and the feelings. So I come from a different perspective.

Guest 8 [00:55:42] Sure. No, no, it's an important one. And there's many people like you. Gina talks about this all the time. Gina Colvin, the people of New Zealand. She gives us the impression they never took the Book of Mormon seriously in terms of historical document. Isn't that kind of what Gina says, too?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:55:55] Yeah, and, but I mean that. So people that have been hurt by the church, their adverse reaction is like, so stop. Stop trying to, you know, apologize for the church. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying when we engage in this kind of fact for fact debate, I feel like that's the script the church gave us because they're saying it's all true or it's all false. And I'm saying, I don't care if it's true or it's false. Here's how it functions and here's what it serves in my life. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But I want to talk about polygamy.

Guest 8 [00:56:23] So we're getting there. We're almost there.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:56:25] Talk about polygamy.

Guest 8 [00:56:26] Okay. Glenn or John, anything about Book of Mormon? Book of Mormon that you guys want to talk, including his reference to Sorensen. John Hamer, you mentioned that earlier. Are you not a fan of Sorensen?

Guest 9 [00:56:36] No.

John Hamer [00:56:37] Yeah. So. No, no, I'm not.

Guest 8 [00:56:39] Why not? What's wrong with Sorensen? He's got a PhD and you don't.

John Hamer [00:56:43] Yeah, it's really. Sorensen's stuff is just really, really, really, really horrible and bad. I mean, this is not. None of it's academically defensible. It's the kind of thing that whatever Michael Coe called the lunatic fringe of Mayan, you know, anyway, distortion. So that's just a bunch of, you know, misreading of the text, you know, misreading of all the archaeological stuff and all these kind of things. Like. Anyway, so, no, I don't think that would have been very helpful for, as a, as a place to send anybody down. I also think that, you know, like, that whole Part of it, though, was kind of muddy because at a certain point, Trevor, you know, got accused of throwing the kitchen sink at everybody.

Guest 8 [00:57:25] Yeah.

John Hamer [00:57:25] And so I think that once you do start coming down the whole thing when you just. And I was. I wanted to ask him. He really has read the entire thing of view of the Hebrews. That is a boring book. So he.

John Hamer [00:57:35] I don't know. But anyway, so it's hard to defend. The one thing about it, I mean, that I think people haven't actually. Haven't actually gotten in. Gotten their hooks into very well, is that the Book of Mormon, because of its literary dependence on the King James Bible, shows conclusively that it's a modern text.

John Hamer [00:57:59] And so that's something that we don't take as one of these smoking gun things. People. Like Glenn was talking about the facsimiles, I mean, Matt Grow actually said in there and admitted on the facsimiles, he says, no one disputes facsimile number one is not a direct translation Egyptologically, which is a pretty big concession. Right. So he actually threw that one under the bus or whatever. And I think that the other one is that they have to eventually come to terms with is literary dependence, which is to say we have a manuscript transition to the transmission of the Bible through all the monks and everything like that.

John Hamer [00:58:31] So we can tell which Bible manuscript comes from which exact Bible. And there's all the different variations and everything like that. The Book of Mormon not only quotes the Bible extensively, it also paraphrases it and reuses it. So the sermons are often paraphrasing Paul and things like that. Those paraphrases are literally dependent on the King James Bible. That's just completely, you know, anyway. So in other words, it means that it's a modern text conclusively. So there's. So that's an important one. So much more important than view of the Hebrews or the late war or anything like that.

Glenn Ostlund [00:59:00] Glenn and I would wager to predict that if John Hamer had been right there next to Trevor and had said this to Grow and to Clark, it wouldn't have made a single dent in the way that Grow or Clark feel about, you know, Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon.

Guest 8 [00:59:16] Yeah.

Glenn Ostlund [00:59:17] Because they're already committed to their faith in this. I think the one thing that came out in that section that I really liked, that Matthew Grill said Trevor brought up the view of the Hebrews. He brought up the other one and he said, oh, yeah, have you read them? Did you go read them? Go read it. Great.

Guest 8 [00:59:37] Advice.

Glenn Ostlund [00:59:37] Everybody should do that. Any of these things that come up in the CES letter, that come up on podcasts or that you read online, go test it out for yourself and see how it feels. And then don't just stop there, but do a textual analysis of the Book of Mormon like John was just talking about. Do a textual analysis of the Book of Abraham. Do the things that are actually written in here, do they feel like. Do they seem like something from 2000 years ago? Does it seem like something from 200 years ago? I think there are answers to those kinds of questions, but you've got to be open to receiving an answer that the evidence is going to lead you to. And I think when you've got. When you're so committed faithfully that this church is true, no matter what, you're at a disadvantage there. So the facts don't matter in that case.

Guest 8 [01:00:29] Yeah, yeah. What about the point? Right, right. Yeah. And there's lots of comments from people on Facebook echoing that. They love Lindsay, they love her perspective, and there's several people saying the facts matter. So I think both are true. I think Donald Trump, man, Donald Trump

Glenn Ostlund [01:00:45] is president of the United States. Facts do not matter.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:00:49] Did I ever say that?

Guest 8 [01:00:51] No, no, you did not. You did not.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:00:53] Here's the problem again. I'm going to say this again, and I hope I can articulate it. The hierarchical narrative, the narrative given to

Guest 8 [01:00:59] us by the Joseph's narrative. Joseph's narrative.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:01:01] Joseph's narrative. Borg King Cleese narrative.

Guest 8 [01:01:04] Joseph's narrative.

John Hamer [01:01:05] No, look, it's not only Joseph matter.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:01:07] Go ahead.

John Hamer [01:01:08] Yeah, I was gonna say. He keeps on saying, equating the current LDS narrative with Joseph's narrative, as if the LDS church isn't massively distorting the early history. What the way Joseph Smith. I'm not. I'm not gonna defend Joseph Smith. There's all these things are also, I mean, if you want to use the facsimiles, he's got a smoking gum there of a direct mistranslation that shows he doesn't know a thing about translation. But his narrative is very different than LDS narrative. So if we're talking about right now for Lindsay, what's happening in a person's social context is how are the. How is the current hierarchy doing this, including distorting Joseph's narrative? So it's not just. So don't.

Guest 8 [01:01:45] Of course, of course.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:01:47] This is what I'm trying to say. If we hinge everything on facts, well, then we get to open ourselves up for 100 different scholars. Interpretation. Well, here's what Joseph actually meant. And if you look at this source, then it says this and this and this. And I'm saying that conversation doesn't matter to me because that conversation useful. And that to me, strengthens the hierarchical narrative. Facts matter. Of course they do. When I look, you know, I did a Year of polygamy podcast. I know a little bit about sorting through this stuff. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if you rely on that argument to untangle this mess, you're just strengthening that. You're giving the Church ammunition in this conversation. That's.

Guest 8 [01:02:27] Love it. That's brilliant. Thank you, Lindsay. Brilliant. I totally agree. And we don't mean to make it sound like we're saying you don't think facts matter. We know you think that.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:02:37] I hate truth and I hate facts.

Guest 8 [01:02:40] Really quickly, was it disingenuous for Grow to point Trevor to Sorensen? Because all the way through it, even Clark's argument was, there's some. This was kind of the nibbly technique. It's like, oh, there's someone really smart that's thought through all this and they still believe. And so that's all you need to know. You don't really need to worry about it. Just trust the smart guy and you're good. It was a disingenuous for Gro to point him to Sorensen when we all know Sorensen is not legitimate as an archaeologist, as when he talks about the Book of Mormon.

Glenn Ostlund [01:03:16] No, I don't.

John Hamer [01:03:17] It's not disingenuous, because what he was saying is this isn't my area of specialties. My area of specialties is in history, and specifically this early 19th century history, and it's not in archeology. So he was just citing again and again, I'm not an archaeologist. We have archaeologists. Go look at them.

Guest 8 [01:03:32] So, but if you know that Sorensen's

John Hamer [01:03:34] awful, maybe he doesn't know he's not an archaeologist.

Guest 9 [01:03:36] I don't know.

John Hamer [01:03:36] You know.

Guest 8 [01:03:37] Okay, Glenn.

Glenn Ostlund [01:03:42] Well, it's not. It's not disingenuous at all, because he's saying, if you want to believe the Church and you're having trouble with these things, go try this. Go try this. Go try this. I will try to help you keep all of these problems on a shelf if that's really what you want to do. And so I'll suggest going to Sorensen or doing these other things. I think it's unreasonable for us to expect that having seen all these things, he comes to the same conclusion. That we've come to. And if he doesn't, then there's something wrong with that. I think we have to accept that he's perfectly valid in where he's chosen to rest with his faith and his belief in the church.

Guest 8 [01:04:27] I just think that if we all know that Sorensen's. If reasonable, smart people and all the secular archaeologists know that Sorensen's work has no credibility, that should inform the conversation. You should at least give a disclaimer that's like, check out Sorensen. Even though every single non Mormon archaeologist thinks he's crazy. You know, if they look at his work. But check him out. You know, I think. I think it merits that sort of disclaimer in a. In an informed world. That's just.

Guest 9 [01:04:55] Except. Except that what.

Glenn Ostlund [01:04:56] What does he want? What does Matthew Groh want for Trevor?

Guest 8 [01:05:00] He wants him to stay in the church and believe.

Glenn Ostlund [01:05:03] He probably wants Trevor to be comfortable with whatever he chooses, you know, But, I mean, Matthew girl seemed like a pretty. Pretty cool guy, but, you know, so I think it's unreasonable to expect him to give that kind of. Or to have that. I don't see anything from what Matthew Grohe says that would indicate that he views Sorensen the way that you just described.

Guest 8 [01:05:23] Yeah, yeah, but I think he. I think. I think it's reasonable to say that Sorensen is incredible. I mean, John Hamer, you started with that position that he's sort of a laughingstock amongst informed, you know, archaeologists, Mesoamerican archaeologists like Michael Coe. He's literally a laughingstock, and that's not right.

John Hamer [01:05:44] But I'm just saying that Gro knows

Guest 8 [01:05:46] that Gro knows about the Coe interview. Come on.

John Hamer [01:05:49] Okay, I don't. I'm just saying what he was saying was he's not an archaeologist. He's a historian.

Guest 8 [01:05:54] It's a different thing really quickly about anachronisms, when Groes says Joseph only has the words he has. Didn't he use the word. Didn't Joseph use the word curlem and kumamum and all these weird words for coins. Isn't it true that in the Book of Mormon, Joseph comes up with words that he just gets out of nowhere?

John Hamer [01:06:16] I wrote the same note down. So in other words, when he was saying that same thing, well, what would he. What would he. He's seen. He doesn't maybe know the words for llama or. No, wait, he. He's like saying elephant, but because he didn't know what a llama was or something like that. And yet, like you say, when there's a. There are counter examples in the Book of Mormon where when it's a thing that he doesn't know what it is, you use a word that is presumably from the text, a foreign word. Right.

Guest 8 [01:06:38] And isn't the narrative that Joseph saw the words before he wrote them down? Is that right, Glenn?

Glenn Ostlund [01:06:43] Well, that's what I thought, too.

Guest 8 [01:06:45] Yeah.

Glenn Ostlund [01:06:45] He asked the question in here something like, how would Joseph Smith know what to write? Well, he would read the word that God put in front of him.

Guest 8 [01:06:53] Exactly.

Glenn Ostlund [01:06:54] If that's what you know.

Guest 8 [01:06:55] And he could spell it the way phonetic spelling that God would have given him.

Guest 9 [01:07:00] But.

Glenn Ostlund [01:07:01] So how can Clark say something like that and not hear how ridiculous it sounds?

Guest 8 [01:07:05] Exactly.

Glenn Ostlund [01:07:06] Well, but I'm asking it as a real question, not as a rhetorical device to call him stupid. Why is it.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:07:12] Sorry, Glenn, I keep interrupting you.

Glenn Ostlund [01:07:13] Oh, that's okay.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:07:14] Get in a room and argue or something.

Guest 9 [01:07:16] We argue. Okay.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:07:17] No, no, no.

Glenn Ostlund [01:07:18] Just.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:07:19] I'll tell you. Facts don't matter and you can argue. No. So I. To answer your question, I spent a lot of time with believing Mormon fundamentalists. And this last weekend, especially with faithful flds, I got to spend some time with them. And I think that I'm getting really good at paying attention to these dynamics of talking to people who really, really believe and come from a different worldview than I do. And so I was paying attention to this conversation and seeing how Clark engaged versus how Matthew Grow engaged. And it was so interesting to me because they were really having two separate conversations in my.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:07:55] And so Clark, this is a word I've termed for, is called like the faith force field, like when you get all of these facts. So Grow and Trevor are having this conversation about all these issues. And I think Clark couldn't hear those issues. Like, he was there and he was nodding and he could hear the words, but like, he didn't. The faith force field is up. So he. It's kind of like bouncing off. So he's hearing, oh, they're having a discussion. But I am so firm in my faith that there are no problems. There are no problems. There are no problems. And so I think we got. When we look at how Clark engaged, it's a completely different conversation.

Guest 8 [01:08:35] When they. When they talk about DNA, does anybody want to just summarize their reaction to the DNA conversation? Basically, they're saying, we don't know Lehi's DNA. It could have been swamped by other people. Maybe. There were lots of people before the Nephites and the Mulekites. Anybody want to comment on the treatment of DNA, just really briefly before we jump on.

John Hamer [01:08:56] It's a long time example of those not appearing in the Book of Mormonites. Right. So it's like this asterisk. The majority of the people go entirely unmentioned in the text. So they do mention when they encounter people like the people of Mulek who aren't. Who would just have Hebrew DNA since they are from Judea. Right. And so they mention that they mention when they encounter the last of the Jaredites, but then they have somehow failed to mention the fact that there is this large population of pre existing indigenous people that have crossed the Bering Strait that are not being mentioned in the text. So that's how modern in reaction to the fact that the DNA evidence didn't prove out. That's how they've distorted reading the text. So that's the same apologetic stuff that's been around for a long time.

Glenn Ostlund [01:09:41] And I just want to point out that Elder Clark was wrong when he talked about the Mulekites having come to the New World from a completely different place. Textually. They both came from Jerusalem. So he was factually incorrect there, but it didn't have any impact on his testimony. Which is more evidence that facts do not matter.

Guest 8 [01:10:03] I know.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:10:03] That's why I was like cinnamon roll, like I just want to hug you and put you over here. Go check on the children in the nursery because this is not a conversation for you. And. And again that sounds super condescending, but this is what we're dealing with, right? We. This is why people are going to the CES letter because their, their leadership talks doesn't even know the facts. Gosh, we need a different word now at this point.

Guest 8 [01:10:31] Yeah, I'll just say Jamie, Hannah's handy is going crazy about the DNA discussion. She. She shepherds a really good DNA conversation on Mormon stories. So please check that out. Shout out to Jamie Hannishandy. Julie Lester says John Hamer makes me have hope for humanity. Nice job John Hamer for giving her. For giving her some hope. Lots of people giving love for Lindsay. Glenn, I'm sorry, I've not seen one shot out of love for you. Not one. Or me.

Glenn Ostlund [01:11:05] That's not what I'm going for.

Guest 8 [01:11:08] Not going for the love.

Guest 9 [01:11:10] That's good.

Guest 8 [01:11:11] Okay. And I just want. I think it's interesting.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:11:15] I love you.

Guest 8 [01:11:15] I love you too, Glenn.

Guest 9 [01:11:17] Thanks.

Guest 8 [01:11:18] I did think it was interesting that.

Guest 9 [01:11:19] Hey, John.

Guest 8 [01:11:20] John just says that. I think it's interesting that Clark didn't speak up until like the 39 minute mark. So we went 40 minutes into the conversation and Clark, Clark stayed silent. And then as soon as he speaks up, as you mentioned, Glenn, maybe he kind of doesn't always know what he's talking about, which is true for me, so I can't fault him either.

Guest 8 [01:11:42] Alright, so we'll go ahead and leave a lot of the truth claim stuff. It quickly moved into a discussion about what profits are. Trevor basically saying, look, if there's all these errors, if the brethren can't just ask if it's true, what's the point of having prophets? Don't prophets talk to God and then grow quickly says, oh well, what does it mean to be a prophet? I think we should talk about that.

Guest 8 [01:12:09] And then Clark goes in and talks about the process for blacks in the priesthood and how it was this long process that involves a still small voice and that it's really a lot, in many cases it's really a lot like any of our conversations with God, meaning that it's wrought with inaccuracies and can be overturned and can be wrong at any point, but communication happens. Okay, Lindsay, I want to give you first take on this. That whole conversation about prophets and divine communication, that's not talking about faith mattering, the facts mattering. Did you have any reaction to that part of the conversation?

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:12:45] I mean I feel like this is the trickiest part of Mormonism because I know a lot of prophets now in the work that I do, I get to meet a lot of prophets and I mean a lot of prophets. I was just emailing one yesterday. I'm not going to give you his URL, although he'd probably love that. There are a lot of prophets because of this and, and I say, well, would your arguments apply to all of those who, you know, prophets that Mormonism has divine revelation and personal revelation and we have priesthood authority and because of that that's a recipe to make profits, right?

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:13:18] So from my perspective, that is how I heard it. Oh, this is so interesting with these arguments apply to, you know, maybe the prophet down in Manti or the prophet down in Parowan or the prophet up in Canada.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:13:31] That's how I see it. The way that they talked about Monson was really interesting or the LDS prophet sort of like. But look how I think at one point, Clark, I don't know if this is in the conversation, he's like, but look how many temples we have.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:13:43] And I was like, oh man, I feel like we could get a little bit more creative, set our bar a little higher on what we expect of profits but those are my thoughts.

Guest 8 [01:13:53] I just wanted to step in really quick. Glenn. We've had several people say that Glenn is amazing. Jennifer, Julie, and Becky all love Glenn. Scott says Glenn is okay. So, Glenn, your stock is rising. Any other reactions to this kind of issue about what profits are? And sort of, it seems like they're defining down what a profit means. Isn't that what they're doing? They're discounting Glenn, Why don't you talk about that?

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:14:21] Okay.

Glenn Ostlund [01:14:22] I don't know. I don't. I don't. I don't really have anything more to say than I think we've already said. You know, to me, once it got into, like, arguing over, like, what is profits, what is, you know, there were several things that he brought up. It just seems like it devolved into arguments, were saying, well, this is how I see it. Well, this is how I see it. And there wasn't really any consensus or agreement on how we're going to define things, you know, and, you know, so why. Why would Trevor say that? I have an expectation that a prophet would talk to God.

Guest 8 [01:14:56] Talk to God?

Glenn Ostlund [01:14:56] Yeah, like, talk to God directly and get, you know, direct, like, clear direction on everything. I think it's. I just don't think that there's any real smoking gun, right or wrong way to take this when it's a faith claim for a religion and church. And what they're saying is we accept that this church is led by prophets, and the way that it exists right now is completely acceptable to us, as evidenced by the fact that we're still members, faithful members of this church.

Guest 8 [01:15:28] Sure. The only caveat I'd say is that many of us were taught that prophets literally speak to God, that that's like the backbone. And so people come by that honestly. Yeah. And that's why they believe they actually follow the prophet, because they think the prophets talking to God, not because the prophet gets impressions with feelings. And half the time is right and half the time is wrong, just like the rest of us.

Guest 9 [01:15:51] Right.

Guest 8 [01:15:51] That's just not what we're bought. That's not what we bought into.

Glenn Ostlund [01:15:56] And you have that experience because you were there, you were in that mindset, and now you're not. Right. But why would you expect people who are still in that mindset to be anywhere other than in that mindset?

Guest 8 [01:16:06] I don't. I just think. I think Trevor's making a fair point.

Glenn Ostlund [01:16:11] Yeah, I don't think he's not making a fair point. I think they're both. They're both sitting across each Other with this huge abyss between them.

Guest 8 [01:16:22] For sure. For sure.

John Hamer [01:16:22] Why are you attacking everyone? Glenn? He's just like. It's like Lindsay and Trevor. They just can't make a fair point in Glenn's book, I thought. No, but I think that actually what the admission here that, you know, that Clark has as a member of the first quorum of the 70 was fairly. This was maybe is one of those places, you know, like Trevor was saying, well, he didn't think that this is anything more than they would want to say out loud. I think Matt Groh would like to say most of the things or has said a lot of these things out loud in the essays.

John Hamer [01:16:54] But this part where he says, people imagine in the church where as you go up the hierarchy that there is, you know, that there's going to be some kind of a difference in process of personal revelation, personal inspiration. And he says that assumption is 100% wrong, you know, which is to say, so in other words, it's the same exact process up and down. And so that's an admission that should be printed in the Sunday school manuals, you know, and that's not. And they says, and they even ask themselves, well, you know, can we know how a prophet X can we know? How could we possibly.

John Hamer [01:17:27] No, of course we can't know. And I was thinking, of course you can know. You can simply ask the guy, you know, the guy's right there, and he could write it in the manual. And in fact, that's what you know. You know, in terms of the other prophets, Lindsay has been emailing prophets. John Dehlint sat down.

Glenn Ostlund [01:17:41] What's the quote from Joseph Smith? That's like the first principle of the gospel is knowing the nature of God. There's something like that of knowing the true nature of God, the characteristics of God. The Mormon God puts obstacles in people's way intentionally. And the Mormon God does not always reveal everything right at once.

Glenn Ostlund [01:18:05] In the narratives of the Mormon God, he will leave. He'll put in a probationary period for Adam and Eve when they can't eat the fruit of the tree. And maybe in his mind, oh, later you'll be able to. He'll put in a probationary period where blacks can't have the priesthood. But at a later time when he's decided, oh, it's okay, that's the Mormon narrative for God. So if that's the Mormon narrative for God, why are we expecting that God's going to tell us everything that we want to know right in this minute, right now? I think that's an unreasonable position for an ex Mormon to take if they've been Mormon and they know this is how Mormons think that God is.

Glenn Ostlund [01:18:37] You can't say, well, why didn't God tell us this? Why didn't he give us a better health code? Why didn't he do these kinds of things? Well, the Mormon God doesn't reveal all of his reasoning for why he does what he does other than he's bringing about the immortality and eternal life of man. And that includes giving people obstacles and testing how they're going to react to things. So it's completely consistent with the Mormon God that he wouldn't reveal everything right there, that he would intentionally put ambiguity into the system.

John Hamer [01:19:06] But the admission here that I think,

Glenn Ostlund [01:19:07] how many people like me now, huh?

John Hamer [01:19:10] The admission that I think is important is not. I mean, they made that point back to him. They said, you know, you don't expect God to now sit down and answer the CES letter point per point per point or whatever. But the more important admission here is that there is no direct speaking. They said they kept on going back. No, we'll say it's communication. And they say that it's 100% wrong to think that it's any different from the process that every member of the church is having. And they point to the story, the only overt narrative story that we have for it, which is this sitting around praying about official declaration number two and eventually feeling good about it.

John Hamer [01:19:39] And that's how revelation comes. So the admission here is no direction talking from God. Not, not, not like, not, not an encyclopedia. In other words, we're not getting encyclopedias that are explaining everything. It's none is the answer.

Guest 8 [01:19:52] Lindsay,

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:19:56] I'm going to renege on something that I just said where I said the validation is important because I was just thinking about this. Validation is important if you want to keep people in the church. Right. That if, if Matthew Grow and Elder Clark wanted to keep him in the church, they should have not argued facts, they should have just validated him. That's my position. However, what I think that we as, as people who question are probably wrong about is wanting their validation. Because when we're wanting their validation, really what we're wanting is their hierarchical validation. That's what we want. We want them to put their stamp on like you found all these facts. You're right about it. That's what we want.

Glenn Ostlund [01:20:38] Okay, welcome to the dark side, Lindsay.

Lindsay Hansen Park [01:20:43] Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm just saying, sorry, my kids were knocking on the door when we want validation. And that's what Trevor was really saying. Like, here are the facts. If we still are looking for the church to tell us, yeah, you're right, those facts aren't true. Maybe that's a problem on our end because they're not going to do it and maybe we don't need them to. That's all I'm saying.

Guest 9 [01:21:03] Yeah.

Glenn Ostlund [01:21:03] And I think there's a drive to want them to because those have been the authority figures that we have sat at their feet our entire lives, and we love them and we crave that kind of validation from them. But that's why earlier when I prefaced this, I mentioned the amount of time that Trevor's been out compared to the amount of time that others of us have been out. And maybe this is a reflection of that. From time comes distance, and those bonds to those authority figures will reduce over time. But I think it's totally reasonable to expect that a church leader, somebody who was your mission president that you loved and respected and still he loves and respects him, that he would be able to provide him some validation and have this kind of conversation with him.

Glenn Ostlund [01:21:52] But I don't know. I've never seen one that goes really well. I'd love to. Where they both get that. They come out of the meeting feeling like, yeah, that was really productive. We really touched each other in a profound way, and I think Trevor was touched by it. But anyway, now I'm really worried about everything.

Guest 8 [01:22:11] No, no, no.

Glenn Ostlund [01:22:12] People are listening to this.

Guest 8 [01:22:13] Don't worry about it. Yeah, we've got over 200 people tuned in, and that's a lot.

Part 5 of 7 · Ep. 713b

Guest 10 [00:00:28] Okay, we'll get into that.

Guest 11 [00:00:29] Let's go ahead and read Book of Mormon. Let's do Book of Mormon. And listeners, Listeners live. Go ahead and post your concerns and questions about the Book of Mormon. Take it away, Trevor.

Guest 10 [00:00:38] The first thing that I brought up was that I could start to see how a story could have been concocted by Joseph smith that wasn't 100% original. This idea of Native Americans originating.

Guest 11 [00:00:49] Do you want to read your Book of Mormon point in the email?

Guest 10 [00:00:52] I do want to read it, but there was one thing that we mentioned that wasn't in here that I wanted to get into, and it was this whole thing on View of the Hebrews. Do you remember that?

Guest 11 [00:01:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and read what you wrote in the email and then talk about that.

Guest 10 [00:01:05] Okay, Okay. I just said, similar to the Book of Abraham, there are 1769 King James Version edition errors in the Book of Mormon, errors unique to the Bible that Joseph Smith owned word for word. How could these have made it into an ancient record? That was my first point.

Guest 11 [00:01:22] And then you went on to that was. That was the Book of Mormon part.

Guest 10 [00:01:25] This was. This is just kind of one little. Yeah. Point within the Book of Mormon. And then we kind of got into this discussion of, you know, with the Bible, other books like View of the Hebrews, which Joseph Smith very, very likely would have had in his possession, written by Oliver Cowdery's pastor, has basically the story of the Book of Mormon. In other words, this was a very popular tale at the time. And so the Bible, the View of the Hebrews, the language that was used in the late war that Joseph Smith most likely studied as a young boy, all of these things, you can start seeing them all come together, and you can see how Joseph Smith would have pieced together the Book of Mormon.

Guest 10 [00:02:15] A lot of people say, well, he was 14 years old. How can an uneducated farm boy do this? But he wasn't 14. He was in his 20s when this was happening. He was a smart guy. I mean, you got to give him that. Joseph Smith was brilliant, and he knew the Bible a lot more than we give him credit for. You know, we say he's this stupid, uneducated boy, but it's like when you really get into a story and know Joseph Smith, you realize how smart he was and how much he knew about God and the Bible.

Guest 11 [00:02:51] Right. Okay, so I'll recount now what I. What I wrote down to be groes responses. His immediate response to View of the Hebrews and the late war was that, you know, go read them was what he said. And he was basically saying, you know, if you think. If you think Joseph got the Book of Mormon from view of the Hebrews, just go read View of the Hebrews and it'll obviously prove to you that there's no real meaningful relation. And I thought it was cool because you actually said you had read from view of the Hebrews and from late war, maybe not all of it, but you had read from it.

Guest 11 [00:03:30] And anyway, that was an interesting exchange. But, you know, this is what apologists also say is they say, well, it's not like he copied View of the Hebrew into the Book of Mormon. But I don't think anybody's really claiming that. It's just that the prevailing understanding in upstate New York in the 1830s about where native Americans came from for many was that they came from Israel.

Guest 11 [00:04:00] And so that that clearly was the truth that Joseph was pulling from to inspire the Book of Mormon. And there are themes in not text, but themes in view of the Hebrews that clearly appear in the Book of Mormon. And that's all the people claim when they try and say that Joseph's the view of the Hebrews inspired the Book of Mormon.

Guest 11 [00:04:24] And then, like you said in the discussion with Grow, the text from the late war sounds almost identical in terms of the, you know, and it came to pass sort of language. The King James English of the late war reads in the very same sort of style as the Book of Mormon.

Guest 11 [00:04:45] And so then Grogh goes on to basically give a Book of Mormon, a Brigham Young quote, where he says that Brigham Young said, I wouldn't be stumbled if the prophet Joseph Smith translated 40 times the same text, and it was different each time. And the way Gross summarized that was to say that God speaks in the language of the translators.

Guest 11 [00:05:07] He expresses it in the prophet's language. And so there's another argument that Joseph only has the words that he has. Yeah. So when he comes up with the Book of Mormon, he can only have the words that he has.

Guest 10 [00:05:21] So when the words appear on the stone, how I understand it, and this is how it's stated in lds.org is that when he's looking at the Seer Stone, the words appeared to him almost glowing. Wouldn't he just write that down?

Guest 11 [00:05:40] Exactly.

Guest 10 [00:05:41] Would he have to interpret that word and then translate it himself into a word that makes sense to him? That. You know what I mean? So that doesn't really. That to me, felt really kind of flat for me.

Guest 11 [00:05:53] Totally, totally. He goes on to give a Quote from Givens, which is that God intentionally leaves this evidence muddled so that there's a role of faith involved. Now again, fine, if that's your view of God, that God provides some evidence, but not a lot of evidence, and then a lot of counter evidence so that you can like spend your existence sort of trying to make sense of it all and then need to believe in something that isn't necessarily testable or true. And that that's literally like the main test of your mortal existence that you'll put your faith in some, some extraterrestrial being that these super flawed prophets tell you exists and are true.

Guest 11 [00:06:39] And if you're not willing to ignore the real evidence and, and believe on the words of these men who want your money, that somehow you fail the test. And it's an interesting view of God, but that's basically what Terrell Gibbons and Grow are basically saying is God intentionally makes it hard and confusing so that there's a role for faith. And again, I guess it depends on your view of God. Trevor, you responded by saying that it's just too muddled, that, that science matters. There's evidence, there's logic, there's DNA, and that faith is fine, but that faith shouldn't be required, you know, in spite of the evidence, that faith should sit along with the evidence. And then someone can believe if the thing that they're believing in has at least some substance to back it up. And you just.

Guest 10 [00:07:33] Yeah, John, I mean, the thing is, is. And I brought this up to Matt, I said, you know, do you believe that if we did not have Jerusalem today, right, or any evidence that the people of the Bible actually existed, that Jesus Christ may have actually existed?

Guest 10 [00:07:54] Do you believe we would have as many Christians as we have today? I highly doubt that because it would be a completely fictional place. We have the Roman Empire, we have the Egyptian pyramids. I mean, it's not crazy to think that these people would be leaving behind some trace.

Guest 10 [00:08:14] My biggest thing and you know, and obviously Matt Gro, he's not an archaeologist and so, you know, he was doing his best, he gave me some resources. But the biggest thing for me was the fact that there is no archaeological evidence to directly support the Book of Mormon or the Nephites, Lamanites, who numbered in the millions. And I bring up the fact that on Hill Cumorah there was supposedly a war of a couple million people that happened.

Guest 10 [00:08:47] Why are there zero traces of hair, bones, swords, you know, shields, helmets, chariots, armor, anything? Just one thing, you know, and it's not just that, but anywhere, you know. And in my email I talk a lot about Thomas Ferguson, who was part of the New World Archaeological Organization. That was actually.

Guest 10 [00:09:17] He was, he was part of BYU's archaeological division. From what I understand, he was contracted by the church to go out and find archaeological evidence. And after 17 years of trying to dig up evidence for the Book of Mormon, he said, you can't set the Book of Mormon geography down anywhere because it's fictional and it will never meet the requirements of dirt archaeology, you know, and so it just doesn't confirm what's in the book.

Guest 10 [00:09:43] I can get it when people say, well, it's a faith, you know, it's a faith promoting book. There's some good stories in there that we can really learn from. They're, you know, maybe parables or something, but to actually believe that it happened, that it's historic.

Guest 11 [00:09:59] Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, totally. And this was where I think Grow. One of the weakest points for grow, because basically he brings up the work of John Sorensen. And you know, John Sorensen is a professor at byu. I don't know if he's an anthropologist or an archaeologist, exactly what it is, but he definitely has a PhD from a reputable school.

Guest 11 [00:10:25] But at the same time, if you reference the Mormon Stories episode that I did with Mormon, with Michael Koh, who's a Yale trained archaeologist who is a specialist in Mesoamerica during the time that the Book of Mormon takes place, just go back and listen to that episode. Michael Coe, C O E.

Guest 11 [00:10:42] You know, I asked him, were there metal swords? He says no. Were there horses? No. Were there cattle? No. Were there sheep? No. Wheels? Chariots? You know, he goes, you know, wheat, barley? He basically just makes it very obvious that there is not a shred of meaningful, credible archaeological evidence to bolster the Book of Mormon. And anyone who really understands and is objective about this issue will realize that John Sorensen, I'm sure he's a lovely man. I'm sure that John Sorensen is smart, sure that his degree is credible, but there's not a non Mormon archaeologist anywhere that would back up the things that John Sorensen writes in his books, like the Mormon Codex, I think it's called, where he tries to shoehorn cherry picked archaeological anthropological evidence to demonstrate the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, if it were even worthy of consideration.

Guest 11 [00:11:44] But non Mormon archaeologists and apologists, which it's not, it would be a laughingstock. And so for Grow and then Clark to kind of say, hey, there's this smart guy at BYU, who's got a PhD, who's written this book that no one really understands. Just trust that. And you don't need to worry about all the others that would say that it's sort of a laughingstock. I felt like that was a weak part of, of Groves. Of Groves. And Clark's response?

Guest 10 [00:12:14] Yeah, I mean, it was disappointing to me as well. But he did preface saying he's not an archaeologist, you know, an archaeologist. This is not his expertise, you know what I mean? So he did just kind of pass me off to a source that he believes is the best source. And unfortunately it is John Sorensen. That was kind of where he was pointing me to. And having looked at John Sorensen a little bit prior to that, I knew already, you know, what that was gonna look like. I didn't spend a lot of time reading John Sorensen stuff because very early on I could see it was, it was a lot of theory and interpretation from, you know, from a member of the church.

Guest 10 [00:12:55] And that's not so much what I was, what I was interested in. Anybody can have theories and I didn't look into theories on the, on the stuff that was going against the Church's view, you know what I mean? So I'm just looking at stuff that actually makes sense.

Guest 11 [00:13:13] Totally. The other thing we just have to acknowledge about Sorensen is that he has a conflict of interest. His salary, his pension is all tied to him bolstering the Book of Mormon claims. His job is dependent on that he would be fired immediately from BYU if he started telling people the church wasn't true and the archeology doesn't match up.

Guest 11 [00:13:37] So he's cherry picking evidence to prove his faith based beliefs with zero credibility in sort of a peer reviewed, objective way. So I do think it's fair that GROW mentions him. I just don't think it's a very credible thing to refer people to. And it's a common tactic to say a smart guy has done all the thinking so you don't really have to. And, and I just, I don't like that approach. It's what they did with Hugh Nibley and it's what they're doing with John Sorensen and John Sorensen nor Hugh Nibley were credible. And we know now through Mormon leaks that the Church actually disregarded Hugh Nibley's apologetics in some instances. Really quick. Oh, go ahead.

Guest 10 [00:14:21] I was gonna say Matt Groh did make a good point with the DNA analysis. I thought kind of an original thing that I had never heard before because, you know, you Know, I came in saying that DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle east or from Israelites, but rather from Asia through the Bering Strait. His thing was, I thought his most. His strongest point was that we don't know what Lehi's DNA would have been. Okay, again, but it's just. It was something new that I'd never heard. Right.

Guest 11 [00:14:54] No. And just because maybe I've been, you know, I've been dealing with these things more. I heard that at a fair conference, like back in 2005, 2006, 2007. I don't remember the exact date, but that's been around a long time. But again, I just want to call attention to something. Apologists are always trying to find the gaps and say that we don't know for sure. They're trying to create plausible deniability. They're trying to make the target as small as possible so that then they can still create the possibility of belief. And just refer to the wonderful DNA episodes that Jamie Hannis Handy did for Mormon stories.

Guest 11 [00:15:35] It's just not credible. I can guarantee you something. If the DNA tests of Native Americans were to have shown that somehow Native Americans had DNA that matched what we expect is real DNA to have been in 600 BC, the church would be going bananas over it and showing that it proved the Church was true. Just like with the Book of Abraham. If it turned out that Joseph's translation of the Book of Abraham and Egyptian Book of Abraham had been actual factual, the Church would have said, game over. The Church is true. But because the evidence doesn't go in their favor, they're gonna say, oh, well, maybe.

Guest 11 [00:16:15] Maybe there are other massive populations in ancient America that unfortunately, strangely, the Book of Mormon never talks about. Maybe that DNA swamped all the DNA of the Lehites. And again, if that's true, they mentioned Zoramites, they mentioned Mulekites, they mentioned Jaredites, why would they not have mentioned in the Book of Mormon this massive population that would have ended up swamping their DNA? And again, of course, we don't have samples of Lehi's DNA, but how convenient is that for the Church to then say, oh, okay, since we don't have hair from Lehi because Lehi didn't exist, by the way. Oh, that we don't know what his DNA was, and so we can't ever really know what to expect the DNA to be. It's typical apologetics, making the target so small that you can't disprove it.

Guest 10 [00:17:07] Oh, and wasn't it interesting as well when. When I said, well, didn't it used to say in the introduction of the Book of Mormon that all of. Because they talked about, well, they don't know how many people were already here. You know what I mean? Like, the DNA could have been lost, you know, or whatever. And I pointed to the fact that I remember growing up reading in the introduction of the Book of Mormon that these were the primary ancestors.

Guest 11 [00:17:38] Principal ancestors.

Guest 10 [00:17:39] Yeah. Or the principal ancestors.

Guest 11 [00:17:40] Yeah.

Guest 10 [00:17:41] So that, to me, doesn't sound like. And. And I know since then they've changed that. But what was most concerning, instead of actually addressing that, it was more kind. They kind of took the route of, well, yeah, but that's not Joseph Smith's. Right. Like, that's not.

Guest 11 [00:17:59] Yeah, they were like, there was a committee that did 1920 that put that introduction in there. And you. You very rightly asserted you. Yeah, it was probably a committee that was approved by the prophet at the time.

Guest 10 [00:18:10] Well, and that's true. Yeah, that's the thing. Right.

Guest 11 [00:18:12] But it's not just that. It's that Joseph Smith himself sent missionaries to the Native Americans to convert them because he was telling everyone that the Native Americans were the pure blood of Israel, the whole Book of Mormon. You know, this is a point that Brett Metcalf made in my interview with him. The Book of Mormon says that its main purpose is to bring the Native Americans, the Lamanites, the descendants of Lehi, to bring the gospel back to them.

Guest 11 [00:18:43] And so if the Book of Mormon's express claim is to bring Lamanites to Christ, if Joseph Smith himself is sending missionaries to American Indians to convert them because they're the pure blood of Israel, then are we supposed to now go, oh, well, Joseph misunderstood the fundamental purpose of the Book of Mormon, Joseph misunderstood who Lamanites were. This committee in 1920 misunderstood, but now in 2017, we're supposed to go, oh, okay, now the prophets are getting it right. When for over 150 years, they had no clue who the Lamanites even were. Again, who are the Lamanites? It's the shrinking target where the Lamanites are disappearing. We don't talk about them anymore.

Guest 11 [00:19:31] Spencer Kimball used to care about the Lamanites. Now we don't care about him anymore. We've changed the Lamanite generation performing group to now be some other name because now we just kind of don't want to ever talk about Lamanites because it's all of a sudden inconvenient. When it was the foundational understanding of Joseph Smith and the purpose of the Book of Mormon to be for the Native Americans that everyone knew were the descendants of Lehi.

Guest 10 [00:19:58] My wife is from Bolivia and she's still trying to get over the fact that she might not be a Lamanite. That. I mean, when I served a mission 15 years ago, that was very clear to all of us missionaries that we are. We are preaching to the, you know, to the Lamanite, the ancestors. We would actually tell people that, like, these are your ancestors, this book, you know, like, you need to know this, you know, and then when, I mean, you can get into a lot of other things with that that are derogatory, that I'm really surprised that people actually don't see. But again, you know, most.

Guest 10 [00:20:37] Most of these people that were, you know, talking to in Latin America so nice and humble and loving, they would never even be defensive on the fact, you know, but, but to me, I always kind of felt like. Like the church was talking about them as if they were a lesser people.

Guest 10 [00:20:56] And I always. Yeah, like you said, it was always kind of a touchy thing for me. You know, I never felt comfortable talking about it in that sense. But. But anyway, yeah, but, but it is assumed, I think.

Guest 11 [00:21:07] Very much.

Guest 10 [00:21:08] Very much.

Guest 11 [00:21:09] And so really quick, I want to go to some of the comments for our live listeners. We have 210 live listeners right now, which is a great number. So people are finding value in this conversation. Eric writes that you have awesome hair, Trevor. So I just wanna. That's a really important substantive conversation.

Guest 10 [00:21:29] Let's talk about that for a while. I like where that conversation's going.

Guest 11 [00:21:32] Yeah, I think it's really important someone writes down below, they remind us about the words, you know, when grow was saying, Joseph only has the words that he has. And so of course, the Book of Mormon says horse when it was probably something else, like a tapir. Or of course, it's, you know, maybe elephant when it wasn't an elephant, but that's not true. One of our listeners reminds us that the words, you know, kurilam and kumamon or whatever, those words are some of the words for currency like C9 or whatever. Joseph is creating words that don't exist in his context. And that's because he's claiming that he's seeing in a stone the words that are actually written.

Guest 11 [00:22:23] So this defense that Joseph can only use the words that he has. It's not a really credible response. Yeah. And it was Bruce that wrote, if God's using Joseph's words, where did the words curlam and kumam come from.

Guest 10 [00:22:42] Do you not use that in your everyday vocabulary?

Guest 11 [00:22:43] John Curlam and kumam. I can't even pronounce it. Debbie writes, if the words appeared on the stone like words written on a piece of parchment, why were there so many errors that had to be fixed later? Did God not know the word horse? Did God not know the correct translation of the Isaiah passages that mysteriously have the same errors as those that the King James Version translators mistranslator in the Book of Mormon? Those are really good points.

Guest 11 [00:23:10] There are other points about DNA, so I'm just going to go up. Heath writes, we do know what Lehi's cultural DNA markers were. The argument is only used to confuse people who think you need to have an individual present to know their DNA profile.

Guest 11 [00:23:28] That's a really good point. Heath, super glad that you're joining us. Bruce writes, the Book of Mormon says the brass plates told Nephi that he, Lehi and their ancestors came from Joseph. So that seems to be Semitic. That's a really good point. Alice writes, one of the issues I kind of had with the interview. No, we're going to talk about polygamy later. Aaron says the DNA could be Jewish, a perfect match. But if it is from thousands of years before Nephi came, it doesn't matter.

Guest 11 [00:24:00] Spencer writes anachronisms in the Book of Mormon is another blow to its claims of historicity. Heath writes, book of Mormon internal prophecies indicate that the seed of Lehi will be preserved. Seed indicates direct blood descendants or DNA. And Heath, that's a really, really important point. Aaron writes, don't forget the revelations to marry Lamanite women as concubines to turn their skin white and delicent. Yes, that's an important point. Joseph Smith, when apologists try to defend polygamy because we have Joseph having sex with Fanny Alger somewhere around 1835.

Guest 11 [00:24:39] If the revelation for polygamy, which became DNC132, didn't even get written down until sometime in the Nauvoo time period in 1840s. Apologists, you know, critics are like, well, why is Joseph sleeping with with Fanny Alger in 1835, five to seven, eight years before the D&C 132 is even revealed.

Guest 11 [00:25:02] What apologists go back to was this 1831 version of a revelation that Joseph received where he's basically telling his missionaries to go out to get Native American wives to enter into plural relationships with them because many of them were married and that through children or progeny from those relationships that their skin would be turned white into lightsome.

Guest 11 [00:25:29] So again, that's Joseph having a very clear view that Native Americans were direct descendants of Lehi and that their skin was to be turned white and delightsome. And that's when Jasmine's comment comes in. Jasmine says, I'm Mexican and to continue perpetuating the Book of Mormon as a historical fact is racist.

Guest 10 [00:25:50] And.

Guest 11 [00:25:50] And she uses the terms racist in capital letters. Book of Mormon is a racist document, and the teachings from the Book of Mormon are racist. And perpetuating the Book of Mormon as a historical document is a huge disservice to your wife and to people in the Pacific Islands and to all the Native Americans out there.

Guest 10 [00:26:12] Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And another thing is people are like, well, why are you all of a sudden so interested in DNA and archaeology and all this kind of stuff? And it's not like all of a sudden I'm like, having a special interest in it. It's just my entire life I assumed, I assumed that we had enough archaeological evidence on our side and logic. I had seen these giant books, you know, like John Sorensen's that's like, you know, Book of Mormon archeology explained or something, you know, and you just kind of. You just assume like, I'm not going to read that giant fat book, but you just assumed that we had enough on our side.

Guest 10 [00:26:49] It actually blew my mind when at 35 years old, John at 35 years old, like. And I know I'm not the only one. I mean, there's some people older than me that are just coming to this realization, like, wait a minute, there is zero archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon. Like what? Like this. To me, a lot of people point to the Book of Abraham as the smoking gun, but to me, this was it for me. And what I told Matt was this was the domino that just kind of started everything for me, you know, just kind of tipped everything.

Guest 11 [00:27:24] Yeah, absolutely. I'm just gonna also just add, Bethany writes, thank you for discussing the racism. And Jasmine writes, please talk about how Book of Mormon historicity is a race issue and that not framing it, that was not framing that it was. Is perpetuating racism. It promotes erasure for Latino identities. So, Jasmine, we're super grateful that you're. And Bethany and others, we're super grateful you're bringing up the race issue. That's really important. Gracie writes, jasmine, you're correct. I grew up believing I was a descendant of Lehi because I'm Mexican and somehow I was cursed for Being brown.

Guest 11 [00:28:04] And that's just kind of a disgusting, racist, awful thing. And the Book of Mormon still has got all that language that it hasn't changed, but somehow apologists are okay with that. They're kind of like, these are not the droids you're looking for. Okay, really quick, going back to the interview, you get frustrated at this point. It's around the 41 minute mark, and you basically just say, man, don't the quorum of the 15 talk to God?

Guest 11 [00:28:32] Because you know, as soon as everything gets redefined in the committee in 1920 was right until it was wrong, and then the committee gets reversed in the 1990s or 2000s, you're just exasperated by this point. And of course Gros says, well, what does that mean to talk to God? And that's when Clark jumps in.

Guest 11 [00:28:56] And again, it's worth noting that Clark doesn't actually speak up until 39 minutes into the hour and 20 minute conversation. But Clark does speak up at this point and he starts invoking the blacks in the priesthood thing. And he starts incorporating sort of Greg Prince's narrative, which we all have the benefit from now, which is that it wasn't doctrine like the first presidency sort of signed a document saying that the black priesthood ban was doctrine, which I think happened in the 1950s. You guys can find that source document.

Guest 11 [00:29:35] But Clark says it was a process. It was David O. McKay struggling with it and talking to people and trying to build a coalition. And it was a still small voice that came to Kimball.

Guest 10 [00:29:47] I didn't even understand where he was going with that. Actually, when he started talking about that,

Guest 11 [00:29:51] they were basically saying, revelation doesn't come by God picking up the bat, by prophets picking up the bat phone and talking to God. Revelation comes through the still small voice that can be misunderstood. And Trevor, it's just like you and me, when we try and talk to God, we all see through a glass darkly.

Guest 10 [00:30:09] And well, is that what the rest of the members of the church assume? Because that's not what I assumed.

Guest 11 [00:30:16] That's the problem. And that's again, the apologists backtracking and trying to define down what a prophet means. Now all of a sudden a prop. Well, they're trying to have it both ways because later in the interview they're like, well, yes, prophets can talk to God and there definitely can be direct revelation. But again, conveniently, whenever the revelation turns out to be wrong or racist, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, a prophet see through a glass darkly. And you know, they have this still small Voice that can sometimes be misinterpreted. And in the interview, you're like, well, what the freak is the use of a prophet? Those are my words, not yours. If the communication is so dark and

Guest 10 [00:30:56] confusing, you're taking the words out of my mind, what I was thinking.

Guest 11 [00:31:01] Okay, good. I'm channeling you in a spiritual way instead of in a scholarly way.

Guest 10 [00:31:07] Well, John, it gets to the point where it gets frustrating, right? Like, you know, for you, say, about 40 minutes, it was very, you know, kind conversation. It was open. I was agreeing with them. And a lot. A lot of their things. Again, I. I didn't have time or really want to debate the facts with them that, you know, it was more to get their. Their take and their belief on things. But it gets to a point when it builds up so much that I just got so frustrated that I'm just like, well, why even have a prophet then? I mean, you know, if we're saying right now, if Elder Clark is saying that, no, actually the prophet receives revelation just like you and I, or it's not too different than you and I receive revelation, that's really scary to me.

Guest 10 [00:31:50] And that. I mean, I guess it makes sense why there's been no prophecy, if that's the way it's going. But I always believed. When I served a mission, I believed. Man, there was that. What was it? The 15 witnesses video around the time of Gordon B. Hinckley. And they're looking into the camera and they're saying, I know.

Guest 10 [00:32:13] You know, I know Jesus Christ lives. And you could see it in their eyes. And you just. They, you know, they want you to assume they have had this intimate. Call it a conversation, call it a meeting or visitation or whatever. But, you know, I don't think I'm the only one that believed that. That these men are actually conversing or communicating with God in a different way or a higher.

Guest 11 [00:32:41] It's the story that we all bought into and all the people that. The missionary discussion shows Joseph kneeling in a grove of trees and God and Jesus appearing above them. And again, it's a. Oh, sorry, John,

Guest 10 [00:32:55] but I was just gonna say, I need to throw this in before I forget is another thing he says was. But at the end of the day, there's really no way to know. And I was like, I mean, we could ask him.

Guest 11 [00:33:08] Yeah. And so again, in the interview, we've got Grow wanting it both ways. He's saying that there are dramatic spiritual outpourings, but oftentimes it's through a process where they see Darkly. And then Clark jumps in around the 43 minute mark and says, we can never understand how it happened, but it happened. And then he says, he kind of changes the conversation and says, but prophets keep us going in the right direction.

Prophecy, Witnesses, and Prophetic Authority

Guest 11 [00:33:38] And then for me, what was one of the major low points for the entire conversation around the 43 minute mark where he says, trevor, what's the chances of keeping your kids in the right direction without the church? And then he just does this insulting move where he says, in the church we have problems, but out of the church they really have problems. And then he mentions some Jewish guy and we don't. I don't remember exactly what he says about the Jewish guy. Those are his words, not mine. But he's basically making the point that you're never going to be able to raise healthy, happy kids outside of the church.

Guest 11 [00:34:16] You can only raise healthy, happy kids inside the church. And I'll just say it again. I think people deserve a special place in spirit prison for telling using this fear based approach to tell people you'll never find happiness and your kids will be prostitutes and drug addicts if you try and raise them out of the church. So that. How did that strike you?

Guest 10 [00:34:40] All I can tell you is how it made me feel. It was kind of the bully approach. I felt like, kind of like that talk, I believe was, Elder Ballard, where will you go? Yeah, kind of, what will you do?

Guest 10 [00:34:54] And it is. And honestly I felt that, I have felt that going through my transition. There's a fear of. Because you've lived your entire life with the church, you don't know what life is like outside of the church. And they make it seem, you know, very scary. You know, they want to paint this picture of a world that is full of just violence and rape. And I mean, what I don't know, but you leave the church and it's game over for you. And that's simply not the case.

Guest 10 [00:35:26] I've actually found that as I've distanced myself from the church, I've been able to connect with a higher power and be more spiritual, be able to actually step outside of this little box that they've created for me. You know what I mean?

Guest 10 [00:35:40] So now since I've been able to experience so many positive things outside the church, now I can look at that as being something very abusive. Does that make sense? Just that mentality. It's very unhealthy, you know, to say that you cannot have happiness, children cannot be good people without religion and more specifically the LDS Church in their life.

Guest 11 [00:36:07] Yeah. I mean, that is. That is literally what an abusive spouse says to keep the abused spouse put. They say, I made you. You'll never be happy and healthy without me. You, you'll never survive. That's the type of abusive rhetoric that keeps an abused spouse in a relationship.

Guest 10 [00:36:29] Is this where we talked about prophecy, John? Should we go into that?

Guest 11 [00:36:32] Yeah, let me just read a couple comments really quick. Phoebe writes, we all have personal revelation unless it contradicts the leadership's revelations. She says, what about praying to know if the Book of Mormon is not true? When can those that have done that become significant? So the brethren. If we receive a witness that confirms what the brethren's teaching, well, then that's a true witness. But if it ever confirms something that isn't what the brethren say, well, then that's Satan or that's a false witness. And, and that's a really good point.

Guest 10 [00:37:05] Phoebe writes, according to Packer, there's three ways you can fill the spirit, right? It's either your own feelings, the Holy Ghost, or the devil. Yeah, like, but how can I discern if the devil can dress up like the Holy Ghost?

Guest 11 [00:37:19] I mean, it's just a God.

Guest 10 [00:37:20] Whose tokenism is that?

Guest 11 [00:37:21] It's a weird type of God. Cameron writes, I hate the rhetoric that it's impossible to have good morals without religion. It is absolutely consulting. That's absolutely true. Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead. So like you said, the conversation then turns to Jeremy Runnels. And again around the 44 minute mark, the discussion about Jeremy Runnels, it happens in sort of two different parts, but it's one of the most insulting parts of the interview.

Guest 11 [00:37:56] He basically assassinates Jeremy's character in a couple places. The first time, he basically says, I read somewhere that Jeremy promised that he wasn't gonna publish CES letter until his mother died, but then he published it before his mother died. And he basically said, what kind of despicable. These are my words. What kind of despicable human being would dishonor their parents that way? Of course that's a problem because, you know, what about the things Joseph Smith did to his own wife? But let's ignore that.

Guest 11 [00:38:27] That's because Jeremy Reynolds is an evil human being. And then you very, very lovingly came to Jeremy's defense and basically said, I think Jeremy wanted to share his truth with loved ones. Isn't that a good impulse? If you've seen discovered truth, isn't that good to want to share it?

Guest 11 [00:38:46] And then this is one of the very most important points that my Buddy Christian wanted to make sure that I emphasized. One of the weird things that Clark does is he basically says, I admit that the church misled people for over a century on its historical narrative. Now, those aren't his words, but if you go back and listen to it, he admits that the church gave a false narrative. And this is exactly what Richard Bushman told people recently in A Fireside, that the predominant historical narrative the church has taught is unsustainable.

Guest 11 [00:39:21] That's what Clark agreed to. And then he said, oh, but now the church with its essays is now putting out an even. In a balanced sort of representation of the historical record, which to my understanding, most of the historical people that read the essays feel like they are not fair and accurate in their laying out. But then he turns it back on Jeremy and he says, well, Jeremy doesn't do that. He doesn't lay out a fair treatment of the pros and the cons, and it's just a not credible treatment. So what did you think about his early statements about Jeremy Reynolds?

Guest 10 [00:40:02] Well, it's kind of like as if somebody were to say, well, I'm just gonna look at Joseph Smith, look at his character, and then I'm gonna decide whether or not I should take. Whether I should read the Book of Mormon or not. Right. It's kind of backwards.

Guest 10 [00:40:19] And so, yeah, it's. It doesn't make sense to me because he actually comes out and says that he hasn't read the CES letter in its entirety. He's brushed over it, he kind of gets it right. But he hasn't really looked into it. But it seems like he's really looked into Jeremy's backstory. And I think again, that's where, you know, a lot of times these apologists turn to, you know, is attacking personal character.

Guest 10 [00:40:49] The thing with me, though, and I said this was the difference between, you know, attacking Jeremy Runnels versus. Versus attacking Joseph Smith is one of these people are self proclaiming to have seen God, to be a prophet of God and starting a religion. One of them is simply asking questions. Yeah, that's the difference. Yeah.

Guest 11 [00:41:15] Beautifully said. Michelle writes, I'm watching live from Provincetown, Massachusetts, with no personal connection to Mormonism, just a lifelong curiosity about these beliefs you are discussing. She says, thanks for the master class. That's high praise from Michelle in Massachusetts, who's never been Mormon. Wow.

Guest 11 [00:41:36] Bill Porter writes, most of my friends outside of the church behave better than some in the church. Amy writes, religion is full of moral relativity and immaturity. Jace writes, all children are born Atheists. A lot of people like the comparison of the abusive mentality when they tell people, you'll never find happiness outside of the church. Sommer writes, it was my number one fear when my sister in law told me she no longer believed. I thought, how is she going to raise her kids without it now that I'm out? Summer says, it's easy to see the beauty of raising my kids so differently. Free to be whoever they want to be.

Guest 11 [00:42:15] And a lot of people are just really upset that Clark would basically say that you can't raise happy, healthy kids. Fred writes saying, it's worse outside of the church question mark. The presumptuous arrogance of those people is just staggering.

Guest 11 [00:42:31] And Cameron writes, I hate the rhetoric that it's impossible to have good morals without religion. It's absolutely insulting. And I just think every prophet, seer, revelator, quorum of 70, bishop, stake president needs to get that point that they're being deeply offensive and abusive when they use that rhetoric.

Guest 10 [00:42:52] Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

Guest 11 [00:42:55] Okay. It goes on to a discussion about fair, the apologetic group. They make it very clear that FAIR is not funded by the church. But what they do is they go, hey, FAIR is just a bunch of good people, good men and women trying to do the best they can. Again, they're going to imbue on FAIR people these really altruistic, pleasant, happy, good motives when they were just willing to throw, or at least Clark and I think Grow does it too, willing to throw Jeremy Runnels under the bus.

Guest 10 [00:43:27] Was Elder Clark's point about why Jeremy Runnels character was in question. Was that even, I don't know, was that even convincing to anybody else? That's what I would love to ask people. I mean that he, that he didn't respect, you know, Elder Clark says, well, I just can't imagine listening to somebody that wouldn't respect a dying mother's wishes. That was.

Guest 11 [00:43:52] No, it's, it's a typical ad hominem attack. If you don't have a strong argument, you attack the person who's making the counter argument. It's typical Mormon apologetics. You know, FARMS did it, Maxwell Institute did it. FAIR does it. FAIR tries not to do it anymore. But clearly Mormon general authorities and historians are still doing it behind closed doors. And they do it with John Dehlin, they do it with Kate Kelly, they did it with Von Brody, they did it with Michael Quinn, they did it with Simon Sotherton. Oh, they're adulterers. Oh, they're child molesters. Oh, they're you know, they don't love their moms. They kill little kiddies and torture them. They'll use any, any justification they can to associate evil with the critic so that you won't consider their argument.

Guest 10 [00:44:40] Well. And as disturbing as this whole conversation was, believe it or not, it got worse when, when I said, well, you know, Jeremy Reynolds isn't, you know, professing to be a, you know, anything more than a man with questions. And he's, you know, it's not like he's running a religion here. And Elder Clark very, very adamantly says, oh, yes, he is. And, and I'm kind of shocked by it. I was like, oh, what do you, what do you mean by that? You know, and he says, well, he's running the anti Mormon religion.

Guest 11 [00:45:13] Yeah, yeah. And that was at the 53 minute mark. Super disgusting. He says that Jeremy Runnels tells you to follow him. And it's just. It's just a disgusting, awful. Jeremy Runnels is a good man. And what people should do is say critics have credible concerns. They're generally honest people just trying to discover what's true. We may disagree with them, but we're not going to malign their character. And it's something that apologists and historians who work for the church don't yet have the integrity to admit. And so they use ad hominem. And it's really disgusting. There's no other word for it.

Guest 10 [00:45:59] Right.

Guest 11 [00:45:59] Okay, let's jump to the issue number four that you wrote in your email, which is about the witnesses.

Guest 10 [00:46:06] Okay. So we, we started talking about the witnesses. And kind of how I let off on this was, you know, and I'm not sure if when the last time you may have gone to the church history museum, but for me, I hadn't gone since I'd gone through this whole crisis. And I remember it being such a beautiful museum. And so when I walked in, I was just wondering, I wonder how my perspective will have changed now. Understand a little bit more. And so when I walked in, the first thing that I saw were these sculpture kind of art renditions of the witnesses. And there's the three witnesses there around a rock.

Guest 10 [00:46:43] And they're all, you know, they're flipping through the. The pages of the, you know, golden plates. And that to me just automatically gave me a really sick feeling inside because for somebody that's investigating the church, right. That it gives off a feeling of.

Guest 10 [00:47:06] That literally happened when it didn't. And so, you know, if, if you're already in the church and you're Aware of the fact that they only saw the plates in vision. And maybe they had this experience in vision, and maybe this whole rendition is just a dream.

Guest 10 [00:47:24] Right, that's one thing. But I think that people believe when they see stuff like that, that that literally happened. Right. And so I talked about that and I talked about. And then this is what I wrote in the email. I said my testimony in the Book of Mormon leaned not completely, but heavily on the fact that 11 witnesses had seen and or touched the plates. And I was relying on these men as credible witnesses. I was surprised to learn, however, that not one person, by their account, have ever seen them with their physical eyes or touched them. The witnesses, by their own admission, seem to have only seen the angel and plates in a visionary state in their minds, as Joseph suggested to them, not really with their natural eyes, as most members are taught. So why would real metal plates need to be seen in a vision or with spiritual eyes, as many of the witnesses later testified?

Guest 11 [00:48:18] Right.

Guest 10 [00:48:19] That was my.

Guest 11 [00:48:20] And there was. And so, you know, the response was basically there was a discussion about, you know, whether or not it's true that all of the witnesses ended up following strangling. You know, John Hamer made the point that Emma didn't follow Strang.

Guest 11 [00:48:39] And someone mentioned, I think it was grow, that Cowdery didn't become a Strangite. I don't think that totally matters. I think your bigger point was, if these witnesses are so credible, why are they following the next goofball who claims to be a prophet and who claims to manufacture scripture?

Guest 11 [00:48:55] How can they be credible? You also go on to talk about, oh, there was some debate from Growing about whether or not the witnesses saw with their natural eyes versus touched with their hands what was claimed, what wasn't.

Guest 11 [00:49:10] I think reasonable people can debate whether or not the record shows that people were claiming spiritualized versus realized, a vision versus a real experience. Touching versus not touching. The point I think you were trying to make is there are a lot of questions about how real these experiences were versus sort of imagined.

Guest 11 [00:49:32] But I think you then spoke up to a more important point, which was Joseph Smith ended up eviscerating the credibility. Number one, most of the people that followed Joseph ended up leaving the church. That's true with Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, the Whitmers. That's true with Hiram Page. I believe that's true with those other eight witnesses, that whole family. And Joseph eviscerated them their credibility. He called, you mentioned that he calls Cowdery. What did he call Cowdery?

Guest 10 [00:50:08] A counterfeit. A liar.

Guest 11 [00:50:09] Yeah, yeah. Martin Harris was a buffoon. You know, Joseph assassinated the character of anyone who ended up leaving the church, including the three and the eight witnesses that weren't Smiths, basically. And so the point that you made is, how can we rely on these witnesses? And if they're following Strang, if they're eviscerated by Joseph as being liars and adulterers and cheaters?

Guest 10 [00:50:35] Well, it comes down to this idea of convenience again. And, you know, thinking back to, you know, my time in the church and, you know, anytime the witnesses were brought up, it was always. They were always talked about as, you know, like put, you know, definitely put up on kind of a higher, you know, chair, if you will. Just as good, honest, like Abe Lincoln type people. You know what I mean?

Guest 10 [00:51:04] And then later, you know, anytime you talk about something that might, you know, be, you know, put them in a negative light, then it's brought up like, oh, well, you know, Joseph Smith did say that this guy was, you know, liar, counterfeit, thief, all that kind of stuff. So that probably explains that. So again, it goes back to this convenience thing, right? When they were in favor of it, they were the best men ever, the most honest people ever. As soon as they testify against it. Right. Or say something to make people doubt, I should say that's probably more accurate.

Guest 10 [00:51:40] It's like, oh, well, they were. They were liars and counterfeiters. Anyway, so. So anyway, so does that make sense? It goes back to that. There's a theme going on here of convenience and contradiction.

Guest 11 [00:51:52] Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm gonna bring in some comments from our listeners. Spencer also wrote, Bethany writes that the essays are completely whitewashed. That's a good point. Spencer invokes, you know, reminds us that it's the ad hominem fallacy. You know, don't attack the person, critique the ideas. I think Joseph used ad hominem when the witnesses were against him, like you say. But when the witnesses were for him, like you say, the witnesses were awesome. Chelsea writes, I choose to live a life without fear.

Guest 11 [00:52:25] Kimberly writes, the point. Wasn't Joseph Smith raised outside of Mormonism? That's again, to this point, about can good people be raised outside of Mormonism? Gabe makes a really good point. We are encouraged to read the Book of Mormon and use it to. To judge if Joseph is a true prophet. However, we are discouraged from looking at Joseph's history and past. How come an individual like Jeremy Runnels doesn't get the same courtesy? In other words, why don't the brethren Just say, yeah, check out the CES letter. Pray about it. If it seems true, if it inspires you, then you have your witness. But the brethren, again, don't want to steer you in any way that would allow you to make a conclusion that doesn't support what they want to say.

Guest 11 [00:53:09] Joshua writes, church leaders should know that the glow of the spirit doesn't shine from a gaslight. Treating Jeremy that way is deplorable. That is good poetic prose, Joshua. Thank you for writing. Other people are attacking the ad hominem. They're really frustrated with that. Andrew writes, Jeremy Runnels character is impeccable. Meeting him in person will clear that up for anyone who has questions in regards to his motives. I've met, met Jeremy many, many times and I found his character.

Guest 10 [00:53:37] Well, that's the difference. We can actually, we can actually give Jeremy a call. We can meet with him. We can talk to Jeremy. We can't talk to Joseph. Right. We have no idea really how bad it was, you know. And so yeah, yeah.

Guest 11 [00:53:56] Greg Kearney writes really quickly. Greg Kearney is a great guy. He's one of the first people I interviewed at Mormon Stories. I interviewed him about masonry. He's been a supporter of fair, I think in the past. Maybe he still is.

Guest 11 [00:54:09] Greg writes now, John, I have never personally attacked you or anyone else, Gregory, I've never claimed that you've attacked me. FAIR has had a history of ad hominem in the past and I think I did say that they're trying to clean that up. I think there's an instance with Scott Gordon last year where he kind of blew that.

Guest 11 [00:54:28] But I believe him and I take him and others at their word that fair's trying to clean that up. My sister and my brother in law are part of fair. I think there's a lot of good people at fair. My point was historically, ad hominem has been a classic go to tool for apologists.

Guest 11 [00:54:44] And then Christina writes, the bishop from the pulpit told the ward not to associate with my family after they left. So Christina's dad was my second counselor in the stake presidency in Houston. When he left the church. Tina was told the bishop told the members of the ward not to associate with the Prince family. After the Prince family left, many rumored that Bill Prince had lost his mind. Even his own parents told the other siblings that he had lost his mind and went crazy because he had left the church. So Bill's parents, Doug Prince took told their children that their son Bill had lost his mind and went crazy.

Guest 11 [00:55:23] So again, rank and file Members look to church leaders and apologists learn ad hominem and then they do it to each other as well. It's a really ugly sort of residual of the human experience and a patriarchy. And I think it's just a crappy way that apologists try and justify what they do.

Guest 10 [00:55:44] And one thing I want to kind of touch on, and this was somebody's comment about the CS letter about Jeremy Runnels, his credibility and all that. But it got me thinking about the CS letter in general, that it's sad, but the, this is what I see going on right now, especially with my kind of my circle, is that people have seen that the CS letter is so powerful in drawing people away from the church, that instead of taking the stance, well, go ahead, I mean, we're open to information, we're open to truth. And actually I talked about that with Elder Clark and he said, I think we would agree with that, that we are all searching for truth.

Guest 10 [00:56:33] Wouldn't the approach that would be a little more effective be, well, go ahead and read the CES letter and pray about it. It's a personal thing. Look into it, you know, talk to God, you know, and, and receive your own personal revelation on it. But instead they take this approach that is very much fear based again, that the CS letter is of the devil and it's a slippery slope. And as soon as you read it, the devil will creep into your, your mind or his spirit will overtake you and you will have a exorcism or something. I don't, I don't understand their mentality that.

Guest 10 [00:57:11] But the word is definitely going around. As far as what I've heard, people in the church are saying the CS letter is of the devil. And I don't think that's an effective approach for them to take.

Guest 11 [00:57:25] Absolutely. A lot of really good comments coming in. I'm gonna refer to them in a bit. Let's go ahead and return. Okay, so one of the really important points for me was in. Was it the 52 minute and 20 mark right in the middle of the conversation about Jeremy Runnels, Basically, Elder Clark makes one of the biggest points, I think, for you, Trevor, of this whole takeaway. He basically points to grow and he says, this is why I bring grow into this conversation. He basically says, I'm not that smart. I don't have time to spend a lot of time on these issues and to delve into them.

Guest 11 [00:58:09] So what we do as general authorities is bring in the smart people like Patrick Mason, like grow, like Fluman, like John Gee, like Hugh Nibley, Sorensen, Bushman, Givens, and, and we basically point to the smart people to explain all this away. How did you receive sort of that admission by Clark that the brethren have to point to the smart scholars to explain this stuff?

Guest 10 [00:58:45] Scary, I think, would be the word. I mean, here's the thing, and I don't doubt that he is busy, but at the end of the day he works for the church. I would think that his number one responsibility would be to be familiar with this stuff as a high ranking leader and official of the church. Look, I'm busy.

Guest 10 [00:59:07] I don't work for the church. I have a career, I have a young family. But still, in a short six month time frame, I've been able to assemble all of this knowledge on these subjects in my spare time.

Guest 10 [00:59:23] Every night, you know, two, three hours a night, I look into it, I read something, I'm educating myself. So for him to use that cop out for me was really kind of scary. It showed me actually that more than anything that there was a lack of care and interest, you know, in really knowing these things.

Guest 10 [00:59:48] And it was very revealing to me that these prophets and apostles are leaning very heavily on these apologists, historians, to kind of do the job for them. And I think that's a little backwards in a lot of ways. Because if these men, I mean, what would be more powerful? Finding somebody that went to Notre Dame or talking to the guy that's having direct communication with God,

Guest 11 [01:00:17] Right? Yeah, yeah. It's supposed to be from the prophet that you read the truth and the scholars, you know, it's also interesting how when a learned scholar criticizes the church, well, that's pride and that's the learnings of men. But when a scholar validates the Church's point of view, well, here's a smart, honorable, good man who supports what we're saying. They always kind of again, want it both ways.

Guest 10 [01:00:46] Yeah. And another thing that was brought up was, you know, well, we can always do tit for tat. That was said several times, kind of tit for tat kind of thing. You know, to me this is not. These issues are not tit for tat. I mean, these are giant, like earth shattering concerns and issues that we have. And I'm not talking about little events in time that have happened to some more of these obscure prophets. I'm talking about the cornerstone or you know, the basic foundation of our faith. And that's Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon. And we, I think all of us, everybody as members of the church, but Especially the leaders of the Church should know. Should know how to answer these questions.

Guest 11 [01:01:36] Absolutely. You're right. It's a cop out for them to say, I don't have time. I'm too busy administering the Church. People's faith is based on evidence. It's based on factual historical claims. And if that's the case, if you're going to be a general authority, if you're going to be an apostle or first president, first presidency member, if you're going to represent the church, apologize for the church, encourage people to join the church, you should know its history very, very well. And if, like you said, Trevor, if 20 or 40 or 50,000 Mormon stories listeners or, you know, 50,000 CES letter readers or 100,000 CES letter readers can take time from their busy schedule as having day jobs, as being parents, as whatever they are in school, and we can take the time to learn this stuff.

Guest 11 [01:02:31] So can members of the quorum of the 70. So can the First Presidency. And they should. It's their duty, I think. And it's a cop out when they don't. I'm gonna just read some other really good comments from our listeners really quick. Phoebe, when we were talking about the can, can the eight and the three witnesses have been reliable, she says, stop for a second and think, you know, can 12 to 15 people coordinate something that is a lie? I think that's a really good point. I think they can, or they can be deceived.

Guest 11 [01:03:04] Susan writes, I grew up in the church, I'm 65, and I've never heard anything other than that the witnesses saw the book physically. So Susan is reflecting what many of us were surprised to read, that in some instances, the. The witnesses talked about what Joshua wrote as second sight or the ides of our understanding, which is a point that Grant Palmer brings up in his book, An Insider View of Mormon Origins.

Guest 11 [01:03:32] Again, maybe the historical record is murky there. What's not murky is that definitely this idea of spiritual eyes and second sight was heavily interwoven in the perspective of the people.

Guest 10 [01:03:47] Yeah, we don't understand that. From a 21st century perspective, we assume that these things. When somebody says, I touched the plates and I saw the plates, obviously we are taking that in a literal way. We don't take into consideration that a lot of these men were very much into magic at the time. You know, like dreaming and seeing God and second sight, having divining rods and seer stones and treasure hunting and all that, that was totally just normal. And so when you take that and you you write it in a very literal way. Over time, as that magic has disappeared, we now take it in a very literal way. And the church doesn't correct it. They allow us all to assume that it happened.

Guest 11 [01:04:41] These were superstitious people. Joseph was running around claiming that he could find buried treasure, taking people to these supposed caves or burial sites, saying that he could see the treasure in the ground. Oh, but the angels withdrew the treasure. Like, these are kooky, superstitious people to start with. And that's who Joseph chose in many instances as his followers. So it's possible they were lying. It's also possible that Joseph just fooled them like the charlatan that he likely was in that context.

Guest 10 [01:05:15] Well, I think they wanted to believe, too. It was exciting, for sure. I mean, gosh. And a testament to that is that the majority of the witnesses follow after Joseph Smith. They followed a guy by the name of James Strang.

Guest 10 [01:05:32] You mentioned that. But he received supposedly revelation from God that he needed to translate the brass plates that were given to him that Laban had, and he actually translated them. And some of the same witnesses came along for that rite as well. And so even though they never denied their testimony, I mean, can you imagine denying your testimony of something that you said you saw once? That would completely ruin your credibility?

Guest 10 [01:06:00] You know what I mean? I don't think these guys ever denied seeing it in a vision. You know, of course they're not going to ever go back on that because that completely would ruin their character. Right. But the fact that they're catching on to other ideas out there that are just blatant frauds says a lot about who these men were.

Guest 11 [01:06:20] Yeah, And I think it was David Whitmer that wrote this pamphlet that basically said, I still believe the Book of Mormon, you know, is of divine origins. But Joseph Smith, that stuff about Melchizedek priesthood, Joseph made all that crap up. That never happened. He never told us about any of that. I don't know where he got that. And it's just another example of the witnesses basically wanting to say on the one hand that, you know, they didn't lie about the Book of Mormon, but they're so willing to throw Joseph under the bus later. Really quickly, Heath makes the important point that you can't talk to Thomas S.

Guest 11 [01:06:58] Monson. And that's true about the apostles and the general authorities. They'll only talk to you in secret, private, behind closed doors. They don't want you to record the conversation. But none of them, none of them. They won't even sign their names to the essays. They want to be able to say, well, the scholars wrote the essays. If the essays are wrong, even though the First Presidency approved them, their names aren't on them, so that if there's anything wrong there, it's someone else's fault. And just the inaccessibility of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the twelve, and the general authorities is totally suspect and unacceptable. Heath makes that point.

Guest 11 [01:07:34] I think that's a really important point. David says that if investigators were able to make an informed, logical decision about the church, given all the evidence, a few would ever really join the church. My dear friend Melissa Wells, who I grew up with. Hello, Melissa. She was surprised to hear what we just told about the Prince family. Yes, Melissa Wells, that did happen to the Prince family. They were completely maligned and thrown under the bus by people that they served for decades.

Guest 11 [01:08:07] All right. And then Bethany writes, the number one sign of a cult is you will never find success or happiness is when they tell people, you will never find success or happiness outside of the group. And Thomas McConkie once told me, the sign of a cult is any organization that won't let you leave it with your dignity intact. And I think that's a really important point. The church needs to let people leave with dignity.

Polygamy, Harm, and Final Reflections

Part 6 of 7 · Ep. 714a

Guest 12 [00:00:28] Real quick. This conversation about prophets led to what for me was a low point in the interview. It's when Clark spoke up and basically just kind of changed the direction and said, what's the chance of keeping your kids going in the right direction without the church?

Guest 12 [00:00:48] And then he basically said, yes, the church has problems, but outside of the church they really have problems. And tell me if you guys heard this then. It seemed like he mentioned some Jewish guy for a second but then didn't finish what he was saying about some Jewish guy. I'm assuming the Jewish guy had something going on that wasn't good in his life.

Guest 12 [00:01:06] But basically he makes a point which I think if there's a hell or at least a probationary hell or spirit prison, anyone who tells somebody you can't be happy, you, you can't raise good kids unless you're Mormon deserves a special place in either probationary hell or spirit prison. Because I think that's an evil, heinous thing to tell somebody. Even if you think it's true. I think it's heinous. What did you guys think about that part of the conversation? Hamer, why don't you go first?

John Hamer [00:01:35] I thought, well, I heard the part about he was talking to a Jewish guy. I had taken that to mean that some Jewish rabbi had told him how many young Jewish people were leaving Judaism and were no longer participating. And so. But I have no idea in other wor. So he's saying you think you got it bad in terms of how many people are leaving, young people are leaving the LDS church, you know, the other churches are worse off or other religions. I don't know. But yeah, no, I mean at this point, like you say, he re enters. We've now ceased to talk about the truth claims issues and now instead there's a, you know, it's the church's way.

John Hamer [00:02:09] Otherwise you're really not going to be able to have a great life either in this life or the next. And then, and then he also Clark has used this intervention, I think it right at this point to then turn it to attack Jeremy Reynolds. Right. So in other words, he attacks you like what's the motive behind the guy who wrote the CES letter? And he's. This is where he comes in right with the. That guy's like, he's actually. He is the head of a religion. He's the head of the anti Mormon religion, that kind of thing. So I don't know. I thought that was part. Was not, not likely to win over Trevor anyway before, before we get to

Guest 12 [00:02:41] Jeremy Runnels, Glenn and Lindsey. What did you guys think about the you can't raise healthy K Mormonism argument?

Glenn Ostlund [00:02:48] Oh, I thought it was heinous.

Guest 12 [00:02:50] Did that bug you?

Glenn Ostlund [00:02:52] No, I. But I agree with you. I'm just.

Guest 12 [00:02:54] Yeah, yeah, just making fun of me. That's good.

Glenn Ostlund [00:02:56] I'm not making fun of you. A little baby, maybe. I just think it's heinous.

Guest 12 [00:02:59] I'm just.

Glenn Ostlund [00:03:00] I'm just saying I don't want to be argumentative on this one.

Guest 12 [00:03:02] Okay. Okay. Lindsay, what'd you think?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:03:04] I mean, I think that doesn't matter. Just kidding. It does matter.

Glenn Ostlund [00:03:08] No, it doesn't.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:03:08] No, I think it's. It's actually. That is one of the mechanisms in this hierarchical narrative that we all subscribe to. That is one of the ways that we. That we language and keep control over people. I mean, the term apostates has a function, and it has a good function where everyone loses but the church. And this is one of the narratives of apostates. In fact, everyone that I talk to that doubts. I think if they have children, their very last fear before letting go of the church is, how will this affect my kids? Maybe I'll let them still be raised in the church because the church is good for them.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:03:41] It's such a deeply ingrained narrative. It runs so deeply within our culture that our families are somehow more superior. And so it is absolutely fear mongering. But I think, I mean, it's sincere in that. I think he believed it when he said it. Like, the world out there is so scary. And look at how they're raising their kids. I mean, I still. I don't raise my kids in the church.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:04:05] To me, they seem like normal, great kids. But when I see other people's kids that aren't Mormon, sometimes that still sticks with me. And it's not right. But that's just how I grew up seeing the world. And it's awful.

Guest 12 [00:04:18] And if we're talking just as a pastoral perspective, do you really want, let's say, someone is going to leave the church? Do you really want to send them with this nagging voice in the back of their head that they'll never be able to raise healthy, good children?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:04:31] I think that the answer to that is we just don't want you to leave the church at all, at any cost. So we'll say whatever we have to say. I mean, when I was doubting, I had family and friends tell me terrible things like fake it till you make it. Things that go contrary to what we're Taught at church. But I think that that's what it speaks to, is we will really go to almost any length sometimes to keep people in the church, even if it's unethical or immoral, to use a Mormon term.

Guest 12 [00:04:58] Yeah. John Hamer.

John Hamer [00:05:01] Yeah. To me, I mean, I agree that this is what's happening, but to me it just becomes so alien because for me, of course, it's been so very long. Right. So you're talking about the difference in tune, distance. So I'm the one here who's been out for whatever since 88. And so I never. I can never even imagine it that way. For me, it's harmful, very harmful to be raising kids in the LDS Church because of the messages you're giving them about women. You know, the ingraining, ingraining, sexism and other kinds of things into them, which will be very impossible to overcome. Otherwise it'll always still be with them, no matter where they get to in the future. And so I guess I see it. It's hard to remember that then it's viewed the other way. Like everybody outside of this are going to be harmed. It's rather harmful to the kids inside, I think.

Guest 12 [00:05:51] Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Yeah. I didn't love that either. So I'm glad you guys agreed. So they go on to talk about how Jeremy didn't lay out both sides, but the church does now. It was nice that they acknowledged the church, that Clark acknowledged that the church didn't always do this, but that was a tiny bit hypocritical. I think they made the point that fair is not funded by the church, which was interesting. They went on to talk about the eight witnesses and the three witnesses. Anything you guys want to say about the witness discussion? John Hamer, I know you're a restorationist. Anything. Any comment on the. The witness?

John Hamer [00:06:34] Not a restorationist. Restorationist is something different.

Guest 12 [00:06:39] Okay, sorry. Sorry.

John Hamer [00:06:42] Emma did not become a Strangite. So just to tell Drag. I was just gonna say so anyway, so, so, so William Smith became a Strangite. And William Smith signed on behalf of the Smith family. He said, I'm me and all the Smith family are with me. But anyway, so there's no, no evidence at all. And Emmett was not interested in Strang. And anyway, so that didn't happen. Likewise, though, Cowdery, you know, they're saying not Cowder. Cowdery did investigate Strang and decided against it. So he moved. His brother was investigating Strang. Anyway, he moved to the Wisconsin territory. Cowdery is widely thought to become joined The Brighamite or Utah, you know, the LDS Church rejoined, but he got rebaptized. But there's. He actually then went off with David Whitmer. So he's right. In as much as all of the guys kind of became Whitmerites primarily. And so they didn't. They're not with the LDS church.

Guest 12 [00:07:30] What about his larger point, though, that Joseph Smith himself discredited pretty much all of them. And so how can we rely on their character when Joseph Smith discredited them all at some point?

John Hamer [00:07:41] Well, except for the Smith family ones. Right?

Guest 12 [00:07:44] Right.

John Hamer [00:07:44] Yeah. So in other words, they got rid of all the Cowderys and in. In Missouri and said really quite horrible things about them. In the early members of the church when they. When they excommunicated each other, they. They tended to then, you know, say the worst things they could think of about each other. So it's a. It's a problem.

Guest 12 [00:08:00] Yeah. Glenn and Lindsey, anything about that? Before we move on, I just want

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:08:05] to talk about Jeremy Reynolds really quick because it was funny to me to hear. I think it was Elder Clark talk about fair, and then in contrast with how he talked about Jeremy Reynolds.

Guest 12 [00:08:15] Right. Yeah.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:08:16] He used for fair, like, they're just, you know, average members of the church, good members of the church, trying to find the truth. But, like, that. That characterization wouldn't apply to Jeremy, who was like, he has terrible motives, and he's like this dark apostate. And I think that's so funny. There's nothing. There's like, no wisdom in that except for these. These excuses that we give or these passes that were apologies that we give to one set of people. Certainly don't seem to apply to Jeremy Runnels.

Glenn Ostlund [00:08:45] Right. It was very ironic that he's saying Jeremy Reynolds dishonored the memory of his mother. You know, would you trust somebody who dishonored the memory of their mother? Like, well, let's look at what Joseph Smith did and ask the same question. You know, so you're right. He's not willing to apply the same types of criticism on one side as he is the other. But I think, again, that comes down to his faith. He's just not gonna go there.

Guest 12 [00:09:08] Yeah. He could have said Joseph lied to his own wife about the other women he was sleeping with, but somehow that's not a problem.

Glenn Ostlund [00:09:15] Would you be okay with somebody who lied to his wife and cheated on his wife compared to, you know, Jeremy releasing this before his mother died, even though he said he wasn't going to. Like, are you gonna apply the Same character assassination tools towards Joseph Smith that you did to Jeremy Reynolds. And of course he's not.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:09:32] I would like an ex Mormon to write some beautiful apocryphal story of Jeremy Runnels in the dark of night, pleading with God. And then the light comes through and he writes the letter and gives it to the CES letter. Because that, I mean really, that is how we want to characterize this. Right? That like somehow he's the villain in the story. But really you could, I mean, Jeremy Reynolds story, I hate to, you know, make this a trope, but it really is kind of a Joseph Smith story when you think about it. But the irony is completely lost there.

Glenn Ostlund [00:10:04] Well, especially because Jeremy wasn't gonna. He wasn't gonna write the CES letter, he wasn't going to publish the CES letter. But then there was an angel with a drawn sword standing there the entire time saying, write it, type it, do it, publish it. Yeah. So yeah, the parallels are there.

Guest 12 [00:10:20] And then Clark makes this leap and this was sort of the second major low point of the conversation where he says Jeremy Reynolds is the leader of the anti Mormon religion and he wants you to follow him. What'd you guys make of that?

John Hamer [00:10:37] It reminded me immediately of all of the bubbles. Right. So all of the, the PowerPoint that lists what all of the actual enemies are, it's clearly written in that, that certainly some of the people were watching some of the PowerPoints, they've identified who the leaders of the anti Mormon religion are. Right.

Guest 12 [00:10:55] Well, he left that one or two. But yes,

Glenn Ostlund [00:11:00] he doesn't really know that much about Jeremy Reynolds, but he knows that the Book of Mormon talks about the Coriantons and the Nehors and all these anti people that are going to exist in the last days. And so he's got this pre established narrative that he just plugs Jeremy into.

Glenn Ostlund [00:11:17] And you know, I think one of the reasons why I'm kind of pushing back on things as much as I am, and it's not just during this discussion. I've been like in this headspace for the last month or two is I'm very sensitive right now to the whole us versus them dynamic and the way that a group like the Mormon Church absolutely demonizes the world. And you saw Clark talk about that. There's us, we're great. Everything outside of us is awful. That was something that I really hated about the church and I don't want to see that now in ex Mormonism as well. I don't want ex Mormons to fall into these traditional tropes and turn off the critical thinking and just go back into us versus them bashing.

Glenn Ostlund [00:12:00] And I'm afraid that what I've been doing with infants on Thrones the last five years and Mormon expression before that is contributing to an us versus them mentality. And I think there's definitely value in that because there's people in the US Group right now, the ex Mormon group that are. Or. And maybe for your podcast, Jonas, it's people that are still in the church and they're still trying to make it work, but they feel separated from other TBM members or whatever. So there is this us versus them that is creeping in. And so being able to validate, say, you're not crazy. We've seen this too.

Glenn Ostlund [00:12:35] We've experienced that too. That's a very important balm. But then the flip side, the other side of that sword, is when it becomes that we start demonizing people that are outside of us and we go right back into that us versus them thing. So I think that's kind of what is motivating a lot of why I'm pushing back on things.

Guest 12 [00:12:52] I love it. I love it.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:12:55] Fist bump.

Guest 12 [00:12:57] Fist bump, Glenn. It adds credibility. I think it adds credibility to what we're trying to do when we're, when we strive to be fair and balanced. And Lindsay, I think you model this really well with Sunstone. I think you're probably a shining light within Mormonism right now at trying to bridge the divide and be inclusive to everybody. So kudos to Lindsay as well, because of my priesthood. Speaking of your priesthood. And Glenn, thanks for the vulnerability about infants on Thrones. Still love you guys, but I love the self reflection. Lindsay, We've had probably 50 comments so far saying just shut up and let Lindsay talk about polygamy. So now is the time. We are all going to shut up. We are all going to shut up and let Lindsay talk about polygamy. What'd you think? Tell us your reactions to the polygamy conversation.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:13:44] Oh, man, I feel like I'm gonna let everybody down. There's. There's not a lot to say. I feel like by the time they were discussing polyandry and polygamy, it was just like this argument where I, you know, I was with Matthew grow and like sympathetic of his approach until this point. And then I was like, ah, why are you using these arguments that are kind of sexist? And now, now John Hamer would say that they're probably academically defensible. Like, like how he says, we don't have Any statements from Joseph Smith. We don't have any first hand accounts. I feel like that's consistent with a really good historian who is going to focus and give priority to primary accounts, primary documents.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:14:26] And of course we don't have these with Joseph Smith. And as John Hamer and I know this leads to this whole Joseph fought polygamy movement. And then he goes on to this argument of like ceilings were maybe a way for women to have access to heaven.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:14:41] And this is kind of where my head explodes because I'm like, well that's still not great. Because then what we're doing is we're admitting that for women to have access to heaven, they have to have access through men. And that's not great. And people would say, well, men need access through women too, through sealing.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:15:01] And I think like, well, no, not exactly. Because you could say we don't say that we seal men to women because they're widowed or maybe that they're, you know, married to a less faithful spouse. Like, we never see that, we see that argument with women and it just, it contributes to the inequity. And I feel like you could argue that the law of adoption is like an answer to that except for the justifications for the law of adoption, sealing men to other men. The justification is different. So that's just one of my thoughts.

John Hamer [00:15:30] John Hamer No, I mean, I think that's a very good point. I mean one of the things that we have, you know, so yeah, in terms of the documentation, there's a difference between history here and let's say the theological proposition. So Lindsay's talking about here. Well, what's the. Okay, so you've used this now as an apologetic defense based on what the, what the historical sources are saying as like, well, we need to, we need to be able to secure these women's role, you know, in the afterlife. So that's a theological proposition. And the, and the reality is the consequences of that proposition are cosmic sexism.

John Hamer [00:16:06] Right. So in that way you've, by introducing or whatever, by trying to. And I thought that another one that they did was that Matthew was doing there was. He almost was trying to downplay sealing as being less. It's not really a big deal. They're just being sealed. It's just sealing. It's not like they got, you know, it's not like marriage or it wasn't, they weren't living like they were married or anything like that. So in some ways the different kinds of historical or in order to make a academically defensible historical, apologetic. It, it introduces or anyway, it relies on some very problematic things theologically.

Guest 12 [00:16:40] What about. Oh, Glenn.

Glenn Ostlund [00:16:43] Yeah, me. I'm gonna go back to the Scriptures on this one. Because when Matthew Grow says there aren't any primary accounts of polygamy, you know, from Joseph Smith's lifetime, I would just want to ask him then, would you explain to me what D&C132 is doing in the Doctrine and Covenants? What is it and why is it there? And you know, so what would he say to that?

John Hamer [00:17:05] DNC 132 we don't have in terms of a primary account from Joseph Smith's life. Most people have agreed that it probably is dating from Joseph Smith's life. But in fact it's a document that we have that's a copy that may well, you know, that many people argue or a lot of people have decided that they want it to not be from Joseph Smith's life. And it's something that Brigham Young made up out in Utah.

Glenn Ostlund [00:17:28] Thank you for that answer, Matthew. Groh. Can I ask a follow up then?

Guest 12 [00:17:33] Why.

Glenn Ostlund [00:17:33] Why is it in. In the Doctrine and Covenants now? I mean, is this something because there's this distance in history that we should discount it then as not being.

Guest 12 [00:17:42] Because a prophet of Revelation because the prophet said it should be there?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:17:46] That is absolutely right. This is what I'm trying to say. Those primary source arguments work when we're defending Joseph, but they don't work when we're supporting Joseph. You, you see what I'm saying? So primary sources matter and we only prioritize primary sources, but not when we're including them in the Doctrine and Covenants. That's a different standard. And we have the same thing with like Helen Marr and polyandry, like, well, you know, perhaps maybe Helen Marr wasn't sleeping with her husband, but, oh, one of the reasons for polygamy was to raise up seed. So like, we use those arguments when they fit.

Guest 12 [00:18:20] How about the priesthood restoration? Show me the primary documents on the actual priesthood restoration. Right, right, right.

John Hamer [00:18:27] Well, there aren't any.

Guest 12 [00:18:28] There aren't any.

John Hamer [00:18:30] And the sealing power, that's also an anachronism. So in other words, that didn't happen. So.

Guest 12 [00:18:35] I know that's a great point, Lindsay.

John Hamer [00:18:37] There's different things though. This is like Glenn and Lindsay here are saying there's a difference when. This is what Lindsay, I think was saying right from the beginning. If you're going to just what's academically defensible history. And that's What Matthew Grow is sort of saying, he's putting on his historian's hat. And what can you say about that? But that isn't the same thing in a way, when your theology is your history. Right? Because no matter what, academically defensible history can't be your theology. So it's a disconnect that happens.

Guest 12 [00:19:02] These are great points.

Glenn Ostlund [00:19:04] And I thought that there was another point that Elder Clark made when he was talking about the smart people, like, I don't study. I don't have time to study all this. But I defer to smart people like brother Grow here because he was trained by non Mormons at Notre Dame, so that somehow gives him credibility. Right. But to what John's just saying, Grow's not taking his conclusions about the LDS Church and vetting them through his dissertation committee from Notre Dame and saying, tell me, is my methodology sound here? Are my conclusions sound here? That's not happening. They're not having non Mormon peer reviewed results coming out of this.

John Hamer [00:19:45] So

Glenn Ostlund [00:19:47] anytime we're talking about these things, I keep seeing, like, I agree. Never mind. I was just gonna go to the facts thing again. I beat that.

Guest 12 [00:19:54] I know.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:19:55] Can we talk about polygamy just one more? There was another point I wanted to point out.

Guest 12 [00:19:58] Sure.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:20:00] Okay. So at one point, I think, I think it's. Trevor says, like, I don't want polygamy. And I think Matthew Gross says, well, who does? And I'm like, well, actually a lot of people do. A lot of people that I know and work with believe that it's inherent in Mormon doctrine. And that's. This is my biggest frustration. I'm just gonna air this axe to grind that. I know a lot of really good LDS historians who are kind of smug about, like, you know, people going through a faith crisis because they don't have all the nuance yet they refuse. They equate LDS with Mormonism as. As if LDS is like the only legitimate Mormon experience.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:20:35] And I'm like, you guys are historians. You should know better. That Mormonism is far bigger. That's one ax to grind. But the other thing that really bothered me is they started talking about polygamy being essential for heaven. And this, this conversation drives me nuts because, yeah, he says, like, Brigham Young had this one quote, this one time where he says, you all have to be polygamous, at least in your hearts. But he said a lot of other contradictory things. And first of all, I was like, okay, did you hear what you just said?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:21:01] So let's establish that we, like, we're admitting that prophets say contradictory things. But I mean, we're not just talking about Brigham Young in one quote, we have John Taylor, we have Heber Kimball, Orson Hyde, Joseph F. Smith. They said these multiple times in multiple forums, in multiple different meetings. And then it translated. You have lots of local leaders saying this. And when we talk about, here's the double wordplay that we inherited from Joseph Smith and it's this idea that like, oh, you don't have to have plural marriage to go to heaven. Well, what does heaven mean? Sure, everybody gets to go to heaven. So you don't really have to be a polygamist to go to heaven.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:21:36] So everybody gets in heaven. That's already done. But to get into the highest level of the celestial kingdom. And if you look on LDS.org right now, right now, it admits that in the celestial kingdom, there are three levels within the celestial kingdom. Why do you think that is? Because what's at the top one right up here, it's for the polygamists. And we don't say that explicitly, but that is what the doctrine is. And so, sure, you don't have to be a polygamist to get into heaven, but you do to get up here. And that's, that's Mormon doctrine. There's no getting away from that if you're. Unless you get rid of DNC132.

Glenn Ostlund [00:22:09] Well, and I think the way that they have tried to get away from that in DNC132 is they redefined eternal marriage or the new and everlasting covenant.

Guest 12 [00:22:18] Right.

Glenn Ostlund [00:22:18] You know, so they would say the new and everlasting covenant is what's required to be in the first degree of the celestial kingdom. And the new and everlasting covenant means that you've been sealed to your spouse, single year older spouse, through the priesthood sealing power. And that's the way they've interpreted 132. Now instead, you know, we could go and just read 132. Read it. It's very, very, very clear if you're looking at it through unbiased eyes, that the new and everlasting covenant of marriage is polygamy. But in order for a believing Mormon to accept that, then it creates these other problems. And there can't be problems.

Glenn Ostlund [00:22:56] And so it can't mean that. It must just mean what we're doing right now anyway, which is sealing people in the temple, which we say is required for celestial kingdom. So where's the inconsistency, you know, from that Mormon believing perspective? But it's because they've reinterpreted what's in 132 and what that means.

Guest 12 [00:23:15] Lindsay, what do you think about the argument that polyandry is not a problem because Joseph never wrote down that he was practicing polyandry. Nobody ever said wrote down when they were doing it. I'm having polyandrous sex. None of the women wrote down during the time they were in polyandrous relationships. I'm having polyandrous sex. And so we can't really worry about polyandry. It's probably just more spiritual stuff. What do you think about that argument, Lindsay? That since Joseph never talked about it and the women never talked about it, it must not have happened.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:23:49] Okay, so first of all, I think the argument has to go both ways. Like we already talked about. If we're not going to respect the primary sources of women in this particular case, then why do we respect, you know, their, their recollections later on to accept that Joseph Smith was a polygamous?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:24:05] That's part of it. But the second part is it's not like we don't have no accounts. Sorry, I got my dog here. We have accounts of some of the polyandrous husbands who did not consent to this, who say, wait a minute, you look at, look at Brigham Young's court case in Boston, Massachusetts where he is on trial in the 1840s, early 1840s, for bigamy because he tried to. Augusta Cobb was married to another man. I mean, it's not like there's no evidence other than we just said it later on. So, so okay, let's, let's. This is what I say with the argument that, you know, Joseph Smith didn't sleep with Helen Markimbell.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:24:44] This is what I say, okay, let's take sex out of the equation. It still makes it very problematic because in the situation of Helen Mark Kimball, you're still controlling a 14 year old sexuality. There's. We do have the primary source account of Helen Marr complaining to a friend that she can't go to a dance because she's now a married woman. We know that her sexuality is being controlled and it the same thing with the polyandrous marriages. Is Joseph sleeping with the wives? We don't know this, but we do know it causes women to leave their husbands and come across the plains. We see this consistence consistently.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:25:15] We see like Hannah Tatfield King, she gets a polyandrous sealing to Brigham Young and she brings her gentile husband who is treated as a second class citizen in Utah for a long time. Most women that get sealed polyandrously leave their husbands. It. That doesn't make it right. Just because they're sleeping with them, it's still a problem. It breaks up families, it causes distress, and it literally creates a sort of caste system for the men. And that's the justification for it, right? That their husbands aren't righteous enough. This is how Parley P. Pratt was murdered because he married a woman that was already married to me.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:25:52] Like you can say, like, oh, like Mormons, why do we care so much about sex? Like, it's so funny. Polyander is still a problem because it's dishonest.

Guest 12 [00:26:03] Yeah. And this is the point that I wanted to make, which is that Joseph Smith lied about his practice of polygamy. We know that. We know that for a fact. And so if we get, if we just apply Occam's razor, Joseph was a liar about polygamy. So if he was a liar about polygamy to his own wife, then why wasn't he a liar and hiding about polyandry? I mean, isn't that what Occam's razor would just demand? Is that unreasonable? Anyone? John Hamer?

John Hamer [00:26:41] Well, I also, yeah, like you say. So he's lying. There's. We don't have. He doesn't. He isn't. You know, we don't have anything where he's revealing exactly what his actual feelings are over and above. Like Glenn says DNC 132 or those kind of things. And so, and so he's speaking encoded languages and lying. And so this kind of crazy like, like Lindsay says this.

John Hamer [00:27:01] I think, I don't know, the fact that Mormons are sex obsessed or something like that is why there's the sex defense or whatever that is like this incredible cordon around Joseph Smith so that he can have a sex defense. But what are we saying then about Parley P. Pratt who's doing it, you know, and so. And then Brigham Young who's doing it. So. So in other words, that are those guys. Is Brigham Young then not a real prophet? Because he was not following Joseph Smith's ever so pure way of having polygamy that didn't involve sex. So it's the spiritual non sexual thing. But then probably Pratt has abused it and made it into a sex thing, you know, and so I think the part of the issue is the sex obsession and also this kind of Joseph Smith obsession.

John Hamer [00:27:37] And that actually if Mormons were to start to recover their real history, which is they're way more connected to and way more. Has way more affected everything in Utah, which is to say, looking at, let's look at Brigham Young and the Utah settlement and the 19th century history in Utah, which is really what has made Mormonism what it is. That's all completely unknown. It's a shadow box and nobody cares about it. They have not even looked into it hardly in terms of even ex Mormons looking into much of that.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:28:03] And let's just be clear that most if not all of the apologetic arguments around Joseph do not apply to the women. And so this is the part that makes me really angry and I get ranty about. We do a lot to protect the reputation of Joseph Smith's purity, sexual purity, but we're willing to throw women under the bus. Whether it's saying, well, we can't take their account seriously because they're secondhand, or they're written years later, whatever, whenever it's convenient, it's always prioritizing Joseph's reputation. And I think that that's telling and I think that that's inconsistent. Academic historians, in my opinion, should know better. Those arguments should apply across the board to all the sources that they're looking at. And when it comes to Mormonism, it just doesn't. I mean, we pick and choose when primary sources matter and when they don't.

Guest 12 [00:28:51] Yeah. Glenn, any other comments about the polyandry discussion?

Glenn Ostlund [00:28:57] No.

Guest 12 [00:28:58] Okay. Do we like the idea that he keeps saying that we can find Andrew Jackson or some historical American figure that married his 15 year old cousin? Is that, does that work? Does that logic work? Does that make it better?

Glenn Ostlund [00:29:17] It does for him. Does for some people.

Guest 12 [00:29:21] Yeah.

John Hamer [00:29:21] Yeah. So there it's, they've got people done the demographics of it. It's, it's, it's, it's not, not common at all. And it's more common on the frontiers, you know, so in other words, there's underage marriages, normally the norm. Most, most normal underage marriage would be for people who are closer in age. So in other words, the woman is underage and she's found a, you know, a younger, you know, a young husband who's older than her. But anyway, so it was definitely a low class kind of maneuver. But in any event, like Trevor pointed out to them when they was making that kind of underage argument like that, that, you know, Joseph Smith is already, you know, he's married to all these people.

John Hamer [00:30:01] It's, the difference here is really not whether you're having one, you've fallen in love. And there's one really scandalous underage marriage. It is creating an entire theological system where Women's role is being very seriously subordinated theologically to the men. Right. They have to be married to people who are being made kings and princes of Israel. And you wanted to be sealed into that, that house if you want to be getting to the, you know, the highest role, the celestial kingdom. Because women, you know, all of those things are all male perspective stuff. Men have to have polygamy. Women just have, have to be sealed because they, it's, they're not people in the celestial kingdom. They're, they're how men or how people get to the celestial kingdom.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:30:44] And I want to, I want to point out like now all of a sudden we're trying to normalize plural marriage. Like with Helen, Mark Kimball, it's like, no, but guys, it was normal because she was 14 and everybody got married at that age. But polygamy, which is like this really peculiar thing, I mean we were called a peculiar people. Polygamy literally drives the saints west. It's what marked them and brought them a lot of persecution. Like which one is it? Is it a completely normal marriage system or is it this strange thing? And we see that argument go both ways. And this is why I love Mormon fundamentalists, because they don't try to do those games.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:31:17] They're like, yep, polygamy is weird. It was hard. Yep, he married a 14 year old. Not gonna try to justify it. It was different because God's law is different than man's law. But we try to do this thing, like, no, no, no, it's cool.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:31:29] 14 year olds getting married to prophets, like that happened, that happened back in the day. So it's totally normal. Mormonism is not normal. That's the point.

Guest 12 [00:31:40] What about Lindsay, what about the fact that with the angel and the flaming sword, Zina was in her 20s. Did that make it better for you? That, that, that an angel with the flaming sword was threatening Joseph, did that make it better?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:31:51] I mean, I still have a problem with, you know, joking, like underage stuff, but like, I'm not trying to discount that. But yeah, I mean, I guess it's, it's a joke. But it's also not a joke when women are, have penalties around this marriage. Is that consent? When there's, when there's penalties, including the threat of hell. And if we do the adverse of that. So if you don't get married, we're saying that it wasn't essential for salvation, but clearly it was essential for salvation for many women.

Guest 12 [00:32:27] But it's also an egregious abuse of power on Joseph Smith's part and it, and it portrays a really abusive type of God that's basically forcing these women to be in relationship to Joseph. Do you agree or not?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:32:44] Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say that so like we like to talk about sex and I'm not trying to say sexual sex with a 14 year old doesn't matter. I mean I think my records clear in that. But what I'm saying is whether he slept with her or didn't, we're never going to know that. There's not going to be a sex tape published. To me the most compelling argument is the fact that the situation even occurred at all, sex or no sex. Like that's such a Mormon obsession. It's the abuse of power. It's the fact that he used his her parents and basically they sold their daughter for salvation. That's a problem.

Glenn Ostlund [00:33:20] I thought it was. This led to a really interesting divide between Trevor and the other two. Talking about, you know, Trevor saying the more I learned about Joseph Smith, the more I disliked him because the more I saw how horribly abusive it is for a leader of a religious community to use the fear of damnation to convince somebody to become an additional wife, especially somebody so young. And you know, the more that Trevor saw that, the less he liked Joseph Smith. And then Gro's response was, well, I've been reading what Joseph Smith wrote and the more I read of him, the more I like him.

Glenn Ostlund [00:34:00] I mentioned earlier these two people that are sitting across each other from a great divide. There's this abyss in the middle. I just find it fascinating. Like I want to try and step out of it and not be for or against either side but just say what the heck is going on? How can they look at the exact same person, the exact same evidence and come away with such different conclusions on this? And again, I think it goes back to the faith thing where Trevor said no, faith is not going to be sufficient for me to believe in this church anymore.

Guest 12 [00:34:34] How does Grow emerge from all his studying of Joseph, loving Joseph more than ever?

Glenn Ostlund [00:34:43] Well, we would have to ask him and I bet he would be open to having that conversation with us. But yeah, I think so.

Guest 12 [00:34:50] Okay, I'll reach out. I'll reach out.

Glenn Ostlund [00:34:53] So I've got a friend that I was in graduate school with. We were in the ward together and he's now the director of. He's a colleague of Gross and I reached out to him a few months ago and said hey, do you want to come on to Infants on Thrones? We'll have a conversation. And he was willing to do it, but he said, you know, right up

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:35:12] front,

Glenn Ostlund [00:35:14] I'm not going to have anything that would be convincing to anybody if they don't already accept these things on faith, you know, so we both kind of realized, you know, he was willing to come on, but what's really the point of it?

Glenn Ostlund [00:35:27] So I think that Grow would be willing to have that conversation. And to answer the question, there are legitimate things that he sees in Joseph Smith that makes him like him more. I totally believe that there are and don't think it's unreasonable that there could be. But on the same side, I can see from my experience and Trevor's experience and yours as well, most people listening to this, if not all that, we look at Joseph Smith now very differently than we used to, and he's more of a monster and an abuser and a con man and all of these things than we ever would have possibly thought when we were believing in him. But. So I can see why Grow. I can imagine it would take me some time to TBM whisper the grow,

John Hamer [00:36:08] but I think it's possible where you.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:36:11] Where. I do actually think context does matter, because I agree. I wouldn't say that I like Joseph more, but I'm certainly more impressed by him. And sometimes impressed would assume that I admire him. And that's not necessarily it. What Joseph Smith did was impressive.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:36:28] And I mean, just like sometimes I sit there and I'm in awe of it. I see the fruits of it today. I see how we sit around and spend. Like, this guy has given us hours and hours and hours. Thousands, Thousands of hours of things for scholars to talk about. I mean, that conference up in Logan, I was thinking, wow, this guy, like, whatever his shtick was, look at what it's done. It's given all these scholars something to pick apart. So I can see the value. And I. Just because Joseph Smith did all of these things wrong doesn't make him less fascinating. And. But when you're in the angry stage, you hear that and you're like, stop making excuses for Joseph Smith.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:37:06] And that's what I think Glenn and I are inviting people to do. We're not making excuses. Like, it's not making an excuse to say someone was really impressive. That's not an excuse.

John Hamer [00:37:16] Yeah, well. And. And not to tbm or that's not to be. Not to. Anyway. Historian Whisper Matt Grow. But. But even one of the things that he said on this topic was he says, look, we are. We're all enmeshed in the culture of our times. He did that a couple times. So in other words, you have to, you know, you have to look at a person where their background is, what their time and place is, and then. And then whether. And when you read all the different things that they wrote, I mean, in this case, a charismatic person, you may well find yourself, you know, very much more intrigued by him than when you had just, let's say, the.

John Hamer [00:37:50] The regular narrative that comes out of. Out of a manual, which is to say just. It's just a hagiography. So in other words, something that doesn't have any depth or substance to it. So you might actually find some stuff that you find very fascinating and interesting. I'm on record, I think, with Joseph Smith. I'm a rare person who finds him not very interesting. So, like, for us to talk about, I'm interested in the movement and the history all around it. But, I mean, I think he's so talked about anyway.

Guest 12 [00:38:16] So what do we. What do we think about that? That place of the conversation where basically Clark says he's quoting Oates and he's basically saying there's always going to be a tit for tat. So there's no, you know, these are not the. These are not. These are not the droids you're looking for. It's just like there's always going to be a problem. We can never resolve it. So you may as well believe because your children are going to be malformed if you don't. Any thoughts on that, or are we just going to say that's his perspective?

Glenn Ostlund [00:38:46] Well, I picked up on that, too. And he's creating a false equivalency that there's. It's equally muddled. I think muddled was the word that he was using. It's muddled on both sides. You can never be sure on either side. So I'm gonna side with my faith in God, you know, kind of. Kind of thing, instead of what the evil world out there is putting in there to muddle up things.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:39:06] But.

Glenn Ostlund [00:39:06] Yeah.

Guest 12 [00:39:08] Anyone else? Yep.

John Hamer [00:39:10] My takeaway was just that that means that he and I think the leaders, they didn't understand that there is a problem, and they. But they don't understand what the problem is. And maybe this is why we've seen that there has been the essays and things like that, because they feel the solution to the problem is arming up and doing stuff that's academically defensible. But the problem with it is that there's still that final leap that we've even identified here that when you create an academically defensible narrative, you still have to somehow jump to why does that justify obedience, blind obedience to these authoritarian leaders? Right. So that, you know, that's the, that's the problem.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:39:47] And I would say, yeah, there is going to be tit for tat. And so maybe that's not the real problem. I'm going back to what I said at the beginning. I can give you a fact about church history and you can have someone give me an alternative fact that, that we're gonna go back and forth and back and forth on me. To me, debate is really about, they really don't matter.

Guest 12 [00:40:09] Right.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:40:10] Facts don't matter.

Guest 12 [00:40:11] I'm just teasing.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:40:12] Let's put that on Facebook, on my, on my profile. No, that's what I'm saying. Like, I think that this is the short sightedness of how the church is approaching this. They already missed the boat for the fact for fact, tit for tat thing. I mean, people that are reading the essays are becoming just as disturbed. The essays are not really doing what I think that they hope that they were doing to maybe like, you know, buffer the betrayal. I don't think that that's what's happening. I think that they need to come up with a different approach. For me, that looks like being more inclusive, saying, you know, what community of Christ has done, say, well, yeah, you know, maybe Joseph was making it up and that's okay, you can still be Mormon. That's just how I see it.

Guest 12 [00:40:52] Lindsay, I just noticed that you kind of need to go and we've kept you at least 45 minutes past what time we'd say. Is there any. I love what you just said. Is there any closing comment you want to make before you need to check out or you have a few more minutes?

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:41:05] Just the usual. I hate truth, I hate facts. Is there anything else? No, just. Just. I would ask again for everybody to be more rigorous when we're talking about Mormonism. It's bigger than the LDS church. I'm deliberately strategic in that I say the LDS group now when I talk about that. And so what we're really talking about is LDS Mormonism. Mormonism is bigger. It's certainly bigger than just our church and that I want to acknowledge that people are in Trevor's shoes right now and they're in pain. And that's a very valid experience too. And thanks for letting me be part of this.

Guest 12 [00:41:42] We love you, Lindsay. Thanks for your perspective. Hope you'll join us again. Support Sunstone. Support Lindsay. Lots of events. Toronto, Salt Lake City, everywhere. Lindsay will be everywhere this coming year. So support Sunstone. Thanks, Lindsay. Now, really quick, I don't want to end yet because we haven't covered the homosexuals yet. And the conversation turns to basically, Trevor just challenging them and saying, what are the prophets good for? And of course, you know, Trevor's saying, where's the prophecy? Where's the Seership? Where's the revelation? And there's a beautiful part where Clark basically says, proclamation on the family. Duh. That's an obvious example of prophecy. John Hamer, how'd you like that?

John Hamer [00:42:30] Yeah, that really backfired on Clark. I don't know, because, I mean, it just shows the thinking there, right? So that's what they immediately point to. And at a certain point, you know, anyway, they were back and forth. I mean, I thought that Trevor did a good job of really pushing back on him. He's like, okay, that's the. That's what we're looking for in terms of new prophecy going on. And then. And he goes down in terms of the, you know, making an equivalence. Essentially, Clark makes this equivalence where he says, well, there's all sorts of young people who are. Who aren't married, who want to have sex with each other. And that, you know, and that's. That's just really, you know, they shouldn't. That's a sin. You know, not just that.

Guest 12 [00:43:10] Not just that, but he makes the brilliant argument that if everyone in the world were homosexual, then human existence would end. Wasn't that brilliant?

John Hamer [00:43:19] Right. And then I did like Trevor's.

Glenn Ostlund [00:43:21] Also if everyone was female, which is why men need the priesthood, probably. I don't know.

John Hamer [00:43:27] Trevor's counterpoint was. I'm not arguing that everybody should be homosexual.

Lindsay Hansen Park [00:43:32] Right.

Glenn Ostlund [00:43:33] That was a good comeback.

John Hamer [00:43:34] I think it's something that Clark had never thought of. Oh, you mean it's not all or nothing here on this whole thing. You're not making every. Anyway, so. Yeah. And so. And so then we even explained it to. To when Trevor even explained it to Clark, and he's like, but, you know, you're saying, though, that for the gay people that they can never get married. And it's not like the same as with kids or whatever. And he's. And so. And so Clark is like, that's fair, you know, and so he never thought of that before. And so then he's like, well, you know, the number of the temples we have, so you may switch. Look at how many temples we have.

Guest 12 [00:44:06] And he mentioned the perpetual education fund.

John Hamer [00:44:09] Yeah.

Guest 12 [00:44:10] Just really quick. John Hamer. I won't call you a restorationist, but as someone who studied the restoration, are those the sorts of things Joseph would have called prophecy, seership and revelation? Building. Building a certain number of temples, I'm sure.

John Hamer [00:44:28] Yeah, I'm sure that he would like to. I mean, there was. He prophesied that there would be temples, and then there sometimes were, or at least once in his lifetime.

Glenn Ostlund [00:44:36] Oh, he got everybody to build the Kirtland Temple. He got everybody to build the Nauvoo Temple. I mean. Yeah. And what's the section in the Doctrine and Covenants about the. What's that house in Nauvoo, John, that we've talked about staying at?

John Hamer [00:44:51] The Nauvoo House?

Glenn Ostlund [00:44:52] Yeah, it's like the mansion or the Nauvoo Mansion, right?

John Hamer [00:44:55] No, no, it's called the. It's the Nauvoo House, not the mansion. It's the brick building that's in front of it that they were going to build. And it's like, build my servant, Joseph Smith a hotel. And here everybody shall have this much stock in it if they invest this much in it and this sort of thing. So there was all kinds of things that counted as revelation in Joseph Smith's time, but it was a lot more meat to it than just saying, well, pretty much every Ensign article is revelation. Right.

Glenn Ostlund [00:45:17] But he also didn't. He didn't have this distinction between spiritual things and worldly thing. You know, as far as commerce, you know, we're going to start a bank. You know, there's things that he did. And I should credit this to Brother Jake's wife, Erica, who made this really great point years ago when everyone was so upset about City Creek, was. She says, I don't see that this is inconsistent with what Joseph Smith would do at all. He was always building things besides just church kind of stuff.

John Hamer [00:45:49] Right.

Glenn Ostlund [00:45:49] So would he build them all if Joseph Smith was leading the Mormon Church today in Salt Lake? I could see that, sure. Yeah.

John Hamer [00:45:57] Well, so Clark wasn't. I don't think Clark was bad on the mall issue. Therefore, for that reason, it's just a matter of. I can see anyway.

Guest 12 [00:46:04] So, yeah, he basically says we need the mall to make money, to do humanitarian effort. That's what he said. And the money for the mall did not come from tithing.

John Hamer [00:46:12] Right.

Guest 12 [00:46:13] Well.

John Hamer [00:46:14] And that we need. We need to do have a mall so that Salt Lake City can have a urban renewal.

Guest 12 [00:46:19] Did you like what he said? Did you like how he threw Detroit under the bus?

Glenn Ostlund [00:46:23] Right. Chicago.

John Hamer [00:46:25] Chicago is quite nice. Downtown by the way, they didn't have to have a big. Anyways. But.

Glenn Ostlund [00:46:30] But how, you know, and to me, this kind of goes back to when Clark was talking about homosexuality, and he was seeing it very differently, obviously, from Trevor. Who are you looking for as a source of information, like who's informing your opinion on these things? And Clark very clearly tipped his hat earlier that when he was talking about grow, that he got his education from byu, but also Notre Dame, so it wasn't just a Mormon education.

Glenn Ostlund [00:47:00] I wonder if Clark has ever gone outside of Mormon sources to really understand what's going on with homosexuality. And I doubt that he has where Trevor clearly has. So Trevor can come in and say, people are born this way, and Clark will go, well, I'm not sure that we really know that. Well, why aren't you sure that you really know that? Because you haven't really researched it outside of anything that somebody in the church says about it.

Guest 12 [00:47:25] So, yeah, yeah, I was really impressed with how thorough Trevor was. He pretty much covers everything at the end. By the end, he's even incorporating the Mark Hoffman stuff. And I mean, maybe. Maybe Clark mentioned that, but Clark was explaining how profits are. You know, he actually quoted. I think it was Hinckley. We do a lot of thinking that we don't pray over. That's really interesting of an admission that there's all sorts of decisions made in the church that aren't prayed over. Did you guys find that interesting?

John Hamer [00:48:02] Sure. But how else are you going to describe that? Right. I mean, because it's like. I mean, that's a clear. It's a. It's definitely a problem. So that's. It's a new variation maybe on some things you do as a man, some things you do as a prophet. Right. So that goes all the way back as an apologetic. But essentially, when you have. When the prophet makes an obvious error or when revelation fails, if there were revelations, when you do an action where you were, let's say, taken in by a con man, in the case of Mark Hoffman, people wonder, well, why would a. How can you take a prophet in? Right. Why is Hinckley taken in?

Guest 12 [00:48:33] Right. All right, well, is there anything else you guys want to talk about that we haven't talked about so far?

Glenn Ostlund [00:48:42] Is there anything that people who are still listening to this want to hear us say?

Guest 12 [00:48:48] There's something around Facebook Live where I think after four hours, it actually automatically ends.

Glenn Ostlund [00:48:54] Has it been after four hours?

Guest 12 [00:48:56] Something longer? Whatever it was, it was longer than the Facebook limit. Yeah. Because we started around 10. So we had to restart, and so we lost some people, but we're still up to 126, even though we booted everybody off.

Glenn Ostlund [00:49:08] Is this 689 comments on here? Is that what I'm seeing?

Guest 12 [00:49:12] Yeah, yeah, it's been great. There's actually people writing that this hijacked their whole day, but that they loved it. That's what Rachel said. This is hijacked her whole day. But she.

Glenn Ostlund [00:49:22] Me too.

Guest 12 [00:49:23] Me too, Rachel.

Glenn Ostlund [00:49:24] I did some PTO to cover my time with this. So, yeah, I took the day off.

Guest 12 [00:49:30] Sarah says she's been avoiding studying for her nursing exam. Anyway, yeah, we can invite people to ask some final points or questions, but I think this has gone on quite long. I think I want to invite Glenn and John just to make some summary comments. You can talk about Trevor. I don't want to throw Trevor under the bus here. I think this is sort of an act of courage.

Guest 12 [00:49:54] It's a sincere act. Some can question whether it was right to record and to share the recording without permission. But I agree with Trevor that when we're talking about a church that demands 10% of income, that keeps people out of temples who don't pay their tithing, and they can't even see their own child's wedding, when gay people are killing themselves, when marriages are literally being ending, all because the church literally claims that their prophets speak to God and Jesus. I think that the standards are slightly different in the sense that top church leaders should be held accountable for what they're telling people, that they need to be more open and honest about this stuff, and that there's a standard for transparency.

Guest 12 [00:50:39] I think that's greater on an organization making such claims and demands. And so maybe that's a justification. But I see what Trevor's done is an honorable and a noble and a courageous thing. That's my little sermonette about that. And that's also me giving John and Glenn stalling to give you guys time to give some closing comments.

Guest 12 [00:51:02] So while we're monitoring any final comments or questions from the listeners, Glenn, why don't you go first as to what summary statement you'd like to make.

Glenn Ostlund [00:51:11] I'm gonna get in trouble for this. I know. I like Trevor, and I'd like to talk with Trevor more about some things. So, Trevor, I'll be sending you a message on Facebook because I got some ideas. So I don't want to put anything out there like I'm being critical of Trevor or anything like that, but you could. You could have asked Grow or Clark if it Was okay, you could have let them know that you recorded it and given them a chance to listen to, you know, I mean, you didn't have to just go and publish this three weeks after you did it and go, well, I think that they would be okay with it and they probably should.

Glenn Ostlund [00:51:52] And they do a bunch of bad stuff too. So if it's bad, well, they earned it. You know, that kind of gives a little bit of credibility issue. If I'm a Mormon, if I'm a believing Mormon and I want to hear what people are saying, I would immediately be turned off by that and go, okay, wait a second, now I'm not even going to listen. So I think in the approach, that might be a little bit of criticism. At the same point, I'm really glad that he did it. I'm glad that we have this to be able to talk about. I think it's going to be valuable and helpful to a lot of people.

Glenn Ostlund [00:52:23] But I think so for me, for a closing statement, it would just be to restate what I said earlier. You know, I'm in a place right now where I'm trying to look at this whole us versus them dynamic and ask myself the question, is it possible to have conversations like this without always demonizing the other side? And I say always there because I still want to do parodies and sat, you know, the things that we do on Amazon Thrones.

Guest 12 [00:52:50] Says the leader of if it's on Thrones, because it's fun.

Glenn Ostlund [00:52:53] It's fun and I think there's a place for it. But it's also not very fair to people who are on the other side that we're giving them arguments that, you know, they're trying to give a post hoc rationalization for something that they very strongly feel and they really haven't thought it through all that much and they don't really care if it makes sense or not because what they feel is what they know. And so I want to try to be more respectful to that. But yeah, I don't know. So those are my closing.

Guest 12 [00:53:25] That's totally fair, Glenn. 100% fair. And I'll just tell you, I was told that if I. If I recorded my disciplinary council, my disciplinary council, it was me, it was, for me, it was legal in the state of Utah for me to record it. I was told that if I recorded my disciplinary council that I would be disinvited from my own council. And I can 100% guarantee you that grow and Clark would not have met with him, would not have talked to him if he was honest about it, and so that's a double, or even

Glenn Ostlund [00:53:56] after the fact, if he would have said, hey, by the way, guys, I recorded this and I'm gonna take it to John de Lynn and we're gonna do, you know, this kind of thing with it. They would have said no.

John Hamer [00:54:05] Yeah, of course.

Glenn Ostlund [00:54:06] And if, and if, you know, they would have said no, then, yeah, it's legal to do. But is it still the right thing to do? And I'm not going to say no, it's not the right thing to do. But if part of our objective in doing this is to have friends and families of ours who are still believing members, hey, listen to this. Discussed and talked it over so that they can start thinking about it and maybe planting seeds. I mean, we're not going to say, oh, we want them to be let out of the church. We just want them to understand why we came to the conclusions that we did in this. That having something like this could be a deterrent to somebody approaching it and accepting it because of that fact.

Guest 12 [00:54:48] Absolutely. Super fair. Super fair. Thanks for bringing that. And Maxine Hanks immediately texted me and said, this is illegal. Why are you doing this? It's illegal. I don't think it's illegal in the state of Utah. I think Utah is a one party consent state. But even if it's not legal, it's super fair to ask if it's ethical. All right, John Hamer, what are your closing thoughts?

John Hamer [00:55:13] Well, I think that, you know, in the us versus them situation, if Glenn wants to give equal time to them, he may be inadvertently giving equal time to the adversary. Just quoting the old Packer line. Anyway.

Glenn Ostlund [00:55:30] Can you quote it in the Packer voice, though?

John Hamer [00:55:32] I can't. I need somebody else.

Glenn Ostlund [00:55:34] I bet you could. You just gotta go.

John Hamer [00:55:36] I can only do. I can only do the.

Guest 12 [00:55:38] Anyway, because Glenn, that wouldn't turn off our TBM listener.

Glenn Ostlund [00:55:42] No, no, no, no, no.

John Hamer [00:55:47] I guess what I thought was pretty interesting in being exposed to this recording was. Well, I do. I think that Trevor had a great. Considering how it's interesting always to me when people are new at the faith crisis, how an amazing amount of information you can absorb in a year and a half or something, you know, because this is a very new thing for him. And yet he really, by the end of this thing, like you say, by the end, he was like a guy with a paintball and it was just going. And they were trying to get him with every last little ball there, you know, and it was. It was amazing.

Glenn Ostlund [00:56:20] I thought he was like Daniel San from Karate Kid where he just kept wax on, wax off and. And they'd bring one. Oh, but then there's this, then there's that, right?

John Hamer [00:56:28] Yeah. And so that was what. That was what Matt Grow was like.

Glenn Ostlund [00:56:31] Yeah, they were all doing this.

John Hamer [00:56:34] So I thought that was interesting. And I thought that was really interesting that. Okay, so let's say go way, way back, let's say to the 80s or something like that. And so we would have, you know, getting the LDS Church to. And the LGS Church history department to be in a position where they are actually talking about 19th century Mormon history in a way that's academically defensible.

John Hamer [00:56:57] It was a pretty big transition from where they were at back then. And so I think that where Matt is at and where other legitimate historians are at who are in the church history department is. It's interesting that this is, you know, that people have come to that place. And so anyway, so I think that that was also interesting to see and that it was even in private council. He's also doing that. There's no. He's not taking liberties with this stuff. I didn't think then in terms of the. And finally though, in terms of the LDS authority here, it's just surprising to me or not surprised.

John Hamer [00:57:32] But anyway, just confirming to me that how little that they. He really was aware of what the problem even was. I agreed with him entirely when he was saying that Matt here is a lot smarter than me. So I don't know, it's just. So it's very hard for them, I think, to this path that they've taken, which is to have to employ all these academically defensible historians. And all this kind of thing may not have any of the solutions that they think it's going to have or want it to have in part because they themselves don't understand what the real problems are here. And then the problems go well beyond the history and the debunking and the questions into all of the different social issues that Lindsay is talking about.

John Hamer [00:58:10] And so at the end of the day, how do you get that last bit squared from where you are able to have these nuanced positions that some of the academics who are Mormons have to the authority structure, which itself then is the thing that is projecting the black and white literalistic perspective in the first place? That doesn't match up. It doesn't work in the end. It's broken somewhere. The whole thing doesn't connect properly.

Guest 12 [00:58:37] Brilliant and beautiful. I'll just add that in Addition to feeling like Trevor was courageous, I think this is an important conversation because maybe the closest we ever get to a really clear view of what an average general authority in the 2010s knows and doesn't know. And it represents sort of the cream of the crop, Mormon apologist, scholar, giving their best shots at as many of the possible issues as they can. And it shows in 2017 kind of where the Church is headed in terms of, through its curriculum and through its public presence, attempts to sort of justify and dance around the big problems.

Guest 12 [00:59:22] I think this document, this recording is a real important historical snapshot of where we are in Mormonism in 2017 and where we're going, because you don't necessarily know the cameras and the recorders are on. And to me, that makes it a little bit more authentic and a little less staged than it might otherwise be.

Guest 12 [00:59:46] And so I, and I think Grow, I think he was compassionate and kind and thoughtful and, you know, I think Grow did a good job and kudos to Clark for being willing to try and help out, you know, his former missionary.

Guest 12 [01:00:06] So in that sense it's neat. They have to know at some level they're going to be interviewed and that there's risk that they're going to be recorded and yet they do it anyway because they really sincerely want to trust.

Glenn Ostlund [01:00:19] Yeah, they really sincerely trust that they're not going to be taken advantage of.

Guest 12 [01:00:23] Yeah, they trust Trevor. I mean, that's a good point, Glenn. And. But I think they know at some level this is a risk and they still do it in spite of that.

Glenn Ostlund [01:00:35] But if they knew this was going out to the type of audience that it's going out to, they could have prepared answers in a way that they would have been more comfortable with. You know, so to your point that this is a good reflection or a snapshot of where general authorities are at this point in time. I agree with that, but I don't know that it's the best that they have to come back because they didn't put a lot of thought into it. It was just a private conversation they were trying to have to help somebody out.

Guest 12 [01:01:04] Well, I think Growth, I think in Groth's reactions to Trevor, he represents sort of the cream of the crop of modern Mormon apologetics. I mean, certainly it wasn't a four hour prepared script of apologetics in detail, but it would be hard to find one, someone better than Grow who had the breadth and the depth of knowledge and experience to cover as many topics. I don't know. That's how I Feel. So, anyway, that's my little servant.

Glenn Ostlund [01:01:35] This is Winston. He's been barking at somebody at the door, so I had to put it on mute.

Guest 12 [01:01:40] No, it's good, it's good. All right. So Bruce just. Hey, Winston. Bruce does say that his bishop recorded his conversations with him and the stake president recorded the disciplinary councils and stuff. No, maybe I'm reading that wrong. I take that back. No, he says my bishop recorded our conversation, as did I. So we don't know exactly whether the church records their conversations. Is that fair to say as well? Because they wouldn't admit it.

John Hamer [01:02:11] Oh, no. Yeah. They don't talk about anything about disciplinary councils. Right.

Guest 12 [01:02:15] So we could sort of point our finger at Trevor. But do we know that the church isn't recording their conversations? I think that's, you know, it's quite

Glenn Ostlund [01:02:24] a leap to go from that bishop to the church.

Guest 12 [01:02:26] Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. So all we're doing is justifying what we'll say in closing is thanks to everyone who has tuned in and who's participated. We had such a good panel that we weren't able to get to many of the comments and questions, but we had 900 plus comments and they've been wonderful. I encourage listeners to go check out the comments and questions. They were wonderful. We've really loved having so many people tune in. We're really grateful to Trevor for being willing to share with us and to join with us and to be so vulnerable. If you didn't listen to part one, please check out Trevor's story.

Guest 12 [01:03:00] It was, to me, very heartfelt. I want to thank Lindsay Hanson park in absentia. She was brilliant and amazing as always. She's not just a token woman, she is a brilliant human. I also want to thank John Hamer and Glenn Glenn Oslin because they always provide wisdom and wit and balance. You guys are awesome. Glenn, thanks for joining us today.

Glenn Ostlund [01:03:25] Thanks for asking me.

Guest 12 [01:03:26] Do you want to shout out to infants on Thrones?

Glenn Ostlund [01:03:28] Yo, check it out in the house.

Guest 12 [01:03:35] John Hamer, you want to make a shout out?

John Hamer [01:03:37] Well, we do want to advertise again that you're going to come to Toronto on April 8 and be part of Sunstone Toronto and look for people who live in eastern North America. We don't get a lot of these kind of conferences and so if you're anywhere in driving distance, we hope you'll come. It'll be an incredible conference and also that'll allow us to be able to do it every year. We want to do it, you know, go ongoing. So we have, you know everybody always complains we only can do these things in Utah. Why don't you come here to this and that place? So anyway, it's an opportunity.

Guest 12 [01:04:03] It is. All right, everybody. The people who make this possible are Amy Grubbs, who's the director of operations for the Open Stories foundation, the board of directors of the OSF and all the donors. If you listen to all this, if you made it through, even if you didn't, please consider supporting the Open Stories foundation of Mormon Stories is tax deductible and just 10 or $20 a month can make all this continue. So please support us if you don't already. And thanks to everyone who does support us. Love you guys. Appreciate everybody and please tune in again soon for another Mormon Stories episode. You guys take care. Take care, John and Glenn.

John Hamer [01:04:41] Bye bye John.

Guest 12 [01:04:42] Take care, listeners. Love you guys. See you soon.

Part 7 of 7 · Ep. 714b

Guest 13 [00:00:29] Okay. The final point that you included in your letter was about polygamy and polyandry. Why don't you go ahead and talk to us about what points you were making there?

Guest 14 [00:00:41] Well, Joseph Smith had at least 34 wives. But what really, you know, and I always thought that Joseph Smith may have practiced polygamy. I mean, I knew it was a big thing with Brigham Young and, you know, and a few prophets after that, but I didn't know how big it was with Joseph Smith. And so as I started looking into it and realizing that he had that many polygamous wives and then seeing him constantly covering it up and lying about wasn't something that he was owning, you know, and so that, that was a red flag for me. But probably the biggest thing was when I learned about polyandry, I had never even heard of that word before.

Guest 14 [00:01:31] I'd never heard it spoken in church. And I actually had to look up the definition. But what it is is a man that marries another man's wife. And so Joseph Smith had 11, I believe, polyandrous marriages as well. And several of those were to priesthood holding men. And so when I was a missionary, I would talk about polygamy very quickly, you know, dismiss it, say it's not something we, you know, practice anymore. It was something that we were using in the beginning of the church because of persecution. We needed to really quickly be able to populate an area or it was to help out, you know, elderly women and maybe even people that never got married, helped them with a sealing ordinance.

Guest 14 [00:02:19] That was my always thing. But how am I supposed to justify the polyandry? Like, how could I ever explain to somebody the purpose for that?

Guest 13 [00:02:29] Yeah, yeah. And so Gros response, he basically kind of pulls his church historian Joseph Smith Papers project card. He basically, you know, oversaw the creation of the essays and the editorial process. He oversees the Joseph Smith Papers project. And he says to you, and I believe he's sincere, right? But he basically, and it was kind of sweet, he basically said, I've spent the last six years reading pretty much everything that Joseph Smith ever wrote, and I've come to you say you've come to detest him or whatever word it was you used to say. You, you just stopped liking Joseph Smith. Basically, you saw him in a bad light. Basically, Grose says, the more I read about Joseph, the more I come to like him better. So that was it. What did you think about that?

Guest 14 [00:03:26] Well, thinking about it after, it kind of made sense to me actually, because I've been studying so much on Joseph Smith's life and his actions. Right. And where Matt is talking about his writings. So I think we're talking about two different things. I had always looked at Joseph Smith's writings and so of course I praised the man. You know, I mean, everything he said was, was, was beautiful and brilliant and happy and good. But when it was, when I actually started looking at him as a person, his actions, what he was actually doing, that's when his character was defiled to me. And so we were kind of talking about two different things, I think.

Guest 13 [00:04:13] Right. Not his writings, but his behavior.

Guest 14 [00:04:15] Exactly, exactly.

Guest 13 [00:04:17] And I mean, Joseph Smith deceived people about treasure digging. He deceived people about the Kirtland bank and people lost their fortunes. He deceived people about translating ancient records. He lied to his own wife that he was practicing polygamy and he hid it from her, which violates the text of DNC 132, by the way, because the wife is supposed to be able to approve any subsequent wives to get taken.

Guest 14 [00:04:41] Well, yeah. And DNC 13263 goes especially against polyandry.

Guest 13 [00:04:47] Yeah. And he's taking on other people's wives. He's sending people on missions and then propositioning their wives while the men are away on missions that he sent them on. And then he's, he's actually propositioning 14, 15, 16 year olds with this massive abuse of power that's predatory, inappropriate for young girls. Any of us by any standard today, would kill or throw someone in jail for doing the types of things to our daughters that Joseph Smith did to other people's daughters. And then he would threaten them. He would say, if you, I'll coerce you, and if you become my plural wife, then you and your whole family will be sealed in the celestial kingdom with me.

Guest 13 [00:05:31] But if you do not accept plural marriage with me, you and all your family will be condemned. And then if any plural, possible, plural wife disagreed to be Joseph's plural wife, then he would actually and spoke about it publicly. He would malign them as whores in, in the newspaper.

Guest 13 [00:05:53] And then of course, when William Law tells the world I was in the first Presidency, Joseph's lying about polygamy. I saw him practicing polygamy. I know he's doing it. Then Joseph calls him a liar and destroys the printing press and tries to destroy all the evidence that was made. How can grow or anyone say, oh my gosh, I, I think Joseph, he was a good man. The more I read about Joseph Smith, the more I love him. Those are the acts of A charlatan. Those are the acts of somebody who is predatory and abusing their power. And I was really sad. There were probably two people that canceled their donations to Mormon Stories as a result of our previous episodes, more people gave money than took money away.

Guest 13 [00:06:44] So none of our decisions were about the money. But I did think to myself, for the people that canceled their donations, I thought, interesting. You'll give 10% of your income to a church whose profit has done all these heinous things, including abusing children, lying to their wife, embezzling people's money. You'll keep giving 10% to that organization that has policies that cause young LGBT Mormons to kill themselves and that actually causes marriages to unravel and children to be torn from their parents.

Guest 13 [00:07:20] You'll keep donating to that organization. But if on Mormon Stories we share the recording of a general authority, you'll cancel your donations because that's beyond the pale. I just kind of question the values and the priorities of the people that would make that decision.

Guest 14 [00:07:39] John, did you see the, the, the. What was happening when we were talking about Joseph Smith's character, Right. And how they're so quick to justify everything he's done, but never with Jeremy Runnels. Right. And how can they look at this as. Okay, I just don't understand it. The magnifying glass, glass that they're putting these people under.

Guest 14 [00:08:05] I mean, you would think that you would need a, like a more powerful magnifying glass when you're talking about a prophet. They let these things slide and they justify things. Like, well, we don't know if, you know, really if the polyandrous marriages were sexual in nature. Right. We don't know that. It's like, well, I never really write down in my journal like, man had some great sex last night. You know, like, that's not something that's really talked about. I mean, so, yeah, we don't know these things, but the fact that they were going on and with very young girls, that's what, that's the problem is that this is ruining people's lives.

Guest 14 [00:08:43] This is exactly. This is a great point, because stuff like this still happens today, you know, and he uses an example where he says, well, you know, there's a story of a man, he was 31, you know, back in 1840, and he marries a 15 year old girl. And although maybe some eyebrows were raised or whatever, you know, it was a fine thing to happen because back then it was a different time. Well, first of all, it was still a big deal, okay, to marry Somebody that's that young. But the biggest difference between that story and a Joseph Smith story is that they fell in love with. They both consensually decided to get married out of love.

Guest 13 [00:09:30] And it wasn't illegal, right?

Guest 14 [00:09:34] And Joseph coercive, right? It wasn't divisive. Joseph Smith, on the other hand, he's talking to these poor. These poor girls and he's giving them stories like. And I know that, you know, these stories were told to different individuals, but the story that kind of that was going on was, you know, that either I will, I promise your entire family with salvation, right? Blessing her and her entire family with eternal salvation. If she does it or if she doesn't, there's an angel with a flaming sword that will kill Joseph. Right? And so to put these people in this situation, like, what do you expect them to do, you know? And these kids are so young. Why get married to them? They have their whole lives to find a priesthood holding man. I just. I can't get over it.

Guest 13 [00:10:23] I can't get over it. And just to recount Grove's responses to the polygamy, again, it was the incredibly shrinking narrative. He's like, we don't really have journal writings of women contemporary to the actual time and events where they say, I had sex with Joseph. Today, of course they're married to other men. Are they going to be writing down in their journal, I'm married to this other guy, hey, but today I had great sex with Joseph. That would be kind of a dumb thing to do, I'm sure. Joseph. Because we know Joseph and others were lying about it. Of course Joseph's gonna tell them, don't write about this stuff.

Guest 13 [00:11:00] So that's kind of a weird argument. Again, Grow wanted to say we don't have any contemporary evidence. We just have recollections that were written down or testified to decades later. But again, this is the point Lindsay Hanson park made. When it's something like the priesthood restoration, which we have no contemporary evidence for the Melchizedek priesthood, I'm not even sure about the Aaronic priesthood. We're still willing to sort of base our entire authority as a church on these happenings that weren't written down until what, five, seven, eight years later. That's. In that case, we'll cherry pick and use the evidence in our favor. But if these women claim decades later to have had sex with Joseph Smith, oh, well, it was written too far, too far later.

Guest 13 [00:11:45] It wasn't contemporary, or we need to kind of discredit. Again, expecting that people are gonna be writing about their sex at all in their journals.

Guest 14 [00:11:53] Well, it's a double standard. It comes down to the convenience with apologists.

Guest 13 [00:11:57] It always is. Then he goes on, he talks about Nauvoo. There's no records. It's all reflections. And then he does the typical sort of, who's the guy? Brian Hales, sort of, we don't have any evidence of sexual polyandry. It's just ceilings. And you guys got into a discussion about whether or not Brigham Young was polyandrous. And again, he used Andrew Jackson as an example of someone who married someone who wasn't divorced yet, which he said was a scandal. But I think that's a bad example, comparing that to Joseph to say Andrew Jackson married a woman who couldn't get a divorce in a way to justify Joseph's polyandry marrying you men, you know, marrying women who were married to men that they lived with.

Guest 14 [00:12:46] Well, and he admitted that was not going on with Joseph Smith, too. He used that to justify Brigham Young. But. But he, you know what I mean? He very, very much stated that that was not the case with Joseph Smith.

Guest 13 [00:12:59] Like, that's fine. It's just always shrinking. So he basically lays out three possibilities. Again, this is the plausible deniability approach. You know, there's no. Number one is these weren't traditional marriages. That's the first possibility for polyandry. That they weren't. There was no sex, that there wasn't financial support. So the polyandrous marriages are okay because they weren't traditional marriages. That was the first point that grow made. The second was maybe they were just ceilings. Maybe it was just about the dynastic ceilings in the future. And it really wasn't about marriage in this life. And then the third is most women that were in polyandrous relationships were not married to righteous priesthood holders.

Guest 13 [00:13:44] And it could have been these women wanting to access the blessings of heaven. And again, is that really what God is going to require? Is that, oh, my gosh, I'm not married to a righteous priesthood holder, so let me scramble and get married to Joseph Smith before he dies, because otherwise I'm screwed in heaven. Right.

Guest 14 [00:14:02] Isn't that what temple work is for?

Guest 13 [00:14:04] Exactly the millennium? Yeah. Yeah. And this is where you, at the one hour mark, you make this beautiful point, which is this is my biggest problem, is that religion can be used to justify horrible things. And you talk about, you know, Muslims that, you know, sort of radical Muslims that kill people. Jihad. You mentioned Nephi cutting off Laban's head. And you're basically saying it's unacceptable, the level of pain and suffering that religion can cause.

Guest 14 [00:14:39] Religion, obviously can be very dangerous. When my God says something that's against what your God says, what does that create? These are not ideas. These are. These are higher than us. These are. These are as profound as profound belief and conviction can get. That's where war breaks out.

Guest 14 [00:14:57] Not, you know, between nations or between people. Does that make sense? It's scary, and it can be dangerous. And this is an absolutely perfect example of that, of justifying certain things, because God said it was okay, you know, and then one thing I want to make sure that we don't forget is when we talked about Brigham Young, because I said, well, you know, I remember Elder Clark chimed in here, and he says, well, none of us like the idea of polygamy. You know, Sister Clark, you know, absolutely hates the idea of, you know, of polygamy. And I say something along the fact, along the lines of, well, it's too bad that in order for us to reach the highest, you know, glory of the celestial kingdom, we all have to be polygamists.

Guest 14 [00:15:48] And Matt Grow goes on to say, you know, well, that was never taught. That was actually never really taught. And I said, well, Brigham Young says in Journal of Discourses that the only men who become gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. And what was really interesting there, and I know you caught this as well, but it was this whole, oh, well, we can't hang our hat on every little thing that Brigham Young says. Kind of like, oh, that cute little prophet saying all these stupid stuff, just, you know, like discounting the fact that we have Brigham Young University.

Guest 14 [00:16:25] You know, like, Brigham Young was a big deal. And to just write off what other prophets have said, if they contradict what we're teaching now, I don't think we can do that or should be able

Guest 13 [00:16:37] to do that for sure, for sure. Again, it's sort of like, ignore the past prophets. How do you know if a prophet's telling the truth? He's alive and his mouth is moving. Otherwise, anything a prophet said is fair game to be undermined at any time. And anyone with a brain is going to say, well, if I can't trust Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or John Taylor, how can I trust Thomas S. Monson today? But they don't. They don't want to talk about that. And it's just not consistent.

Guest 13 [00:17:10] I'll just quickly add that, yeah, it was interesting. The grow was like, well, you know, those. Those utterances that Polygamy was required to be exalted in the highest degree was just during this small time when the church was being persecuted right around the, you know, right before the manifesto was written. But Lindsay Hansen Clark, you know, makes it very clear that this was a very significant and prevailing narrative for many, many, many years.

Guest 13 [00:17:40] She says there's a reason why there's three degrees in the celestial kingdom. If you read doctrine and Covenants 132, it's called what, the new and everlasting covenant of plural marriage. So to say, now that it's some small, obscure, minimal thing, I think, you know, comes across as disingenuous.

Guest 13 [00:17:59] All right, so, yeah, he talked about that aristocrat that married his cousin. He talked about the angel and the flaming sword. And then it was kind of interesting. It seemed like he was saying that angel with the flaming sword happened with Zina, who was in her 20s, not with the teenager. And again, I just. Is it less abusive for God to send an angel and a flaming sword if Joseph is threatening, you know, someone in their 20s than if they're a teenager? That was just kind of a weird justification. I felt like.

Guest 14 [00:18:28] Well, and if he's telling one, that one person that I doubt he's, you know what I mean, filtering it for the 14 year olds. But again, that's speculation. That's, you know, but I'm just saying that was. That was a story that was being shared, you know, throughout a lot of his plural marriages.

Guest 13 [00:18:45] Yeah, yeah. Then the conversation basically went to, you know, again, dismantling what Brigham Young said because they had a different style in General Conference, that there was a lot of speculation. And then you speak up, how do we know, you know, what a prophet says is true if it's always changing?

Guest 13 [00:19:04] And then Gross says, you know, listen, we're all enmeshed in our culture. You know, we're going to be racist in the 1830s. And then you point out, oh, my gosh, well, our church was racist in the 1970s. And your basic point was, the prophets seem to always be enmeshed in culture.

Guest 13 [00:19:23] When are they ever not? And I would make the point. Isn't that a point of a prophet? They can transcend culture and get God's direct direction divorced from culture. Isn't that what the real value would be? But if the prophets are always 30 years behind the civil rights movements of the days, then are the prophets being prophets or are they simply old dudes who are reactive to the courage of the civil rights leaders of the.

Guest 14 [00:19:52] Which is more likely, right? Which is More likely.

Guest 13 [00:19:55] Yeah, it's like Occam's razor. What's the more. What's the more simple, logical explanation?

Guest 14 [00:20:03] And at this, this point of our conversation, it goes into kind of rapid fire mode because I had run out of time that I have with them. But there was just so many things that they had said that I had to, I had to just bring to their attention, you know, and this is kind of where we talked really quickly about proclamation of the families. You know, we even got into City Creek and tithing and all that kind of stuff.

Tithing, Recording Ethics, and Closing Thoughts

Guest 13 [00:20:27] Yeah. And I just want to. This is for me one of the most important parts of the interview because you basically say, why don't the prophets consult with God? This is just too overwhelming that we can't ever really trust what they say. That's when Clark responds, yeah, there's always going to be tit for tat, you know, and he basically went on to say that.

Guest 13 [00:20:57] He basically quotes Oakes when Oakes says that they're alls be tit for tat. And then you're basically saying, well, then when can we ever trust that a prophet has really spoken for God? And basically this is when Clark speaks up and says, the prophets set the direction. They set the direction for the church. And you're like, well, when have they done it? And he's like, well, eternal families. And he basically offers proclamation of the family as proof that the prophets set the direction for the church. And he called that revelation. Which is really ironic because what we know about the proclamation of the family is that lawyers drafted the proclamation of the family during the time of the Hawaii same sex marriage ruling because the church needed some document because the Book of Mormon, silent on it on homosexuality, Doctrine and Covenants is silent on homosexuality.

Guest 13 [00:21:49] We, we have miracle forgiveness, but we don't have church policy around homosexuality. And so lawyers draft proclamation on the family to submit an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief, so that they can have standing to oppose same sex marriage. And now Clark is citing that as an evidence of revelation. So again, it's the lawyers, It's Curtin and McConkie who are the prophets, seers and revelators. Not, you know, not the general authorities of the church.

Guest 14 [00:22:19] Yeah.

Guest 13 [00:22:20] Not to mention the fact that that document is heinous and deeply offensive to feminists, to working women, to LGBT people, to people who get same sex married, to people who have a more progressive view of gender roles. It's a, it's a horrendous document. So it's so ironic to list that as an example of God leading prophets in just way too many ways.

Guest 14 [00:22:43] And it wasn't even, it wasn't. He didn't say revelation, he said prophecy. And again, all of this stuff, you know, what means what at the end of the day. Right. But to me, a prophecy is something that's, that's very divine, that's miraculous. That would be to, for me, something miraculous that happens or warning a people of something that actually comes to pass.

Guest 14 [00:23:10] That's what, that's why I asked what prophecies have, have come since Joseph, you know, and, and when he pointed to the proclamation of the family, I almost felt bad that that's where he went. I was almost inside. I was like, oh no, don't go there, you know, because, because I, because, you know, I mean, like to point to that, of all things, you know, and, and so I had to say something, you know, and I, and I mentioned that feel that it's a very kind of homophobic document. And he responds with trying to explain, you know, that it is prophetic. And I asked him, well, how so?

Guest 14 [00:23:51] And he goes on to talk about, well, the nature of the family, the importance of a husband and a wife and all this kind of stuff. And I said, well, and that's exactly the problem is that we are getting too involved politically on these issues.

Guest 14 [00:24:07] When I believe people are born that way and have the right to be happy. And what do we lose as a religion by allowing them to do that? I mean, we can say that it's against the religion and stuff, but to go knocking door to door and take part in this, you know, like proclamation, aid and proclamation to the family, it's really, it's taking it too far. And he responds, and he says, well, Trevor, if we were all homosexuals, then this whole thing would end.

Guest 14 [00:24:39] And that was, that was very revealing to me of how these men actually think. I don't know if they think it's contagious or it's genetic. I can't believe I just said it's genetic. But I'm just saying that like, you know, my response was not everyone needs to be homosexual.

Guest 14 [00:25:00] People will be heterosexual, people will be homosexual. And we can live together in a world, we can love each other and we can allow each other to be happy. And that's a point that I feel strongly on. And for him to point that the one prophecy that we've had over the past hundred plus years is a proclamation to the family, that was sad for me.

Guest 13 [00:25:23] And I loved how you called it a homophobic document. Directly to them. He goes on. And this was another just really disappointing part from Elder Clark. He goes on to literally make the claim that if everyone on earth were homosexuals, that this all ends, he said, meaning human existence. And I just think that's. I'm sorry, that's one of the most dumb, ignorant statements that a person could make. It's offensive. And man, we gotta pick leaders of a multinational billion dollar corporation that are a little bit more thoughtful and sophisticated than then it goes on to talk about. You know, he basically makes the same old claim that, well, the church, the church doesn't let single people have sex or who are heterosexuals.

Guest 13 [00:26:09] So we're being consistent by not letting homosexuals have sex or get married. And you make the very important point that as I recall, that at least heterosexuals have the opportunity to get married and have sex, whereas homosexuals never have that opportunity. And again, Clark founds falls back to saying, prophets have stated this. It's what families were made for, blah blah, blah. You keep saying, what does it mean to be a prophet? What does it mean to be a seer and a revelator?

Guest 13 [00:26:43] And then he lists the Perpetual Education Fund as prophetic as being temples. Dotting the world is prophetic. And again, construction projects do not equate to revelation. A construction project is when you have money and you build a building. It's not God telling you something that's going to happen in the future. The Perpetual Education Fund doesn't necessarily constitute revelation. It's like, huh, let's have a program. Let's see if we can find a way to educate people from the third world. It's not a prophecy where you're predicting or seeing the what's going to happen in the future.

Guest 14 [00:27:22] Absolutely. And I have my own thoughts on temples and perpetual education. I brought them to him, you know, how much service are we really doing with these programs? But even if they were doing good, I agree, and they are humanitarian efforts maybe or you know, constructions programs and stuff, but it's not prophecy

Guest 13 [00:27:44] exactly.

Guest 14 [00:27:45] Difference.

Guest 13 [00:27:46] Yeah, exactly. So you guys talk about temples for a bit. You basically make the point that temples are kind of worthless if the church isn't what it claims to be. You know, that was an interesting part of the conversation. And then as we're kind of wrapping up, you basically have Clark asserting that the prophets do communicate with God Gro basically saying that there's always a need for faith.

Guest 13 [00:28:12] Clark reaffirms that the church gives millions of dollars a year in humanitarian aid, which there's two problems with that argument, problem number one is it always wants credit and visibility for its humanitarian aid. Which is weird because Jesus said, give your alms in private. So why is a church that follows Christ kind of bragging about their humanitarian aid? But even so, if you look at the percentage of the church's revenue they. That it gives to humanitarian aid, apparently it's very, very small relative to other much smaller organizations that give much larger percentages of their income to humanitarian aid.

Guest 14 [00:28:51] Yeah. And that sparked, for me, the whole idea of tithing. Isn't the idea of tithing to give from the heart. Give what you can. The fact that we can't go into the temple, we can't participate in these saving ordinances unless we are giving 10% to the church. That's as if there's an admission price to heaven. And I think there's something fundamentally wrong with that, with the principle of what tithing should actually be.

Guest 13 [00:29:17] Yeah, yeah, that's totally fair. And then ironically, right after talking about humanitarian aid, we talk about the City Creek Mall and basically grow. And Clark basically make the argument that that was because Salt Lake City's church headquarters, it's where the Salt Lake City temple is. We gotta build up the city. We gotta make it pretty. We gotta keep downtown looking beautiful. Which is a fine argument, except that what is building a ornate deluxe mall with the Victoria's Secret, you know, and a diamond store? Like, what does that have to do with Christianity and the messages in the Book of Mormon about fine apparel and about keeping things humble and pride? It sort of falls against that. But also he throws Detroit under the bus.

Guest 14 [00:30:08] Basically.

Guest 13 [00:30:08] Clark says, we don't want Salt Lake City looking like Detroit. Which I hear Detroit's looking a lot better these days. Anyway, it's weird how Clark continually throws Jerry Runnels and, you know, Detroit and non Mormons. He's throwing everyone under the bus that he can. He's the. He's the bus thrower, basically.

Guest 14 [00:30:28] Maybe Detroit's looking a little better because the church has gotten involved. No. Yeah. I mean, he says, you know, do you know what happens to city centers when we don't protect them? And I said, I don't think all city centers need a religion to build a mall, you know, around their cathedral or temple. It's in order for the city to be clean and productive. You know what I mean? That kind of falls in the same category to me of this thought that your children cannot be safe unless they're in the church.

Guest 13 [00:31:00] Yeah. Jasmine makes the point that there's no Victoria's Secret at City Creek. He says, I wish City Creek had a Victoria's Secret. Okay, I stand corrected. But you know, just go look at the list of the stores there. You make up your mind if just go read the Book of Mormon and the speeches in the Book of Mormon about fine, costly apparel, about jewelry, about, you know, ornate appearance. And then go walk around City Mall and ask yourself, is City Mall consistent with the messages in the Book of Mormon?

Guest 14 [00:31:31] It's definitely not one giant deseret book. We'll just put it that way.

Guest 13 [00:31:34] Yeah, yeah. You go on to basically say it's wrong for the church to require money to access the temple. That that's messed up. You know, Clark responds by saying without tithing, we'd be a bankrupt church. And basically the way this whole conversation wraps up, Clark basically says there's going to be more problems. There's always going to be tit for tat.

Guest 13 [00:32:00] He makes a reference to the Hoffman. I mean, we covered everything. He references the Hoffman records and he basically says that Hoffman fooled a lot of people. At this point, Grow basically mentioned some historical conference that he went to where all sorts of non Mormon historians admitted being fooled by Mark Hoffman.

Guest 13 [00:32:20] And Clark makes this really hilarious and amazing and candid admission. He says, we do a lot of thinking that we don't pray over. So on the one hand he asserts just 10 minutes earlier that prophets speak with God. And then later he says we do a lot of thinking and I assume acting that we don't pray over. And so, you know, they want to have it both ways. If, if the church does something right, then prophets are talking to God. If the church does something wrong, we do a lot of thinking that we don't pray over. We're just men. We're acting as men. Yeah.

Guest 14 [00:32:57] Yep. And you know, I think a lot of people might be questioning, you know, what was President Clark or what was Elder Clark's idea of this whole meeting? What was I hoping to get out of it? You know what I mean? What were our different intentions? But I do want. I actually just read the bottom of my email, which I forgot was in my email to Elder Clark and Matt Grow, and it says I would be open to any information that you guys have on these topics as I currently have an extremely open mind to any information that would better guide me to be fair.

Guest 14 [00:33:33] However, I want to let you know that I am currently a disaffected member of the church and I am looking into sharing these ideas with the public. I wish someone would have shared them with me a long Time ago.

Guest 14 [00:33:45] So. So I think it was very clear to them where I was at. There was no, you know what I mean, misunderstanding there. And you know, will my relationship with Elder Clark be changed? Absolutely. I mean, you know, I don't expect us to be chummy old pals after this, but.

Guest 14 [00:34:09] But the problem is that Elder Clark's mind and his ideas and thoughts are destructive. I think they are. They're not conducive to a good organization. I still feel like he's clinging on to a lot of homophobic, racist ideas that I just don't think should exist in any religion. And so.

Guest 14 [00:34:44] And so, come what may, you know, with that. And it'll be what it'll be, you know, But I think it was important enough. Important enough to share.

Guest 13 [00:34:57] Yeah. So let's just summarize really quickly. This is really hard. One of the most conflicting things, there was a comment somewhere earlier where somebody basically said, haha, John, we caught you. You pulled these interviews because people threatened to take away their money. I want to be really clear about this. More people donated money because of these episodes than took money away. There was only like two people that canceled their donations and there were like four or five. I don't know how many people that started donations. This was clearly a net revenue benefit for Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. So if I were motivated purely by money, I would have kept up the old interviews.

Guest 13 [00:35:41] It was incredibly difficult to go back to our panelists, John Hamer, Lindsay Henson Park, Glenn Oslin, who had spent hours with us, not to mention Glenn spending hours of time editing for the Infants on Throne version. It was incredibly hard to go back to them and say, I'm pulling it. We're pulling.

Guest 13 [00:36:01] Was hard to go back to all the listeners who were like, wait, I was listening. I love that. Why'd you pull. Was not because of money. This was a money winner for the open stories, not a money loser. So why did we pull it? Trevor, a lot of people are asking that.

Guest 13 [00:36:17] You said it before. Just say it again succinctly. Why did you decide, or what do you want to say about why you decided to pull this? You said at the beginning, let's just say it at the end.

Guest 14 [00:36:28] Right, right. Well, to clear up any legal implications. From what I understand, I have every right in the state of Utah to record any conversation. I'd like

Guest 13 [00:36:42] that you're a part of

Guest 14 [00:36:43] that I'm a part of. Right. And so in that sense, it was legal. I do understand the ethical question behind it, obviously. Obviously. Because, you know, we've received a lot of messages from different people and it was funny to see the two camps. Right. Because it's always going to be under debate because it was completely ethical. To those that share the belief that the church is being dishonest, it needs to be more transparent because facts matter to us.

Guest 14 [00:37:19] But I'm starting to learn that they may not matter to everybody. Some people are not interested in that and they just want. They want to believe and they just want to have faith. And in that case, to those people, obviously this is an unethical thing to do. And so.

Guest 14 [00:37:39] But again, we don't want. I mean my goal and John's goal is to be effective and really just share ideas in an open way that we would want other people to share them with us. And if something, the means to an end, if that's going to be a stumbling block in us being able to share a story, then that's a real problem and it makes us less effective. But yeah, as far as the ethical thing goes, that could be debated either way, left or right, all day long.

Guest 13 [00:38:18] Corinne asks, have you heard from Clark or grow since you released this audio? And you don't have to answer. If you don't want to answer, don't answer.

Guest 14 [00:38:31] I will say directly no.

Guest 13 [00:38:34] Okay. Corrine and others, Tyler, want to know how this has affected your family relationships. Do you want to talk about that or do you want to not talk about that?

Guest 14 [00:38:51] I'll talk about it. Generally that. I'll just say this, that over the last few days it's become a lot more apparent to me. It's just confirmed to me the fear that this religion does lean more into what you would call a cultural than I was ever aware of. And you don't realize how hard it is to break away from it or how tight the grasp is that they have on your life until you try to break free of it or you try to talk about it openly.

Guest 14 [00:39:30] And yeah, I mean, obviously my entire family is completely lds, just true believing active members of the church. And I tried to do this in a third party way. I wasn't so much trying to put it in their face, but obviously it gets back to them and they didn't appreciate the way that maybe I had gone about it. Obviously it's put some strain there, but nothing that we can't work out and work through and with time hopefully heal from. But, but this is, you know, it is, it's hurting families, it's tearing people apart that we can't talk about this kind of stuff. And the fact that none of my.

Guest 14 [00:40:18] None of my family actually listened to my story. I can't say none of them, but from my best understanding and the people I have talked to, nobody has actually listened to my story, listened to the recording, to actually even judge it for what it is. They've quickly jumped to conclusions and it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate.

Guest 13 [00:40:46] Melissa, my good friend Melissa from high school, says, trevor, you were supported and loved. Bethany writes, fear is the church's superpower. Brian writes, thanks again, Trevor, for doing this. It's been very helpful. I had the CS letter at the ready for difficult conversations. Now I can also reference the responses from Clark and Grow. I'm glad I saved a copy. Must have been inspiration.

Guest 13 [00:41:13] Bethany talks about the role of whistleblowers. I want to invite listeners, if they have any final questions for Trevor, to go ahead and post them, because we're about to wrap up. Trevor, really quickly, one of the. In terms of why I pulled it down as well, I just want to say that it's a fair. You know, on the one hand, it's this whistleblower question. On the one hand, journalists. Someone sent me an excerpt from the journalist code that basically said something to the effect of, as a reporter, as a journalist, don't try and obtain information through gotcha journalism through deception or other sorts of means unless, and it's got this sort of clause, unless there's a problem where the people aren't forthcoming about the information and when there's a compelling interest that the information gets told.

Guest 13 [00:42:13] And I don't know if that applies to this situation, but I like the spirit of that idea. If the first presidency, the apostles, if the Quorum of the twelve, if they were out in public giving these answers, if they were recording their answers and sharing it with everybody, writing their name to the answers, addressing these things publicly, we wouldn't need to have private recordings. We wouldn't need. But they're not doing it. It's always private audience, behind closed doors. Don't tell anybody, don't share it.

Guest 13 [00:42:48] And even with this recording, there's people who are like, well, what's the difference between sharing the recording? And you've obviously listened to the recording and now you're going to be retelling it. And by the way you're retelling of it is unethical because you're misrepresenting what was said. Well, that's the catch 22, isn't it? Because if we would be allowed to release the recording or if the brethren would release the recordings, Then we wouldn't be able to take their statements out of context. But because they won't let us release the recordings then, now we can be dismissed and accused of taking all their words out of context.

Guest 13 [00:43:21] And which is it again, there needs to be consistency here. So just like the good people at MormonLeaks say, they're all about transparency and if the church would be more transparent and honest, there wouldn't be a need for people to be recording secret conversations. That's all true. And why did we pull it down? For me, in addition to the concerns that you shared with me privately, you know, do we want to live in a world where everybody is scared that their private conversations are, are going to be recorded and posted on the Internet? And yeah, that's a fair question. And I don't want Open Stories Foundation Mormon stories me to be sort of perceived as this place that's unsafe.

Guest 13 [00:44:05] I can assure you this. I have hundreds of recordings that have been made of conversations with prophets, I'm sorry, with apostles, 70 general authorities, bishops, stake presidents, apologists that I've never released. And I've never released them because the people who shared them with me asked me not to release them. And so I won't, I won't violate that. So, you know, I don't believe in a by any means necessary approach. I think that we have the standard of not becoming the monsters that we've run from. And so we need to bring our best ethics. And so I thought about it and I wish I had come to this conclusion before.

Guest 13 [00:44:51] I can't say I regret what we did, but I can say that I don't think the ends justified the means. I don't think in the net good that enough good came from it to justify the gray. And so yeah, it's not a direct apology, but I think it was the right thing to pull it down.

Guest 13 [00:45:12] And I don't plan on sharing secretly recorded things in the future unless there's something so significant that I think it crosses that threshold of members absolutely needing to know. But if you're going to ask me in the future, I'm probably not going to be releasing private conversations behind closed doors of people just doing their best to answer questions. Unless again, there's some really severe compelling need because maybe we don't all want to live in the world where we're worried about our private conversations being recorded and shared. Anything you want to say in response to that?

Guest 14 [00:45:51] Well, John, I think, I mean, you pretty much nailed it on the head there. I just want to say, just kind of, in conclusion, wrapping this up is that, you know, I. The overall feeling that I got from this whole meeting was that, yes, we are open to truth, but. But facts don't matter at the same time. And so how can I live in a world where that makes sense? It just. It just doesn't. And so, sorry, but I just. I can't. I can't, like, be sane and, you know, and accept that.

Guest 13 [00:46:35] Yeah. And I would just add. I think the message they're saying is facts matter when they support the conclusions we want you to arrive at. Facts don't matter if they contradict the conclusions that we want you to arrive at. And that's not. That's not ethical, that's not consistent. There's no integrity there. And I don't mean to be absolutist, but it's not a credible position. And that's why I think apologists are fraught. I think apologists are defending the indefensible, and they need to do it in a better way. And that's why I'm gonna keep being hard on apologists until they stop doing that.

Guest 14 [00:47:14] Well, I just can't imagine. I can't imagine anybody going into the meeting that I went into and coming out positive. Like, I can't imagine anybody coming out of that and being like, well, that was it. Like, I'm back in, you know, like, so the church really needs to start, like, assembling the. You know, like, circling the wagons a little bit and getting on the same page with how they're going to respond to this, actually take these concerns seriously.

Guest 14 [00:47:42] Decide, you know, to be transparent instead of dancing around issues and coming up with justifications. Keep your message consistent throughout, you know, And, I mean, they've got to figure this out, John. I honestly believe that if they don't reform in some way, that over the next 15 years, with the Internet and access to information, there's just going to be fewer and fewer people that are going to want to latch onto it. And. But even if they do reform it to match the culture or whatever, does that really mean now that it's true?

Guest 14 [00:48:21] You know what I mean? I've heard a lot of people say that, well, they got to be, you know, they've got to change the way they're thinking about that and this and that and the other. But it's kind of like the whole, you know, giving the blacks the priesthood and as if we can't look at history, you know. Yeah, there's just certain things they can't undo.

Guest 13 [00:48:38] A bunch of writers are writing in expressing love and gratitude to you, Trevor, for doing this. So lots of love coming from the comments. A lot of people are asking Trevor, what do you believe now? Do you know what you believe now? Have you replaced your beliefs? Do you want to share what your beliefs are now?

Guest 14 [00:48:58] So I won't get too much into it because I'm still very fresh out of this whole experience. But what I will say is that, is that unlike a lot of people that leave the church, I've clung on to my spirituality. I believe that I've had spiritual instances in my life. I decide to hang on to those. I'm not a religious person in any way, shape or form.

Guest 14 [00:49:26] The LDS Church has opened my eyes to the dangers of religion. And as I've looked into it more, I just don't like the idea of religion. But spirituality is something that I'm having actually a lot of fun discovering. I feel like I'm like young again, you know, like I'm just now discovering myself. And whereas before I was religious, but I wasn't necessarily spiritual, always go hand in hand, you know. So I'm opening my eyes to a lot of Eastern teachings, Buddhism, Hinduism. I love meditating and just opening up this channel between me and whatever that is, whatever's up there, whatever that is.

Guest 13 [00:50:12] Brian asks if you're going to resign or if you have resigned and if so, why or why not.

Guest 14 [00:50:18] I'm sure that that's coming my way. And so it's kind of that decision time whether, you know, I let them break up with me or I break

Guest 13 [00:50:27] up with them first.

Guest 14 [00:50:29] It's like I'm in junior high again. But yeah, I haven't made my decision there. But I would assume that, you know, within the next couple months either I will have resigned or been excommunicated.

Guest 13 [00:50:41] So there may be a disciplinary council in your future. Yeah, if that happens.

Guest 14 [00:50:46] Yeah.

Guest 13 [00:50:46] Yeah.

Guest 14 [00:50:47] Let's see if they allow me to bring a cell phone.

Guest 13 [00:50:51] That's awesome. Joe says Trevor lunches on me sometime for doing these interviews. A lot of people just really appreciate it. Andrew asks a really good question. What about your personal and professional projects? Is there any way people who really see you as a light can support other work that you're doing now?

Guest 14 [00:51:12] Oh, yeah. So that's a great question because I have a lot of plans for the future. You can check out what I do for a profession at hagencreative.

Guest 13 [00:51:21] Com H A U G E N Creative dot com.

Guest 14 [00:51:24] Yep. And you can see our creative work that we do. Film. You could see our film that we did that centered around Buddhism called Ggvisha. And you can see some of the commercial work we do. But more on a personal note, I am compiling a lot of the stuff that I've talked about on this podcast as far as the videos that I'd made back last summer when I was first going through this. A lot of emotional videos going through this process. Me ordering books, showing the different books that I was reading. I did a good job of kind of documenting that experience.

Guest 14 [00:51:55] So my next step is to come up with kind of a vlog about that that will talk about my past experience with religion, my way out of Mormonism, and then I'm hoping to be able to share some ideas and explore spirituality with viewers like you on YouTube. So should be a fun adventure.

Guest 13 [00:52:20] I love it. All right, so I want to just conclude by thanking you, Trevor. I mean, I think we went into this interview wondering, is it going to be interesting? Is it going to be relevant? We already did a smackdown. But I just want to tell you, number one, we had like 250 simultaneous viewers sustained for a huge part of this conversation. This is one of the largest listening audiences Mormon Stories has ever had. If I go back and look right now, there's been 369 comments and 5.5 thousand views of today's discussion. I think that what I love about this is that we let Lindsay and Glenn and John Hamer do the smackdown.

Guest 13 [00:53:11] But I think what this shows. And by the way, it's 5.9000 views now for 372 comments. What this shows, Trevor, is how thoughtful and intelligent you are and how sincere you are. So I think it's a huge win that we went back and did this recording. I know that people loved it. We've got so many likes and comments and views and shares. This was a huge success.

Guest 14 [00:53:36] All I'm doing is asking questions that people should ask. And honestly, I just want people to know that at the end of this, I don't care if people decide to stay in the church or not. That is not my intent. I am, you know, I don't think it's your intent, John. Our intention is not to convince anyone, to persuade anyone, but I believe that people deserve to know the information. I believe that people should be given everything and then from there be able to make an educated decision based on information and spiritual guidance.

Guest 13 [00:54:11] 100%. No one believes this if they're a believer. But my goal is not to lead people away from the Church of Mormonism. If I could wave My magic wand. Everyone could download from a database all the facts and all the evidence about Mormonism and its truth claims. And if then they decided that they wanted to continue engaging in Mormonism, then bless them, great. But everybody, I think everybody deserves the right to know all the evidence, all, all the facts, all the harm caused by the church and then make an informed decision. And there's a lot of good the Church does. There's a lot of good teachings in the church.

Guest 13 [00:54:50] None of us are saying there aren't good teachings, there aren't good people, there aren't good leaders. And there are good things about the Church. None of us are saying that. We're not saying don't be a Mormon or leave the Church. What we are saying is inform yourself not only of the history and the facts and the doctrine, but inform yourself of the harm that the Church does to LGBT people, to women, to people of color, to families, to doubters. And if you then decide you want to remain, remain, bless you.

Guest 14 [00:55:19] And we're saying that not all truth and all, you know, everything good that exists in this world can only be found in the LDS Church.

Guest 13 [00:55:28] Yeah, there's good everywhere. And don't be, don't stay in the church because you're scared that you can't be happy or that your kids are going to be messed up. Yes, hundreds of thousands of children of active Mormons are messed up. I tell you that as somebody who is a psychologist at a university counseling center that was 80% Mormon for six years, if you count all the work that I did at Utah State University. I still talk to children of active Mormons all the time. You do not have a guarantee that your children are going to be awesome by remaining active. There are good children in Mormonism. Good children out of Mormonism. There are messed up children in Mormonism. Messed up children out of Mormonism. There's divorce in Mormonism. Divorce out of Mormonism. Do not let the fear that the church gives you rule your life.

Guest 14 [00:56:19] Yeah, if there was one takeaway, I think for people is to replace that fear with excitement. There's so much to discover out there and to explore, man. And it's so fun. Every day is just so fun, you know, because you can, you can learn something new and decide whether you want to make that a part of your life. Whether does that teaching or does that idea help me be a greater version of myself, you know what I mean? Instead of restricting your ideas into one. So that would be my big takeaway, is if you are scared, if you are feeling this fear, anxiety of being who you know deep inside you really want to be. Just know that very quickly that's replaced with fun excitement and just agree. Yeah, just awesome stuff.

Guest 13 [00:57:08] A quick shout out to everyone who joined us today. I just noticed Hans and Brigitte Matzon spend their evening in Spain or Sweden, wherever they are. Shout out to the Mattsons. We love you guys. Yeah, shout out to everyone who joined us today. Steve Holbrooke, Jerry Lee Renshaw, you know Tina Prince, all my old Melissa Wells, all my old friends, Heath Hendrickson, current friends. Just love you guys for joining us.

Guest 13 [00:57:33] Want to thank Trevor for your courage. Want to thank Lindsay Hanson Park, John Hamer and Glenn Osland for their participation in the series that we took down. I want to just thank I want to thank Matt Grow and Dawn Clark for their kindness and generosity and being willing to meet with you.

Guest 13 [00:57:55] Of course they're not going to love how we talked about that meeting, but I think they deserve credit for trying to show you love and support and we need to thank them for that. And thank any church leader that tries to give thoughtful, loving, responsible support to members who doubt in question. Hopefully this will help educate the Church on how to train the There are prophets, apostles, 70 quorum members, stake presidents and bishops, on how not to talk to doubters and on how to talk to doubters. And I guarantee they're paying attention and I guarantee that this is going to help improve how they deal with doubters in the future.

Guest 13 [00:58:39] Finally, I just want to thank the Open Stories Foundation Board of Directors that makes all this possible. I want to thank Amy Shoemaker Grubbs, who's my director of operations. I want to thank all of those who make this possible. And most importantly, I want to thank the donors, those of you who donate to the Open Stories foundation, to Mormon Stories, to a Thoughtful Faith, to Mormon Matters, to Mormon Transitions. Your donations pay for the mission of the Open Stories foundation, which makes everything we do possible. So please, if you've benefited from this, if you like it, if you want to see it, continue, your tax deductions are donated.

Guest 13 [00:59:17] Your donations are tax deductible. They will go to good use. We're transparent in our finances. Please donate to Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation PayPal donor box. However you want to do it, write us a letter, send a check. We will use your donations responsibly. We will be transparent in how we handle your donations and we will continue supporting people in transition, supporting progressive Mormons, post Mormons, and helping the church get better. Indirectly. That's not our goal, but that's the result. So with that, Trevor Hargan. Love you.

Guest 14 [00:59:51] Love you, John.

Guest 13 [00:59:52] Thanks for coming, brother.

Guest 14 [00:59:54] Appreciate it.

Guest 13 [00:59:54] Thanks to all our listeners. And please join us again soon for another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody. This was super fun.

Guest 14 [01:00:03] See you guys.

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