Change in an Unchanging Church

Last week's episode was a reminder that some in the Church continue to believe things the Church no longer teaches, which prompted Ian and Jim to discuss how to deal with change in a Church that paradoxically teaches both continuing revelation and unchanging doctrine at the same time. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with my partner in crime, the legendary Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir? Have I called you legendary before?

SPEAKER_01: 0:28

I'm not sure, but I'll try to live up to the legendary Ian Wilkes or whoever he is. So yeah, great to be with you, Jim. Always excited to be doing these podcasts, having these great conversations. I get a lot from them and I hope our listeners do as well.

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Well, I hope so too. And I'm grateful when we hear from them because the Spotify, do you have Spotify? I do. So Spotify Wrapped tells you everything that you've listened to in the previous year. And I've had several people message me to tell me that Inside Out with Jim Bennett and Ian Wilkes is in their top five of podcasts that they've listened to over the course of the year, which I thought was fascinating. So people are listening to us. So we have to be careful that we don't... you know, say really stupid things. Although maybe it's too late. Maybe the horse is already out of the barn on that one.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30

I think that horse fled a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34

We're going to talk about a couple of things here today. But one of the things that's really interesting is that the church has just released or recently released a new introduction to the Book of Mormon. And this has caused a lot of controversy in the past when the church has done that. I've got in front of me a copy of the Book of Mormon that was published in 1981. And I think this is when white and delightsome became pure and delightsome. But it also has an introduction at the beginning that talks about the Book of Mormon is a volume of Holy Scripture written Comparable to the Bible, it is a record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. It contains, as does the Bible, the fullness of the everlasting gospel. But it's the next paragraph that has caused a lot of controversy over the years. At the end of that paragraph, it says, After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians. And there was a new release, I'm not sure when it was, but it was relatively recently, where this introduction was altered so that it no longer says they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians, but it says they are among the ancestors of the American Indians. And a lot of people have made a lot of noise about that and concern about that. problematic because at no place does this introduction claim to have been a revelation at no place does i mean because later on on the title page uh we find that i mean right at the beginning you have a title page that says that this was taken from the plates of nephi so the title page we're told is actually part of the book of mormon translation this introduction is a much later edition much like the subtitle of the Book of Mormon, where it now says it's another testament of Jesus Christ. That was added long after the fact. So this introduction is not something that we're supposed to accept as canonized revelation, but the change from saying they were the principal ancestors to the fact that they were among the ancestors demonstrates that the church has essentially changed its position on an aspect of Book of Mormon historicity. When the Book of Mormon was first published, it was everybody's assumption, including Joseph Smith, that the Book of Mormon covered a geographical area that was an expanse from the top of North America to the bottom of South America. It's what they call the hemispheric model of the Book of Mormon. The idea that the Nephites and the Lamanites were the only people, essentially, that were in ancient America. And now Book of Mormon scholars that still accept the historicity of the Book of Mormon have gone through and recognized that the travel times in the Book of Mormon are prohibitive of that expanse of a geography. You had Lamanites and Nephites moving from place to place on foot. I've always found it interesting that nobody rides anywhere. For all the controversy about horses in the Book of Mormon, you don't ever have anybody talking about being on horseback. You do at one point have references to chariots, but you don't have long travel happening that isn't done on foot. And so scholars have gone through this and they've recreated a geographical model that is much smaller. The footprint is much smaller than the hemispheric model that the church had essentially adopted from the outset. And so I'm not sure if you can put a date on when the church has sort of shifted to this limited geography model. But that was reflected in the relatively new introduction to the Book of Mormon that changed it to among the ancestors as opposed to the principal ancestors. Well, now it's really interesting that just this week, the church has completely changed the introduction to the Book of Mormon And it doesn't make any reference whatsoever to Nephites or to Lamanites or to whether they are the principal ancestors or among the ancestors. It sidesteps that altogether. The only reference, I don't necessarily need to read the entire introduction of the Book of Mormon, But it completely changes the tone. It doesn't really get into the material in the Book of Mormon. The only reference to ancient America, it says, it talks about records that people keep, about God's interaction with them. It says, one such record was buried in a hillside in around AD 400 on the North American continent. That's the only geographical reference at all. The rest of it, it just talks about the doctrine of Jesus Christ, read the Book of Mormon with an open mind and heart. And I find nothing objectionable in the new introduction, and again, find nothing controversial about the fact that the church changes And the church is willing to change its materials to reflect the changes. But there are a lot of blogs and there are a lot of podcasts that are really kind of frustrated by this. I'm looking at the Exponent 2 blog where the headline is Erasing Church History, the New Book of Mormon Introduction. And the complaint is that it's lost all of its historical focus. It's just going away from what we've always taught and what we've taught before in the past. I don't want to dwell too much on this necessarily, but I think this is a jumping off point for what I think this larger discussion should be today. We've had a lot of feedback from our conversation with Marcus Hutber last week. which I ended up stepping away from at the end because I was very frustrated that we did not have a common set of facts. Just one thing to highlight. I had read a statement by Brigham Young where he talked about the law of God, which will always be so, that interracial relationships should be punished by death on the spot. And Marcus's response to that was, well, I'd been politically assassinated in the press before. I know how awful the press is. And so I'm not going to pay any attention to a third-hand statement by Brigham Young when we don't know if he actually said it. And this could have been reported in the press negatively. And since that, I got very frustrated at that. Since that, I went back and... where that quote had come from. And that quote was not a press quote. It came from the Journal of Discourses, which was a quasi-official publication of the church. The church itself didn't publish it, but they authorized the publication in England. And it was recorded by Brigham Young's primary stenographer, a man by George D. Watt. And... Brigham Young's sermons are all over the place in that. There are 390 sermons by Brigham Young. And in the first volume of the Journal of Discourses, Brigham Young personally edited his own sermons. And in future volumes, he didn't edit them, but he selected which sermons should be included in the publications. and he assigned his personal secretary to edit them, and he personally approved all of them being in there. So the quote that I gave came from 1863, so it would not have been in the first volume, but it would have been personally approved for inclusion in the Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young himself. So for anyone to say, well, geesh, this could have been a misquoted, this is something that Brigham Young said, whether he said it word for word or not, he was later reviewing it and determined that it should be included in the Journal of Discourses. So to just wave it away and say that Brigham Young didn't say this, that cannot be sustained by the historical record. So, I mean, that's just the one specific thing I want to address from last week. But the thing that I think that last week highlighted and that I think needs to be discussed is the fact that the church, as evidenced by this new Book of Mormon introduction, and really by a whole host of things that have changed over a very short period of time, the church's position on LGBTQ issues, has changed dramatically in my lifetime. You know, you had the Spencer W. Kimball miracle of forgiveness position, which was that all gay people are voluntary perverts. That's the word he uses. I think it's an offensive word and it's really kind of frustrating, but they chose to be gay and they can choose not to be gay and they should expect to not be gay if they pray hard enough, if they pound on the door, The door will open, and they will enter a new life of heterosexuality as a result of their righteousness. Well, the church no longer teaches that. The church recognizes that people do not choose their attractions, and those attractions don't go away with sufficient righteousness. And we now recognize, you know, the church in 2008 was... asking its members to go and donate money and time to defeat Proposition 8 in California. Oh, I'm sorry, to pass Proposition 8 in California in order to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. And much more recently, as the church has lost that battle in every way it is possible to lose that battle, the church has lost in the courts, the church has lost in the legislatures, and now... Gay marriage, same-sex marriage is the law of the land throughout the United States. And the church has endorsed the Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies same-sex marriage into law throughout the entirety of the United States and all United States territories. And that's a dramatic shift from just as recently as 2008. I mean, you can go issue by issue by issue You know, we went last week, we talked about race in the priesthood and the church's position on that has changed dramatically. In 2013, the church specifically disavowed everything it had taught about the reasons for the priesthood and temple ban. We've disavowed the idea that black people were somehow less valiant in the pre-existence, that they were somehow, that they bore the curse of Cain and all these other things that we were using as, as justification for what I very strongly believe was a massive mistake initiated by Brigham Young and perpetuated by his successors. The church has not been willing to quite go that far, although Deseret Book has now published a book called Let's Talk About Race in the Priesthood by Paul Reeve, who was one of the principal authors of the Race and the Priesthood Gospel Topics essay. And in that Deseret Book book, it specifically says, yes, this was a mistake. So you're seeing the church change on all of these issues. And from my perspective, that is a very, very good thing. And I think it's something that we ought to expect because we are a church that is built on the foundation of continuing revelation. And what good is continuing revelation if it doesn't change anything? It's really bizarre to me that the church has evolved into this idea of unchangeable doctrine. These things can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever change. And at the same time, we say we're the only true church because we're the only church with continuing revelation from heaven. And how can you have both at the same time? How can you have this rigid, unchanging church and yet also have continuing revelation from heaven, which can come as long as it doesn't change anything? It's just bizarre to me. But I think the problem is exacerbated by the fact that when the church does change, you know, I've listed all these changes on all these issues. And when the church does change, the church does not acknowledge that it's changed. And I think that's really one of the principal problems of this. The church doesn't announce that when it issues a new introduction to the Book of Mormon, that it is any way contrary to previous introductions to the Book of Mormon. When the church changed it from principal ancestors to among the ancestors. It did so quietly without telling anybody. And we were all, the problem is we're all supposed to sort of pretend that this is the way it's always been. That, okay, yeah, well, we always sort of taught the limited geography model of the Book of Mormon. This is really no different from the way it was. No, it's actually a rather radical departure. from the way Joseph Smith thought about the Book of Mormon and from the way the early saints thought about the Book of Mormon and really the way that just about every member of the church thought about the Book of Mormon until well into the 20th century, late 20th century. And this new idea of the limited geography model is not What I was taught as a child growing up in the church, and when I had my little illustrated stories from the Book of Mormon series that I used to read from, that very much talked about Lamanites not having a suntan, but rather being cursed with dark skin. And the church quietly changes these things. The gospel topics essays that changed how we look at the race and priesthood ban, Those disavowals did not come from the pulpit in general conference. They were released without any fanfare, quietly online, without anybody knowing about it. And I would bet that if you were to poll the general membership of the church, I would think a solid majority of the members of the church don't even know those gospel topics essays are there. Because they've never been discussed in general conference. They're not brought up in any kind of public way that would call attention to them. So I think this problem is perpetuated by the fact that when the church changes, it doesn't want you to know that it's changed. It just wants you to pretend or believe that this is the way it has always been. And that becomes a serious problem when you encounter the kind of thinking we encountered in our last podcast, which is you have people that continue to cling to the previous teachings. You have people who believe that, well, no, in fact, black people were somehow less valiant in the pre-existence. The explanation we got last week was a little sort of skewed that they sort of voluntarily chose not to come to this earth. I'm sorry, to come to this earth, but not to have the priesthood when they got here. And that idea blew up in the face of the church in 2012 because when Mitt Romney was the Republican nominee for president, There was a lot of attention given to the church. They called it the Mormon moment in the media. President Nelson would probably have been upset by that. But during the Mormon moment, the Washington Post ran a series of articles about the church's position with regard to blacks in the priesthood. And they interviewed a BYU professor. by the name of Randy Bott, and he was a very popular BYU professor. Rate My Professors had his rating higher than any other professor at BYU. And he gave this explanation that was very similar to the one we heard last week. He talked about how it was an act of mercy not to give the priesthood to black people because they weren't ready for it. I'm not sure if he ever said they didn't want it, but he said it would be like giving the car keys to young children. And you're doing young children a favor by not giving them something they're not ready for. And this caused a huge backlash from people who thought, This is a terrible, terrible racist explanation for this. And the church even issued a statement clarifying that that is not the position of the church. And Randy Bott ended up being forced into an early retirement as a result. But the problem is, Randy Bott was just saying everything that he had been taught. throughout his life. He wasn't making something up. These were things that he was taught in order to justify a racist ban on priesthood and temple blessings. And the church just sort of threw Professor Bott under the bus rather than say, oh, you know what? Professor Bott is reflecting an earlier understanding, but we have since changed. We no longer believe that. Instead, the church's statement was very much along the lines of, this is not the church's position, and the implication was, this has never been the church's position. It's ridiculous to think that the church would ever think this, when in fact, Professor Bott's position was very much in line with mainstream thinking in the church, and I think to some degree is still in line with mainstream thinking today. in the church. There are still so many members of the church who, not having been given any kind of explicit instruction to abandon those wrong ideas that have since changed, they still cling to them. We find this in our own ward. My wife went to Relief Society where a member of the Relief Society said, oh, the race in the priesthood essay is wrong and it's going to be changed because it's absolutely wrong. Because this member was sort of clinging to these same outdated ideas about race that we very much taught and we have now quietly disavowed, but not loudly enough so people can hear it and believe it. And you can go through the gamut of any controversial topic in church history or doctrine. And you can demonstrate significant changes. We heard, for instance, a little about the idea of sort of young earth creationism. Marcus mentioned that there was a certain sort of tree that he couldn't believe could have survived the flood in and then said, okay, except that tree, it's on the tops of mountains, so those mountains wouldn't have been covered with water when the entire earth was covered in a flood. And so that makes sense that they could have survived and they could have predated the flood. Well, quietly, the church no longer... This one's a little difficult because the church never explicitly... was willing to say that the earth is only 7,000 years old and the flood took place 4,000 years ago and the flood was a global flood that covered all the earth. That was certainly Joseph Fielding Smith's position. That was not David O. McKay's position. Joseph Fielding Smith tried very hard to get that essentially canonized by having the church publish his book, Man, His Origin and Destiny. which is an anti-evolution screed that David O. McKay hated. And David O. McKay refused to allow to be published by the church. And the idea of young earth creationism has always sort of been a strain in Latter-day Saint thinking, but we've never explicitly canonized anything that says that. Well, now I'm backing off on that because I think Doctrine and Covenants section 77 talks about 7,000 years of Earth's temporal history. And so I think that's probably a canonization of that. But the church quietly has abandoned all of the early statements that talk about scientifically ludicrous things, like the Earth only being 7,000 years old. And the official statement is, we don't know. And if you go to church universities, if you go to Brigham Young University, Brigham Young University Provo, Brigham Young University Idaho, you go to the science classes that address things like geology and evolution, and all scientifically accurate or up-to-date information is welcome in those classes, is taught in those classes. They do not teach that the earth is only 7,000 years old. They do not reject the theory of evolution. And so the church, I think, has made great strides towards accepting the science on those topics that a lot of people who grew up without that kind of scientific acceptance or that embrace of science and who grew up listening to Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie, who in Mormon doctrine explicitly rejects the idea of evolution. My mission president, Bruce R. McConkie's son, Joseph Fielding McConkie, if you read his book, Answers to Gospel Questions, which was only published, what, 25 years ago, it explicitly says, no, you cannot reconcile the theory of evolution with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, That is not the official church position, but it had enough prominence within the church that it felt like the church's official position. And the fact that it was in Mormon doctrine, which was, you know, there's the title, Mormon doctrine, and while the church has tried to bat pedal and now that book is no longer in print, For a very long time, you, Ian, know as well as I do that Mormon doctrine was considered quasi-official, if not official. And everybody recognized that, you know, if you had a question, Mormon doctrine had this sort of encyclopedic list of answers. You could go and say, well, I don't know what the church's position here. Let's go see what Mormon doctrine has to say. But we've moved away from that. We have changed. The church has changed, and change is a good thing. But how do we deal with that when so many members of the church aren't willing to change? So that's my question to you as I conclude my opening rant. What do we do about this, Ian? How do we handle this problem? And is it a problem? Do you think this is as big a problem as I think it is?

SPEAKER_01: 28:20

You've covered a lot of ground over the last 35 minutes.

SPEAKER_00: 28:26

Have I ranted for 35 minutes? I apologize for that.

SPEAKER_01: 28:30

That's okay. It's a lot of information. And I just kind of want to... You made some really important points that I just want to... And I'll come back to that question in a second. If we look at the history of the church, the quotes from the prophets, the apostles... prior to, up until the 1980s, and certainly if you go back to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, Joseph G. Oldsmith, Bruce Amakonke, there is a sense of certainty, a degree of confidence that they know certain things as facts, and they communicate and use language where they make absolute statements about history. If you look at the 1981, as I say, you covered so much material there. You've referenced the 1981 introduction of the Book of Mormon, which is a very important point, I think, in our conversation here. It talks about the Lamanites, the only ones to survive, and they're the principal ancestors of the American Indians. If you look at that introduction, you look at so many other canonical and other terms and references, identified in the Pearl of Great Price, Jesus the Christ, Articles of Faith. Look at a lot of articles that were written. There was so much confidence and certainty that the brethren knew certain things for a fact. And this is, of course, before the internet. And now, as things have changed and the internet has opened up the opportunities to research and to access and to check, the history of the Book of Mormon, the geography of the Book of Mormon, the church, understandably, has lost a lot of its confidence. And if you look at the statements and the tone and phrases the church uses now, they're a lot safer than what they used to be. Back then, it was very much black and white. These are statements we're making based on facts, and those facts are revealed by revelation. Yes, we've got some physical evidence, but where we don't have the physical evidence... You need to rely on faith, because we're the only true church upon the face of the earth, and we've got the facts, the information that comes through revelation. That's not the position of the church now. The church is very concerned, very nervous about making statements. If you look at the general conference talks, a lot of the talks are very safe, and I can understand why the church would want to stay away from... anything historical to do with the Book of Mormon or making any statements from the pulpit at General Conference which are significant or too significant. And these changes that have come about, many of them, to your point, have happened very subtly and very quietly. The other point you mentioned, item that you mentioned, is the changes to the Book of Mormon introduction. If you go to the app, the general LDS tools app on your phone there, it hasn't changed. There's still references to Joseph Smith, Moroni, the plates, references to the fact that, or the statement that the church believes and teaches that the Book of Mormon scripture is comparable to the Bible. That's still on the main LDS tools app. This app is the Book of Mormon app, where you get the new introduction. And it is very significant. It's another example where the church is trying to change and modify its language and make the language and the position of the church more palatable, more acceptable. I think in some ways it's a very smart move. You look at the new introduction, and I think it's written and designed for a certain group, an investigator group, a younger investigator group, who can read it and kind of connect to it on a very personal way. I see this as being partly a very smart move on the part of the church. I mean, the opening statement would resonate, I think, with most people. God is your heavenly father. He loves you. And there is so much he wants to teach you. I mean, it's a very completely radical shift from the 1981 where The Book of Mormon is a volume of Holy Scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains, as is the Bible, the fullness of the annals of the gospel. One, you've got this very scriptural tone. This King James tone is written even into the introduction of the Book of Mormon. And here you've got a very different language, different approach completely. And I think there are a lot of qualities, actually, and a lot of advantages by communicating and introducing the Book of Mormon using some of this language. There are some disadvantages. And again, it depends on who you are as a person. For someone like me, my age, I think a lot of people like me who are maybe like the intellectual side and like the historical side and the scriptural references, the fact that there's no reference to Joseph Smith, There's no references to the, you know, it being a record of the ancient Americas. There's no reference to the plates, no reference to being, you know, comparable Holy Scripture. The downside of that, it loses its scriptural integrity by removing those references. But it all depends on who they are targeting. with this introduction. And so they still retain a lot of the original text and language in the introduction in the LDS Tools app. I want to be clear about that. They do talk about it being a comparable scripture, et cetera. But in this version, they haven't. And I think they've done that because of a different demographic. If that is the case, and I think it is, then that's a pretty smart move because I do like a lot of the qualities in the new introduction. Some of the podcasts out there are ripping this to shreds, saying that the church is deliberately trying to change its history. I don't see it like that. I'm not in the church. I've got a lot of issues with the church on certain things, as you know. But I think the church isn't trying to... come across as changing the doctrine. I think it's for a different demographic. I think the point that, I think the fact that they have made these changes without communicating them. But we're saying that. We don't know if the, usually the bishops, I suspect the bishops have got a memo internally. In fact, I bet money on it, that they have a memo and that they've been advised that these changes are going to take place And any members who've got questions about this, then they can approach the bishop or members of the stake presidency. So we don't know what type of communication the church has been involved in internally. But again, to your point, they do make changes often without communicating it from the pulpit. And they're doing it because they're nervous and they're concerned. They don't know what the reaction is going to be. They're very concerned about history. They're very concerned about things, Jim, where they can be disproved. You talked earlier, you talked last week on the Marcus Hooker, which I'll get into in a second, about facts. We have to agree on some basic facts, otherwise we can't have a conversation. Well, the facts are that the church has made statements on polygamy, on same-sex marriage. on the Book of Mormon, on the Book of Mormon translation process. It's made those statements. And historically, as I said before, it's done so with a great degree of confidence, overconfidence and certainty, and to the internet, and to people having the ability now to research this. And now, over the last few decades, the church has been found to be wrong, proven to be wrong, And he's been very embarrassed publicly. He's very concerned, very nervous about public opinion. Think about all the different audiences that the church has to satisfy. And then if you look at those audiences, the different demographics that are in those audiences, look at the older generation, the senior folks in the church who have this older version of the church. That's what you talked about, different churches. Marcus inventing a new church. I think within the church, there are different versions of the church, depending on the demographic. Older people hang on to the older teachings. Younger people are more flexible in terms of a nuance, in terms of how they see things. And you've talked about this convincingly on previous podcasts. So I think that's very important background context as to what the church is doing, why it's doing it. I I have an issue with the church making changes quietly. I think changing the principal ancestors of the American Indians to amongst the ancestors of the American Indians is very significant. And I think it did that because it couldn't verify that. It could disprove that. And you can disprove it based on facts. And facts matter. Facts matter and they're important. And that's where the church, when it gets to things like on a factual basis, the church in its correlation committee will be doing fact checking and making sure that it's correlated and it's not saying or doing things not based on facts. And that leads me to another really important point. And I'm getting to your question very close here now. The point that the reality, rather, that there are members in the church who, even today in 2024, hold on to old-fashioned, antiquated doctrines and positions and views. And you still have that in the church. It's alive and well. It's probably a large minority, depending on the age. I've said before that I know people who are in the church now, who still today do not accept or believe that blacks should hold the priesthood, even now, even today. And these are a group of people in the church who are very dangerous, and in fact, are holding the church back. You said just now that the church has made progress. We complain about the church not making enough progress, that it takes 10 years to change something or 20 years to change something. There's a lot of evidence to support that, for sure. But when it does make the change, we criticize it. When it makes good change, we can criticize it. We can be very negative. And I think that's a mistake for certain people who criticize the church for making good changes. I mean, for goodness sake, this whole podcast, a big part of this podcast, is conversations about where... we think and where our guests think, the church can make improvements, be more inclusive, be more thoughtful, be kinder. We want the church to be a better church. So if the church is listening and making progress on key things and moving forward, great. The problem is when you've got this old-fashioned, antiquated, dangerous views of certain individuals in the church, it does the church a disservice because it holds it back. The church, however, has a responsibility to address these views that some of these members have in the church. If you've got people in the church that perpetuate views and positions that the church has moved on from, it's the responsibility of the local leaders to address that, and it's the responsibility of the church to make sure that the members are in line with the current doctrines and teachings of the church. The problem is, with the church, it's struggling and is nervous about how fast it can bring some of those senior individuals, people who, or any individuals rather, who have hold on to those teachings and positions which are now outdated. How does it bring those into the 21st century without losing them, without offending them, and keeping in mind, you know, the tithe payers. And often these individuals are the bedrock of the church. They've served in senior positions. They've got a vast amount of experience, Jim, 20, 30, 40, 50 years in the church. And the church doesn't want to alienate that group. The problem we have is that these individuals hold on to extremely dangerous views. And not only do they hold on to them, they perpetuate them. And some of the views can be very extreme. You know, we talked last week with Marcus about, Marcus said that black people chose to be black. They were self-cursed. I find that offensive. You know, Marcus spoke plainly. I will speak plainly. He said things that I'm very uncomfortable with. And in fact, the church has moved on from that. The church is very clear that black skin is a curse. That's the position. It should have always been like that. It wasn't. The church changed. It improved. Maybe not as much has gone far as what people would hope, but it's improved. We have to acknowledge that. And when it changes and improves, and we said, this is part of our podcast system, you know, is to acknowledge the improvements of the church, then let's give the church the credit where it deserves, where it's made those changes. And let's deal with old-fashioned, antiquated views where the church, individuals hold on to often dangerous and harmful teachings. Things like sexual sins is worse than murder, for example. We've covered across a number of dangerous doctrines that some people still hang on to and still bring that into the conversation and in fact perpetuate that it's one thing to believe it and to think it and to even talk about it on a podcast it's quite another to have a personal conversation with someone and actually influence their thinking into this dangerous doctrine and that is that's a very dangerous situation especially when we're dealing with young minds imagine someone With that type of thinking, those dangerous thoughts and positions on, for example, saying that being gay is a sin, being gay means that you're going down to hell, being gay means that you're not a son or daughter of God, which destroys self-esteem and actually is a cause for suicide of some people. individuals in the church because they they feel like this and they can't reconcile it and they're told that what the feeling is wrong they're told what the feeling is is a sin and god doesn't love them god won't accept them as they are they have to change and they can't because it's who they are and it's how they feel and they feel rejected and they feel lost and they feel So these, if we think for one second that these antiquated, outdated, dangerous, toxic views of certain individuals that still exist in the church today, if we don't think that they can cause harm, then we're mistaken because they can, especially when we're dealing with young people, you know, pliable minds. And I think the church has a responsibility to make sure that in the church, people who are progressive thinkers are who are balanced in their perspective, who accept the changes of the church, that they are the ones who should be called into youth and to primary callings. Because, you know, that's absolutely critical. I've got a whole here list of, which I won't go into, examples of dangerous doctrines and teachings that were the standard, if you like, in the past that we accepted that was black and white. And Unfortunately, on quite a few of them, the church has changed. Not all of them, but the church has changed. And that brings me to your question. So just to remind you of your question again, I want to make the connection. What do we do about it? In regards to the dangerous doctrines? Sure. Yeah. Well, you've said this all along. The thread through all these podcasts, one of the threads, we've said it, to be open and transparent about the doctrine of the church and the history. And if we don't know something, let's say it. If we don't have an answer, say, look, we don't have an answer. Here's the facts. You know, let's get a balanced position on the facts. Let's quote reliable sources. You know, he's not a member of the church, but he's a very successful and a very reliable, dependable scholar or historian. He's done his research and the facts are there. So, so, so, cite that as a source, a reliable source. Don't just quote and cite internal sources like apologetics, you know, like go to Fair Mormon. Okay, you know, I mean, I think Fair Mormons, I see Fair Mormons as a cop-out for the church, frankly. It's like, it's part of us, but not part of us. They do their own thing, but we both know there's a direct connection between Fair Mormon and the church and apologetics in the church and the brethren. And the church communicates stuff through those organizations that are arm's length. I think that is, frankly, a bit cowardly. I think if the church could be very clear and more transparent and more accountable on what it says and what it teaches and not introduce changes through the back door, even though the changes are great, often really good changes, let's be upfront and open and honest about what we believe, what we teach, what we know, or what we think we know. And if we say something as a statement, and we say it with certainty, and we say, look, we, you know, instead of saying that we, unless you really, really know based on fact, that's different. But if you think you know, just say you think you know. But this, and even say this could change based on science and new discoveries. To me, that's intelligence. You know, the whole basis of science is that we have a understanding of something until the research changes it. Like now, there's a big conversation over whether the Big Bang happened or not. We're now moving towards, well, there's some great power, some great force behind the events that created the universe, which I've always felt like that, anyhow. And so our opinions and views change when new facts come to light. And that's good. That's a positive thing. But let's be upfront, open, and honest about changes. Let's be more pragmatic and more proactive about dealing with old-fashioned, dinosaur, dangerous, toxic teachings that were there in the past, but we don't teach that anymore. You know, we've gone from the polygamy. Look at the polygamy. We used to teach polygamy. We've now gone, you know, we've poured in huge resources over the years to tell the world we don't practice polygamy. You know, when you knock on the door, oh, you're the mormons. How many wives do you have? I lost count how many times I was asked on the doorstep in Scotland how many wives I had. I just thought, I said, and then I would joke, I said, well, we don't, have more than one wife. I said, we might have more than one girlfriend, but we don't have more than one wife. I kind of make a joke of it. But the church has poured huge resources to convince the world it doesn't practice polygamy. And I think it needs to take a leadership, proactive and pragmatic approach in communicating changes, being clear about the doctrines, being clear about what's changing. Let's talk about what's changed. Let's talk about why it's changing. If we know something for a fact, based on fact, fine, let's say it. If we say something and we think it's a fact or we think it's correct, let's say it, but let's provide context. And if we don't know something, let's say that. If we don't know the geography of the Book of Mormon, we just don't know. And if we don't know the history, if we're changing, we said months ago, we heard of evidence or rumors or maybe a little bit more than rumors, that the church is moving away from the atrocity of the Book of Mormon. Do you remember that conversation? We're going back a bit. We've referenced that. And so the church, understandably, is moving away from the Book of Mormon being an historical document. I think Elder Bednar said, don't look at it as an historical document, as a past. Look at it as a spiritual document for the future. I'm paraphrasing there, Elder Bednar. pretty much said that. So yeah, let's make the changes. Let's make the improvements. Let's say that we're going to make them. Let's not hide the changes. Let's talk about it openly. And I think that creates good dialogue and it improves spiritual health. Let's talk about these things. And it's okay not to have all the answers. It's okay not to be perfect. In fact, I like the fact that the church isn't perfect. I like the fact that the church doesn't have all the answers because to me, that's like an adventure. Well, let's explore. Let's go find it out together. So the answers of how to do this is obvious in my mind. We've talked about this a lot on the podcast, but that's the approach. And will the church change in terms of being more open, transparent about future changes? I don't know. But The church is changing slowly. I think it's changing for the better overall. And I think, just to conclude my responses here, I think individuals who hold teachings that the church no longer supports, the church has a responsibility to deal with that and the members have a responsibility to bring themselves up to date on facts based on what the church's positions are and doctrines are. in 2024? Well,

SPEAKER_00: 52:41

that's a good answer to the question. You raised a couple of things that had me thinking about my own experience. This idea, for instance, that sexual sin is second only to murder and seriousness comes from the Book of Mormon and Alma's instruction to Corianton, is that his name? Yep, Corianton. Off the top of my head. If you look at that actual scripture and that actual story, because a lot of these changes, for instance, the changes about Book of Mormon geography, come as a result not necessarily even of revelation, but of better scholarship. I mean, if you read through the Book of Mormon and you read about how geography is dealt with in the Book of Mormon, it becomes very clear that the Book of Mormon geographical footprint, and if you move away from historicity altogether, that becomes another issue. But if you're trying to actually set the Book of Mormon events in a real-world place and time, then you have to recognize that the geographical footprint is much smaller than the entire Western Hemisphere. or at least the entire North and South American continent. But that's the result of better scholarship. And if you go and you read the Corianton story, it talks about, it's not just that he went off with the harlot Isabel, it's that he did so while he was a missionary and that his example was detrimental and was driving people out of the church. And when he says, know ye not, my son, that this is... you know, second only to murder. I'm paraphrasing because I can't remember the exact quote. But he's talking about that after he says what he's doing is setting such a negative example that he is destroying the faith of church members. The sexual sin is really sort of a small component of that. It's the destruction. It's essentially the murder of people's spiritual lives. And that makes a whole lot more sense. But like you, or I'm assuming like you, you joined the church at 16, so you may not have had this, but I keep coming back to the one teaching that was really destructive to me, which was the Two Young Men Only pamphlet by Elder Boyd K. Packer and the Little Factory Talk. I don't want to get too extensive into that, but that really messed up my entire adolescence. That made me terrified of my own body and terrified that anything that I might do to activate my little factory might be, I mean, that was essentially a sitting next to murder in my mind because I really didn't have any kind of clarifying counsel or guidance to tell me that this wasn't some kind of terrible, awful thing and that I didn't have to spend my entire adolescence in terror because now the church has quietly moved away from that. So much so that the little factory talk, the two young men only pamphlet was taken from a conference talk given by Boyd K. Packer in October of 1976. And if you go to the church's website and you review the conference talks from October of 1976, it's as if Boyd K. Packer just didn't speak at that conference. because that conference talk has just been quietly taken off the church's website because the church is so embarrassed by it. The church no longer prints the pamphlet. The church no longer hosts that material on its website. Somebody's told me you can actually, if you go and try to find the video of it, the video is still there, but the text has been removed. You really have to dig to find it. And the specific handbook of instructions, it does not say... There's nothing wrong with masturbation. Masturbation is fine. But what it does say is there is no ecclesiastical consequence. There should be no probation. There should be no church discipline should be taken for people who engage in masturbation. And I have two friends. who are bishops, who have talked to me about this, and one talked about being in a bishop's training session where the general authority president, and I can get the name of the general authority if I contact this bishop friend, he said, do not deny someone a temple recommend. Do not tell someone they can't go on a mission. Do not deny the sacrament. Take no action whatsoever. to somebody who comes to you and confesses that they've masturbated. And, you know, all throughout my adolescence, you know, and I've told that story about John Huntsman probably far too many times, but I know stories of people who had to wait a year to go on their mission until they conquered their habit of masturbation because this was just such a grievous sin, and now quietly it isn't anymore. I mean, the church doesn't encourage it. The church doesn't celebrate it. The church doesn't say it's okay, which, I mean, it'd be nice if they just said it's okay. All they say is, don't take any action, which is essentially the equivalent of saying it's okay, but they're not willing to say. So this is the problem.

UNKNOWN: 58:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 59:00

When you talk about the thread through this podcast that the church needs to be more transparent, I think my sort of mission, if there is one, the church also not only has to be transparent, the church has to admit to being fallible. The church has to admit to the reality that there have been times when we have been wronged. Admitting that there are times when you are wrong is not the same thing as admitting that you are always wrong. Because everybody can be wrong and has been wrong on occasions. Everybody is individuals and speaking under the church collectively and not individually. The church, I think, has been far more right... in terms of preaching the principles of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and preaching how to live more Christ-like lives and how to draw closer to Christ, I think the church has been far more right than it has been wrong. I don't think admitting that there have been times when we have gotten it wrong is the same thing as admitting that the entire church is a completely flawed and failed institution, and it's always been wrong, which seems to be the direction where some people who leave the church think we ought to go, or that's where they've gone. They've essentially said nothing the church has done is right, but you've left the church and you recognize that's not true. And I think admitting that there have been times when we have been wrong does not negate all of the rightness, does not negate all of the goodness, What it does is tell the truth and build trust. If you could admit that you have been wrong, you build trust in this institution. And I think the unwillingness to do that and the fact that these changes are made quietly without any acknowledgement that anything has changed or that anything was wrong that needed to be changed, because that's why I think they're quiet. is because when you admit you've changed, you admit that what you were doing before that was wrong. And it's just maddening. The best example of that, I think, is the 2015 policy of exclusion, which was, we were told by President Nelson that it was a revelation that the children of gay parents can't be baptized. And then three and a half years later, President Oaks comes out and says it's a revelation that they can be baptized. Well, okay, well, which revelation was right? Because they can't both be right. They're diametrically opposed to each other. Why can't you just admit we got it wrong? We got it wrong in 2015, and we fixed it in 2019. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with fixing error. And I think that the obstacle to doing that is when you frame everything as revelation, you act like God is standing there. I mean, last week, Marcus talked about the prophet. Christ is always standing there whispering in his ear. And the idea that prophets can't ever be wrong because Jesus is in constant communication with them in the same way that I'm in communication with you. And I don't believe that. I used to believe that. I don't believe that prophets experience God any differently than the rest of us do. I think they have a calling that requires them to seek out greater inspiration and revelation. But I don't think Jesus physically appears in first presidency meetings. I think that they struggle to reach the divine in the same way the rest of us do. And they have a greater responsibility, I think, than we do because their stewardship is greater. But they are also capable of misinterpreting or missing the message or getting a message and applying it in ways where their own biases and their own weaknesses come into play. That's what the mortal experience is about. I mean, that's the fundamental idea of mortality is that we get it wrong and we have to have a savior because we can't get there by ourselves because we get it wrong. And there's nothing wrong with that. We teach that individually. We recognize that. But institutionally, we pretend that the institution is exempt from that, that the institution never gets it wrong. And yeah, here are some changes, but they're not really changes. You see this in the temple. I remember the big temple changes. I think the temple ceremony has changed three times since President Nelson has become president of the church, which is three out of four of the times that it's changed in my lifetime. In 1990, you saw the dropping of the penalties as well as a few other changes, but that was a really, really big change. And then the temple ceremony was unchanged up until 20, I think 20, either 2020 or 2021, because they changed either right before or right after the pandemic. I can't remember the date. But in those changes, when I first went, we talked about it on this podcast. So it would have probably been after the pandemic because we began this podcast earlier. after the pandemic. But at the very beginning of the temple ceremony, the new temple ceremony, there was an announcement by the first presidency, or they read a letter by the first presidency, that said, do not discuss these changes and do not even mention that there have been changes. I need to actually get the wording, but it wasn't just enough to say, don't discuss the content of the changes, but don't discuss that there have been changes at all. And I just thought, why not? Why not? That doesn't make any sense. Do you think nobody's going to notice that these have been changes? What is accomplished by not even acknowledging the reality that change has taken place? So this is, I think, just as long as we continue to perpetuate the idea that we don't change, then we're going to have members of the church believing things that we no longer teach. because they've got no incentive to change them. They've never been told that they have to change, and they've been told the church hasn't changed. So what's to prevent them from thinking that all black people volunteered before this life to come and be discriminated against? What's to prevent them from teaching that you have to believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old and was completely covered by water as a baptism? What's to prevent them from believing that If they activate their little factory, they are very close to, if not actually committing a sin next to murder. What's to prevent them from teaching or believing all of those things if the church does not explicitly come out and say, hey, that stuff we taught you 50 years ago, we don't teach that anymore because it was wrong. We teach this now because it more accurately reflects the light and knowledge that we have received. If we don't do that, we're going to continue to have the dinosaurs in the church. Although the dinosaurs in the church are people who don't believe there were dinosaurs. So there's a problem with that, I guess. But we're going to continue to have this problem unless not only we're transparent, but we're also accountable for our errors and our missteps and our mistakes. Do you think there is any way to be transparent without also being accountable? Don't you think that that's an essential part of that process?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:38

The very principle of transparency, in my mind, is to demonstrate that you want to be accountable. That they say, hey, look, here's all the information. We know this. We think we know this. We don't know this. These have changed. This is the same. We're trying to work through it. That's transparency. And open up the books, right? Everything. Because you have integrity. You want to be accountable. The church has a distinct and unique and significant responsibility to be transparent, to hold itself accountable, or other organizations and people to hold it accountable for sure. Independent accountability, I think, is really important. But also to teach or to communicate to the members very clearly, very concisely, very openly, transparently, where the changes have happened and why the changes have taken place. I'll give you an example. I do a lot of project change management. And when you have to change the project, it's called a change order. And the change order is referenced in the contract. There's an agreement language in the contract that if there's a change to the project, there's a certain protocol and certain measures and certain processes you follow to change the project. And that is called a project change order. or a change order notification. And it's in the contract. The client knows it. And he knows that at some point, the project is going to change. And the deal is, the rule is that you communicate the change, what the change is, and why you're making the changes, and what the cost is, and what the impact on the project schedule is, and the impact on the overall project. That's business. That's project management. It's open. It's transparent. It works. When it's followed, it works. The church has a responsibility to bring its members across every demographic up to date on the changes. And it doesn't take that responsibility as seriously as it should. Likewise, Jim, the responsibility is not solely rests with the church. Members of the church have a responsibility to research and to study and to get up to speed and up to date on the changes the church is making. So the church... does an okay job, or even a good job at times, and still the members don't get up to speed, and that's down to the members, we can't put that dangerous, toxic thinking that still exists within the church entirely on the church. Not completely, in my mind. The responsibility is with us also to study and to research, and it's a collective, shared responsibility. I think the problem the church has got is that there's still a group of people in the church that hold on to these very dangerous doctrines, and they've not moved on. And in fact, those individuals are holding the church back. So it's in the church's interest to bring everyone up to date on what's happening and why it's happening and all these changes, like the changes to the Book of Mormon introduction, which I think is in part, very positive. And I've talked about that earlier. But when you still have these individuals that perpetuate and teach these what I think are doctrines that make me very uncomfortable, that's the truth, then I think that's a problem. The other thing I want to highlight, which has been a bit of an epiphany for me, listening to you, and we haven't talked about this, and I've not heard this on any of the podcasts. It might be out there, but I don't think it is. In front of you and I right now, we have a copy of the 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon. I was taught, as you was taught, that that book, which I'm holding up now, the original book of my mission, it is the original, by the way, it's not any of the book I'm holding up, that that book in its entirety is a canon of scripture and every word in the book I was taught is scripture. And that scripture, Elder Wilkes, does not change. Here I am holding the book up. It does not change, ever. It will always be the same. God doesn't change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And the Holy Scriptures do not change. That's what I was taught, and that's what I taught as a missionary. And they also said that the scripture doesn't change. Because if it did... We'd have the situation in the dark ages where these different churches, as I taught, I was taught, and what I taught as a missionary, would take little pieces of the gospel and fill in the rest with their own ideas, quoting myself from a missionary, and they would make up their own religion. They'd have some elements of truth, some elements of the original church, but it wasn't the fullness of the gospel. It wasn't entirety, and it was man-made stuff. And that's what happens We were taught when we change Scripture, it becomes man-made. We don't change Scripture. God changes Scripture. Here's the epiphany. Keeping in mind what I've just said, that the church doesn't change Scripture, or that's been the doctrine, the teaching. And remember, the introduction in the 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon, and I think it's one of the editions since, is Scripture. The introduction of Scripture. When a prophet speaks by the power of the Holy Ghost, that's Scripture. That's what I was taught. The Book of Mormon, from front to end, is Scripture. I want to be clear about that. But here we have what I think is a significant moment in the church that just hit me on this podcast, where you've now got a new version of the Book of Mormon introduction. They've changed almost entirely and missed out key points, key references to Joseph Smith and The plates and being comparable with the Bible and being a history of the dealings with the Lord's people in the Americas. That's not in the new version. So here's my point. The church, I think this is a, in my mind now, a seismic shift where the church has actually changed something that is scriptural. They've changed it. Whether it's an app or not, they've changed it. They've got a version of it. To me, it's an improvement. I think if I was in the church years ago when I was very fixed in my thinking, I could see this as problematic. Now, I don't. I see this as overall a positive thing. And the question in my mind now, is this evidence, is this a precursor to the church changing actual scripture in the scripture, references in the scriptures? It has done with White and Delightsome, which is in this book, by the way, the 1981, because I've read it, says white and delightsome. That's what it says. In the previous, in the more recent editions, it says pure and delightsome. So it has changed words in the scripture. You know, in the introduction, it's talked about the principal ancestors to amongst the ancestors. That's very significant. In my mind now, I think this is a very strategic move on the church where it could then use this as an example in future, say, look, we've changed this, we've changed that. And by the way, back in 2024, eight, nine, ten years ago, we gave a friendly aversion to the introduction to the Book of Mormon. And we had a great response from that. And this is why we're making these changes here. I think it's a very smart move on the part of the church. I think they're trying to change, trying to connect with that different demographic. And whether they know it or not, and I think they do, obviously, the prophets, they have changed Scripture. It's a different version. I think it's good. Whether other people agree with me or not, I don't know. But is this a prelude or a precursor to changing other things or taking other things in the Book of Mormon and making a version of it and kind of diluting it? I think so. I think it's a smart move. And I think the church is moving away from areas where it doesn't have that certainty anymore, going back to my earlier point, is wants to spend more time in areas that are safer, that it has confidence in and away from things that it can be disproven. And that, I can understand why it would do that. How it does that, we can disagree or agree with. Why it's doing it, I think it's, there's a number of very obvious reasons why it's doing that. So there will be my final remarks on that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:46

Well, I appreciate that very much. And I agree with you. I don't see the Book of Mormon introduction change as an actual change in Scripture in the same way that White and Delightsome was a change in Scripture and the change of the actual text of the Book of Mormon. But I do see your idea that we're sort of softening up the membership to some degree for greater changes that may come. Joseph Smith edited the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants throughout his life. There were significant changes in text of Scripture that was written in the first person as if Jesus Christ said them himself. And yet Joseph Smith went in and edited those throughout his life. And that doesn't bother me because I recognize that the language of Scripture is an attempt to close the revelation in language, but that the communication does not come in a sort of teletype. The words aren't the revelation. The words are a description of the revelation. And so it doesn't bother me if the words change to better reflect the underlying revelation. But I think that's an entirely different discussion. I think the principle that you're outlining here is absolutely sound. And we need to recognize that and we need to embrace it. And for the church to grow and for the church to thrive, the church also has to take accountability and accept changes. And you are absolutely right. It's not all on the church. It's also on us. Last week, we were pointing out factual evidence of change that our good friend rejected out of hand. And when the church actually demonstrates that change when things are demonstrably different, if we refuse to accept it, that's on us. And I think the church is, I think, scared of what members who cling to these outdated ideas will do. I think they're scared of driving them away. You know, Richard Bushman at one point, when he talked about the dominant narrative of the church is not true, he said a phrase, something along the lines of, to protect the grandmas, we're losing the future. You know, to protect these people, to be able to hold on to their outdated and sometimes bigoted ideas, We are losing the rising generation who has no patience for such things. And so the only way I think that we can go forward is to embrace change, embrace fallibility, and embrace our accountability and be transparent. So I think we're on the same page, and I very much appreciate your thoughts here. And we've rambled on here a bit, but I think this has been a wonderful discussion. And I appreciate all of you, whether we were in your Spotify wrapped list or not, as one of your top podcasts. We are so very grateful that you are listening and that you are participating and giving us feedback. Be sure, if you haven't already, to subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts so you can be updated when a new episode drops. But we're very grateful for you listening. And we look forward to seeing you next time on the next episode of Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:35

Thank you, Jim.