A Conversation with Kirk Hays

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Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out.
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I'm your co-host, Ian Wilkes, and I'm joined, as always, by the most excellent Mr.
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Jim Bennett.
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Hello, Jim.
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Hello, Ian.
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How are you, sir?
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I'm doing really well.
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The sun is shining.
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I'm happy to be alive.
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And we're here with a very, very special guest.
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I am very excited about this.
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This is one of my favorite people in the world.
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So I'm really grateful that we're going to have this discussion.
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Mine too.
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And it's an absolute honor and privilege for me to do the introduction to the one and only Kirk Hayes, all the way from Honduras.
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Hello, Kirk.
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Hello, how are you?
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And you guys are some of my favorite people too.
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I can't believe that...
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I mean, what is it, 25, 30 years ago that we met?
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35
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to 40 years almost.
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So
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old.
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We're really old.
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We're really old.
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It's a real honor because I met Kirk through serving in the Scotland Edmund Mission.
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I'm from the UK, from Yorkshire, traveled 100 miles.
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over the border from England into Scotland.
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You know, there's Brits.
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And there were mostly Americans in the mission.
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And there were some legends.
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When I arrived there, there were some legends that, you know, within a day, you get to know who's who pretty much.
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You know, you're with your companion and you learn within a week maximum, you know, who's who, if you like, in the mission.
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And you get to know the legends.
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And the legends were, you know, Matt Holland and Elder Simpson, Elder Murdoch.
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You remember those guys?
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Oh, yeah.
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And there was just a handful of missionaries who were absolute legends.
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I thought, I've got to meet these guys.
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They sound amazing.
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And one of the great names, Jim, that was in that pack was Kirk Hayes.
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And Kirk, you had an amazing reputation.
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You were...
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known for your work at work, your boldness, your knowledge of the gospel, and just being a wonderful missionary to serve with.
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Somebody who's really devoted.
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And you were someone that I really wanted to meet, and I heard all about you even before I met you.
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When did you come out into the mission?
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I came out in 1985, and I got to say, you're very kind, and I'm honored by that, but both of you were people that I looked up to on my mission.
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I mean, I was older, not chronologically for you, Ian, but had been out longer, but both of you were people that I really looked up to.
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Yeah, I came out in 1985 under President Dunn and then was there during the transition with President Banks.
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I think I got...
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named the zone leader the day that Present Banks came in.
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So that was the change.
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And that's why I really got to know Jim better.
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And I had already knew you, Ian, because we were together down in Dalkeith.
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Yeah.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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So yeah, I mean, Banks became the mission president in July, I think, 87.
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I had done for about six months and then banks came in in um july 7th jim you came out in september i think in the end of 87 yeah so um yeah so we'd love to in our conversation we'd love to get into some of the experiences and stories on the mission um but uh again thank you so much for coming on to the uh the podcast um and as i say these this is one of the relationships that um and i'm sure i speak for jim that Although we've not connected over the years from time to time, it's been many years since we've been in touch, I feel like we've met each other last week again.
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And these are those relationships that you take with you for your entire life.
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And we share something very unique and very distinct, serving missionaries in Scotland, and that kind of connects us and binds us.
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We'll get into that, hopefully, later on in our conversation, Kurt.
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But what we'd like to do is just give us a bit of your background.
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you know, uh, who you are, uh, growing up, you know, your background and your family and the church, et cetera.
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And just take us through a little bit of your early experiences, uh, you know, youth and YSA up to the point of, uh, your decision to serve a mission.
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And again, a bit about yourself if you're, if you're okay with that.
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Sure.
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Yeah.
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I, uh, I was born in Montana.
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Um, but at a young age, we moved down to Utah, uh, My dad was an avid fisherman though.
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So every year we would pack up and move back to Montana at Yellowstone and he would fish for three months.
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And the family was too big for us all to fit in the trailer.
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So I grew up three months a year.
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My bedroom was a tent.
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Not a lot of people can say that, but it was a great way to grow up.
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And I think I learned a lot from my dad about that experience that later affected my life and the trajectory of my life.
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So I grew up in Utah, normal kind of Utah growing up.
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Everybody was Mormon.
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You went to church.
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My dad had served a missionary mission in Germany.
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And so, you know, I grew up kind of with that expectation.
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And then I went to seminary, quickly decided I didn't like that so much.
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So I would skip And never graduated from seminary, never really anticipated that I would go on a mission, never planned on it.
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And then went by accident because I was dating this girl and she kind of wanted me to go.
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And one day I just said I was going to go and I was surprised to hear it as she was or anybody else.
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And the next thing I know, I'm packed up and on my way to the MTC.
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even though I had never really intended to do that.
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And they quickly figured out that maybe I wasn't the guy that they wanted.
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And they tried to send me home and I had to go meet with the general authority.
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And the general authority says, we're going to send you home.
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I said, that's fine.
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I don't really want to be here anyway.
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And he says, okay, I'm going to talk to your stake president.
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We're going to send you home.
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And then I went back to the MTC and I waited for the call to go home and nobody called.
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And next thing I knew I was at the airport and I was in Scotland, so I don't know how I slipped through the cracks, but that's how I ended up on my mission, kind of by accident.
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Wow, that's amazing.
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Just go back a little bit, because that's fascinating.
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Tell us a bit of detail about what happened there.
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There's always a girl involved, right?
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So you went on a mission because of a girl.
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I put a bit of expectation there on you.
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And then you put your papers in.
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You got called to Scotland first time.
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Right.
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Great.
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Best place to
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get
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called, right?
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Of course.
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It's the truest mission on the face of the earth, right?
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And then you had doubts or you had some issues about getting out there.
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Just tell me what happened there.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I mean, you go through the usual confession stuff before you go.
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And, you know, I confessed to something when I was in the MTC that they decided it was different than what I confessed to before.
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So I had to go meet with them.
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But the real fundamental issue was when I was out there, I mean, even though I was on my mission, I didn't really have a testimony.
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I didn't believe.
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And I remember there was a day at the MTC where I decided that I was going to pretend like I believed until I did.
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All right.
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I was going to act like I believe until I did.
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I use the word act instead of pretend back then.
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And then I just started acting like I was I was going to that I that I believed.
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And I wholeheartedly devoted myself to that.
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And right around then, that's when they were talking with me about, you know, should you really be here?
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And yeah.
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uh, yeah.
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And so I remember you, you get called, you have to get in a bus and they take you from Provo to Salt Lake and, you know, you meet with this general authority and there were like four of us.
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And one of the guys in there, he's like crying and he's like, they're going to send me home, but in six months I'll be back.
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And, and, you know, I'm going to use that time to learn Portuguese.
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I remember that's what he was learning.
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And, uh, and he said to me, are they going to send you home?
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I said, I don't know.
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I hadn't been in yet, but, But I said, I'm not going to come back.
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Right.
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I barely got here.
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They don't want me.
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I'm not going to come back.
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And I went in and that's what the general authority said.
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We're going to send probably send you home.
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We're going to talk to your stake president and you can come back.
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And he says, I'm not coming back.
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Right.
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And I think and he was shocked like that never occurred to him that somebody would say no.
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Right.
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And so, yeah.
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Yeah.
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And so then he told me, yeah, you're probably going to go home.
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And then I just sat there for the next two weeks waiting for him to come get me.
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And nobody ever did.
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And next thing I know, I'm on a very hot stifling bus going through from Edinburgh down to Dumfries and car sick and miserable.
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And that's how I ended up in Scotland.
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That's
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amazing.
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Yeah.
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Well, you know, I mean, you talk about looking up to us or looking up to me.
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I was a greenie when I got out there.
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You, you went home probably very early in my mission and you were quite the rock star.
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I remember I had the one day, we had one day together where, um, elder Hanson, my trainer, uh, came back to Dundee to baptize one of his investigators and you and I went tracking together.
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And I just, in complete awe of you that whole day, I just thought this guy, you were the zone leader in Dundee at the time and it was just like, wow, this is the guy who gets it, who understands it.
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So if you had told me at the time that you didn't really believe and you were just sort of acting, I wouldn't have believed you.
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I would have thought, no, this guy, this is the spiritual giant that I need to look up to.
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And you went on to be an assistant to the president right after that, did you not?
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Yeah, I did, for Bambi Banks, Elder Banks.
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And acting is probably the wrong, or pretending is probably the wrong word.
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It was, you know, you have to have faith enough to trust that you will get a testimony.
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And I was in that stage of...
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I was acting like it and devoted to it.
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I mean, I don't think I was lying, but I was looking for a way to have faith and so acting like I did.
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And I think that that came to define a lot of my life of where I was.
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I think I was good at administrative stuff and motivating people and things like that.
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And that oftentimes got...
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you get put into a leadership role that probably, from a spiritual sense, you're not completely prepared for.
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But
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I wanted to be clear about that.
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I wasn't lying.
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I
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definitely
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didn't believe in that way.
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Sorry, Jim.
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I don't mean to interrupt you, but I remember talking to you at a reunion.
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Because you were called into leadership after your mission very quickly, if I recall correctly.
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You were called as a bishop as a very young man.
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I was, yes.
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in my 30s.
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And I remember you saying something along the lines of, I was the only bishop that didn't pray.
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Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
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Yeah, so I come home off of my mission and very quickly quit going to church.
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Ended up moving to Virginia to finish law school, came back.
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My wife, started to go to church take our two kids and uh and i went to pick her up one day and i thought you know i went in and everybody was there and i thought you know this is a really good way to raise kids it would be good to raise your kids in the church so i'm going to start coming back to church just because it would be a good way to raise kids not because i necessarily believed that it was true um And so, you know, you start showing up and they start giving you callings.
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And the next thing I know, I'm like the elders quorum president.
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And then the stake president shows up and says, you know, God has spoken to the prophet and you are to be the bishop.
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And I remember being shocked by that because, you know, I, I knew that I didn't, I didn't pray.
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I wasn't, I didn't really have a testimony of God.
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And so I, I became an accident too.
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I kind of, I kind of say that.
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And that was a really hard thing for me because, you know, I rationalized for myself, being the bishop was important.
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It was something I wanted to do to help other people.
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And I had had this course in college called Myth, Magic, and Religion, where they talked about how shamans are just as good at curing alcoholism as Christians.
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as any other program.
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And people get faith healed.
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And it happens because the people who are sick believe in the person who's saying that they have this magical ability to heal them.
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And so I rationalized that even if I didn't believe it, other people believed.
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And because of that, I could do a lot of good.
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And I think I did a lot of good as a bishop.
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For a long time, I thought I would never do that much good again in my life.
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And Gladly, I'm happy to report I don't think that's true anymore.
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I think I'm doing a lot of great things now.
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But yeah, that's why I kind of went along with it.
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I felt like I could really make a difference within the church, and I could make a difference in people's lives, and I hope I did.
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But it creates this fracture within yourself, right?
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So on the public side, you are this person that people look up to and they turn to for faith.
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They believe in things because you say them.
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And then internally, you're feeling like the ultimate imposter, right?
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That's imposter syndrome to the max.
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And you feel unworthy and you feel guilty.
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You feel like everybody else believes, so why don't you...
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And even though I was trying to do the things that I thought God wanted, yeah, that still fractures you.
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And so I went through a period of, while I was bishop, of incredible depression.
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And I would just come home.
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You know, I was working at the time.
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You work 60 hours a week.
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I would...
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record my time as a bishop every once in a while.
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And I was working like 28 hours a week as bishop.
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And then you got a young family you're trying to keep together.
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And, and, uh, and I would just, if I had any time, I would just lay on the couch and watch cast away.
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And I would get so depressed when he got rescued.
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My view is I just wanted to escape to a small Caribbean Island.
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Right.
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And I recognize I'm living that, but, uh, But yeah, I mean, it really, it broke me as a person there for a long time.
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So I don't know if that answered your question, but I really felt like I was doing the right thing.
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I felt like I was making a difference in people's life.
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And I think I was a good bishop.
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I hope that the people that were in my congregation think that I was a good bishop.
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Well, so your ultimate departure from the church, did that come...
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Did that come in close proximity to your time as bishop?
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After you were released as bishop, is that when you went, I just can't do this anymore?
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Yeah.
00:16:43.931 --> 00:16:52.163
So, you know, I was coming up, I was about a year short of when they usually release you as bishop, but my son was having a hard time and I just wasn't around.
00:16:52.663 --> 00:16:53.785
You know, you're just never there.
00:16:53.826 --> 00:16:58.894
And I went to the stake president and I talked to the stake president and said, you know, my son needs me.
00:16:59.313 --> 00:17:00.456
He needs me in his life.
00:17:01.236 --> 00:17:03.524
And my son, The stake president started crying.
00:17:03.703 --> 00:17:06.346
He says, yeah, I know my family's falling apart too, right?
00:17:06.386 --> 00:17:11.432
There's always that stereotype that the worst kids in the ward are the bishop's kids, right?
00:17:11.952 --> 00:17:14.275
Because their dad's not there most of the time.
00:17:14.474 --> 00:17:16.377
I said, I think I need to be there for him.
00:17:16.637 --> 00:17:27.750
And he said, I just have to have faith that like Abraham, you know, that you put your kids on the altar and you have to have faith that God will save them.
00:17:28.609 --> 00:17:31.633
And I just looked at the stake president.
00:17:31.993 --> 00:17:35.436
I just thought, this is the most insane thing I've ever heard.
00:17:35.517 --> 00:17:41.624
What if the lesson of Abraham really is, don't try and kill your kids.
00:17:42.023 --> 00:17:45.367
Even if some voice tells you, don't sacrifice your children.
00:17:46.088 --> 00:17:48.951
And I told him, I just got to be released, right?
00:17:49.172 --> 00:17:50.554
So that didn't have anything to do with faith.
00:17:50.594 --> 00:17:52.316
That was about protecting my family.
00:17:52.355 --> 00:17:55.159
And it wasn't, I mean, I'd already been there a long time.
00:17:55.219 --> 00:17:58.041
I was coming up on getting released in the near future.
00:17:58.561 --> 00:18:14.339
So I asked to get released and then it was probably six months later, I'm in the airport waiting for a flight and I'm reading Discover Magazine about some great scientific invention or discovery.
00:18:15.201 --> 00:18:19.445
And I thought to myself, what am I doing?
00:18:20.507 --> 00:18:21.548
This is what I believe in.
00:18:21.669 --> 00:18:22.630
I believe in science.
00:18:22.710 --> 00:18:23.871
I believe in things I can know.
00:18:23.911 --> 00:18:25.692
I believe in things I can understand.
00:18:26.306 --> 00:18:28.848
And why am I pretending to believe in something else?
00:18:29.028 --> 00:18:34.815
And that's when I decided that I would just kind of come out of the closet as a non-believer.
00:18:35.415 --> 00:18:37.498
So it was shortly after that.
00:18:39.580 --> 00:18:41.643
And go ahead.
00:18:41.663 --> 00:18:46.689
Well, so did you resign your membership or what was the impact on your family?
00:18:46.709 --> 00:18:48.391
I mean, was your wife still a believer?
00:18:48.471 --> 00:18:50.071
Were your children still?
00:18:50.092 --> 00:18:51.453
How many kids do you have, by the way?
00:18:51.842 --> 00:18:51.942
I
00:18:51.981 --> 00:18:52.502
have three.
00:18:52.542 --> 00:18:55.006
My son was actually on his mission at the time.
00:18:55.046 --> 00:18:55.946
He was on his mission.
00:18:56.307 --> 00:18:57.188
He was on his mission.
00:18:58.670 --> 00:19:01.112
The marriage ended shortly thereafter.
00:19:01.152 --> 00:19:03.375
And I think those two things went together.
00:19:03.535 --> 00:19:08.200
I don't think that I could stay in the church and get divorced.
00:19:08.519 --> 00:19:09.662
And I couldn't get divorced.
00:19:10.762 --> 00:19:14.928
I couldn't leave the church and stay married.
00:19:15.228 --> 00:19:19.311
I couldn't get divorced and stay in the church, however that works out.
00:19:19.413 --> 00:19:24.159
The two things kind of had to go together, um, which was hard.
00:19:24.298 --> 00:19:32.211
I mean, that was unfair to, to her, but that's kind of on my personal journey, that's kind of where things went and how we ended up.
00:19:32.392 --> 00:19:44.990
And so, uh, so after that, there becomes all these rumors because somebody as prominent as a bishop isn't allowed to leave the church for the, for just not believing, right?
00:19:45.310 --> 00:19:46.432
There has to be some sin.
00:19:46.472 --> 00:20:06.375
So there were all these rumors going around that I was gay, that I had a secret lover the whole time i was the bishop that i had stole funds from the church that i was involved in felony drug writing i mean they would come up with any story other than no he just doesn't believe right that wasn't an acceptable answer
00:20:08.179 --> 00:20:18.779
but the church just can't do it can it i mean it just can't accept a reason for leaving because his true claims are unfounded or people stop believing.
00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:23.631
You have to be a sinner or lazy or involved in some serious offense.
00:20:24.011 --> 00:20:28.182
I had the same, a lot of the same stuff directed at me when I left.
00:20:28.241 --> 00:20:37.367
I was on the state presidency here and And then I even had somebody spoke about me in a church talk who derided me in a church talk.
00:20:37.448 --> 00:20:44.137
And, you know, don't be like Ian, President Wilkes, who fell from this height and Satan's got him.
00:20:44.218 --> 00:20:47.542
And I'm in league with Lucifer and awful, awful things.
00:20:48.584 --> 00:20:52.108
They just can't accept that people leave because they, you know, they disbelieve.
00:20:52.450 --> 00:21:05.259
What I find fascinating is that just, you know, you're saying when you were serving as a bishop, you were serving because you wanted to help people, which I think is the highest goal, actually.
00:21:05.299 --> 00:21:11.790
If you look at our church compared to other churches, and I grew up with Church of England.
00:21:12.291 --> 00:21:14.635
I joined the church at 16, as you know.
00:21:15.096 --> 00:21:21.147
But there are many churches out there that don't ask or request people to demonstrate their faith.
00:21:22.786 --> 00:21:32.977
in a testimony or stand up and say you know that the church is true and you have this incredible, you've got to demonstrate and prove your incredible conviction and devotion in all these different areas.
00:21:33.377 --> 00:21:46.412
There are a lot of churches out there that are quite happy for people to show up and to help and to serve and to volunteer and just to be a helper to help others without having all this commit 100% to all this belief system.
00:21:46.912 --> 00:21:48.433
Our church is quite different.
00:21:48.513 --> 00:21:50.695
The demands are extraordinary.
00:21:50.776 --> 00:22:00.539
The church owns It tries to influence every aspect of your life, how you feel in your relationships, what you wear, how you behave, etc.
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:03.762
It's an incredibly high-demand religion.
00:22:03.803 --> 00:22:09.529
But I think it's fantastic that you accepted that calling and you just wanted to help.
00:22:09.631 --> 00:22:14.276
And if you were as good as a bishop, as you were as a missionary, you would have been a fine bishop.
00:22:14.496 --> 00:22:15.617
I have no doubt about that.
00:22:16.193 --> 00:22:19.659
And I think it's fantastic that you put your family first.
00:22:20.220 --> 00:22:23.144
And you were probably released a little bit early.
00:22:23.163 --> 00:22:40.327
And so was there anything that, aside from time with your family, which was a concern for you, were there any specific issues that you had with the church that was a catalyst also for you leaving?
00:22:40.367 --> 00:22:44.834
Was there any doctrinal policy or historical information in that?
00:22:45.089 --> 00:22:47.959
was also part of your decision to leave the church.
00:22:49.384 --> 00:23:02.726
Yeah, I think a lot of people, you know, you hear discussions of deconstruction of their faith, right, as they go through the process of finding items that they didn't believe in, historical matters, things like that.
00:23:02.766 --> 00:23:06.549
There were certainly items that I was vehemently opposed to the position of the church.
00:23:07.290 --> 00:23:09.153
Proposition 8 was going on at the time.
00:23:09.212 --> 00:23:24.670
I had a stake president that, even though we weren't in California, wanted all of these things read from the pulpit about how bad homosexuality was and the church was opposed to any legalization of marriage or anything that attempted to compromise.
00:23:25.330 --> 00:23:27.073
And I wouldn't let him read those in my...
00:23:28.258 --> 00:24:04.892
ward and there was a lot of fighting over that which probably contributed to the oh he must be gay thing later but so there were doctrinal things like that the church's position on women the delay of the church in allowing blacks to have the priesthood black people to have the priesthood was a big issue for me even when I was a teenager so there were those things but my my journey outside of the church wasn't a matter of deconstruction because there you're taking a belief and you're deconstructing it.
00:24:05.492 --> 00:24:06.855
And I didn't really believe.
00:24:07.276 --> 00:24:09.318
And so it was easy for me.
00:24:09.338 --> 00:24:12.784
It just kind of, it was like a balloon that just popped.
00:24:12.864 --> 00:24:13.865
And so it went away.
00:24:13.885 --> 00:24:15.689
It wasn't a matter of deconstructing.
00:24:16.088 --> 00:24:20.556
So I can't say that I left for a doctrinal reason other than simply, I just didn't believe.
00:24:21.376 --> 00:24:25.103
I didn't believe in the church as a whole and, uh, or even in God.
00:24:25.363 --> 00:24:31.577
And so, um, So it wasn't really a deconstruction kind of a thing like that for me.
00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:42.067
But definitely, a church should be the leader on civil rights issues, right?
00:24:42.449 --> 00:24:45.652
It should be the one fighting for people to have human dignity and rights.
00:24:46.432 --> 00:24:49.875
And the church has always been the last one to the party, right?
00:24:50.415 --> 00:24:54.200
I mean, it took a decade after the civil rights movement in order for the...
00:24:57.026 --> 00:24:59.230
for black people to be given the priesthood.
00:25:00.271 --> 00:25:05.801
They should have been the very first ones fighting for those rights, not the last one to finally give up, right?
00:25:06.102 --> 00:25:08.326
Same thing with women's rights, things like that.
00:25:08.586 --> 00:25:21.049
I remember the day that I learned about black people being given the priesthood and I was reading the Doctrine and Covenants and I got to that part of it and I'm like 12 at the time.
00:25:21.569 --> 00:25:26.234
And I get to that and reading that was the first time that I ever learned that, right?
00:25:26.255 --> 00:25:28.357
Because you didn't talk about it anymore in the church.
00:25:28.438 --> 00:25:31.621
And by then it would have been the 1980s.
00:25:31.701 --> 00:25:33.682
And I went to my mom.
00:25:34.064 --> 00:25:34.845
I was so upset.
00:25:34.904 --> 00:25:35.986
My mom asked, why are you upset?
00:25:36.066 --> 00:25:37.267
And I'm like, did you know this?
00:25:37.367 --> 00:25:40.111
Did you know that black people couldn't get the priesthood before?
00:25:40.770 --> 00:25:46.298
And she said, yeah, that always really bothered me when I was a kid.
00:25:46.917 --> 00:25:47.838
And I prayed about it.
00:25:47.898 --> 00:25:50.162
And God told me to just wait and look.
00:25:50.625 --> 00:25:51.987
Miraculous thing happened.
00:25:52.048 --> 00:25:55.010
Eventually, the blacks got the priesthood, the black people.
00:25:55.391 --> 00:26:04.201
And I said to her then, I says, I would never wait for God to do the right thing.
00:26:04.681 --> 00:26:05.823
He's not doing the right thing.
00:26:05.863 --> 00:26:07.464
That's not the right place to be.
00:26:07.484 --> 00:26:27.443
And then when you find yourself in the middle of that with gay rights, where the church is not doing the right thing and is causing so much harm because of it, I wasn't going to stand by like her and just wait for God to catch up with, with that piece of human decency.
00:26:27.483 --> 00:26:29.145
And I had a son that I knew was gay.
00:26:29.185 --> 00:26:37.878
I mean, I knew he was gay from when he was 18 months old and he used to walk around and his mom's high heels was a feather boa pretending to be Koala DeVille, right?
00:26:38.180 --> 00:26:40.021
I mean, this was not a surprise coming.
00:26:40.742 --> 00:26:43.748
And so I knew that at some point he was going to have to leave the church.
00:26:44.568 --> 00:26:50.438
And I knew that, uh, it would be easier if he had an example, um, of that.
00:26:50.721 --> 00:26:55.188
So, but the fundamental basis was, I just didn't believe.
00:26:56.930 --> 00:27:14.053
Well, talking about that, I mean, because I don't know anybody in the church who, well, I do know some people, but most people in the church would say the same thing, that they were troubled by it and they were struggling with it.
00:27:15.074 --> 00:27:51.709
And when we try to sort of confront the legacy of of the priesthood and temple ban because i i'm even uncomfortable just calling it the priesthood ban they couldn't have the priesthood because black women weren't allowed to go through the temple uh black people were not allowed to be sealed together as families which we we tout as the central doctrine or one of the most important doctrines uh of the church and you know and and The thing that is always stunning to me, because the way you're talking now is like God would not be last.
00:27:52.609 --> 00:28:06.385
It is always stunning to me to hear people who are so eager to throw God under the bus instead of throwing human fallible leaders under the bus.
00:28:07.007 --> 00:28:12.874
There's a huge contingent within the church that is more comfortable saying, well, God was just a racist.
00:28:13.538 --> 00:28:15.902
then they are saying, well, Brigham Young was just a racist.
00:28:16.682 --> 00:28:19.407
And you look at Brigham Young's statements, you look at Brigham Young's...
00:28:20.911 --> 00:28:38.582
We referenced on this podcast with a guy who was saying the church has never been racist, the church has never done anything wrong, and I pointed out, okay, well, how do you reconcile that with this statement from Brigham Young that says the law of God, which will always be so, is that if the...
00:28:39.329 --> 00:28:44.336
if you mix your blood with the seed of Cain, the punishment is death on the spot.
00:28:45.336 --> 00:28:48.961
And he said, oh, well, this is, I was attacking the press before.
00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:51.183
We can't have any confidence in any of that.
00:28:51.203 --> 00:28:58.633
I don't know if that was, he even said that, you know, and this is coming from the Journal of Discourses, which was edited by Brigham Young.
00:28:59.294 --> 00:29:03.077
And the talks were included directly by Brigham Young.
00:29:03.137 --> 00:29:08.777
So whether or not he actually said it, he put, his name behind it after the fact.
00:29:08.797 --> 00:29:10.518
I mean, it was certainly something he believed.
00:29:12.119 --> 00:29:32.863
It's so, I mean, it is just so remarkable to me that we are not, we are so unwilling to admit error, admit the fallibility of leaders, that we are willing to ascribe the kinds of bigotry that you're describing.
00:29:33.423 --> 00:29:35.726
We're willing to attribute that to God.
00:29:36.481 --> 00:29:38.503
rather than attribute that to man.
00:29:38.544 --> 00:29:50.578
And I think the only way to stay in the church is to recognize that fallibility is built into the system, that fallibility isn't just a bug.
00:29:50.618 --> 00:30:08.981
Fallibility is the purpose of mortality, that the theological center of Mormonism is the idea of agency, the idea that we chose to come to mortality to make mistakes, And we should not only just acknowledge them, we should expect them.
00:30:10.182 --> 00:30:27.689
And the way the church deals with that, I think, gives members sort of 180 degree different approach to that is that we say we kind of pay lip service to the idea that, oh, yeah, we're going to make mistakes.
00:30:27.749 --> 00:30:29.632
And, oh, yeah, we've done things that are wrong.
00:30:31.193 --> 00:30:33.718
But then when you say, OK, well, what have you done that's wrong?
00:30:34.241 --> 00:30:37.005
Can you point out a mistake to me?
00:30:38.006 --> 00:30:40.528
And no one's willing to do that.
00:30:40.688 --> 00:30:51.598
It's interesting, particularly on this issue, that the church, there's a professor at the University of Utah by the name of Paul Reeve, who's written a number of really wonderful books.
00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:56.304
Very thoughtful guy, very intelligent guy, and a believing member of the church.
00:30:57.904 --> 00:31:00.928
But he wrote a book called Let's Talk About Race and the Priesthood.
00:31:02.369 --> 00:31:05.265
And And it's published by Deseret Book.
00:31:05.705 --> 00:31:09.132
And Deseret Book came to him and said, we want you to write this.
00:31:09.192 --> 00:31:28.041
And he says, I'm not going to write this unless you allow me to come to the conclusion, the only logical conclusion in confronting this, that this was a terrible error, that this was a mistake, and that this was not of God, and that this was of man.
00:31:29.364 --> 00:31:30.526
And they said, go ahead.
00:31:31.137 --> 00:31:34.563
And so Deseret Book has quietly published this book.
00:31:35.904 --> 00:31:39.549
But my guess is most people have not heard of it.
00:31:40.111 --> 00:31:52.028
It's a lot like the Gospel Topics essays that are willing to sort of acknowledge that there have been mistakes, but they're not willing to sort of cross the line and say, this was a mistake.
00:31:52.229 --> 00:31:53.090
We were wrong.
00:31:55.273 --> 00:32:37.739
And the official line is just like what Kirk your mom was saying is okay just wait and then finally God will come around and God had his purposes for perpetuating this ban when in fact it's if you look at the historical record it's painfully obvious that this was not rooted in Revelation and that this was this adopted a 19th century Protestant justification for slavery the whole idea of the curse of Cain and everything else was a way that slave owners assuaged their consciences and said, well, this must be from God and it must be okay to be doing this terrible, horrible thing.
00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:52.594
But as you talk about that, it's just really fascinating to me that so many members of the church are willing to attribute racism to God as opposed to attributing racism to man.
00:32:53.234 --> 00:32:54.635
Does that make any sense?
00:32:54.695 --> 00:32:56.478
I mean, has that been your experience?
00:32:56.993 --> 00:33:00.417
Yeah, and I've heard you say that on this podcast before.
00:33:00.478 --> 00:33:05.585
There's been other times when I've heard a similar thing kind of from you on, Jim.
00:33:06.645 --> 00:33:07.086
Myself,
00:33:07.146 --> 00:33:07.467
yes.
00:33:07.547 --> 00:33:09.148
It's a one-trick pony.
00:33:09.189 --> 00:33:17.980
No, because I think it's an interesting attempt to resolve that conflict when you have something that is morally wrong that has been the policy of the church.
00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:24.220
And I think that the tension with that argument, that it's people instead of God.
00:33:24.259 --> 00:33:29.487
The first is, is these are people that are supposedly chosen by God and speaking on behalf of God.
00:33:30.188 --> 00:33:31.930
So you can say Spencer W.
00:33:31.950 --> 00:33:32.830
Kimball was a racist.
00:33:32.891 --> 00:33:35.493
And I think that everybody would agree with that now.
00:33:35.535 --> 00:33:38.137
The things that he said were incredibly racist.
00:33:38.198 --> 00:33:42.784
And yet 1976, they come out with this, with this proclamation.
00:33:42.824 --> 00:33:50.053
So you could say that up until the proclamation comes out, that it was, it was Spencer W.
00:33:50.073 --> 00:33:50.374
Kimball.
00:33:50.657 --> 00:33:55.003
and racism, and after the proclamation comes out, now God has intervened.
00:33:55.044 --> 00:33:56.365
But that begs the question, why didn't
00:33:56.385 --> 00:33:56.645
God intervene?
00:33:56.665 --> 00:33:59.589
You're talking about the priesthood revelation?
00:33:59.630 --> 00:34:01.051
It was in 78?
00:34:01.071 --> 00:34:01.853
78, yeah.
00:34:02.233 --> 00:34:03.055
Oh, was it 78?
00:34:03.515 --> 00:34:03.655
Okay.
00:34:04.656 --> 00:34:04.836
Sorry.
00:34:06.278 --> 00:34:07.520
Thanks for that clarification.
00:34:07.661 --> 00:34:13.608
So you could say that, well, that's when God stepped in.
00:34:13.849 --> 00:34:16.213
But that begs the question, why didn't God step in earlier?
00:34:16.413 --> 00:34:19.077
And you can say, yeah, Brigham Young was a racist.
00:34:20.385 --> 00:34:22.367
But it's because Brigham Young was a racist.
00:34:22.487 --> 00:34:27.693
You forget that at that time, there were abolitionists all throughout the United States.
00:34:27.753 --> 00:34:30.496
There were people and throughout the world, right?
00:34:30.878 --> 00:34:33.420
That were saying slavery is wrong.
00:34:33.460 --> 00:34:37.023
The mistreatment of black people is wrong.
00:34:37.644 --> 00:34:41.028
God could have picked any one of those, but he picked the racist, right?
00:34:41.068 --> 00:34:43.391
So to be the leader.
00:34:43.411 --> 00:34:49.137
So I think that there's the tension first of these are people saying they act as God's leader.
00:34:50.114 --> 00:34:53.539
or as God's mouthpiece, and are saying that this is coming from God.
00:34:53.579 --> 00:34:58.809
So either they're lying to us about what God says, or they're lying to us about them being a mouthpiece for God.
00:34:59.489 --> 00:35:04.478
Then the second layer you get is, why does God delay in intervening?
00:35:04.838 --> 00:35:05.880
Why does he wait till 1976?
00:35:06.481 --> 00:35:13.757
Why doesn't he do it in, forget doing it in the 1800s when Other people were standing up for civil rights.
00:35:13.817 --> 00:35:17.021
Why didn't he do it in the 1960s when the civil rights movement was on?
00:35:17.380 --> 00:35:20.625
So why is God the last one to show up to change it?
00:35:21.126 --> 00:35:27.833
Why is he waiting for the racists to catch up rather than embracing the people who believed in those civil rights things?
00:35:28.193 --> 00:35:32.259
And then the last thing is those people really mislead.
00:35:32.398 --> 00:35:36.884
When church leaders are wrong about morality issues, they cause other people to be wrong.
00:35:37.003 --> 00:35:41.393
I remember a time I was in Big V, which was like our department store.
00:35:41.413 --> 00:35:43.715
And there was a couple in front of us in line.
00:35:43.775 --> 00:35:44.797
And I'm a young child.
00:35:44.856 --> 00:35:46.679
I'm like five at the time, six.
00:35:47.659 --> 00:35:51.965
And it's an interracial couple, a white woman and a black man.
00:35:51.985 --> 00:35:55.329
And I remember my mom saying, we don't believe in that.
00:35:55.528 --> 00:35:56.389
That is wrong.
00:35:57.452 --> 00:36:00.175
My mom is the least racist person I know.
00:36:00.715 --> 00:36:02.878
She loves everybody, right?
00:36:02.898 --> 00:36:05.239
That wasn't her speaking.
00:36:05.701 --> 00:36:06.621
That was me.
00:36:07.617 --> 00:36:10.360
I don't know who was the prophet then, Spencer W.
00:36:10.380 --> 00:36:11.202
Kimball or whoever it was.
00:36:11.242 --> 00:36:13.724
That was him speaking through her.
00:36:14.465 --> 00:36:16.548
She was repeating what she had been told.
00:36:16.688 --> 00:36:27.400
So God would be, under that theory, God would be allowing this mouthpiece, his mouthpiece, to lead people into immoral actions.
00:36:29.202 --> 00:36:32.947
So I think that there are those three problems kind of with that approach.
00:36:33.007 --> 00:36:34.570
I think you've just got to admit either...
00:36:35.458 --> 00:36:44.728
Either the prophet's the prophet and he's speaking for God and you've got to justify that and you've got to own up to it and say, okay, for some reason God is saying it.
00:36:45.809 --> 00:36:53.317
Or you've got to, you know, you can't sidestep it by pretending that it's somebody else and God's okay.
00:36:54.398 --> 00:37:01.045
These points are some of the most important points and issues that I've ever heard.
00:37:01.505 --> 00:37:04.309
including we've ever discussed on the podcast.
00:37:04.329 --> 00:37:20.085
The two things that I'm thinking of is as the only true living church upon the face of the earth with all these claims that the prophet is the only person on the planet that speaks the mind and will of God, that knows the mind and will of God.
00:37:20.806 --> 00:37:31.217
Your most important point that the church be first leading this, dealing with this first and ahead of everyone else considering this unique relationship with God.
00:37:31.650 --> 00:37:42.887
I think that's one of the most important issues that we've ever discussed or even contemplated in life, in our experience with the church, but also on our podcast.
00:37:42.907 --> 00:37:55.425
And the second thing that hadn't dawned on me until now, actually, in this conversation with you, Kirk, that, Jim, you've got people that are inherently good people.
00:37:56.449 --> 00:37:56.670
right?
00:37:56.811 --> 00:38:01.838
Kind, good, naturally, instinctively, good, loving everybody, no matter what color or religion, right?
00:38:02.338 --> 00:38:04.742
They love everybody because that's who they are, you know, like Kirk's mom.
00:38:05.242 --> 00:38:10.711
And then you get the church that pressurizes people to believe a certain way.
00:38:10.731 --> 00:38:17.601
You've got to believe in these things and accept the prophets and, you know, you've got to accept and support all the prophets and all the doctrine over the years.
00:38:18.724 --> 00:39:04.505
And that, those doctrines and those policies, uh, damage and diminish people's natural instinctive good qualities that these people repeat and regurgitate awful awful teachings when in fact that's not how they feel I feel so strong about it because this was my experience on this very issue as you know I left because of the essay mostly the race and the priesthood essay that came out it was wrong it was flat out evil to have that disgusting, to have that, and the comments that Brigham Young and Bruce McConkie said about black people and others was awful, disgusting, terrible things.
00:39:04.586 --> 00:39:07.471
And why would God allow that, right?
00:39:07.530 --> 00:39:12.557
And so you've got good people in the church that are some kind of, trying to reconcile this.
00:39:12.637 --> 00:39:13.840
I think it's absolutely awful.
00:39:13.880 --> 00:39:15.501
So there's two things there.
00:39:16.202 --> 00:39:18.967
Jim, did you want to step in on something?
00:39:19.027 --> 00:39:20.969
I think, do you want to say something on this?
00:39:21.250 --> 00:39:31.043
Well, no, I mean, I don't want to, I'm not, I'm sitting here trying to figure out the best way to make sense of this.
00:39:32.304 --> 00:39:37.652
Because I am aware of this, I feel exactly the same way, and yet I am still in the church.
00:39:38.632 --> 00:39:51.150
And so there's sort of a tension there in terms of, okay, well, Kirk, you've sort of outlined a clear dichotomy, which is, and tell me if I'm getting this right or wrong.
00:39:52.065 --> 00:40:07.943
But which is either we accept that all of these failings are God's fault and that he's chosen racist mouthpieces and he's chosen people who have made these errors.
00:40:08.063 --> 00:40:12.086
And so that gives him the responsibility for them.
00:40:12.788 --> 00:40:18.253
Or we just sort of have to accept that the church is not what it claims to be at all and we have to walk out.
00:40:19.266 --> 00:40:23.170
I mean, is that kind of a steel man description of what you're saying?
00:40:23.190 --> 00:40:37.969
Well, I think that goes back to, I think that most Mormons today are sympathetic to homosexuals and don't think that the church is on the right side of that issue.
00:40:37.989 --> 00:40:38.009
I
00:40:40.972 --> 00:40:44.317
would agree that most Mormons are exactly
00:40:44.376 --> 00:40:44.677
that.
00:40:44.697 --> 00:40:44.797
Yeah.
00:40:45.217 --> 00:40:48.264
So they rationalized staying in the church with the same thing that my mom did.
00:40:48.384 --> 00:40:50.246
Eventually, the doctrine is going to change.
00:40:50.487 --> 00:41:00.164
And they justify that or explain it away by saying, I can do more to make the church be better by staying in the church than leaving the church.
00:41:00.806 --> 00:41:03.530
And I'm not going to question that.
00:41:03.550 --> 00:41:09.501
I think that I did some really important things to blunt a lot of the doctrine.
00:41:09.634 --> 00:41:15.143
the worst parts about the church by being in the church and being in a position to make a difference, right?
00:41:15.463 --> 00:41:19.311
There were people that they went after that I protected.
00:41:20.313 --> 00:41:28.067
And there were some people that they didn't go after that they should have.
00:41:28.608 --> 00:41:30.692
And I think that I was instrumental in that.
00:41:31.653 --> 00:41:33.677
Maybe we come back to that in a minute.
00:41:33.818 --> 00:41:40.114
But But I think that that's that debate between you stay in the church to effectually change or do you leave the church?
00:41:40.255 --> 00:41:45.318
For me, I think that the church only makes fundamental change when it receives pressure from outside.
00:41:45.358 --> 00:41:48.442
It doesn't care about the pressure from inside.
00:41:48.521 --> 00:41:55.327
So you have to naturally grow enough people to have the right morality to finally get around to doing the right thing.
00:41:55.728 --> 00:42:01.452
And that's probably why the church is so far behind everybody else on civil rights issues, right?
00:42:01.833 --> 00:42:04.615
Because it takes a long time to grow those people.
00:42:04.655 --> 00:42:11.525
to change the old guard, which is, I mean, what's the average age in the quorum now, right?
00:42:12.027 --> 00:42:17.835
So this is the first time the first presidency has consisted solely of people over the age of 90.
00:42:18.094 --> 00:42:18.295
Yeah.
00:42:19.838 --> 00:42:27.148
So you're taking the morality from 90 years ago to lead this powerful church and to say that this is the morality that everybody should follow.
00:42:27.708 --> 00:42:49.846
And so, so, you know, you're, it, it, The structure of the church is designed to make a big ship that doesn't turn very fast, which is a great thing when you want stability, but not when you require the ability to change as circumstances change, and especially if you're off course, which is, I think, what the church is on a number of issues.
00:42:50.007 --> 00:42:53.911
It's dramatically off course, and it has a hard time coming back.
00:42:54.012 --> 00:43:00.159
It takes generations to get back on course, and by the time it gets there, it'll be off course again, right?
00:43:02.657 --> 00:43:21.199
on the issue of civil rights for African Americans, on the issue of rights for women, on the issue of rights for homosexuals, it was behind the times and it should have been one of the leaders.
00:43:21.478 --> 00:43:30.748
There was such an opportunity for the church when I was the bishop and these issues of how do we treat people fairly who are homosexual?
00:43:31.329 --> 00:43:39.000
And the church's stance was, well, we're going to go out and we're going to pay a lot of money to make sure the Proposition 8 doesn't pass because we don't want them to get married.
00:43:39.019 --> 00:43:42.344
Instead of coming forward and saying, everybody is a child of God.
00:43:42.465 --> 00:43:43.226
Love is love.
00:43:43.666 --> 00:43:49.755
We may not agree with this particular kind, but we agree with the fundamental principle that people should be treated fairly.
00:43:49.775 --> 00:43:54.581
And so we're going to throw our full support behind legal unions, right?
00:43:55.021 --> 00:43:57.244
Maybe not marriage, but legal unions.
00:43:57.344 --> 00:44:00.449
Let us become an advocate for people that are...
00:44:02.210 --> 00:44:03.692
For equality and for justice.
00:44:03.873 --> 00:44:06.817
And instead, they went the other way.
00:44:06.836 --> 00:44:12.945
And I think that right now, there are people that are trying to figure out.
00:44:13.347 --> 00:44:15.851
The United States is in a crisis right now.
00:44:16.010 --> 00:44:23.641
And there are people looking for leadership from a church that claims that they can tell them what God wants for issues that matter in their life.
00:44:23.702 --> 00:44:28.389
The whole reason why you have modern day prophets is so they can tell you in time.
00:44:28.994 --> 00:44:42.413
And yet we don't see anything from the church on the threats that are being called by evangelical Christianity in the United States and these dramatic, terrible, unjust policies that are going.
00:44:42.452 --> 00:44:43.775
The church remains silent.
00:44:45.737 --> 00:44:47.659
It should be the leader.
00:44:48.681 --> 00:44:50.222
Ian, that's a huge concern for you.
00:44:50.264 --> 00:44:51.865
You've talked about that many times.
00:44:51.885 --> 00:44:51.905
I
00:44:53.547 --> 00:44:54.909
keep coming back to this question.
00:44:55.041 --> 00:44:58.146
about, you know, look at the world that we're in right now.
00:45:01.610 --> 00:45:18.909
Look at all the wars, the divisions, all the division across society, the inequality that's out there, and just a crazy world that we're living in with all these issues and immigration and health and politics and just endless problems that we've got in the world.
00:45:19.297 --> 00:45:20.659
Where's the church on this?
00:45:20.719 --> 00:45:45.809
I think we dedicated quite a bit of time, Kirk, on our podcast to what's the role of the church in speaking up about these issues as a multi-billion dollar enterprise and as a church that's pretty established with an extraordinary vast amount of resources network across the world and wants to have these photo ops with the Pope.
00:45:46.242 --> 00:45:49.085
and photo ops with these different leaders around the world.
00:45:49.146 --> 00:45:55.376
And he's very, very good at the photo ops, you know, for the images and the newsletter, et cetera.
00:45:55.715 --> 00:45:56.737
But where's the substance?
00:45:56.777 --> 00:45:57.478
Where's the leadership?
00:45:57.579 --> 00:46:12.862
If the claim is that we've got this inside track with the Lord, that we know stuff, and we know stuff first, and we've got solutions because God has revealed them to us, and we've got that unique insight because we're the only true church on the point of faith of the earth.
00:46:13.025 --> 00:46:28.061
Either God is speaking to the prophets and they're ignoring him, or God is silent on these issues and doesn't care, doesn't have anything to say about what's going on on this planet, or he does and the first presence is kind of picky and choosy about what they want to say.
00:46:28.641 --> 00:46:36.570
The only conclusion I can come to is that it's a man-made church, and the church is trying to walk a fine line on politics.
00:46:36.650 --> 00:46:40.054
It's afraid to speak up and stand out and be the first on things.
00:46:40.536 --> 00:46:41.177
That's where I am.
00:46:41.237 --> 00:46:43.679
I mean, Jim's on a different position.
00:46:45.342 --> 00:46:52.389
So the church holds its members to a high standard and a high level of accountability.
00:46:53.346 --> 00:47:01.798
Look at the interview process and the transparency around holding members accountable to living the standards.
00:47:02.659 --> 00:47:20.005
It's about time, I think, that the church held itself to the same standards and transparency and accountability and did more and actually did what it's supposed to do, which is to lead and be first and to speak up, even on unpopular issues, do the right thing.
00:47:20.545 --> 00:47:22.668
There are examples of people that have done that.
00:47:22.728 --> 00:47:30.797
I think Mitt Romney, who Jim knows from his experience, has spoken up politically on some things.
00:47:30.838 --> 00:47:37.425
So I think there are people in the church, Uchtdorf and Romney and probably some other people that from time to time...
00:47:37.465 --> 00:47:37.905
I would add
00:47:38.166 --> 00:47:39.427
Senator Bennett to that.
00:47:39.708 --> 00:47:41.050
Senator Bennett as well.
00:47:41.789 --> 00:47:44.653
A man who, not on my political...
00:47:45.025 --> 00:47:47.648
but who I have incredible respect for.
00:47:48.048 --> 00:47:50.351
Your father was an amazing, great man, Jim.
00:47:51.012 --> 00:47:52.474
And he raised an amazing, great son.
00:47:53.235 --> 00:47:53.835
Well, thank you.
00:47:53.876 --> 00:47:55.056
Thank you on both counts.
00:47:55.157 --> 00:48:13.538
But I would absolutely agree with you that, I mean, so much of, really, the reason I am still in the church is because of the goodness of my father and how he navigated all of this and the kinds of discussions we had on this.
00:48:14.242 --> 00:48:20.869
And where I was going earlier in terms of when I was trying to steel man your argument, Kirk, is that I'm trying...
00:48:20.909 --> 00:48:24.815
I really do genuinely believe there is a third way.
00:48:25.737 --> 00:48:37.731
That in order for the church to continue to survive and to thrive, essentially, I think we have to...
00:48:40.193 --> 00:48:45.059
we have to come up with a different paradigm for what the church is.
00:48:45.820 --> 00:48:55.170
Because both of you are outlining something that I think is very representative of how most people in and out of the church see the church.
00:48:55.751 --> 00:48:58.896
We announce we are the only true and living church on the face of the earth.
00:48:59.416 --> 00:49:01.938
We announce that we have a prophet who speaks to God.
00:49:01.978 --> 00:49:07.425
And so everybody says, well, if you have a prophet who speaks to God, this is what I would expect.
00:49:08.130 --> 00:49:09.811
a prophet who speaks to God to do.
00:49:09.851 --> 00:49:13.795
And this is what I would expect the church of God to do.
00:49:13.815 --> 00:49:17.780
And I think those expectations are reasonable.
00:49:17.820 --> 00:49:46.938
And I think at the same time, I think that particularly in the church, we have sort of created this kind of complacency where we are willing to punt off our shortcomings and our failures to God and say, well, geez, yeah, the church didn't lead out on this.
00:49:47.039 --> 00:50:01.302
Well, it must have been because that's what God wanted, not because God respected the agency of us and we didn't have the courage or the ability to go ahead and lead out on this.
00:50:02.605 --> 00:50:11.688
So Backing up a little bit in terms of my theological perspective, I have become largely a universalist.
00:50:13.150 --> 00:50:15.554
I see the world in Latter-day Saint terms.
00:50:16.797 --> 00:50:30.518
I find elements of Latter-day Saint theology extraordinarily compelling, particularly with regard to how they deal with theodicy, with the idea that what happened before this life informs what happens in this life.
00:50:31.266 --> 00:50:40.074
which helps us understand that the purpose of this life, you know, when you start asking, why is there so much suffering in the world?
00:50:40.114 --> 00:50:46.161
You say, that's what we signed up for, because we recognize that's how we become more like God.
00:50:46.181 --> 00:50:50.766
I mean, I find that whole theological framework very compelling.
00:50:50.786 --> 00:51:00.978
I also find the fact, I firmly believe, I mean, you talked, Kirk, about the idea, you did some good when you were on the inside, and I think you absolutely did.
00:51:01.954 --> 00:51:05.400
I feel convicted that this is where God wants me.
00:51:06.240 --> 00:51:10.889
And so I sit here and I'm listening to both of you talk about the shortcomings of the church.
00:51:11.851 --> 00:51:14.695
And I can't disagree with anything of what you're saying.
00:51:15.456 --> 00:51:32.590
What I can do is say, I think the only way forward for the church is to incorporate that and embrace that and take accountability for for all of the times we failed, for all of the times we've lagged behind.
00:51:33.391 --> 00:51:37.257
And recognize that that is all part of the process too.
00:51:37.918 --> 00:51:46.190
But what that requires us to do is give up the pedestalization of church leaders.
00:51:46.351 --> 00:51:48.273
Give up the idea that Russell M.
00:51:48.353 --> 00:51:52.320
Nelson has more access to God than anybody else.
00:51:53.681 --> 00:52:08.092
Essentially redefine what we mean when we talk about a prophet seer and revelator, what we mean when we talk about church leaders and apostles, because they want to have their cake and eat it too.
00:52:08.192 --> 00:52:16.362
They want us to recognize their weaknesses, and yet they want us to treat them like they don't have any.
00:52:17.163 --> 00:52:23.490
It's the President Oaks statement that it's wrong to criticize the church, even if the criticism is true.
00:52:24.693 --> 00:52:33.061
And it's just, You look at that and I just say, look, things that can't go on forever eventually stop.
00:52:34.001 --> 00:52:46.293
And this kind of false infallibility and this refusal to take accountability for where we have made mistakes eventually is going to have to stop one way or the other.
00:52:46.434 --> 00:52:54.902
Either it stops with us actually taking accountability or it stops with the church going off a cliff and falling into total irrelevance.
00:52:55.809 --> 00:52:58.032
because the church is never going to go away.
00:52:58.052 --> 00:53:02.599
The church has enough money to perpetuate itself essentially through eternity.
00:53:02.639 --> 00:53:12.552
But the church is in serious danger of just becoming irrelevant, becoming a marginalized sort of group.
00:53:14.536 --> 00:53:21.806
It's increasingly getting a reputation for being a right-wing group, which is interesting because when I worked in...
00:53:21.826 --> 00:53:23.889
I worked...
00:53:24.545 --> 00:53:35.021
When my father lost, I ended up going to work for Sam Granato, who was the Democrat running for that seat that Mike Lee eventually won.
00:53:35.061 --> 00:53:45.797
And when I started working for Sam Granato, I was surprised to go to a campaign meeting and see Elder Stephen Snow at the campaign meeting.
00:53:47.059 --> 00:53:49.682
And Elder Snow at the time was a sitting general authority.
00:53:49.762 --> 00:53:51.485
I think he was the church historian.
00:53:52.161 --> 00:53:56.445
at the time, but he's also a believing Democrat.
00:53:57.606 --> 00:54:00.829
And I essentially said, what are you doing here?
00:54:00.849 --> 00:54:03.472
I didn't say it quite that bluntly.
00:54:04.673 --> 00:54:11.519
But his response was the church is very concerned that it's getting a reputation for being a right-wing church.
00:54:11.601 --> 00:54:16.644
And the church is very eager to see credible Democrats in office.
00:54:17.927 --> 00:54:19.688
And I went, well, that's wonderful.
00:54:20.148 --> 00:54:21.429
Why don't you say that publicly?
00:54:22.306 --> 00:54:24.289
And he said, well, we can't do that.
00:54:24.750 --> 00:54:28.034
We have to maintain this kind of idea of neutrality.
00:54:28.815 --> 00:54:50.027
The point being, I think the idea that the church is monolithic behind the scenes, the idea that everybody is in lockstep with the idea of we never apologize and we are hardliners and this will never, ever, ever, ever, ever change.
00:54:51.842 --> 00:54:58.072
I don't think that that plays out in terms of what's actually happening behind the scenes.
00:54:58.833 --> 00:55:04.581
I think there is, you know, Greg Prince and I had a conversation about this.
00:55:04.641 --> 00:55:06.804
He's a scholar who wrote the wonderful book, David O.
00:55:06.824 --> 00:55:08.628
McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism.
00:55:10.371 --> 00:55:17.581
He just says there is more division, particularly on LGBTQ issues than on any other issue in the church within our lifetimes.
00:55:18.594 --> 00:55:24.420
And I think, Kirk, you're absolutely right that this is going to change.
00:55:24.541 --> 00:55:30.969
I mean, I don't think it has any, I don't think the church, the church's position now is entirely untenable.
00:55:31.670 --> 00:55:47.009
I mean, the fact that back when you read The Miracle of Forgiveness and Spencer Kimball was saying you need to beat your head against the door until your muscles are bloody and you're, you know, that quote just absolutely haunts me.
00:55:47.588 --> 00:55:49.992
We had a whole podcast on the miracle of forgiveness.
00:55:50.012 --> 00:55:51.293
So I don't want to get too much into that.
00:55:51.974 --> 00:56:01.748
But the thing about president Kimball's position back then is it add the luxury or at least had the benefit of being consistent with itself.
00:56:02.849 --> 00:56:27.405
That if we truly believe that people do not, the people choose to be gay, people choose to be transgender and they do so it would, by making a morally dubious choice, if we truly believe that, then we are justified in denying them the blessings of the church as they make evil choices.
00:56:28.365 --> 00:56:30.188
But we no longer believe that.
00:56:30.208 --> 00:56:45.679
The church, and I think Prop 8 did this, the backlash to Prop 8, and this also reinforces, Kirk, what you're saying about pressure from the outside, because the backlash to Prop 8 forced the church to reevaluate their approach.
00:56:45.860 --> 00:56:59.775
And that's the first time the church quietly, again, the same way they released the gospel topics essays, they didn't call attention to it, which drives me crazy, but quietly admitted, no, people don't choose to be gay.
00:57:00.436 --> 00:57:05.382
No, this is not a morally dubious choice.
00:57:06.302 --> 00:57:08.525
People don't choose this.
00:57:08.625 --> 00:57:13.030
They won't go far enough to say they're born this way, but that's clearly the implication.
00:57:13.858 --> 00:57:21.925
They also say, okay, you can't change your orientation by praying it away.
00:57:21.965 --> 00:57:30.293
They've said both of those things, which I think are huge shifts from where the church was when we were all serving missions.
00:57:30.873 --> 00:57:33.476
But at the same time, okay, they've said that.
00:57:34.217 --> 00:57:43.246
Well, the logical conclusion to that is, okay, well, if they didn't choose it, if it doesn't change, then...
00:57:44.097 --> 00:57:56.213
there must be a righteous purpose for it, that the Lord must have a use for it, and that there must be some sort of righteous expression for it.
00:57:57.333 --> 00:58:00.617
And the church has said, no, you didn't choose this.
00:58:01.119 --> 00:58:07.867
It can't change, but we're still going to treat you as if you did choose this and as if it will change.
00:58:08.588 --> 00:58:10.409
And so that is not...
00:58:11.106 --> 00:58:15.530
a logically tenable position, let alone a morally tenable one.
00:58:15.670 --> 00:58:19.514
Logically, it's going to have to resolve one way or the other.
00:58:19.875 --> 00:58:23.697
You're going to have to either go back to Spencer W.
00:58:23.757 --> 00:58:29.664
Kimball and say, we were right the first time, you did choose this, you are wicked, and we are going to punish you.
00:58:29.704 --> 00:58:39.693
Or we have to go forward to the idea of inclusion, to the idea of there is some kind of righteous purpose.
00:58:40.449 --> 00:58:42.532
for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.
00:58:42.974 --> 00:58:56.695
And I don't see any way that they can go backward, particularly with the rise of, the rising generation just has absolutely no tolerance for that kind of bigotry.
00:58:56.735 --> 00:59:11.949
And they also are not susceptible to the kinds of things that were being said during Prop 8, because the warning during Prop 8 was, if you legalize gay marriage, Traditional marriage is going to fall by the wayside.
00:59:12.809 --> 00:59:15.193
Civilization is essentially going to collapse.
00:59:15.934 --> 00:59:19.257
The world is going to end if we legalize gay marriage.
00:59:20.079 --> 00:59:46.862
Well, we legalize gay marriage and the world is not, not only is the world not ending, but it's been, I think everybody seems to recognize that it's been a positive civilizationally and the church has even, endorsed the Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies the legality of gay marriage in all 50 states.
00:59:47.523 --> 00:59:52.791
The church supported that because it carves out religious...
00:59:52.972 --> 00:59:54.474
Carves out all these exceptions.
00:59:54.996 --> 00:59:56.739
The point is...
00:59:56.778 --> 00:59:57.740
They agree with you.
00:59:57.780 --> 01:00:05.094
All this ground because the church has lost on this issue...
01:00:05.793 --> 01:00:08.315
In every possible way it is to lose.
01:00:09.476 --> 01:00:09.938
I agree
01:00:09.998 --> 01:00:10.378
with that.
01:00:10.418 --> 01:00:12.980
And I agree with your proposition that it's not monolithic.
01:00:13.460 --> 01:00:20.706
And I think that the best example of that is the church's stance on gay marriage constituting apostasy.
01:00:21.266 --> 01:00:21.588
Right.
01:00:22.548 --> 01:00:24.769
So you're talking about, well, they're getting more liberal.
01:00:24.871 --> 01:00:26.251
And then this rule comes out.
01:00:26.291 --> 01:00:35.559
And for your listeners, it stated that if anybody gets married in the church, they are an apostate and their children are apostates.
01:00:35.760 --> 01:00:43.987
And having sat in a lot of disciplinary councils, I can tell you exactly what that was.
01:00:44.027 --> 01:00:52.554
So one of the problems that the church has with its stance on gay marriage is that everybody knows that it's wrong, right?
01:00:53.215 --> 01:00:59.601
Most of the membership knows that this is the wrong position.
01:00:59.621 --> 01:01:00.681
They just know it in their gut.
01:01:01.121 --> 01:01:04.865
Morally, we're taught to be kind, and this is not kind.
01:01:05.409 --> 01:01:15.485
And the problem that the church has is it was easy to maintain the discrimination against black people because they didn't know a lot of black people, right?
01:01:15.505 --> 01:01:18.331
There was segregation within the country.
01:01:18.351 --> 01:01:29.730
So it was easy to vilify as, you know, well, they were evil in the pre-existence or they carry the curse of Cain because you didn't know.
01:01:30.146 --> 01:01:31.788
on a one-to-one basis.
01:01:31.889 --> 01:01:40.782
The church fails to be able to hold that line when it comes to homosexuals and trans people and everybody else because we all know them.
01:01:41.141 --> 01:01:42.143
They are our children.
01:01:42.184 --> 01:01:43.626
They are our uncles and aunts.
01:01:44.306 --> 01:01:45.949
You know, we know them.
01:01:45.989 --> 01:01:50.896
And a lot of gay people go to church, right?
01:01:51.097 --> 01:01:55.423
My son was the very last person in my family who, he was gay.
01:01:55.463 --> 01:02:01.596
He was the last person to leave the church because for him, It was a spiritual experience.
01:02:01.655 --> 01:02:03.117
He really believed.
01:02:03.438 --> 01:02:06.541
They had to kick him out because he kept coming to church.
01:02:06.942 --> 01:02:08.402
And so now you've got a problem.
01:02:08.543 --> 01:02:21.097
If you're in Salt Lake and you are trying to have this hard line against gay people, you're undercut every time they go to church and they see somebody that they like and that they love who is in the pew who is gay.
01:02:21.818 --> 01:02:24.280
So you have got to create separation for them.
01:02:24.521 --> 01:02:28.824
And that is what all of that...
01:02:29.889 --> 01:02:32.074
that declaration that they were apostates.
01:02:32.434 --> 01:02:38.324
And they take the authority away from the local leaders.
01:02:39.184 --> 01:02:45.795
My son was discriminated against by the teachings of the church, but never by his bishop.
01:02:46.137 --> 01:02:50.503
His bishop loved him, and his bishop was understanding, and his bishop cared for him.
01:02:50.563 --> 01:02:56.393
And when I was a bishop, I protected all of the gay people that were coming to church.
01:02:56.929 --> 01:02:59.233
Because this is how you do it.
01:02:59.253 --> 01:03:04.018
If somebody is gay and they're a male, that has to go to the stake president.
01:03:04.639 --> 01:03:06.161
And it's a stake matter.
01:03:06.202 --> 01:03:11.309
I'm only in charge of females or somebody who doesn't have the priesthood.
01:03:11.648 --> 01:03:16.315
So I would just go to my stake president and say, hey, he's having this same-sex marriage issue.
01:03:16.856 --> 01:03:17.916
I don't think you need to deal with it.
01:03:18.117 --> 01:03:19.458
I think I can deal with it.
01:03:19.900 --> 01:03:22.764
And my stake president was always glad to wash his hands and say, sure.
01:03:22.804 --> 01:03:24.505
And then I would protect them.
01:03:25.121 --> 01:03:37.900
And I think that a lot of local leaders are in active but clandestine rebellion against the policies of the church, and they were protecting gay people, and they were not enforcing.
01:03:37.920 --> 01:03:49.255
And so when the church came out with the gay people who get married are apostates, it took care of those two problems.
01:03:49.476 --> 01:03:56.277
The first thing is it takes all authority away from the local leaders who are showing sympathy towards gay people.
01:03:56.998 --> 01:04:02.585
Because there are only a few things that as a local leader, we did not have authority over.
01:04:03.106 --> 01:04:11.599
If you sold money from the church, if you committed incest, if you committed murder, and if you were an apostate, those things had to go to Salt Lake.
01:04:12.018 --> 01:04:23.297
So by declaring them to be apostates, they've removed local control and therefore local sympathy from the local leaders and they've ship it back to Salt Lake where the hard line could be maintained.
01:04:23.998 --> 01:04:34.992
The second thing is, it's one thing that people, gay people that go to church know that they are condemned in the eyes of the church as well as God, right?
01:04:35.371 --> 01:04:39.516
But they are willing because they believe enough to accept that punishment for themselves.
01:04:39.597 --> 01:04:46.885
And usually it's because the same thing that motivated me to start going to church, they want their children to be in church.
01:04:47.329 --> 01:04:59.487
And so by the church declaring that not only is the parent of an apostate, the children are an apostate too, it took away all of the reason for those gay people to be there.
01:04:59.586 --> 01:05:03.373
We are gonna punish your children because of the way that you are.
01:05:03.452 --> 01:05:05.014
We don't do that with anybody else.
01:05:05.356 --> 01:05:07.157
We're gonna do it with gay people.
01:05:07.559 --> 01:05:07.639
And
01:05:07.679 --> 01:05:09.121
though it passes.
01:05:09.141 --> 01:05:30.538
I don't wanna interrupt you because I just want to say that I had never thought of it in those terms I have never heard a clearer and more sensible justification for punishing the children of gay people, that they're trying to take away motivation for gay people to continue to participate in the church.
01:05:30.938 --> 01:05:34.407
I had never thought of it in that way, and I think that's actually a brilliant way to look at it.
01:05:34.646 --> 01:05:35.769
So, sorry, continue to go.
01:05:36.769 --> 01:05:38.251
And so I think that that passes.
01:05:38.311 --> 01:05:39.512
That is the hard line.
01:05:39.793 --> 01:05:41.476
But as you said, it's not monolithic.
01:05:41.735 --> 01:05:49.405
I think there are people who are fighting for a more sympathetic view, and eventually those people won over, right?
01:05:49.885 --> 01:05:51.927
And we're able to reverse that policy.
01:05:53.369 --> 01:05:58.655
But that doesn't mean the church is doing the right thing.
01:05:58.777 --> 01:06:00.038
What
01:06:00.077 --> 01:06:08.190
that policy does, though, is demonstrate that the church does not really have the powers to reverse this.
01:06:09.072 --> 01:06:10.753
I mean, it was an attempt to reverse this.
01:06:10.893 --> 01:06:13.677
It was an attempt to say, okay, I'm seeing too much sympathy.
01:06:13.717 --> 01:06:16.221
We're seeing too much movement in that direction.
01:06:16.260 --> 01:06:17.382
Let's just quash it.
01:06:17.983 --> 01:06:22.027
Let's just step on it and make it go away.
01:06:22.327 --> 01:06:23.929
And we'll just issue this edict.
01:06:23.989 --> 01:06:26.713
We'll create this policy and that'll be the end of it.
01:06:27.934 --> 01:06:42.336
And not only has it not been the end of it, but it has, the fact that it had to be reversed three and a half years later I think that has to be extraordinarily embarrassing to church leaders.
01:06:43.297 --> 01:06:47.503
Yeah, because I remember them saying, lining up to say, God told us this.
01:06:47.744 --> 01:06:48.123
Right, right.
01:06:48.684 --> 01:06:55.014
It was the same thing as when, you know, they said, well, God finally told us it was okay to let blacks have the priesthood.
01:06:55.655 --> 01:07:00.121
They were lining up to say, God is telling us that the family proclamation is right.
01:07:00.521 --> 01:07:03.766
And he's telling us that this policy that they are apostates is right.
01:07:04.226 --> 01:07:04.907
And they were lining up.
01:07:05.027 --> 01:07:07.255
And then three and a half years later, they had to back down.
01:07:07.315 --> 01:07:09.161
But don't overestimate that.
01:07:09.240 --> 01:07:16.443
I think that that's because there is a fight in the highest level of the church over what that stand would be.
01:07:16.483 --> 01:07:20.380
And It wasn't pressure from within the church, I don't think.
01:07:20.521 --> 01:07:23.684
I think that, I mean, you saw the numbers right after that.
01:07:23.804 --> 01:07:25.547
The church just became vilified.
01:07:25.746 --> 01:07:27.528
People were leaving left and right.
01:07:28.150 --> 01:07:32.295
And it was an external force on the church that caused that change.
01:07:32.494 --> 01:07:36.860
It wasn't the people who stayed within that effectuated that, I don't think.
01:07:37.320 --> 01:07:50.505
President Nelson went into great detail, actually, when, you know, in 2015, when the church implemented the policy that made it difficult for children of same-sex couples to be baptized and blessed.
01:07:51.326 --> 01:08:13.516
Nelson is on record in the interview, I think I have seen that, going into great detail of the revelatory process about why that was such a significant decision, a controversial one, but they went into great detail about why, of the details, the process of why God told them to do that.
01:08:13.536 --> 01:08:16.255
And then three and a half years later, They changed the whole thing.
01:08:16.735 --> 01:08:18.077
Embarrassment is an understatement.
01:08:19.878 --> 01:08:23.362
The church is wrong on this and so many other issues as well.
01:08:23.481 --> 01:08:27.025
We talk in the other podcast, we try to walk a balance.
01:08:27.065 --> 01:08:28.747
The church has a lot of great things.
01:08:29.268 --> 01:08:29.788
We know that.
01:08:30.488 --> 01:08:42.862
But on certain things like race and the priesthood and gay rights, et cetera, and civil rights, it's either on the wrong side or it's on the right side, but is laid bare.
01:08:43.105 --> 01:08:44.287
to the length of the show.
01:08:45.430 --> 01:08:51.118
Kirk, Jim, we're coming up to the end of a podcast here.
01:08:51.640 --> 01:08:54.604
Again, I want to express our gratitude for you taking time.
01:08:54.664 --> 01:08:57.810
And I could, by the way, I've learned so much from you today.
01:08:57.850 --> 01:09:01.636
There's things that you've said that I've never seen or understood before.
01:09:01.657 --> 01:09:06.744
And Jim's highlighted one of those things as well amongst a few things.
01:09:07.426 --> 01:09:19.002
Just a couple of questions on my end, and Jim, you can add yours, and then we can just kind of wrap this up in the next probably five, maybe seven minutes or so if we can.
01:09:19.622 --> 01:09:22.166
But where are you now with your faith, Kirk?
01:09:23.268 --> 01:09:28.435
Tell us a bit about your life, and you've also got a large TikTok following.
01:09:29.636 --> 01:09:30.216
Tell us about that.
01:09:30.698 --> 01:09:30.877
Go ahead.
01:09:31.457 --> 01:09:43.590
Yeah, so when I look back at the events that changed my life, you know, we've talked about a few of those, but shortly after I left the church and I was trying to figure out, so what's going to be my moral compass going forward?
01:09:44.350 --> 01:10:02.869
I went to a pub in Arizona, Seamus's Pub, with a lesbian artist studying, getting her PhD in Russian literature, and we were just talking about life, and I was talking about, what morality do I do?
01:10:02.909 --> 01:10:04.773
What is the purpose of life?
01:10:04.832 --> 01:10:07.296
If you no longer believe in God, what is the purpose of life?
01:10:07.396 --> 01:10:09.140
And she said something that changed my life.
01:10:09.220 --> 01:10:16.912
She said, once you recognize that your existence is finite, every moment becomes precious.
01:10:17.752 --> 01:10:25.908
One of the things about believing that you're going to live forever Your family is going to be forever is any given moment isn't that important.
01:10:25.948 --> 01:10:28.212
I think that's one of the things the church takes advantage of.
01:10:28.292 --> 01:10:33.939
They demand so much time away from your family because it's OK.
01:10:33.979 --> 01:10:35.400
You're going to be with them forever.
01:10:35.440 --> 01:10:36.061
Right.
01:10:37.644 --> 01:10:44.753
When you admit or or acknowledge that, no, when you die, that's it.
01:10:45.377 --> 01:10:49.262
then every moment becomes so much more precious.
01:10:49.502 --> 01:10:51.104
There isn't an infinite number of them.
01:10:51.164 --> 01:10:51.685
This is it.
01:10:51.786 --> 01:10:58.895
And so I really began to think, what is really important with this finite amount of time that I have?
01:10:58.975 --> 01:11:11.350
And I decided that just going through the motions and doing everything that society says you should do isn't how I wanted to spend my few years here on the earth.
01:11:11.492 --> 01:11:12.832
And so I decided...
01:11:13.601 --> 01:11:21.109
I'm going to start from scratch and I'm going to reevaluate everything that I know about what is purposeful and what is meaningful.
01:11:21.149 --> 01:11:37.503
And I decided I was going to drop out of the rat race of consumerism that, you know, I think most people are engaged in where they're selling their time to buy more and more stuff so that they, hoping that that's going to make them happy and give them meaning and really is taking them farther from what does.
01:11:37.604 --> 01:11:43.090
And I decided I was going to simplify my life down to just a couple of core values.
01:11:43.778 --> 01:12:06.720
drop out of the rat race quit spending money and go do what i think is really important so i i uh i dropped out and i moved down to honduras and now i live a very simple life on the beach i have three core values that are important to me the first one is creativity um i i try and create as an artist.
01:12:07.122 --> 01:12:08.885
And the second is I try and do good.
01:12:09.326 --> 01:12:13.474
I'm involved in a lot of humanitarian and environmental issues here.
01:12:13.493 --> 01:12:15.658
And the last is to experience.
01:12:15.757 --> 01:12:19.243
I think that the universe experiences itself through us.
01:12:19.524 --> 01:12:24.654
And so every year I take two big adventures and I go off and I do it.
01:12:24.694 --> 01:12:40.422
I just got back from hiking 400 kilometers across Turkey, Last fall, I was diving in the Pacific on the atomic fleet, which are shipwrecks that were blown up by an atomic bomb by the US at Bikini Atoll and sunk.
01:12:41.224 --> 01:12:46.551
And so I do something like that twice a year to experience what's really out there.
01:12:47.112 --> 01:12:48.734
So that's where I am now.
01:12:48.795 --> 01:12:54.082
And it goes back to that realization that every moment is precious.
01:12:54.103 --> 01:12:57.587
So I'm sure as hell going to spend every moment trying to make the most of it.
01:12:59.234 --> 01:13:02.597
You mentioned the videos, the social media.
01:13:02.938 --> 01:13:06.681
Our island here has 4,000 people on it.
01:13:06.801 --> 01:13:10.666
It's so small that we don't have any cars, but we have some medical clinics.
01:13:11.046 --> 01:13:20.817
When I went there, it was right after COVID, and the nurses here were making half of what they normally do, even though they were working all the time because the Honduran government couldn't afford to pay them.
01:13:22.139 --> 01:13:24.640
One of the nurses there, I'm like, what can we do to help?
01:13:24.841 --> 01:13:30.362
She said, told the story about this mother who brought in her daughter who was having seizures.
01:13:31.543 --> 01:13:33.606
And they thought at first it was epilepsy.
01:13:33.686 --> 01:13:42.000
And then they realized, no, she was just dehydrated because she had had a terrible fever for a week.
01:13:43.002 --> 01:13:44.944
And the doctor says, you need to get her Tylenol.
01:13:44.984 --> 01:13:46.266
We need to get that fever down.
01:13:46.327 --> 01:13:49.972
And the mother took the daughter and was leaving because she couldn't afford Tylenol.
01:13:50.493 --> 01:13:52.497
Tylenol here on our island costs$18.
01:13:53.569 --> 01:13:55.313
the average person makes 12.
01:13:55.813 --> 01:13:58.797
So it's a day and a half work to get children's Tylenol.
01:13:58.898 --> 01:14:06.609
So the nurse, out of the little bit of money that she had, she was making half what she normally does, went out and bought the Tylenol and gave it to that child.
01:14:07.329 --> 01:14:12.537
And I vowed that as long as I was here, I was never going to happen again.
01:14:12.578 --> 01:14:24.421
So I decided that if at first I was just buying the medicine myself and then I got on Facebook and I was like, if you, if you want, you can donate to me and I'll take the medicine down.
01:14:24.440 --> 01:14:38.604
And then I, one day I just thought, you know, what if I got on TikTok and, and I started to tell people out the island, I got them to love the island so much that they would go to an Amazon wishlist and they would just buy it on their Amazon wishlist.
01:14:39.225 --> 01:14:41.670
And then I would arrange for it to be brought down.
01:14:42.210 --> 01:14:44.752
And so we started that three years ago.
01:14:44.792 --> 01:14:47.115
We bring down hundreds of pounds of medicine every month.
01:14:48.018 --> 01:14:54.305
My last big call that I came out asking people to do it, there were trucks.
01:14:54.605 --> 01:14:58.331
Amazon had to send trucks full of just donations.
01:14:58.390 --> 01:15:06.462
We had over a thousand packages delivered to my friend's house, over$70,000 in donations by these people that now follow Amazon.
01:15:06.753 --> 01:15:09.938
The Vagabond Artist, that's what I go by, Vagabond Artist.
01:15:10.319 --> 01:15:23.737
And so what started out as this social media thing to get people to love our island enough to donate has now turned into this, you know, 1.5 million followers across TikTok and Instagram.
01:15:24.256 --> 01:15:27.322
All of these people donating, all these people doing the right thing.
01:15:27.902 --> 01:15:30.345
And so it's really been an amazing experience.
01:15:31.521 --> 01:15:33.283
So you can see them if you want to join.
01:15:33.385 --> 01:15:35.587
You can go to TikTok, I'm Vagabond Artist.
01:15:35.948 --> 01:15:41.215
And if you go to my link tree, you will find the Utila Medical Clinic Amazon wishlist.
01:15:41.354 --> 01:15:44.219
You can just purchase everything there.
01:15:44.238 --> 01:15:50.868
And then it shows up in Phoenix, Arizona, and we bring it down every month.
01:15:50.988 --> 01:15:54.212
And peoples that are visiting in their bags, they just bring it down.
01:15:54.332 --> 01:15:55.994
So zero cost.
01:15:57.778 --> 01:16:00.721
We kind of hacked humanitarian aid, right?
01:16:01.634 --> 01:16:04.497
Erica, I think that's amazing.
01:16:04.917 --> 01:16:12.006
You know, you're not in the church, but you've found, you know, people in the church think, some people think that there's no life after church.
01:16:12.967 --> 01:16:16.813
Clearly, you know, my life is wonderful.
01:16:16.853 --> 01:16:19.376
Your life is wonderful and extraordinary.
01:16:19.395 --> 01:16:21.559
And you're doing so much good.
01:16:21.979 --> 01:16:23.761
And there is life after church.
01:16:24.422 --> 01:16:38.234
And it's wonderful that you found your place place of mind and a place of heart and a physical place that you can live your, you know, live what's important to your values.
01:16:40.257 --> 01:16:47.048
Before we close our podcast, Jim, do you have any thoughts or comments, final thoughts from your end?
01:16:47.309 --> 01:16:50.194
I just don't want to close this podcast.
01:16:50.694 --> 01:16:50.954
No.
01:16:50.975 --> 01:16:51.775
I could go on.
01:16:51.796 --> 01:17:07.207
I mean, the insights that you provided here, Kirk, are going to leave me I'm going to be thinking about them and wrestling with them for a very long time after this podcast concludes.
01:17:07.226 --> 01:17:14.858
I would love to continue this discussion for hours on end.
01:17:14.898 --> 01:17:19.225
Ian, if Kirk's willing, I would love to have him back.
01:17:20.305 --> 01:17:25.373
We've had some guests back, but I want Kirk back.
01:17:25.921 --> 01:17:37.715
I want maybe a, uh, an annual checkup at least, uh, to hear where you're going because, because I just think your insights here, your experience here are just so extraordinary.
01:17:39.076 --> 01:17:53.652
And, uh, you are so clearly a man of compassion and a man of integrity and, and what you are doing is, is just so inspirational to me that I want to be able to, to continue this and to be able to extend this.
01:17:53.692 --> 01:17:59.689
So, um, I just can't thank you enough for coming on and for having this conversation with us.
01:17:59.769 --> 01:18:02.353
And I hope you'll consider coming back.
01:18:02.372 --> 01:18:04.256
I have
01:18:04.337 --> 01:18:04.596
loved it.
01:18:04.778 --> 01:18:05.798
And thank you so much.
01:18:05.899 --> 01:18:10.346
And yeah, I'm on an island where when it gets dark, there's nothing to do anyway.
01:18:10.448 --> 01:18:11.810
So yeah, I'll talk to you guys.
01:18:12.331 --> 01:18:14.373
Yeah, perhaps when we meet again, it should be.
01:18:15.015 --> 01:18:15.376
Thank you.
01:18:15.856 --> 01:18:17.739
It should be in Honduras.
01:18:17.801 --> 01:18:18.561
We should go down there.
01:18:19.202 --> 01:18:19.882
Come
01:18:19.922 --> 01:18:20.283
down.
01:18:20.323 --> 01:18:22.686
We'll do a YouTube
01:18:22.707 --> 01:18:22.886
video.
01:18:23.027 --> 01:18:24.569
Live on the beach.
01:18:25.050 --> 01:18:27.974
Donate so we could get the ticket to go down.
01:18:29.295 --> 01:18:33.039
This is one of the most amazing conversations I've ever had, Cecilia.
01:18:33.119 --> 01:18:34.141
I've learned so much.
01:18:34.221 --> 01:18:39.948
There's things that I've, you know, you have these conversations on the podcast and you learn things from time to time.
01:18:39.989 --> 01:18:43.854
This has been one of the most impactful for me.
01:18:43.914 --> 01:18:46.398
There's things that you've said that I never saw happening.
01:18:46.689 --> 01:18:47.992
before, so thank you for that.
01:18:48.412 --> 01:18:50.975
I know our listeners will be very grateful for this conversation.
01:18:51.497 --> 01:19:04.935
Before we close, Kirk, if this podcast was being listened to by the First Presidency and the Apostles or leaders, and I like to think some of the general authorities have listened to some of our podcasts.
01:19:05.756 --> 01:19:10.423
In fact, I've been told that our podcast is known to some of the church leaders.
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What message would you give to the First Presidency?
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With all your experience, insights, the success, the pain that you've gone through, the experience that you've seen with people, what message would you give to the first presence in regards to the direction you should take on some of the items that we talked about or many other issues that you want to mention here?
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Wow, that's a big question.
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I think the thing that I would say to them is you're sitting on...
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an incredible amount of wealth.
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You have the chance to not do spiritual change only, but to make real change in people's lives that will last for generations.
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Spend it.
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You change those lives.
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Kirk, thank you so much for being with us today.
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So grateful to you.
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We want to thank our listeners who are wonderful listeners and grateful for the opportunity to be able to connect to our listeners and help as many lives as we can.
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We know your experience here, this experience here will change a lot of lives.
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Kirk, we're grateful to you.
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We love you.
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Express our love to you and your family.
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So thank you again for taking time to come on.
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And Jim, thank you again for your wonderful insights.
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Kirk, thank you.
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Jim, thank you.
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Thank you.
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It's been an honor to talk to you guys.
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Thank you both.
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And I am just amazed that, I guess, 35 years later, we're still friends and still having these amazing discussions that we started when we were just kids.
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This is a lifelong relationship that we will add another milestone to that relationship when we're in Honduras with you in a few months, maybe.
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That would be fantastic.
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Okay.
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Thank you, Kirk.
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Thank you, Jim.
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Thank you bye.