A Changing Church, and a Changed Conference Talk

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Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out, the podcast that takes a pragmatic and balanced look at the Mormon church and faith.
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We consider all the good the church does, and yes, we look at some of the problems and issues with the church.
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and discuss ways in which the church can change and improve.
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As always, I'm here with my partner, the principal, Mr.
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Jim Bennett.
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Principal!
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That's a good one.
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We always try to come up with some fun adjective.
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That's one for
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the ages.
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I'll take it.
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Absolutely, yeah.
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I thought it was very appropriate.
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I was looking at just some ideas of one-word descriptions that we could describe each other and...
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That was definitely one that stood out of you from my perspective, at least.
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I think you're a very principled individual.
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And, Jim, today we've got a very interesting and actually a great episode for our listeners and one that I wanted to do, as you know, for quite some time.
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A little bit of context.
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Years ago, when Elder Ballard was addressing some issues criticisms or concerns around the various or the different versions of the first vision of Joseph Smith and addressing some of those criticisms, he said this, and I think this is important background to our podcast here.
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We would have to say as apostles who have covered the world and know the history of the church and know the integrity of the first presidency in the column of 12 from the beginning, There has been no attempt on the part of the church leaders to try to hide anything from anyone.
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Thanks to the Joseph Smith Papers Project for learning more about the prophet Joseph Smith.
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It's wonderful we are.
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Elder Ballard goes on to say, just trust us.
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Wherever you are in the world and you share this message, and you share this message with anyone else who raises the question about the church not being transparent, we're as transparent as we know how to be in telling the truth.
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We have to do that.
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That's the Lord's way.
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So putting that to the test, if we can, there is an interesting talk that was delivered by Elder Polman, if I pronounce his name correctly.
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And Elder Polman gave an address at a general conference on the 7th of October, 1984.
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He was a member of the Quorum of Seventy, and he delivered...
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This extraordinary address, the title of this talk was The Gospel and the Church.
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And in my view, it's one of the most significant talks ever given in the history of the church, in my opinion.
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And yet the church went to great lengths to edit the original talk and has only provided an official account of the edited version on the church website.
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And to the best of my abilities, I can't find the original text on any church platform.
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So what we have is the second edited version of Elder Ullman's talk.
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And so why was that talk so significant?
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And why did the church talk go to great lengths to edit that?
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And what did they do to change that and to edit that?
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So I think...
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I think the message in the talk, where the central theme or construct of the talk is the relationship or distinction.
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In the original talk, he used the word distinction.
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I think the second one is relationship.
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We can get into the specifics here.
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I think the specifics are important.
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He draws the distinction between the church and the gospel.
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And the principle that the more you live the gospel, the less you need the church.
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And so when I heard that talk, and I do want to quote some of his original take, because I think it's extremely important, very valuable.
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I can see why the church went to great lengths.
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If you remember years ago in 2016, you and I and other missionaries and companions of ours, we attended a reunion with President Banks in 2016 in Salt Lake, I think 2016.
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It was a wonderful experience.
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There were many missions that you and I served with that came from all over the world.
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And it was just wonderful to have that reunion.
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And I think, actually, I think it was that same weekend.
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I think we met in the building, the stake building at the time.
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And I think the day after, we then met with President Banks and his family at his home.
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But at the meeting, the formal part of the reunion, if I'm not mistaken, President Banks talked about his relationship with Elder Packer.
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And what I got from that is that Elder Packer had played a very significant role in President Banks's life in training, in some way, President Banks to be a general authority, to be a great leader in the church.
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President Banks had this relationship with Elder Packer.
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And my impression was that the two were quite close, insomuch that President Banks had visited Elder Packer during his time in hospital.
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And if there's any part of this that I've got wrong, please correct me, because I want to make sure that the information is correct.
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But President Banks went on to say that Elder Packer had mentioned or advised to him at some point prior to his departure from this earth that perhaps the church has gone too far on some of the programs.
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and needed to return to some of the basic principles of the gospel.
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Now, I think you were in the room at the time when President Banks shared that experience.
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It's going back a few years.
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And I thought that was fascinating and interesting that he would share that with us.
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Have I got my information correct there?
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Is any part of that that is a little bit off or even completely inaccurate?
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No, I think all of that is accurate.
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I know that President Banks on several occasions talked about sort of the mentor relationship that Elder Packer had with him.
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So yeah, that is all consistent in the idea that the church had gone too far with some programs.
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My father used to say that Elder Packer behind the scenes was very opposed to the scouting program, for instance.
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that he thought that that had nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And it's just really interesting that that dynamic was percolating behind the scenes.
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Yeah, I thought it was a fascinating thing to say.
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And it's something that I have, when I was active in the church, wrestled all the time about having too many programs, being too prescriptive.
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You know, the Doctrine and Covenants says very clearly that it's not good that man is commanded in all things.
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Right, right.
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did that accurately, and I think that's right.
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I think it's a good principle.
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Josephus talked about teaching correct principles and letting people go with themselves, and there's extensive material direction and talks given on the principle of free agency.
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We get taught information, good things, and we then decide how to implement those principles in a life with a level of free agency.
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And I think what's striking with Elder Polman's talk is that he was talking about that very thing, the relationship between the church and the gospel being somewhat different and significant.
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And I want to quote him because Elder Polman gave this talk in 1985, I think it was.
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That was 84.
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84, I apologize, 84.
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And he gave it, again, during a general conference.
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And he said some very striking things which really concerned the apostles and leaders at the time to the point where they went to great lengths to edit it.
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But let's just get into some of the things that he actually said here, the original portion of the original version of the talk.
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Elder Paul says both the gospel of Jesus Christ and the church of Jesus Christ are true and divine.
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However, there is a distinction between them.
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which is significant and it is very important that this distinction be understood.
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Of equal importance is understanding the essential relationship between the gospel and the church.
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Failure to distinguish between the two and to comprehend that proper relationship may lead to confusion and misplace priorities with unrealistic and therefore failed expectations.
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The edited version, which we'll get into shortly, what happened and how the church edited that, gives quite a different perspective version of that.
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He goes on to say, as individuals and collectively we increase our knowledge, acceptance, and application of the gospel principles, we become less dependent on church programs.
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Our lives become gospel-centered.
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And I thought that was...
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I wasn't there at the conference.
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I don't remember that talk being given.
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If I was, it wouldn't have stood out to me.
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It was I would have been 18 years old here, and I think I would have missed that back then.
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But I think that's one of the most important principles and teachings that any leader of the church could give, to draw that distinction between the church and the gospel.
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And that when we live the gospel, and what do we mean by that?
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Love, kindness, forgiveness, understanding, patience, long-suffering.
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All the principles that Christ taught and was and exemplified in reality, serving, visiting people in their homes as he did, in the streets, in the countryside there, and extending his love and his blessings to all and everyone that would be interested in receiving, that's the gospel in my mind.
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don't have to be told to serve.
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You don't have to tick a box or fill out a home teaching or ministry that you visited so-and-so or tick this or tick that.
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You serve because you love.
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You serve because you want to.
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You serve because there is a goodness in you that wants to help and improve the lives of others.
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It's that Christ, that love that motivates the individual to serve.
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And we don't need a program, essentially, or a something prescriptive to tell us or show us how to do that.
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Just to qualify that, I think it's important that the church does have some programs and some basic processes.
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Elder Polman talks about the church being the delivery system.
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They took that out, by the way.
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The church leaders didn't like that.
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I listened to the talk yesterday.
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But he was right in that the church is the...
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the mechanism, the delivery system in which we can serve.
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You know, it brings people together.
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I think it's important to have some basic structure, some basic processes.
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We need to organize ourselves in terms of how we're serving to become efficient and effective.
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I think the effectiveness is in the love and the principles of, you know, those universal principles.
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But we can become efficient in terms of how we reach more people quickly.
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So I think there's some value to having some basic programs you know basic systems and basic processes but that you know but that's it in my mind i think that's all you need just the basics the fundamentals and then and then living and practicing the gospel um you know within those basic uh programs and and i found i think the the intent of elder paulman was was to to draw that distinction And to have members, remind members, really, it's the gospel that's the most important thing that we should be focusing on.
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And the church is there simply to help you live the gospel and to reach out to others.
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You've read and listened to the talk, the original text.
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What conclusions do you come to, Jim?
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What's your interpretation of what Elder Polman, what his intent was, what he was trying to do with that original talk?
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Well, are you saying what was his intent with the original talk, or what was the intent of the church when they altered the talk?
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The former, first.
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The former?
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Well, I think you framed it very well.
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I mean, he makes that distinction between the gospel and the church, and it's a distinction that I think a lot of members make individually, and that I think the church, as evidenced by the editing—and I guess I'm jumping ahead here— But it's a distinction that the church is not comfortable with and sees as a problem because we have seen in recent days evidence that leaders of the church want us to think of the church as the gospel, that they are essentially the same thing.
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Elder Kevin Hamilton of the Utah Area Presidency gave a talk a little while back where he talked about people complaining about things that the church does.
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And he said, when you hear the word church, substitute the Savior.
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So when you say, I don't like when the church does this, frame it as, I don't like it when the Savior does this.
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That we're supposed to see the church and the Savior as identical things.
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And Elder Pullman, very clearly in the original talk, draws that distinction.
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And as you pointed out, they changed the word from distinction to relationship, because I think he was right the first time, but it's not something that the leadership of the church is comfortable saying or admitting.
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Would you agree with that?
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I
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totally would agree with that.
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And so...
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I think his first talk was genuine, sincere.
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I think he absolutely, in my opinion, he absolutely believed what he was saying at the first talk.
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And I just don't buy that the second version that he allegedly said he wanted to change it to under his direction, his recommendation.
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I just...
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don't buy that i think he went with his first talk for all the right and all the good reasons and i have enormous respect for him and i can imagine um the pressure he he probably felt from the reaction from some of the apostles in getting into that um and so you know i have to re-deliver that address and i i don't know jim if that was a time or rather i i would I think, I believe at the time that the talks that were delivered at conference back in 84 may not have been vetted before the talks were delivered.
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And I heard from a couple of people I know that following Eleanor Palmer's talk, they decided to implement a process or a step where the talks that were being prepared for conference, that they had to be checked and vetted by a committee under the direction of the First Presidency.
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And I think this is what I'm hearing from my research here, that the Correlation Committee, as it was at that time, and organized and structured at that particular time, began implementing a policy of checking General Authority's talks prior to delivering them at conference.
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That wouldn't surprise me.
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And I think today, the talks are vetted and checked before they go out.
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And I've even heard that some of the talks are written not by the apostles, there are sections in the talks, not written by them.
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Yes, they're reviewed by the apostle or general authority, but there are sections in there which they don't write.
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I don't know how accurate that is.
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I don't know if you've heard anything of that.
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But I do believe, and I'm told by reliable sources, that each talk is checked and vetted to make sure it correlates with the narrative, staying within the safe lanes of the narrative of the church.
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Do you have any comments or thoughts on that?
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Well, when you say that you know that some of the talks are not written by the apostles, I know people who have served on the personal staffs of general authorities, and part of their assignment has been to write addresses, sometimes for conference, but other times, more often, to sort of adapt addresses that the apostles had written for conference for other settings.
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I mean, these men speak at so many different times, and every weekend they're out speaking.
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And so this one guy that I'm thinking of, he worked for Elder Ballard, and he wrote some of Elder Ballard's conference talks under Elder Ballard's direction, but...
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Writing and speaking are not necessarily the forte of these general authorities.
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Most of them have background in business or law, and I think they're called because of their organizational skills, not necessarily because they are commanding and charismatic speakers.
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But I know when I first heard that, this was 30 years ago, I found it disturbing to know that apostles were giving talks that they hadn't written.
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Now, that bothers me less and less as time goes by, as I have a better understanding of how sort of that process works.
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But yeah, very often I think, and I think that I don't know if Elder Pullman's talk was the catalyst for this, but I think the amount of vetting that takes place now is significantly higher than it was in times past.
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And I think you saw that in this last conference where pretty much every talk was about covenants and the temple and the covenant path.
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And there was such a strong thematic consistency between all of the talks that you really got the sense that that was deliberate and that that came through some kind of formal vetting process
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yeah i i agree you know these are very smart people they've over the years if you pinpoint or you were to trace uh or track any of the major issues of the church or any issues it go it and goes back to something that someone did or said that wasn't within the lane, that they spoke out of the narrative, outside of the policy, outside of the principle, expressing an opinion.
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And people obviously hear that and they video it and record it.
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And then there's questions and concerns.
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So, yeah, I think the conference increasingly, the talks are heavily vetted.
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I personally, to your point, I think this would have bothered me many years ago.
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It doesn't so much now.
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Learning or knowing that the talks are written by others or edited, I have no problem with that, believe it or not.
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My concern is as long as it's being honest and positive, constructive, and if someone is in the background writing it, I mean, this happens with politicians all the time.
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You know, some President Reagan's talks were written by others.
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You know, Prime Minister's talks or comments are written by others.
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And I'm okay with that as long as those important principles are being taught.
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I have no problem with that.
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With all of Palmer's talk, I think it was a game changer.
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I think it was very significant.
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Apparently, the church leadership's concern with all of Palmer's talk from my research here was how fundamentalists would interpret the talk.
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I don't know how they arrived at that or they were concerned that fundamentalists' claims that they were appearing to be two churches instead of one church or two different focuses, and that the fundamentalists and the polygamists might use that to attack the church.
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That's from some of my research that I've got here.
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I think they were concerned that Elder Palmer's talk would feed into those fundamentalists and polygamists, which is interesting.
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I don't see the connection there, but I think they were more concerned with people who were anti-Mormon or apostates, that would jump all over his talk and claim that we don't need the church programs.
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We can live and do what we want within the church.
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Just some other research.
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The apostles, I think one of the spokespeople of the church, someone called Stack, wrote, apostles who regularly deal with Mormon apostate groups pointed out that Elder Polman, that Israel Marx might be misinterpreted.
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And Brother Polman's brother, Stuart, is quoted as saying that Raoul Polman was concerned Israel Marx would be used by Mormon apostate groups.
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And so I don't, maybe I'm missing the connection there, but I think the biggest reason for the church's concern, the reason why they edited it, and I want to get into that in this conversation, was they, in my opinion, they want to have control and they want to regulate the lives of church members.
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And to do that, you need church programs.
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You need systems.
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You need processes.
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You need checkboxes.
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You know, paying a tithing, going to the temple, you doing ministry, et cetera.
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It's like the life on the mission.
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You had to tick all these boxes every night, every week.
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When you get up in the morning, when you go to bed, what we wear, what we think, et cetera, et cetera.
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And the church exerts a level of control through those systems, through those processes, through those mechanisms, and has to maintain that control and that regulation on the church member in order to keep the rank and file in line.
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I know I'm being a little bit...
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one-sided here, perhaps.
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That's my interpretation of the talk.
00:24:21.337 --> 00:24:43.942
And any notion or thought or concept that members don't need these programs or processes or systems or tools, et cetera, and only need them in a very basic format, and then you live the gospel however you want, provides less control for the church and less grip.
00:24:44.226 --> 00:24:47.750
if you like, on the rank and file member, not more.
00:24:47.910 --> 00:24:52.476
And I think that's what was a major concern.
00:24:52.516 --> 00:24:56.800
They probably were concerned about fundamentalists and polygamists, perhaps.
00:24:56.881 --> 00:24:58.482
I still don't see the connection.
00:24:58.502 --> 00:25:02.949
I can see why they'd be concerned, why apostates might seize upon this.
00:25:03.670 --> 00:25:29.993
But the point that I, in trying to understand all of this, is that If you don't need the programs and the processes, is the message from the church that, or if you say you don't need them or don't need these tools, if you come up and said that, are you in fact an apostate, even though you might be living the gospel more effectively, more efficiently, might be a better person because you live in the gospel, you don't need all these programs.
00:25:30.654 --> 00:25:33.919
And does that, is that characterized by the church?
00:25:33.939 --> 00:25:35.721
Because you're not living all the different programs.
00:25:36.261 --> 00:25:38.986
Is that characterized as an apostate?
00:25:39.586 --> 00:25:41.667
And that's worrying if that's what the church thinks.
00:25:42.009 --> 00:25:53.321
But I think the church was deeply concerned that Elder Palmer's talk would deliver a message that, look, we don't need these processes and systems, these tools, et cetera, because that's actually not the gospel.
00:25:53.362 --> 00:25:55.023
The gospel is this and not that.
00:25:55.624 --> 00:26:02.571
And therefore, the church has less control or influence on the church members.
00:26:02.893 --> 00:26:07.198
Am I being too negative there, too skeptical, or am I?
00:26:07.490 --> 00:26:08.431
Does that resonate with you?
00:26:08.991 --> 00:26:10.554
No, I think that's absolutely right.
00:26:10.874 --> 00:26:26.114
I'm trying to figure out what the concern with the fundamentalists would be, and the idea, for instance, that the gospel exists independent of the church, and that it can be lived independent of the church.
00:26:27.154 --> 00:26:41.301
I can imagine a scenario where a member of the fundamentalist LDS church might look at that and say, well, see, So you can live the gospel however you want, and we're just the apparatus that helps you live it.
00:26:42.323 --> 00:26:44.226
And so that's okay.
00:26:44.306 --> 00:26:46.809
And so I can see that there might be a concern there.
00:26:46.829 --> 00:26:58.948
I don't think that that would be an intense enough concern to merit what the church did with Elder Pullman's talk.
00:26:59.008 --> 00:27:06.970
And I'm not sure if we've explicitly said this yet, but Elder Poland was actually taken back to the tabernacle.
00:27:07.009 --> 00:27:08.832
This was before the conference center was built.
00:27:09.252 --> 00:27:20.465
Taken back to the tabernacle, portions of his talk were refilled, and they added what they called a cough track, so it sounded like there was an audience.
00:27:20.605 --> 00:27:23.729
And they went and they edited the talk.
00:27:23.849 --> 00:27:28.775
I mean, there have been many talks that have been edited after they've been given.
00:27:29.455 --> 00:27:38.491
In other words, if you go to the to the written record of the talk, it's different from what was presented in conference.
00:27:38.652 --> 00:27:55.857
And I think probably the most recent that is the most controversial was Elder Packer's 2010 talk, where he made some incendiary remarks about homosexuality, that nobody is born gay, why would Heavenly Father do that to anyone?
00:27:55.897 --> 00:27:56.720
We've talked about that.
00:27:57.461 --> 00:28:04.150
But if you go to the church's website and you watch The talk, the original talk is still there.
00:28:04.671 --> 00:28:07.815
You can still hear Elder Packer say what he said in conference.
00:28:08.395 --> 00:28:11.721
But if you read the written record of it, it has been edited.
00:28:11.821 --> 00:28:12.962
It has been softened.
00:28:13.964 --> 00:28:17.250
But in 1984, they thought they could get away.
00:28:17.289 --> 00:28:27.724
And it's ironic, you know, 1984 being the Orwellian novel about a dystopia where they control information and they flush things down the memory hole.
00:28:28.385 --> 00:28:32.791
That's exactly what they tried to do with Elder Pullman's original talk.
00:28:33.933 --> 00:28:40.942
And I remember talking to my father about it after the fact.
00:28:40.962 --> 00:28:42.424
I didn't know it had happened.
00:28:43.046 --> 00:28:44.407
I wasn't paying any attention.
00:28:44.428 --> 00:28:46.069
I was 16 years old.
00:28:46.109 --> 00:28:47.071
It didn't matter to me.
00:28:48.393 --> 00:28:50.757
But I said, well, why would they do this?
00:28:50.817 --> 00:28:54.442
And he said, well, I think some people got a little overeager and they look a little foolish.
00:28:55.329 --> 00:28:59.756
He just kind of wrote it off as this was kind of a goofy, dumb mistake.
00:29:00.696 --> 00:29:05.523
But I think it's significant because it was dishonest.
00:29:05.564 --> 00:29:07.286
There's really no argument about it.
00:29:08.268 --> 00:29:20.924
And I think that the crux of it that was so alarming to church leaders was not necessarily that the polygamists were going to seize on it.
00:29:21.085 --> 00:29:24.450
It was that the general membership of the church...
00:29:25.634 --> 00:29:32.200
might seize on it in a way to live the gospel without attaching themselves to the church.
00:29:32.540 --> 00:29:40.808
And we saw this happen in 2020, in 2021, when the church shut down for COVID.
00:29:42.049 --> 00:29:57.851
And I remember having conversations with some church leaders saying, we need to get people back to church as soon as possible because they were worried that they might enjoy the home church more.
00:29:57.891 --> 00:30:00.494
And a lot of people did.
00:30:00.535 --> 00:30:19.684
You know, when the church shut down for COVID, all of a sudden people found themselves being able to take the sacrament in their own homes, at their own schedule, at their own pace, and to have meetings and teachings with their own family, according to their own structure.
00:30:19.704 --> 00:30:30.605
I mean, they suddenly had a spiritual autonomy that the church, at least as evidenced by Elder Pullman's talk, the church didn't want them to have.
00:30:30.625 --> 00:30:33.867
The church didn't want them to recognize, you know what?
00:30:34.628 --> 00:30:41.076
A lot of the programs that you spend all of your time on in the church, they really don't matter that much.
00:30:41.796 --> 00:30:45.440
What matters is you take the sacrament and you live the gospel.
00:30:45.660 --> 00:30:51.185
I mean, there are still elements that were sort of distilled down to their essence.
00:30:52.385 --> 00:31:00.276
You know, I found it very spiritually uplifting to take the sacrament in my own home with my own family.
00:31:01.356 --> 00:31:06.303
And I did prefer it to the kinds of, you know, big church meetings.
00:31:06.843 --> 00:31:10.867
Going back to church for me after COVID was a bit of a shock.
00:31:11.128 --> 00:31:12.609
It was a bit of, oh, really?
00:31:12.630 --> 00:31:13.872
This again?
00:31:13.892 --> 00:31:21.821
We have to do all of this and the rigmarole and the boring speakers and the boring lessons and all of this kind of thing.
00:31:22.273 --> 00:31:35.015
And so I think way back in 84, which is 40 years before COVID, or almost 40 years before COVID, we didn't have that kind of lived experience.
00:31:35.075 --> 00:31:39.761
But I think that reaction was what the Brethren were afraid of.
00:31:40.604 --> 00:31:49.438
That they were afraid that people would all of a sudden go, oh, wait, you mean I really don't need to attend every stinking meeting ever?
00:31:49.761 --> 00:32:00.839
of every stinking auxiliary and go to every scout, you know, camp out, and every this, that, and the other, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is simpler than that?
00:32:01.961 --> 00:32:02.242
Really?
00:32:02.262 --> 00:32:03.163
Huh.
00:32:03.884 --> 00:32:08.753
Maybe I'm going to make some decisions that are going to make the church a little less important in my life.
00:32:09.334 --> 00:32:12.980
And I think that was terrifying to them then.
00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:16.145
I think it's even more terrifying to them now.
00:32:16.865 --> 00:32:18.446
Yeah, absolutely.
00:32:18.468 --> 00:32:21.230
And remember, 84, as you know, this is before the Internet.
00:32:21.951 --> 00:32:22.090
Yeah.
00:32:22.431 --> 00:32:25.294
A good 10 years before the emergence of the Internet.
00:32:27.215 --> 00:32:38.125
If you compare the two talks, and there are some YouTube videos out there and websites that actually compare the two very, in my view, very significant differences in terms of the text.
00:32:38.807 --> 00:32:45.413
But between the two texts, rather if you go back to the original talk, free agency...
00:32:46.594 --> 00:32:59.394
clearly was a concern to the Brethren to the point where the original talk referenced agency three times and two were removed and the third modified in the second edition.
00:33:00.076 --> 00:33:06.385
So clearly they were concerned about the reference of the misinterpretation about the agency.
00:33:06.405 --> 00:33:10.071
And then Fairmormon tries to address this.
00:33:10.113 --> 00:33:18.320
There's a whole page on this on Fairmormon which I have some problems with, frankly, in terms of the tone and how they're trying to address it.
00:33:18.381 --> 00:33:21.326
They say, look, it wasn't a problem.
00:33:21.946 --> 00:33:24.290
It was his idea to change it, et cetera, et cetera.
00:33:24.330 --> 00:33:36.892
And they're trying to make light of the fact that the church took him back, I think, within a few days, within two or three days, and back into the conference center, physically back into the conference center.
00:33:37.133 --> 00:33:37.874
The tabernacle.
00:33:38.134 --> 00:33:40.097
The tabernacle, sorry, at the time.
00:33:40.834 --> 00:33:42.616
before the conference center was built, wasn't it?
00:33:43.298 --> 00:33:47.483
So at the tabernacle at the time, and then had this cough track device.
00:33:48.065 --> 00:33:49.307
And he kind of talked about this.
00:33:49.346 --> 00:34:01.183
He said, here, clearly on the Fairmont website, clearly producing an updated version, in brackets, a version of a talk that had already been recorded, posed some problems.
00:34:01.684 --> 00:34:07.894
For one, a recording with no background noise would stand out in contrast to all of the other talks with no modification.
00:34:08.695 --> 00:34:16.483
In addition, there was likely desire not to deceive, but to give authenticity to the presentation so as to not distract from its actual message.
00:34:17.023 --> 00:34:34.780
So there's a whole section on, they talk about it being, say, well, perhaps, they always use this word perhaps, again, the smart people, well, perhaps an unwise decision in hindsight, the intent was simply to let the core of the message be the focus, not the distraction of the delivery because of the changes.
00:34:35.221 --> 00:34:44.666
And my point is that, look, if you want the core message to be the focus, print onto the church website the actual original text.
00:34:44.806 --> 00:34:45.527
I can't find it.
00:34:45.847 --> 00:34:46.306
It's not there.
00:34:47.228 --> 00:34:59.760
The second edition is on the church website, and there's a link for a fair moment to the edited second edition, which I've said earlier is a significant change, quite a bit of a change, actually, between the two editions.
00:35:00.340 --> 00:35:04.905
Why don't they publish the original message?
00:35:04.925 --> 00:35:07.728
Well, I think we've addressed that here.
00:35:08.188 --> 00:35:14.682
They're very concerned about seemingly too much agency for the church is a problem.
00:35:15.844 --> 00:35:27.237
So there's some interesting comments, remarks from Fairmormon on there to give our listeners the inside position, if you like, the thinking.
00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:43.266
But it's difficult not to see the church intent was to remove this and to to address this issue around, you know, too much free agency is a bad thing.
00:35:43.306 --> 00:35:45.208
And it's just another reminder.
00:35:45.309 --> 00:36:02.425
It is also, as I said at the very beginning, in my mind, it's an attempt, you know, by not publishing the original version, it is a material example that the church has or is trying to cover something up.
00:36:02.525 --> 00:36:05.568
They don't want you to read the original text.
00:36:05.648 --> 00:36:07.150
Even today, I just can't find it.
00:36:08.034 --> 00:36:10.376
And so, you know, why not be...
00:36:11.577 --> 00:36:13.860
Elder Ballard talks about transparency.
00:36:14.081 --> 00:36:16.463
I think I quoted him at the very beginning of the podcast.
00:36:17.125 --> 00:36:22.030
He talks about being transparent and being honest in the only way that he knows.
00:36:22.150 --> 00:36:24.875
Well, let's publish the talk.
00:36:24.914 --> 00:36:26.536
Let's get it onto the church website.
00:36:27.177 --> 00:36:27.858
Let people read it.
00:36:27.898 --> 00:36:29.019
Let's be open about it.
00:36:29.860 --> 00:36:41.219
And if there is a concern about programs and systems, why can't we have a healthy grown-up adult conversation about Too many programs, too many processes, too many tools.
00:36:41.759 --> 00:36:43.742
Elder Packer had concerns over that.
00:36:44.744 --> 00:36:46.206
Why can't we have that conversation?
00:36:46.346 --> 00:36:55.257
Why can't we draw the distinction between church programs and tools and processes and et cetera, and living the gospel?
00:36:55.557 --> 00:36:58.442
I thought the whole point was to have people live the gospel.
00:36:58.902 --> 00:37:05.592
And can they not see, Jim, that in living the gospel, they get more commitment, more motivation.
00:37:05.813 --> 00:37:06.653
People are...
00:37:08.034 --> 00:37:42.637
immersed spiritually into the cause into into you know the purpose of the gospel as to bring joy to others surely that is what holds people and motivates people on a deep personal spiritual level and not something that you know we're commanded in all things where we have to take this and take that that's more administrative um and obedience i've always challenged the um I wanted a challenge, and in my own heart and mind, I challenged the first law or principle of heaven is obedience.
00:37:43.018 --> 00:37:44.579
I don't believe that anymore.
00:37:44.599 --> 00:37:48.844
I think the first principle or law is love, not obedience.
00:37:50.206 --> 00:38:00.398
Christ was successful because of love, not because of people obeying him out of fear, necessarily.
00:38:01.889 --> 00:38:03.952
If you love me, keep my commandments.
00:38:04.313 --> 00:38:05.614
If you love me, keep my commandments.
00:38:06.014 --> 00:38:29.300
Can the church leaders not see that the way to success with the church and growth and prosperity and spreading the message to all kindred tongues and people and blessing the lives of people is through love, not through obedience and fear and control or regulation.
00:38:29.920 --> 00:38:31.282
So I think Elder Paulman...
00:38:31.777 --> 00:39:26.650
got it right and i think the decision and the efforts by the church leaders to suppress that to change that is frankly an own goal and look at us right now you know that was 1984 we're still talking about it i think about it often sometimes others think about it there's a lot of material out there and i don't think elder pullman would want to have the negative publicity around his talk i i think he meant his original talk and i think the church should have um stuck with that and allowed the members to have a own you know an open adult constructive conversation and what that what that means i just don't know why they the church leaders miss some of the very points that we're making on on this uh podcast on this conversation because we're not prophets.
00:39:26.731 --> 00:39:27.831
We don't claim to be prophets.
00:39:28.211 --> 00:39:29.052
I'm not an apostle.
00:39:29.072 --> 00:39:30.114
You're not an apostle.
00:39:30.835 --> 00:39:37.300
But we, ourselves and others, we're not alone, seem to see things that the brethren can't see.
00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:45.009
The principle of agency, the principles that we're talking about, but they don't seem to see that.
00:39:45.369 --> 00:39:47.610
So that's somewhat disappointing.
00:39:47.650 --> 00:40:01.032
So I'm saddened that the church continues to try to regulate and control people's lives, not just in this way, but in many other ways as well.
00:40:01.052 --> 00:40:06.778
And we're only free, are we not, if we have free agency.
00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:11.664
If we're controlled and regulated, we're really not free at all.
00:40:13.487 --> 00:40:16.090
Well, a few things come to mind as you talk about this.
00:40:16.110 --> 00:40:25.420
One being that the church in some ways has taken your advice.
00:40:25.440 --> 00:40:43.188
In 2018, after President Nelson became the prophet, he instituted what came to be called as a home-centered and church-supported church.
00:40:44.791 --> 00:40:47.516
The gospel is home-centered and church-supported.
00:40:48.096 --> 00:40:51.382
That's when church was cut down from three hours to two hours.
00:40:52.481 --> 00:40:57.007
And that's when a lot of these programs were completely gutted.
00:40:57.809 --> 00:41:01.032
We have scrapped a number of programs.
00:41:01.793 --> 00:41:20.938
You know, back in 2016, prior to President Nelson's ascendancy, when we were talking with President Banks and he was recounting President Packer's concern that we've gone too far with programs, a lot of those programs were still in place.
00:41:21.505 --> 00:41:26.592
Many of them, if not most of them, have gone by the wayside.
00:41:27.492 --> 00:41:39.467
I remember sitting in the fireside with my teenage son as they were announcing they had just scrapped the scouting program.
00:41:40.347 --> 00:41:44.072
And I was thrilled with that because I grew up in Boy Scouts.
00:41:44.112 --> 00:41:45.393
You didn't join the church.
00:41:45.922 --> 00:41:47.202
in time to become a Boy Scout.
00:41:47.264 --> 00:41:49.445
They don't have Scouting.
00:41:49.465 --> 00:41:51.487
They didn't have Scouting over in the UK, did they?
00:41:52.028 --> 00:41:52.710
Yes, I was a
00:41:53.150 --> 00:41:55.052
Cub and a Scout.
00:41:55.713 --> 00:41:56.153
Oh, you were?
00:41:56.414 --> 00:41:57.074
I was a Cub.
00:41:58.036 --> 00:41:59.157
You got these Boy Cubs.
00:41:59.436 --> 00:42:00.918
This is before I joined the Church of 16.
00:42:01.780 --> 00:42:07.326
So the Church of England ran the Cub program, and they also ran the Scout program.
00:42:08.106 --> 00:42:08.568
Oh, wow.
00:42:09.548 --> 00:42:09.889
All right.
00:42:10.710 --> 00:42:12.472
Well, so maybe they were doing it better than we were.
00:42:13.532 --> 00:42:14.173
Yeah.
00:42:14.498 --> 00:42:26.115
My scouting experience, I was talking to a friend of mine who has also left the church, and he was talking about, he was remembering some of the awful things that we did in Boy Scouts.
00:42:26.155 --> 00:42:28.539
He talked about a thing called the mill.
00:42:28.739 --> 00:42:29.782
He's like, do you remember the mill?
00:42:29.961 --> 00:42:30.682
And I said, I don't.
00:42:30.782 --> 00:42:42.601
He says, that's when if anybody did something wrong, you would line up, all the scouts would line up, and the offender would crawl through their legs as the scouts pounded on them.
00:42:43.106 --> 00:42:44.768
And spanked them and hit them.
00:42:44.807 --> 00:42:48.472
And it was all, ha, ha, ha, isn't this funny?
00:42:48.514 --> 00:42:54.782
And, you know, I have just really traumatic, terrible experiences from Boy Scouting.
00:42:55.083 --> 00:42:56.264
That's not what this is about.
00:42:56.304 --> 00:43:02.512
But this is about the fact that, okay, so they scrapped the scouting program.
00:43:02.572 --> 00:43:05.797
And given all of my trauma, I thought, wow, that's great.
00:43:06.530 --> 00:43:08.193
Can't wait to see what comes next.
00:43:08.393 --> 00:43:16.005
And so I was sitting in this fireside with my teenage son as they were announcing the new young men's program.
00:43:16.827 --> 00:43:29.289
And Elder Ballard was leading the meeting and there were several sisters from the Relief Society Presidency, the General Relief Society Presidency, and I think there were some from the Primary Presidency.
00:43:30.177 --> 00:43:34.822
And the whole meeting was, this program's going to be great.
00:43:35.023 --> 00:43:36.364
Oh, you're just going to love it.
00:43:36.585 --> 00:43:37.847
It's going to be wonderful.
00:43:37.867 --> 00:43:38.467
It's going to be.
00:43:39.108 --> 00:43:41.269
And this went on for about 45 minutes.
00:43:42.472 --> 00:43:49.338
And both my son and I started looking at each other and going, okay, well, what is the program?
00:43:50.340 --> 00:43:54.405
It's great that you think it's going to be great and we're all going to love it and it's going to be wonderful.
00:43:54.985 --> 00:43:55.646
What is it?
00:43:56.847 --> 00:43:58.710
And the answer is, it's nothing.
00:43:59.554 --> 00:44:01.817
There isn't really a prescribed program.
00:44:01.876 --> 00:44:11.030
There's this kind of, they have these four standards, like it should help build your spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional life, whatever you do.
00:44:11.050 --> 00:44:14.255
And, okay, great.
00:44:14.496 --> 00:44:15.556
What are we supposed to do?
00:44:15.617 --> 00:44:17.480
Well, that's up to you, really.
00:44:17.519 --> 00:44:19.242
But they didn't even say that.
00:44:19.282 --> 00:44:21.106
It was just, this is the new program.
00:44:21.126 --> 00:44:23.027
We're going to build these four areas in your life.
00:44:23.088 --> 00:44:24.510
It's going to be great.
00:44:25.731 --> 00:44:26.753
And there isn't a program.
00:44:27.554 --> 00:44:41.693
And I was talking to my wife about this, and she said, well, now you know what it was like to be a young woman in the church, because the scouting program dominated the schedule.
00:44:41.713 --> 00:44:43.155
It dominated the budget.
00:44:44.217 --> 00:44:53.188
You had all this money going into scouts, and the young women had this sort of skeleton of a program that didn't really have any clear objectives.
00:44:53.248 --> 00:44:53.909
I mean, the scouts...
00:44:54.273 --> 00:44:57.438
You had the merit badges and the ranks and all that stuff.
00:44:58.559 --> 00:45:12.353
And the young women's, I mean, you could get your young women's medallion at the end of it, but it didn't have nearly the same sort of weight or urgency or attention or the amount of resources that the scouting program did.
00:45:12.835 --> 00:45:22.746
So President Nelson scrapped scouts and he scrapped like roadshows.
00:45:23.393 --> 00:45:32.603
All these big church pageants that have been going on for almost 100 years, the Hill Cumorah pageant, a bunch of other things.
00:45:33.342 --> 00:45:47.155
When I was a kid, we did a big pageant called Third Nephi, and we did it in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, which is this huge theater where they do the Academy Awards sometimes, or they used to.
00:45:47.195 --> 00:46:08.632
And all of these, when they dedicated the Draper Temple My kids were all involved in this huge program at the conference center where they had this, it had to be about 50 feet tall, this 50 foot tall facade of the Draper Temple.
00:46:09.474 --> 00:46:12.777
And they did these songs and they did all this stuff.
00:46:12.836 --> 00:46:15.880
And it was just this big, huge, wild pageant.
00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:17.983
And this, I mean, this was what, 10 years ago.
00:46:18.003 --> 00:46:19.684
This isn't forever ago.
00:46:21.005 --> 00:46:26.242
And And, you know, we've now scrapped all of that.
00:46:26.884 --> 00:46:27.985
And it's all gone.
00:46:28.005 --> 00:46:33.911
And it leaves me saying, okay, so did it not matter when we did it?
00:46:35.193 --> 00:46:40.900
And I think, well, you know, when I was growing up, the church was the center of the universe.
00:46:41.041 --> 00:46:45.206
The church was not just my spiritual guide.
00:46:45.246 --> 00:46:48.510
It was also my community, my people.
00:46:49.505 --> 00:46:54.835
And all the things that we've scrapped are all the things that were any fun.
00:46:55.735 --> 00:46:58.159
I mean, they're all the things that built community.
00:46:58.320 --> 00:47:00.483
They didn't do anything else but build community.
00:47:00.925 --> 00:47:09.659
You know, when I was a teenager, my parents directed a production of The Music Man, which is a big Broadway musical.
00:47:09.699 --> 00:47:13.184
And every single member of the ward was in it.
00:47:13.545 --> 00:47:15.869
And we performed it for everybody else in the stake.
00:47:16.737 --> 00:47:29.938
And it was just this wonderful thing, and it had nothing to do with the gospel other than it was building relationships and building a community among the members of the ward.
00:47:30.199 --> 00:47:35.487
And those are the memories that I come back to when I think about my childhood.
00:47:35.648 --> 00:47:41.436
I don't think about some amazing talk that somebody gave or some kind of...
00:47:42.318 --> 00:47:44.762
What I think about are those moments of community.
00:47:45.505 --> 00:47:46.867
And we've scrapped them.
00:47:47.369 --> 00:47:51.514
All of those things I thought mattered.
00:47:51.695 --> 00:47:52.936
I thought they were significant.
00:47:53.938 --> 00:48:07.458
And now we've gotten rid of that, but we've doubled down on other checkboxes, other programs, specifically the temple.
00:48:08.219 --> 00:48:25.385
Specifically, we've now reached a point where the church kind of has decided that If the church didn't have the temple, if it didn't have, okay, if you don't have a temple recommend, you can't see your children get married.
00:48:25.425 --> 00:48:28.730
You can't participate.
00:48:28.750 --> 00:48:34.038
I mean, I wouldn't be able to participate as a member of the tabernacle choir if I don't have a temple recommend.
00:48:34.077 --> 00:48:41.929
The temple recommend and the temple is the one thing the church can sort of hold over you at this point.
00:48:42.657 --> 00:48:54.490
And so we seem to have, in discarding all of the other stuff, we have doubled down on this stuff, on the temple stuff, on the covenant stuff.
00:48:55.052 --> 00:49:02.500
These are the checkboxes that are so important that they matter more than any other checkbox that we've ever had.
00:49:02.539 --> 00:49:12.971
And I find that somewhat disturbing because I don't, I am not as spiritually fed by the temple as many other people are.
00:49:13.731 --> 00:49:18.898
I mean, I've talked to many people, including members of my own family.
00:49:19.679 --> 00:49:31.012
My sister and her husband are temple workers in Arizona, and it just feeds their soul in a way that I truly envy, because I haven't had that experience.
00:49:31.072 --> 00:49:35.657
But they just love the temple, and they embrace it, and it's sort of the centerpiece of their lives.
00:49:36.161 --> 00:49:38.563
And that's the case for a lot of members of the church.
00:49:39.184 --> 00:49:47.793
But, you know, that's the one program, I think, that we've now decided is the essential program.
00:49:47.833 --> 00:49:51.277
We've jettisoned everything else and we've decided the temple is the program.
00:49:52.257 --> 00:50:09.478
And Elder Pullman's talk could be interpreted in a way to say, yeah, the temple is nice, but But really what's important is the gospel and living the gospel in your daily life.
00:50:09.498 --> 00:50:16.125
And I can see church leaders listening to that and saying, you're putting too much distance.
00:50:16.724 --> 00:50:22.550
This is something that's too important and we need to make sure we hold on to this.
00:50:23.391 --> 00:50:25.474
So I can see the reasoning behind it.
00:50:25.574 --> 00:50:28.597
I can even agree with some of the reasoning behind it.
00:50:28.617 --> 00:50:39.523
I just think that Some of the things that we thought weren't important, I think were very important, at least to me.
00:50:39.543 --> 00:50:42.288
And I'd like to see us reclaim some of that.
00:50:42.748 --> 00:50:51.900
You know, I've listened to Patrick Mason, who talks about, you know, everybody cheered when church went from three hours to two hours.
00:50:52.900 --> 00:50:59.250
And I've heard him talk at length about the fact that, well, okay, except that's fine in Utah.
00:51:00.034 --> 00:51:09.306
where your ward is a six block radius and you see these people at the grocery store and you can maintain community with them without that.
00:51:09.447 --> 00:51:15.615
But in vast parts of the world, people travel for a great deal of time.
00:51:15.675 --> 00:51:21.603
I mean, in Canada, you know, your stake, you had to travel how many hours to get to the boundaries of your stake?
00:51:22.224 --> 00:51:22.505
Six.
00:51:23.246 --> 00:51:23.907
Six hours?
00:51:24.809 --> 00:51:32.635
You know, so these are people that are traveling great lengths to get to church And that three-hour block is the time when they're together.
00:51:32.675 --> 00:51:36.139
And then you slice that off by a third.
00:51:36.159 --> 00:51:41.846
And that's another thing that just sort of slices out some of the community.
00:51:42.106 --> 00:51:53.099
Even though that third hour is dedicated to another class where you're hearing another lesson about another conference talk and it's all that stuff.
00:51:54.260 --> 00:51:54.762
For me...
00:51:55.617 --> 00:52:03.766
The three-hour block, the great stuff about it is what happens in the hallways, in the foyers, and when you're connecting to people and doing all of that.
00:52:04.347 --> 00:52:07.951
So I think that's kind of what we've lost.
00:52:08.711 --> 00:52:14.157
I think that's kind of what Elder Pollan was trying to say was important.
00:52:15.157 --> 00:52:18.021
And I think in many ways we've kind of gone the wrong way.
00:52:18.041 --> 00:52:18.061
I
00:52:19.782 --> 00:52:21.744
really appreciate you...
00:52:23.106 --> 00:53:26.898
pushing back actually in qualifying um through those experiences those points in respect to some of the programs that we used to um do in the church you talked about the roadshow i have amazing memories experiences doing the roadshow and there were programs and you're absolutely right there were things that the church did back then that were amazing and and they they've um um given up those they've scrapped those and I think they were a mistake to do that like if you look at the UK the YSA program where we used to live for the weekend we used to go to London Hyde Park or Aberfoyle or Merthyr Tydfil in Wales and we used to every weekend I was away at a dance or something and those YSA programs is all we lived for and so I really appreciate you Coming back and giving that other perspective on the program, because it's really important, because as a podcast, Inside Out is, we said at the very beginning, taking a balanced view.
00:53:27.338 --> 00:53:28.561
And I think you're absolutely right.
00:53:29.242 --> 00:53:32.367
And you're right, also, they've replaced some of those things with the temple.
00:53:32.768 --> 00:53:35.554
They've even put a lot of emphasis, as you know, on youth.
00:53:36.449 --> 00:54:05.170
to the temple huge emphasis and resources over the last few years in getting the youth to go to the temple and i i i think i think in some ways that's a good thing in other ways it it it might be a problem for some people i i again we acknowledge that um you know for a lot of members the temple is an extraordinary source of spirituality and strength and same with youth and And, you know, primary children sometimes attend the temple as well to actually go around the temple and acknowledge that.
00:54:07.273 --> 00:54:15.126
For others, the temple is a difficult experience and they can get their spirituality and strength through other means.
00:54:15.827 --> 00:54:18.811
You know, the temple is not the only source of spirituality.
00:54:18.851 --> 00:54:22.277
There are other ways and means in which we can get our spirituality.
00:54:23.041 --> 00:54:31.914
And the church is, you're right, doubling down and trying to move more and more of its members to recommit and new members to commit to go to the temple.
00:54:32.414 --> 00:54:37.041
There are a number of control mechanisms associated with that, which you've referenced.
00:54:37.101 --> 00:54:39.643
You know, temple recommitment, you've got to be a full tithe payer.
00:54:39.724 --> 00:55:18.648
So there's still a level of, you could argue, increased level of control by focusing mostly on the temple or largely on the temple because of the things that you have to do to get there And also when you're there, notwithstanding the changes to the temple endowment, et cetera, et cetera, some of the audiences that you can speak to more than I can, there is still a level of prescriptive and regulated and behaviors and rites and passages and other teachings and principles and physical cultural behaviors that you have to perform.
00:55:19.393 --> 00:56:06.835
in the temple in order to demonstrate one's commitment and obedience so and then the other step is that if as we've discussed if the church goes further and actually counts and measures the number of endowments and washington anointings and and ceilings if it starts to measure those um those things, and if that's the metric for success or spirituality or achievement in the church, and it starts to measure group performance, like in a quorum or individual performance based on number of temple, you know, how many times you visit the temple, how many endowments you've done, how many names you've done, how many washings and anointings you've done, etc.
00:56:06.856 --> 00:56:22.804
If you start measuring that, then that is another, if that's what they do, and I think they will, that's another control mechanism to be able to measure and quantify numerically someone's commitment and level of spirituality.
00:56:22.844 --> 00:56:31.898
And I don't think you can or should measure spirituality through, quantify it numerically or indeed financially.
00:56:31.978 --> 00:56:35.161
I think that's a very personal experience for each individual.
00:56:35.202 --> 00:56:37.885
And if the temple is the source of spirituality, go there.
00:56:38.369 --> 00:56:39.771
have that experience.
00:56:39.992 --> 00:56:41.454
Hopefully that makes you into a better person.
00:56:41.494 --> 00:56:41.914
That's great.
00:56:42.376 --> 00:56:45.581
If it's not, go find your other source of spirituality.
00:56:45.621 --> 00:56:58.139
Either way, whatever helps you become a better person and to be that kind, loving and thoughtful and forgiving individual that Christ wants us to be.
00:56:58.179 --> 00:57:01.025
Find your lane, find your path.
00:57:02.025 --> 00:57:10.418
And I don't think it's through regulation or being a prescriptive method or method that measures numerically.
00:57:10.998 --> 00:57:19.949
I think this is a personal choice and one that the church should allow members to be free to make and not be afraid of free agency.
00:57:19.969 --> 00:57:23.273
I mean, the gospel is founded on the principle of free agency.
00:57:23.313 --> 00:57:25.856
We talk about that extensively.
00:57:25.876 --> 00:57:31.824
And of course, that was the first message and experience in the heavens.
00:57:32.344 --> 00:57:37.606
There were two plans that were presented according to the church teachings and and people made the choice.
00:57:37.807 --> 00:57:41.291
So yeah, I've wanted to have this conversation.
00:57:41.311 --> 00:57:47.717
So I'm very grateful that we're able to have this bigger, broader conversation in the context of Elder Pullman's talk.
00:57:48.697 --> 00:57:56.025
No, I appreciate you raising it because I know that this has been very important to you and had quite a big impact on you.
00:57:57.086 --> 00:58:15.581
One of the lessons that I draw from this discussion too is that the church still is pretending that it has a choice as to whether or not it's going to deal with embarrassing facts and embarrassing realities.
00:58:16.402 --> 00:58:29.541
You know, back in 1984, they thought they could get away with bringing a general authority into an empty tabernacle and refilming his talk and that nobody would notice.
00:58:30.862 --> 00:58:32.764
They did notice even back in 1984.
00:58:33.954 --> 00:59:00.449
Well, in 2024, everybody, you know, all of this information is out there, and the church is still sort of pretending that we can control how it's given, that we can sort of smooth over the parts we don't want to talk about, that we can sweep under the rug embarrassing things that we have not yet come to terms with.
00:59:00.909 --> 00:59:03.693
And we just can't do that.
00:59:03.969 --> 00:59:05.271
We just can't do it.
00:59:07.175 --> 00:59:09.318
We live in a world where that is impossible.
00:59:10.179 --> 00:59:11.400
And I think that's a good thing.
00:59:11.942 --> 00:59:23.699
We live in a world where, you know, when Elder Ballard says we're as transparent as we know how to be, I think he was telling the truth in the sense that that's how transparent they knew how to be.
00:59:23.719 --> 00:59:31.550
We need to know how to be more transparent, fully transparent, because we don't have a choice.
00:59:31.791 --> 00:59:33.134
That information is out there.
00:59:33.634 --> 00:59:47.771
And the church can either embrace that reality or continue to take hits as we stumble around and refuse to come to terms with some of the mistakes that we've made.
00:59:48.552 --> 00:59:52.697
So I think we've come to the end of our hour.
00:59:52.737 --> 00:59:57.043
Do you have any wise words of wisdom you want to share as we sum up here?
00:59:57.583 --> 00:59:58.085
I don't.
00:59:58.105 --> 00:59:58.485
I think...
00:59:59.297 --> 01:00:29.867
we've we've covered a lot of it uh for our listeners you can go research this yourself go read the original text and come to your own conclusions and compare the two it's it's definitely out there but i um i really appreciate jim this opportunity to talk about something that's so important and again the message is you know be your authentic self um to our listeners as you know i think that's the that's the key to happiness is to be yourself and to be honest and and loving and kind and all the principles that Christ taught.
01:00:30.409 --> 01:00:39.307
And there are many paths up the mountain and live in a way that makes you happy and blesses the lives of others.
01:00:39.548 --> 01:00:44.760
It's the very essence, the very principle Elder Paulman was trying to address.
01:00:44.920 --> 01:00:45.402
So thank you.
01:00:46.050 --> 01:00:55.282
Well, until we pull you back into the studio to get you to give a corrected version of this podcast, we'll let that be the final word.
01:00:55.322 --> 01:01:02.813
Thank you very much, and thank you all for listening to Inside Out, and we hope to see you next time.
01:01:02.954 --> 01:01:03.835
Thank you very much, Ian.
01:01:04.255 --> 01:01:04.436
Thank
01:01:04.456 --> 01:01:04.675
you, Jim.