October 2024 Conference Recap

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Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out.
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My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with the magnificent Ian Wilkes.
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I know I've used the word magnificent before, Ian Wilkes, but It just applies, and I figure we need to recycle the things that work.
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So how are you today, sir?
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I'm doing really
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well.
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I'm doing really well.
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And when we run out of words to describe each other, we'll just use them again.
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I'm all right with that.
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This is good.
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Yeah.
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This is good.
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The world needs to know how magnificent you are.
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I
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don't know why, but well, thank you.
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You're very generous.
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You're very kind.
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I'm not sure I am magnificent, but thank you all the same.
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Well, we decided that this would be a good opportunity to discuss the most recent general conference.
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We've done this with every general conference while we've been running this podcast.
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We do sort of a recap because I think this is certainly the most momentous moment in the church every year.
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What happens at conference sets the tone for what's going to happen in the church for at least another six months.
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And as I understand it, you were glued to your television set watching every second of every session of conference.
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Is that correct?
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Not
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really.
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Not at all correct.
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But however, it was in my mind.
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I watched conference through my spiritual eyes.
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Through your spiritual eyes?
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Yes.
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I can imagine what it would be like.
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And as I imagined it, I was there.
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Well, that's lovely.
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But my understanding is that you were using your spiritual eyes while you were riding your new electronic bicycles.
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That is correct.
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So as I was riding and we were spending all that time on our bikes and scooters, just having fun, my mind, just for a moment at least, just glimpsed or thought about conference in a split second.
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And I was able to absorb all of the knowledge and experience of the entire conference just in that one moment.
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Well, that's lovely, because I had to actually sit through all of the sessions.
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I was at three of them in person.
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The Tabernacle Choir sings in the Saturday morning session, and it sings in both of the Sunday sessions.
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So I attended three of the sessions in person.
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I came home on Saturday and fell asleep and missed the entire Saturday afternoon session, which I've gone back and read the talks.
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I was specifically unhappy that I missed Patrick Kieran's talk because he is, I've made no secret of the fact that he's essentially my favorite.
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That comes from the fact that we know him and his family, that he was an award for a number of years.
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But he also gives just wonderful, uplifting talks.
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And this last talk was no exception.
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He talked about the church of joy and the idea that the church should be a joyful experience and that taking the sacrament should be a joyful experience.
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And I thought that was kind of interesting.
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He said we should flip on its head the idea that when we take the sacrament, We shouldn't just sit there and recount all of the sins that we've committed during the week.
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We should instead be thinking about all the times we experience the grace of Christ during the week, that it should be a positive and not a negative experience.
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Anything that focuses on the grace of Christ.
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We are so afraid of the word grace, at least we have been for most of my life, And I see that changing now.
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And every time Elder Kieran speaks, he emphasizes grace and emphasizes the importance of grace.
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And I think it's a very promising development.
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The hymn, Amazing Grace, has now been added to the new hymn book.
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And so I see sort of a renewal of this idea.
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that we were scared of for so long because I think it made us sound like Protestants or made us sound like evangelicals.
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Because every time we talk about grace, there's a certain contingent that is worried that it's a license for anything goes.
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Well, if we're only saved by the grace of Christ, then what about all the brownie points I'm piling up by doing all these good things and by you know going to the temple all these many times and all the emphasis on works in the church has been substantial throughout most of my lifetime and a lot of people that emphasize works are threatened by talks of grace but elder karen does not seem to be threatened by them and continues to emphasize them and i see that as a positive and so i would almost say that Elder Kieran's talk was my favorite talk in conference, but it wasn't.
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My favorite talk this conference came from President Oaks.
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And that may be surprising to some people because we've taken issue with some of the things that President Oaks has said and taught.
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But there is no doubt that Dallin H.
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Oaks is a man who approaches his faith and approaches his His calling and his stewardship with a great sense of responsibility and with tremendous seriousness.
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You get a lot of conference talks.
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I mean, there are so many of them that you're not going to remember the minute after they're finished.
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And you get a lot of them that just sort of feel like filler, that just there's not a lot of substance to them.
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That's never the case with President Oaks.
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President Oaks, whether you agree with him or not, always brings it.
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He always comes with a substantial message.
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And this was no exception.
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He talked, and I think we should talk about this after we recap conference.
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I think that this idea that I'm going to talk about here is one that we need to revisit.
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He talked about the idea of permanent commandments and temporary commandments, which I had never heard before.
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I'd never heard anybody talk about the idea that some commandments are temporary.
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And the commandments he talked about being temporary were commandments like the commandment to gather in Salt Lake City after Nauvoo.
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I think that was one of them.
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I need to have it in front of him.
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But he talked about that there are certain commandments that are in place for a time, but they are only temporary and then they are lifted.
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And they talk about permanent commandments.
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And I thought, that's an interesting framing that we don't usually discuss and ought to give pause to people who insist that the church can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever change on whatever it is their pet issue is.
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Because President Oaks points out the church can change and some commandments are temporary.
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The majority of President Oaks' talk was focused on the idea of being a peacemaker and avoiding contention, which, as I've said many times before, is the message President Nelson gave in 2023 that I believe was certainly the best message President Nelson has ever given and may well be the best message I have ever heard from a conference pulpit.
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And President Oaks reinforced that message and reiterated it.
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It was very interesting that as he did so, he pulled up a stock photo.
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He talked about contention.
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And in the stock photo, there were two men who were very clearly yelling at each other or fighting with each other.
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They were in a contentious moment.
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And I thought, is it intentional?
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that both of these men look exactly like Donald Trump's running mate, J.D.
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Vance.
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I thought, am I reading too much into this?
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Because I had anticipated that there would be some sort of veiled criticism of Donald Trump.
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The church obviously is politically neutral.
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They have just released their statement again, emphasizing political neutrality.
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But I have felt, particularly from President Oates, messages where he has said things like, it is never appropriate to say that a Latter-day Saint can't vote for a particular person or a particular party, which...
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is an emphasis that would be aimed at Republicans because that's something you hear from Republicans.
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You can't be a good Mormon and vote for a Democrat.
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I've heard that more times than I can count.
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And so President Oaks' message that it's not appropriate to say you can't vote for a particular party, I thought was an oblique message in that direction.
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And his emphasis on avoiding contention talked about the idea that we are contentious in our civic life, in our public life.
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And so I sort of took that as oblique criticism of Donald Trump, who is easily the most contentious candidate the United States has ever seen.
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But of course, this is a worldwide church, and it's not appropriate for the church to emphasize political candidates or political platforms.
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So That was the only kind of political subtext that I saw throughout the conference.
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But that emphasis on peacemaking, the importance of avoiding contention, it's a message the church sorely needs, particularly when you wade into online discussions about the church and you see what self-appointed ambassadors for the church do as they, quote-unquote, defend the church.
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by attacking not just people outside the church, but people inside the church who they consider insufficiently pure, insufficiently ideologically orthodox.
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So that was my favorite talk in conference that came in the Saturday morning session.
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I really enjoyed the music this conference, and that's sort of selfish to say.
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because of course I'm participating in providing that music.
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But what was interesting about the music this time is that usually the music that we do in conference isn't particularly challenging.
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There are arrangements of hymns or even primary songs.
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They're very simple.
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They have this sort of feeling to me of kind of being the least, the lowest common denominator.
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And And but this time, in order to emphasize President Nelson's final talk, which if you listen to it and you listen to anything else in conference, you would assume that Jesus would be coming back next Thursday.
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It was very much the second coming is just around the corner.
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That's why we're building all these temples.
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And this is just about to happen.
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We sang and the glory of the Lord from Handel's Messiah.
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which is a very challenging piece and it's a much more sophisticated piece than we usually do in conference.
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And it was a lot of fun to sing and a lot of fun to prepare.
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So that was a highlight for me.
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I always feel a connection to the divine in conference, but primarily through the music of conference.
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So those were the highlights, general overarching overview for the themes, This conference was not as thematically consistent as last conference.
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The last conference was covenant, covenant, covenant, covenant, temple, temple, temple, temple, covenant, temple, covenant, temple, temple, temple, temple, covenant, temple.
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I had never seen a conference that was just so focused on a single idea.
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The phrase covenant path was used several times in this conference, but not nearly to the extent that it had been used in previous conferences, which I thought was kind of interesting.
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And the other thing that I also appreciated, that's worth mentioning, is that there was no overt LGBTQ bashing, as we've seen in previous conferences.
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Some people have pointed out that you can interpret some of the talk's as being kind of implicit chastisements of LGBTQ people, but I didn't catch that, and that was not a theme of the conference, and it was nice to take a breather from that particular theme.
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So what were the thematic elements?
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Well, there were a few that I thought were kind of interesting.
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The Second Coming was very much emphasized here.
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Elder Stevenson gave a talk where he talked about the next 10 years of the church, which was very explicit as to what the next 10 years of the church are going to be, ending with the 2034 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, where he said the eyes of the world will be on Salt Lake and will be on the church as a result, just as they were back in 2002 when the Olympics were here.
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And so somebody else pointed out, well, jeez, if you listen to President Nelson, you would assume that the second coming is just around the corner, but we got to wait till at least 2034 when the Olympics get here.
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So the second coming can't come before then.
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So there was this kind of, there was this emphasis on the second coming.
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There was emphasis on the future of the church in that regard.
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There was an acknowledgement of the fact that people are leaving.
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which I thought was interesting.
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There was more of an acknowledgement of that than I had ever heard before.
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And maybe I'm just, I don't know if I'm imagining that or exaggerating it, but President Eyring talked about that.
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Elder Cook talked about that.
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Brad Wilcox talked about that.
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A few other people have talked about that, but it was sprinkled throughout And I thought that's a positive step because it's a reality that members on the ground are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
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The bishop state presidents, they're seeing people leave.
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And even though we're seeing growth in Africa, we're seeing growth in South America, as we've talked many times on this podcast about.
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We are not seeing similar growth in the United States.
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We're seeing shrinkage in Europe.
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The United States is just kind of treading water, but we're seeing people leave.
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And what frustrated me with those messages is that the acknowledgement was welcomed because, okay, how do we deal with this?
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What do we do about it?
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But the reason people are leaving was either completely ignored or boiled down to the idea that they just can't cut it.
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They're just not righteous enough.
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They're just not...
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The old cliche, they just want to sin.
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And we've talked about this on this podcast many times, but if people are leaving just because they want to sin, that may...
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be the case, there may be such people.
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I have yet to meet one.
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I have yet to meet somebody who said, well, jeez, I was a member of the church, but I really wanted to go get drunk on a Saturday night.
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And I was really having a hard time being faithful to my wife and decided I wanted to start having affairs.
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I mean, nobody ever says that.
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Now, the assumption that you would get from listening to some of these conference talks is that They would never say that, but that's the only reason why they would leave.
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The only reason why they would leave is just because they all know it's true, but they just can't cut it.
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They just don't have the chops to live the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And I found that message disappointing.
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And particularly in Elder Cook's talk, Elder Cook talked about this family where these guys were investigating the church.
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I have to go back and look at it.
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Either they were already in the church or they were talking about whether or not they should leave the church.
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And they had a box in the center of the room that was filled with critical material against the church, what prior to President Nelson we would have labeled as anti-Mormon material.
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And this box was just filled with all this material.
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And Elder Cook talked about the idea of talking to the Father about this.
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But rather than address anything that was in the material, Elder Cook said that he had gotten an impression that the Father already knew the church was true.
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And so he was able to say, I have an impression that you know that the church is true.
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Is that correct?
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And this guy had to say, yes, yes, it is correct.
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And so Elder Cook says, well, then we can just throw this box away.
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We don't even have to talk about any of this stuff.
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You already know it's true.
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So go ahead and live the gospel.
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And that's the happy ending to the story.
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But it was also a very easy way to dismiss anything that could have been brought up in this entire box full of material.
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And that was sort of the constant challenge drumbeat was, okay, yeah, people are leaving, but we're not going to address any possible reasons they could be leaving other than the fact they're just not righteous enough.
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And that is disappointing.
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That is discouraging.
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I think, however, that it is also, once you open the door to the idea that people are leaving, you're not going to be able to close that door in future conferences.
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Eventually, we're going to have to actually address the reasons why they are leaving.
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And the reasons they are leaving cannot be summed up in the fact that they're all just really wicked core whore types.
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So I choose to be hopeful in terms of how I interpret that theme that ran throughout conference.
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The one other talk I want to focus on, and then I want to get your impressions, because that will conclude my overview.
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Brad Wilcox spoke.
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Brad Wilcox, he's not, I don't know that we can refer to him as Elder Wilcox, because he is not actually a general authority.
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He is a general officer.
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which is a distinction I don't fully understand, but he's the first counselor at the young men's presidency, but he is not a fully ordained 70.
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So he is a general officer.
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So I'm not even sure why we have general officers speaking in conference, but we do.
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And Elder Brother Wilcox is a very energetic man speaker.
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I can see why he has a certain following among the youths, because there's a certain...
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He's a bit of an entertainer.
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You know, a lot of these speakers that get up and speak in conference, they're really kind of dull.
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They're just sort of reading.
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They don't really have the kind of presentation skills that Elder...
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Brother Wilcox has honed over the years.
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But his talk...
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He likened the church, or he likened mortality.
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He says, imagine we've all come to earth.
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Imagine that the mortality is like our Heavenly Father has sent us all on a cruise, and we're all on this big cruise ship.
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But the difference between members of the church and the people, other people on the ship, is that we're part of the cruise.
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And I thought, okay, Brother Wilcox, have you ever heard of the Church of Scientology?
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Because the Church of Scientology was founded by a man named L.
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Ron Hubbard, who was on the run from tax authorities in a dozen different countries.
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And so in order to avoid taxation, set up a cruise ship where his entire church was on the ship And the people who ran the ship were called the Sea Organization.
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And even today, after L.
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Ron Hubbard's death, the Sea Org is the crew.
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They are the people who run Scientology.
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And I thought comparing members of the church to the Sea Org is just not a good look to anybody who knows that.
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So maybe that's me just reading too much into it.
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But I thought that was an awkward analogy as a result.
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And I also was a little disconcerted at the beginning because he says, I go around the world and I speak to the youth of the church.
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And there's one question that they always ask.
00:23:59.394 --> 00:24:01.375
They always ask the same question.
00:24:02.636 --> 00:24:04.759
So, Ian, I'm going to put you on the spot.
00:24:04.940 --> 00:24:07.061
What do you think that question would be?
00:24:07.362 --> 00:24:14.692
If all the youth in the world were to ask Brad Wilcox one question, what would you assume that question would be?
00:24:15.752 --> 00:24:16.294
Oh, my goodness.
00:24:16.894 --> 00:24:19.038
How do
00:24:19.357 --> 00:24:21.861
I remain close to Christ?
00:24:23.143 --> 00:24:24.345
Okay, that sounds like a good one.
00:24:24.384 --> 00:24:25.165
Okay.
00:24:25.445 --> 00:24:29.592
I would have thought something along the lines of, why is there so much suffering in the world?
00:24:30.333 --> 00:24:33.557
That's the question that we kept getting when we were missionaries.
00:24:34.077 --> 00:24:34.438
Yeah.
00:24:34.498 --> 00:24:35.599
A bunch of other questions.
00:24:36.340 --> 00:24:36.981
He said...
00:24:37.794 --> 00:24:44.501
Why do Latter-day Saints have to live so differently from everybody else?
00:24:45.202 --> 00:24:45.782
All right, okay.
00:24:46.544 --> 00:24:54.053
Well, and I thought, I have never ever heard anyone ask that question in any context.
00:24:54.894 --> 00:24:56.796
I never asked that question of anybody.
00:24:56.836 --> 00:25:05.306
And the way he talked about it was they're concerned that they have to live the law of chastity and they have to live the word of wisdom and they have to live so differently.
00:25:06.241 --> 00:25:10.567
And I thought, I just have never heard anybody ask that question.
00:25:11.607 --> 00:25:17.775
So I'm going to give grace to Brother Wilcox and assume he's not making that up.
00:25:18.756 --> 00:25:26.525
But as he talked about that, I thought, this just isn't the question that has ever bubbled up around me.
00:25:26.545 --> 00:25:32.592
So I'm curious as to why this is the only question that he hears when he goes out and talks to the youth.
00:25:32.652 --> 00:25:34.134
So that's a quibble.
00:25:34.721 --> 00:25:41.308
And I'm also, maybe I'm the only person that saw the Scientology comparison where none was intended.
00:25:42.250 --> 00:25:49.919
But overall, this conference was less insular than the last conference.
00:25:50.058 --> 00:25:51.480
It was less of a retreat.
00:25:51.681 --> 00:25:56.846
It was less of a, let's go hide in the temple and not participate in the world.
00:25:56.866 --> 00:25:58.888
It was more outward looking.
00:25:58.909 --> 00:26:02.753
There was more of a sense of we have a bright and glorious future.
00:26:03.425 --> 00:26:04.666
We need to look to the future.
00:26:04.686 --> 00:26:10.854
We need to look to all of these things that are in store for us as we prepare for the second coming.
00:26:11.835 --> 00:26:17.521
I would have wanted some kind of reference to what's going on in the world.
00:26:18.482 --> 00:26:25.510
There were references to wars in the prayers, but there weren't any in the talks.
00:26:26.250 --> 00:26:27.692
We didn't hear anything about Israel.
00:26:27.752 --> 00:26:29.434
We didn't hear anything about Ukraine.
00:26:30.395 --> 00:26:31.978
And we didn't hear anything about the election.
00:26:32.865 --> 00:26:49.909
which is probably a good thing, but you've talked about this many times, that it would be nice to have the Lord's Church addressing what's going on in the world around us more than we do.
00:26:50.410 --> 00:26:56.137
So overall, I came away from conference uplifted.
00:26:56.919 --> 00:27:02.046
I came away, I feel, more spiritually connected than I was before conference uplifted.
00:27:02.594 --> 00:27:06.198
even with the quibbles that I've offered up here.
00:27:06.317 --> 00:27:07.740
So that's my overview.
00:27:07.779 --> 00:27:16.489
And you were on your electric bike, but you've since had the opportunity to look into what was said at conference.
00:27:16.648 --> 00:27:21.153
And I'd very much like to hear your impressions of what happened this last weekend.
00:27:21.694 --> 00:27:24.017
Yeah, that's a pretty awesome overview.
00:27:24.217 --> 00:27:30.124
I'm pleased for you and your family that you came away feeling uplifted.
00:27:30.163 --> 00:27:54.173
And I think that's a really important point because You know, wherever you are in your faith, even if you're outside and you go to conference or you hear something, wherever you are in that faith spectrum, I think if you can get inspired by something or something that someone said or a part of a talk from conference or even sacrament, that's a good thing.
00:27:54.232 --> 00:27:54.974
That's not a bad thing.
00:27:55.015 --> 00:27:55.796
It's a really good thing.
00:27:56.497 --> 00:27:59.333
So You know, we pour over these words.
00:27:59.512 --> 00:28:00.074
We look at them.
00:28:00.153 --> 00:28:06.065
We probably review them in a way maybe we haven't done before.
00:28:06.144 --> 00:28:14.159
I know when I hear a talk at church, I really think about what's being said, especially if it's been coming from a leader, probably more than I ever have done.
00:28:14.180 --> 00:28:28.746
It's not necessarily because I'm looking for anything negative, but I'm just looking through a different from a different position now through a spectrum of different angles in terms of what's being said and what does it mean.
00:28:29.226 --> 00:28:31.868
But the fact that you came away uplifted, that's a good thing.
00:28:32.429 --> 00:28:43.799
And many members, like you, a lot of friends, family who are in the church, and I see their posts about conference, and they're all positive, actually.
00:28:44.340 --> 00:28:45.602
There's none of them negative.
00:28:46.142 --> 00:28:51.791
So I think that's a good thing to feel inspired I didn't attend conference.
00:28:52.772 --> 00:28:54.295
I don't feel guilty over that, of course.
00:28:54.355 --> 00:28:56.017
I'm not in the church anymore.
00:28:56.517 --> 00:29:00.241
A lot happier out the church, happier outside.
00:29:00.321 --> 00:29:06.749
I was in nature, riding through the mountains on our bikes, and it was just glorious.
00:29:07.410 --> 00:29:17.261
And my mind just cast hold upon conference, and I felt grateful that I was in nature, enjoying this wonderful spirit of nature.
00:29:17.857 --> 00:29:20.701
But I did review many of the talks.
00:29:20.781 --> 00:29:30.796
As you know, the church puts out a bit of an overview of each of the talk, a bit of a synopsis, which I've gone through and read with real interest and great fascination.
00:29:31.617 --> 00:29:49.999
And the context is really an important point you made earlier, of course, about this general conference, the talks, the content, what's the strategy behind them, what's the tactics you described earlier, the last conference being very much focused on temple, temple covenants.
00:29:50.019 --> 00:29:55.006
This was references to temple, but not as many by any means.
00:29:55.626 --> 00:30:07.222
But the context of the only true church upon the face of the earth and the prophet, the mouthpiece of the only true church, the only one on earth that speaks for God.
00:30:07.262 --> 00:30:09.486
I mean, just think about that for a moment.
00:30:09.566 --> 00:30:22.958
You know, God at the universe and Jesus Christ, And the only person that they speak to directly, first and foremost, is, again, calling to the church, is President Nelson.
00:30:23.638 --> 00:30:27.423
And we look at the context of that in regards to what's happening in the world.
00:30:28.324 --> 00:30:40.398
You know, the Ukrainian war with all of its awfulness, and now the significant escalation with Israel being attacked on seven different fronts.
00:30:41.380 --> 00:30:57.732
Syria, Yemen, I think it is, with Hamas, Hezbollah, terrorists, Iran being a key actor and enabler behind much of what's going on there with Israel.
00:30:58.253 --> 00:31:11.007
Iran, eight, nine days ago, fired a volley of missiles into Iran, over 180 ballistic missiles of size and significance.
00:31:11.968 --> 00:31:13.369
That is huge escalation.
00:31:13.986 --> 00:31:19.314
Again, I want to highlight, what's the church's position on this?
00:31:19.394 --> 00:31:24.181
What's the church's thoughts on this and direction?
00:31:24.622 --> 00:31:48.766
Or is the church's response in regards to what President Nelson said in his talk, where he said that, he said, my dear brothers and sisters, in a coming day, Jesus Christ will return to the earth as the millennial Messiah.
00:31:49.727 --> 00:31:53.170
So I call upon you to rededicate your lives to Jesus Christ.
00:31:53.490 --> 00:31:57.193
The best is yet to come as we fully turn our hearts and our lives to Jesus Christ.
00:31:57.794 --> 00:31:58.815
So are we using...
00:31:58.855 --> 00:32:04.480
Do we use these events that are happening in the world?
00:32:05.402 --> 00:32:05.862
Do we...
00:32:06.221 --> 00:32:13.429
Again, forgive me for being a cynic here, but are we leveraging what's happening in the world to...
00:32:14.433 --> 00:32:24.443
remind people to keep the covenants, perhaps even scare them, say, hey, look, all these things are happening because it's the last days and Christ is coming and he'll be here shortly.
00:32:24.483 --> 00:32:28.428
That's what I get from his talk because of all these events.
00:32:28.448 --> 00:32:32.692
Is that the only response that we can give, that Christ is coming and he's going to be here real soon?
00:32:33.613 --> 00:32:35.174
The church has no date for that, of course.
00:32:35.836 --> 00:33:42.086
But that's not the first time, Jim, and feel free to jump in, that's not the first time where things have you know been happening or terrible things be happening in the churches uh defaulted to say look these are the last days and christ will be uh will be returning soon he's been returning for quite some time so i i i just don't know what to take from that you know that this is there's no detailed or specific references to these events going on which is bizarre for the only true church and the only mouthpiece of god on the earth other than to say that christ is um you know will be will be with us uh you know and then i get from that in the near future um and again feel free to jump in on that if you want to um the church announced also uh a number of temples 17 new temples and i won't read them but one of them was in dublin island And as far as I understand, there's about 1,000 or 1,200 active members living in Ireland.
00:33:42.566 --> 00:33:45.710
I think there's about 4,000 members on the books.
00:33:46.009 --> 00:33:53.939
Again, it's okay to reference this because if anyone's out there that wants to correct this, great.
00:33:54.318 --> 00:33:56.422
Then we can actually get the real numbers.
00:33:56.981 --> 00:34:02.568
So it's important to correct us if you're out there and you know something more than we do or you want to correct us, that's great.
00:34:02.969 --> 00:34:03.529
But my...
00:34:03.905 --> 00:34:08.693
From my sources, it's about 1,000, maybe 1,200 in Ireland.
00:34:09.514 --> 00:34:11.958
I don't know why we're building a temple.
00:34:12.418 --> 00:34:14.081
Maybe it's a very small, tidy temple.
00:34:14.141 --> 00:34:14.521
I don't know.
00:34:14.561 --> 00:34:18.407
But why we're building a temple in Ireland, I have no idea.
00:34:18.588 --> 00:34:21.371
Scotland, I don't know what's happening with this temple in Scotland.
00:34:21.572 --> 00:34:26.278
As you know, the church continues to shrink quite significantly in Scotland.
00:34:26.378 --> 00:34:40.324
I was there over the summer time, and I heard there was a state conference when only maybe a few hundred people showed up So I don't know what's happening in Scotland with the temple, where they're going to build it, or when they're going to build it.
00:34:41.045 --> 00:34:45.351
I think it's, you know, they made the announcement, so at some point they're going to be building these temples.
00:34:45.952 --> 00:34:54.327
But I don't understand the, from a logistics and from a numbers perspective, I don't know why we're building a temple in Ireland.
00:34:54.407 --> 00:34:55.690
It just doesn't make sense.
00:34:56.510 --> 00:35:17.844
What's interesting is, again, there's been, lots of references here to covenants and temple, not as much as the last conference, you're right, but there's definitely been references to, you know, the covenant path and staying close to your covenants and attending the temple, you know, to keep your covenants as much as you can.
00:35:18.425 --> 00:35:43.927
And I'm also connecting that with, and I'm trying to remember who said it here, but in one of the talks, This is a reference to someone who, one of the apostles, I think, attended the temple and had a revelation that the person they were doing the work for had received the gospel.
00:35:45.449 --> 00:36:34.036
And we've been talking about this on the podcast on and off for some time, saying that if the church is in decline in key areas across the world and it tries to, you know, it needs to, show or demonstrate that it's making progress, and numerically, quantifiably, in terms of number of convert baptisms, number of people joining the church, children on record joining the church, et cetera, et cetera, this metric for showing growth and progress, where it's not able to show growth, or at least the rate of growth, and reporting or the numbers show that the rate of growth for convert baptisms is slowing.
00:36:34.077 --> 00:36:44.112
And how does that contrast with the gospel being spread and to every kindred tongue of people that no one hallowed hand will stop it.
00:36:44.172 --> 00:36:48.699
It will continue to grow and grow and grow and millions and millions of people.
00:36:48.719 --> 00:36:54.108
I think Elder Holland talked about tens of billions of people joining the church.
00:36:55.554 --> 00:37:24.518
know over you know over the last decade and over the next few decades that's clearly not happening the church is obviously re allocating resources to philippines and africa where it's seen some growth which makes sense but if it's struggling to um demonstrate growth in on this metric across parts of the world what better way than to change the rules and to start talking about growth with temples which you can control It makes sense.
00:37:24.539 --> 00:37:25.280
They're very intelligent.
00:37:25.480 --> 00:37:36.773
What can we control that we can improve and change, where we can actually show growth and progress numerically, quantifiably?
00:37:37.074 --> 00:37:41.739
Well, 17 new temples, that's a number.
00:37:41.780 --> 00:37:42.760
That's quantifiable.
00:37:43.681 --> 00:37:48.789
Are they going to measure people who are accepting the gospel on the other side?
00:37:49.369 --> 00:37:51.742
Well, that make sense to me.
00:37:51.983 --> 00:37:53.744
Why wouldn't they do that?
00:37:54.106 --> 00:37:57.528
I think, and again, you can't question that.
00:37:57.568 --> 00:38:02.996
You can't question that if somebody hasn't accepted the gospel and decided.
00:38:03.715 --> 00:38:10.903
So that came through in, for me at least, in President Ellison's talk.
00:38:12.987 --> 00:38:22.782
The other things that were found quite interesting, looking at this synopsis, the church puts out a general conference overview of each of the talks.
00:38:22.862 --> 00:38:24.043
I've been relying on that.
00:38:24.164 --> 00:38:28.851
I confess I've not listened or read every single talk.
00:38:29.911 --> 00:38:36.802
I mean, so Elder Anderson, he talks about temple covenants and prayer.
00:38:36.822 --> 00:38:37.983
A lot of it's quite general.
00:38:38.023 --> 00:38:43.911
I found, Jim, a lot of the talks are like regurgitating stuff that we already know.
00:38:43.972 --> 00:38:54.521
A lot of obvious statements across most of the talks For example, as we strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ, we see beyond our struggles to the blessings and promises of eternity.
00:38:55.123 --> 00:39:05.597
I mean, it's like, and then if I look at, you know, other comments, like in the same talk even, the Savior sends the Holy Ghost as a companion to faith or bring peace, not as a world giver.
00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:12.706
They're important messages, but it's the same regurgitation of the same message, which is good.
00:39:12.827 --> 00:39:14.088
I mean, it's all open faith.
00:39:14.168 --> 00:39:22.094
I'm not trying to be negative here, but it's the same message The same message I got from the talks all the time.
00:39:22.735 --> 00:39:37.936
And so he makes reference to the temple covenants, keeping the commandments, etc., feasting on the scriptures, taking the sacraments, and fairly generic language in his talk.
00:39:38.498 --> 00:39:41.981
I agree with what he said earlier about Elder Oaks, by the way.
00:39:42.021 --> 00:39:44.224
He is...
00:39:45.346 --> 00:39:48.650
As you know, Elder Oak set me apart on a state presidency.
00:39:49.471 --> 00:39:52.755
We were able to spend the weekend with him as a state presidency.
00:39:53.335 --> 00:39:55.478
He sat right next to me having dinner.
00:39:55.557 --> 00:39:58.221
We had an interesting conversation about different things.
00:39:59.101 --> 00:40:04.748
And I found him incredibly intelligent, very engaging, very driven, very structured.
00:40:04.949 --> 00:40:12.478
If you look at his talks, the way he does it, he kind of tells you what he's going to talk about, then talks about it, and then kind of summarizes it.
00:40:12.929 --> 00:40:14.972
which I think is a great structure for a talk.
00:40:15.134 --> 00:40:17.577
And you're right, he talks about the two different commandments, etc.
00:40:17.597 --> 00:40:20.202
And love your enemies.
00:40:21.123 --> 00:40:28.153
There is a lot of toxic conversation going on, and that might be a reference to the US politics.
00:40:28.795 --> 00:40:45.088
In fact, at the end of his talk, he says here, as we pursue our preferred policies in public actions, I presume he's referring to the imminent election coming up in November in the US.
00:40:45.128 --> 00:40:49.092
But the overall message there was positive, you know, to be a peacemaker.
00:40:49.432 --> 00:40:54.599
And I think he knows he's lost the argument on some things.
00:40:54.679 --> 00:41:00.807
And he's now, he's set to be the next prophet from President Nelson.
00:41:01.367 --> 00:41:15.097
Maybe it's his way of trying to kind of mellow a little bit, you know, you know, perhaps is mellowing as time goes on and is kind of laying the path to be a, you know, to be at peace.
00:41:15.958 --> 00:41:27.956
Maybe his talk is strategic in terms of, you know, it's changing its position on some things in the future, like LGTBQ, et cetera.
00:41:28.958 --> 00:41:36.469
I think that's going to happen at some point where there's going to be specific references to that, addressing that issue.
00:41:37.025 --> 00:41:39.869
along with the reason why people are leaving the church.
00:41:40.291 --> 00:41:48.521
And it's interesting that you highlight the term grace, because that was referenced in another talk as well.
00:41:48.983 --> 00:42:02.081
And so, you know, if we are relying on grace, and in that reference, I don't have it with me, but in that talk, there's no reference to works.
00:42:02.786 --> 00:42:14.679
And so if we are moving our positioning a little bit towards we are saved by grace, I think that's a very significant and very interesting change if that happens.
00:42:16.161 --> 00:42:24.070
So for lots of reasons, I didn't attend conference.
00:42:24.690 --> 00:42:26.432
I didn't pore over the details.
00:42:28.775 --> 00:42:29.416
There is a...
00:42:31.137 --> 00:42:36.083
Overall, as I've read the synopsis of each one, I found them quite generic.
00:42:36.164 --> 00:42:37.925
Elder Oaks just stands out quite a bit.
00:42:38.387 --> 00:42:50.722
The other one that stood out that you mentioned earlier was Elder Stevenson, who was quite specific about the 2034 Olympics, etc.
00:42:50.862 --> 00:42:53.846
The eyes of the world is going to be on the church, etc.
00:42:53.865 --> 00:42:55.829
That was interesting, the specifics.
00:42:55.929 --> 00:42:59.934
I like things that are specific, and he gets into specific stuff.
00:43:00.257 --> 00:43:03.802
Brad Wilcox, I'm not a fan of him, to be honest.
00:43:03.842 --> 00:43:10.711
I think he had to issue an apology over a serious remark he made about blacks in the priesthood.
00:43:11.393 --> 00:43:12.034
I've got it here.
00:43:12.074 --> 00:43:15.257
He said, my dear friends, I made a serious mistake last night, and I'm truly sorry.
00:43:15.297 --> 00:43:21.126
The illustration I attempted to use about the timing of the revelation of the priesthood for black members was wrong.
00:43:21.786 --> 00:43:30.067
I reviewed what I said, and I recognized that what I hoped to express about trusting God's timing did not come through as I intended.
00:43:30.106 --> 00:43:34.715
To those I offended, especially my dear black friends, I offer my sincere apologies.
00:43:35.635 --> 00:43:37.338
And I'm committed to do better.
00:43:37.420 --> 00:43:39.402
So obviously he did a bit of a gaffe there.
00:43:40.023 --> 00:43:49.420
And then his response to his talk, that talk, I think he gave it, I think it was at BYU, I think it was then.
00:43:49.842 --> 00:43:52.166
It was a fireside in Alpine, Utah.
00:43:52.481 --> 00:43:54.224
Oh, he was a fireside.
00:43:54.465 --> 00:44:02.938
And someone commented here, actually, he said, I think you need to go back to Alpine, gather all the youth again, and correct your entire talk, and then resign.
00:44:02.978 --> 00:44:08.827
Follow the steps of repentance, the church leaders, and make reparations.
00:44:09.067 --> 00:44:10.570
Interesting response to that.
00:44:11.030 --> 00:44:14.034
So I am not a fan of Brad Wilcox.
00:44:14.155 --> 00:44:17.059
I find him completely church broke.
00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:19.722
He is enigmatic.
00:44:20.143 --> 00:44:21.326
He's got some charisma.
00:44:21.889 --> 00:44:28.820
But I'm just not a fan of his whatsoever.
00:44:30.523 --> 00:44:36.711
There was notably a black sister, Tracy Browning, of the primary general presidency.
00:44:38.494 --> 00:44:41.900
So it's good to see a black woman speaking.
00:44:42.661 --> 00:44:48.949
Looking at the synopsis here, Jim, I saw this sister, Emily Freeman, spoke.
00:44:49.731 --> 00:44:51.333
One female speaker.
00:44:51.842 --> 00:45:02.833
Going through the list here, I can see Sister Christian Yee of the Relief Society General Presidency spoke, and then we've got Sister Browning.
00:45:02.914 --> 00:45:08.159
So it's good to see people of color.
00:45:08.378 --> 00:45:10.541
It's good to see people of different cultures speak.
00:45:11.181 --> 00:45:16.708
And so we're seeing slowly but surely those changes coming in.
00:45:16.728 --> 00:45:18.429
Are they happening as fast as...
00:45:18.882 --> 00:45:22.086
We'd like, well, the church didn't do things, you know, very, very quick.
00:45:24.771 --> 00:45:33.505
So, yeah, I've just relied on the, you know, the synopsis of the talks here.
00:45:34.889 --> 00:45:39.817
But overall, a lot of it was very safe, quite general.
00:45:39.836 --> 00:45:42.380
I do, I did...
00:45:42.882 --> 00:45:48.972
Appreciate your comments about Elder Kieran, you know, about being the church who should be a source of joy.
00:45:49.873 --> 00:46:00.789
By the way, when I and I have attended, when we've attended Pastor Tessa's meetings in the past, certainly in the UK, I find it more prevalent than here in Canada.
00:46:01.451 --> 00:46:42.695
They're very solemn occasions, very solemn and subdued occasions memories that i've got a fasted testimony where a lot of people get up and it's quite solemn and you know sacrament talks are quite solemn and somber and and sometimes a little bit depressing and i and a few others that i knew in my life they were never like that we got up and we we talked about the joy and the excitement and he was asking me of the gospel and and um you know and and actually The spirit of Velda Kirvan's talk has always been my approach to talks.
00:46:42.835 --> 00:46:43.615
You know, be positive.
00:46:43.677 --> 00:46:44.697
Let's focus on the positive.
00:46:44.737 --> 00:46:45.637
Let's be excited.
00:46:45.998 --> 00:46:54.527
We should be excited about the gospel and not spend too much time worrying about or thinking about our sins because we'll be there forever, right?
00:46:55.086 --> 00:46:59.471
And we get bogged down and we get depressed that we're not good enough or we can't make the grade.
00:47:00.331 --> 00:47:11.690
And so I appreciate, although I didn't listen to his talk, and that's one of the talks, I'm going to go back and listen Sorry, I've got to go and listen to Elder Caron's talk and Elder Oaks' talk.
00:47:11.710 --> 00:47:14.554
They're the two talks that I really want to listen to.
00:47:14.954 --> 00:47:23.307
But I appreciate Elder Caron talking about the joy that exists in the gospel, because I think sometimes we tend to be on the negative side.
00:47:24.730 --> 00:47:28.195
So that's my very high level.
00:47:28.577 --> 00:47:39.054
Forgive the lack of detail, because I didn't attend, and I've not listened or read the talks, and I I used to feel quite guilty when I missed a talk.
00:47:39.954 --> 00:47:40.996
I don't have that.
00:47:41.056 --> 00:47:43.557
But I am going to go back and listen to those two talks.
00:47:43.597 --> 00:47:44.840
So there's my take.
00:47:44.880 --> 00:47:49.403
I think the talks were very strategic, tactical, safe.
00:47:52.226 --> 00:47:54.829
You know, they talked about grace, decline of the church.
00:47:54.849 --> 00:47:57.251
I think that's a bit of a precursor to other things.
00:47:57.612 --> 00:48:02.657
They talked about people receiving the gospel of the sides of the veil.
00:48:04.226 --> 00:48:05.226
you know, through the temple.
00:48:05.246 --> 00:48:06.509
I think we're going to see more of that.
00:48:07.230 --> 00:48:18.643
Disappointed that the church didn't make reference to the major global events that are happening in the Middle East and in Ukraine and probably what's going to be happening in Taiwan.
00:48:18.684 --> 00:48:25.672
As you know, there's a big naval exercise going on, I think, in that part of the world right now.
00:48:25.692 --> 00:48:27.855
And that's upsetting China.
00:48:27.894 --> 00:48:44.713
So we're seeing a lot of geopolitic issues and we don't really, we seem like, the church seems like it's been a bit of in a bubble where it's just not interested or willing or able to talk about the events in the world, which is, I just can't understand that.
00:48:44.775 --> 00:48:55.286
But anyway, that's my perhaps less informed or less educated take on general conduct because I didn't attend.
00:48:55.487 --> 00:48:58.990
But as I say, there's a couple of talks I want to get into.
00:48:59.050 --> 00:48:59.391
So
00:48:59.891 --> 00:49:01.693
I'll hand this, I think.
00:49:02.978 --> 00:49:09.507
Well, I think it's very helpful to get the perspective of people that don't...
00:49:12.090 --> 00:49:15.956
You're not necessarily the same as somebody who's never been a member of the church.
00:49:16.797 --> 00:49:27.673
I've seen reactions from people outside the church on Reddit and otherwise who say, yeah, I had my Nevermo friend watch...
00:49:28.577 --> 00:49:58.780
conference and they tuned out after about 20 minutes because they said this is so boring and why would anybody watch all of this and I can understand that particularly Sunday when you're singing in the choir on Sunday conference Sunday is a very very long day you get there at 7am you rehearse You do the music and the spoken word broadcast.
00:49:59.202 --> 00:50:00.443
You rehearse for conference.
00:50:00.923 --> 00:50:02.485
You have the first session of conference.
00:50:02.907 --> 00:50:04.688
You rehearse for the next session of conference.
00:50:04.730 --> 00:50:05.690
You have a quick lunch.
00:50:06.831 --> 00:50:09.876
And then you have the second session of conference.
00:50:10.016 --> 00:50:11.599
And you're sitting all day.
00:50:11.639 --> 00:50:15.103
And it's just long.
00:50:16.306 --> 00:50:30.081
And in the era of the internet, in the age of the internet, you know, one of the memes you see it very often is couldn't this just have been an email instead of a meeting couldn't this just have been an email
00:50:30.641 --> 00:50:30.822
yeah
00:50:31.023 --> 00:51:13.983
isn't there more a more efficient way to share these kinds of messages than in the what you've got five sessions so 10 hours of sitting and watching people read essays that were written to be read rather than spoken So I can understand that, and I appreciate the reaction of somebody that didn't watch conference, even if the fact that you were willing to take the time to go and review what was said at conference demonstrates that you're more engaged than I think a lot of even active members of the church.
00:51:14.182 --> 00:51:25.407
It's just an awful lot to ask of anyone to devote that much time to sit and watch conference Frankly, boring stuff.
00:51:26.268 --> 00:51:35.378
These are not charismatic, with some exceptions, these are not charismatic speech givers.
00:51:36.380 --> 00:51:39.664
As you were talking, a couple of things came to mind.
00:51:41.786 --> 00:51:51.818
One, with regard to Brad Wilcox, I remember well his Alpine fireside.
00:51:52.673 --> 00:52:08.476
And I remember even at the time being frustrated with, okay, he's apologizing for this, but he gave exactly the same fireside multiple times over the course of years.
00:52:09.458 --> 00:52:18.391
So he would never have apologized for it had he not been recorded and had it not gone viral and people had not...
00:52:18.472 --> 00:52:19.914
Because I think...
00:52:20.610 --> 00:52:32.483
He'd given that same fireside, but he'd given it in closed settings where it was only heard by a relative handful of people, by dozens or hundreds of people.
00:52:33.644 --> 00:52:39.833
And once it went viral and everybody could see what he was saying, he was called upon to apologize.
00:52:40.472 --> 00:52:47.722
However, I want to give him kudos for the fact that he did apologize because that is so rare.
00:52:48.898 --> 00:52:50.619
almost nonexistent.
00:52:50.719 --> 00:52:58.186
You know, we have that council from President Oaks where he said it is the policy of the church not to seek apologies or to give them.
00:52:59.568 --> 00:53:06.275
Apologies on an institutional level are essentially nonexistent.
00:53:07.016 --> 00:53:16.505
The only one that I found is there was a statement of regret about the Mountain Meadows massacre that was given at the time when the site was dedicated.
00:53:16.769 --> 00:53:28.485
There's a memorial at the site that was dedicated, and it was President Eyring who expressed the church's profound regret, which is not even quite an apology.
00:53:29.467 --> 00:53:45.409
But the fact that Brad Wilcox gave an apology, and it seemed to be a sincere apology, and it was a recognition that he had done something wrong, I find that extraordinarily refreshing.
00:53:45.489 --> 00:53:47.313
So I want to give him credit for that.
00:53:48.155 --> 00:53:49.036
It's also interesting.
00:53:49.076 --> 00:53:56.389
Brad Wilcox arrives at conference in the conference center earlier than most of the other general authorities.
00:53:56.548 --> 00:54:03.121
And he just stands there and stares at the choir while we rehearse with this huge grin on his face.
00:54:04.242 --> 00:54:08.349
And so I just, I find that endearing.
00:54:09.025 --> 00:54:11.467
the fact that he seems to love the choir so much.
00:54:11.548 --> 00:54:13.731
So maybe I'm giving him a little more slack that way.
00:54:15.932 --> 00:54:26.983
You mentioned this idea of, and we've talked about it again many times, the idea that the church is going to start measuring success on the other side of the veil.
00:54:28.385 --> 00:54:29.927
And why wouldn't they do that?
00:54:30.086 --> 00:54:36.994
Because it's getting harder and harder to measure success on this side of the veil, given the statistics that we're familiar with.
00:54:38.369 --> 00:54:42.994
The phrase, you know, there are catchphrases that come out of conferences.
00:54:44.315 --> 00:54:53.425
And when they're used by the president of the church, for instance, when Russell Nelson said, think celestial, everybody kept saying, think celestial for six months.
00:54:53.485 --> 00:54:58.952
That's petered out somewhat, but you can still find it out there, the idea of think celestial.
00:54:58.972 --> 00:55:07.842
The catchphrase covenant path, I think, will be with us for quite some time, long after President Nelson is gone.
00:55:08.833 --> 00:55:20.545
The growing catchphrase that we heard in this conference was gathering Israel on both sides of the veil.
00:55:20.565 --> 00:55:23.929
Several speakers used that phrase.
00:55:25.010 --> 00:55:45.112
And that would reinforce what you're saying is that the focus now and the reason why President Nelson, President Nelson very explicitly in his talk, And I want to note the fact that President Nelson, he showed up physically to conference twice.
00:55:45.753 --> 00:55:47.235
He was in a wheelchair both times.
00:55:47.998 --> 00:55:51.481
And he did not speak live at conference either time.
00:55:52.403 --> 00:55:53.224
But he was there.
00:55:53.244 --> 00:55:54.407
He was present.
00:55:54.646 --> 00:55:55.407
He was alert.
00:55:56.108 --> 00:55:57.090
He was engaged.
00:55:57.931 --> 00:56:12.253
And his talk, this is a 100-year-old man, obviously, but his talk made it very clear, I think, that whatever his physical deterioration may be, mentally, he is still all there.
00:56:12.293 --> 00:56:19.483
All of those who are saying, okay, well, President Oaks has taken over now, and President Nelson is just a figurehead.
00:56:20.324 --> 00:56:21.704
I don't think that's true.
00:56:21.724 --> 00:56:34.521
I sort of suspected maybe that was true prior to the 100th birthday, but at the 100th birthday party, he got up out of his wheelchair and embraced people.
00:56:34.541 --> 00:56:34.961
He was...
00:56:35.713 --> 00:56:37.817
clearly alert and engaged there.
00:56:38.536 --> 00:56:49.490
But his talk made it clear that he is still mentally sharp, as sharp or sharper than men who are decades younger than he is.
00:56:50.552 --> 00:56:53.896
And so I found that encouraging.
00:56:54.016 --> 00:57:02.902
And I also, looking at the frailty of the rest of the first presidency, Oaks certainly looked better than Eyring does.
00:57:03.182 --> 00:57:05.626
Eyring just looks very, very frail at this point.
00:57:07.248 --> 00:57:15.155
President Holland came in a wheelchair, and he looked really, really ill when he spoke.
00:57:16.356 --> 00:57:21.242
I found his talk to be somewhat disappointing.
00:57:21.563 --> 00:57:31.733
There is a harshness to Elder Holland now that was absent, and I'm not quite sure where that's coming from.
00:57:32.545 --> 00:58:01.918
When he spoke six months ago, and it was the first time he had spoken since he had had his near-death experience, and he described it as a near-death experience, and he didn't describe the details of it, but to say that the message that he got was that he had to be more, I'm trying to remember what exactly the word was, but I interpreted it as I need to be more strident, more, I need to be harsher.
00:58:02.626 --> 00:58:06.351
In my tone, I need to cry repentance with more vigor.
00:58:07.572 --> 00:58:27.101
And so there seems to be this sense from him that he's taking a harsher tone, he's taking a sharper tone than the kind of pastoral tone for which he has known, and for what I think has been sort of the hallmark of his legacy.
00:58:28.063 --> 00:58:30.126
So I was sort of disappointed to see that.
00:58:30.561 --> 00:59:20.231
and this is a bit of a tangent, but President Holland, I should call him President Holland since he's the president of the Quorum of the Twelve, President Holland recently, for the first time, has made public comments about his musket fire talk, which every report I've gotten from behind the scenes is that he he was devastated by the negative reaction to that talk, because that talk really did fly in the face of the kind of pastoral image, not just image, but the pastoral ministry that President Holland has engaged in throughout his life.
00:59:20.492 --> 00:59:32.260
And that talk was so combative and so divisive And behind the scenes, people who knew Elder Holland were telling me he really regrets it.
00:59:32.400 --> 00:59:34.001
He really feels terrible about it.
00:59:35.364 --> 00:59:37.405
And he's spoken publicly about it.
00:59:37.525 --> 00:59:42.010
And unlike Brad Wilcox, he was not willing to apologize for it.
00:59:43.432 --> 00:59:47.197
But he was willing to say, if you were hurt, I was hurt.
00:59:48.938 --> 00:59:51.001
And I know many people were hurt.
00:59:51.422 --> 00:59:53.264
And if you wept, I wept.
00:59:53.543 --> 00:59:55.286
I have wept about that talk.
00:59:56.610 --> 01:00:05.603
And that echoes some language from the talk where he said, you know, we've all wept for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.
01:00:06.324 --> 01:00:08.829
You can't tell us that we haven't wept for them.
01:00:10.291 --> 01:00:21.750
And I find that to be really, really odd because it seems to be an attempt to apologize without actually apologizing.
01:00:22.818 --> 01:00:25.561
And I don't know how that helps anybody.
01:00:25.581 --> 01:00:27.643
I don't know how that helps Elder Holland.
01:00:28.684 --> 01:00:39.873
I mean, if he's hurt by how other people have been hurt, then shouldn't he apologize for being an instrument of that kind of pain?
01:00:39.914 --> 01:00:46.800
Is he trying to say, I had no choice because God made me say this, and I feel bad.
01:00:46.880 --> 01:00:48.342
I really wish I hadn't had to say it.
01:00:48.362 --> 01:00:52.246
That's a really strange place to land.
01:00:52.898 --> 01:01:00.284
As far as I'm concerned, I just don't I don't know how you give somebody credit for the fact that they've done something that has hurt somebody.
01:01:00.324 --> 01:01:06.492
They acknowledge that they've hurt somebody, but they're still not willing to apologize for hurting someone.
01:01:07.592 --> 01:01:20.766
So anyway, I find I I found that problematic and I found Elder Collins talk to to just be a little harsher than it ought to have been.
01:01:21.186 --> 01:01:24.768
I was also somewhat disappointed in Elder Uchtdorf's talk.
01:01:25.449 --> 01:01:31.655
You know, he's very frequently a highlight, and I thought his talk really wasn't up to his previous standards.
01:01:32.317 --> 01:01:33.838
He talked about truth.
01:01:33.938 --> 01:01:38.061
He talked about how some truths are more valuable than other truths.
01:01:39.023 --> 01:01:47.471
And it just didn't sing in the way that a lot of Elder Uchtdorf's talks do.
01:01:47.610 --> 01:02:00.543
So anyway, in terms of all of that, You know, conference, we are led by, I believe, good and inspired men who are men.
01:02:01.304 --> 01:02:02.545
They are fallible.
01:02:02.947 --> 01:02:04.509
They have weaknesses.
01:02:05.309 --> 01:02:06.512
They have blind spots.
01:02:06.931 --> 01:02:09.956
They are encountering mortality the same way we are.
01:02:09.976 --> 01:02:17.847
And so I feel like we should give them as much grace as God gives us.
01:02:18.688 --> 01:02:18.929
We...
01:02:19.458 --> 01:02:21.820
I do not expect my leaders to be perfect.
01:02:22.422 --> 01:02:24.364
I do not expect them not to make mistakes.
01:02:24.626 --> 01:02:47.900
And I do not, even when they don't measure up to the kinds of rhetorical standards that I would hope they would measure up to based on my expectations of conference, I can still recognize that the hand of the Lord is in this church and that he is working through these men to help bring about the Lord's purposes.
01:02:48.721 --> 01:03:10.311
So, All of those kinds of things are just kind of my thoughts, but I think the things that you have raised, particularly this idea of gathering Israel on both sides of the veil, I think you are being very perceptive there, and I think that very much is one of the messages.
01:03:11.052 --> 01:03:14.557
So that's my reaction to your reaction.
01:03:15.041 --> 01:03:18.545
And I think that kind of covers most of it.
01:03:18.565 --> 01:03:19.867
Is there something that we've missed?
01:03:20.527 --> 01:03:21.028
Yeah.
01:03:21.168 --> 01:03:24.992
While I was listening to you, I thought it was a great response to Merrick's comments.
01:03:25.052 --> 01:03:29.097
Three, you know, I said earlier, forgive me for not being as specific as I would like.
01:03:29.637 --> 01:03:34.264
I was listening to you, but I have found three things I want to highlight here from this synopsis.
01:03:34.943 --> 01:03:40.610
One is in Elder Anderson's talk where he said that, and this is important to quote this.
01:03:41.532 --> 01:03:44.887
This is in respect to the synopsis teaching of grace.
01:03:45.108 --> 01:04:01.068
He says here in Elder Aldous' talk, hope of eternal life is assured through the grace of Christ and individual choices, allowing individuals through a remarkable blessing of returning to be with the Heavenly Father, His beloved Son.
01:04:01.367 --> 01:04:02.530
No reference to works.
01:04:03.371 --> 01:04:04.192
I want to highlight that.
01:04:04.652 --> 01:04:05.213
And I think that's
01:04:06.094 --> 01:04:08.197
a good direct...
01:04:08.217 --> 01:04:12.061
Individual choices could be interpreted as a reference to works, couldn't it?
01:04:12.193 --> 01:04:19.161
You can interpret that any way you want, I guess, maybe, but no specific reference, hard reference to works, right?
01:04:19.981 --> 01:04:31.474
And then if I scroll through the synopsis again that I'm relying on here is if you go to Elder Brooke P.
01:04:31.574 --> 01:04:48.253
Hales, he said, you know, when he was a young teacher to an older sister in his ward whose life hadn't been easy, but after she died, her son received a message from her while in the temple telling him mortality works.
01:04:48.974 --> 01:05:01.731
So there's a hard reference to an experience that you can't verify, obviously, that someone on the other side of the veil has accepted the gospel.
01:05:01.751 --> 01:05:03.413
That's what I get from that, which is fine.
01:05:03.733 --> 01:05:06.697
And again, I think we're going to hear more of that.
01:05:08.239 --> 01:05:09.862
You know, temple, more temples...
01:05:10.369 --> 01:05:11.751
I mean, it's just logical.
01:05:11.791 --> 01:05:12.452
It's intelligent.
01:05:12.791 --> 01:05:13.773
Build more temples.
01:05:16.396 --> 01:05:18.338
Show that we're making progress through temples.
01:05:18.958 --> 01:05:19.918
It's the last days.
01:05:20.018 --> 01:05:20.679
Christ's coming.
01:05:21.621 --> 01:05:24.282
Get everybody committed to the covenant path, including you.
01:05:24.302 --> 01:05:25.003
Go to the temple.
01:05:25.643 --> 01:05:28.407
And let's start measuring all the activity in the temple.
01:05:28.507 --> 01:05:35.353
And yes, as a natural extension, let's measure how many people accept the gospel on the other side of the veil.
01:05:35.974 --> 01:05:39.878
And the third thing I want to highlight is from Elder Cook.
01:05:40.097 --> 01:05:43.181
talk, Quentin Elcock, an apostle.
01:05:43.882 --> 01:05:45.605
He says something very interesting in his talk.
01:05:46.085 --> 01:05:51.172
There's some generic statements like, you know, the Book of Mormon helps individuals draw closer to God.
01:05:51.472 --> 01:05:53.014
That's what I'm talking about, stuff like that.
01:05:53.054 --> 01:06:02.025
It's like getting up and saying, you know, God is good, or the Book of Mormon is good, or serving is a good thing.
01:06:02.166 --> 01:06:04.969
You know, I mean, it's just very generic.
01:06:05.009 --> 01:06:06.791
But he gets into some interesting things at the end.
01:06:06.811 --> 01:06:13.445
He said, hey, to know that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, We need to re-ponder and pray about it, just getting people to read it again.
01:06:13.465 --> 01:06:15.387
And then he says here something interesting.
01:06:15.748 --> 01:06:19.713
Latter-day Saints need to be intentional about what they view.
01:06:19.753 --> 01:06:24.722
Do not entertain immoral, dishonest, or unrighteous material.
01:06:25.623 --> 01:06:37.581
Does that mean immaterial that the church has published that is incorrect or where prophets or apostles or leaders of the church have said things that are verifiably untrue or incorrect?
01:06:38.177 --> 01:06:53.902
or policies that in the past, like the 2015 gay-related policy that the church did a big reversal on, was that unrighteous material?
01:06:53.942 --> 01:06:57.025
Does these rules apply to the church as well?
01:06:57.387 --> 01:07:01.193
He says that you can be acted upon positively or negatively.
01:07:01.213 --> 01:07:03.396
I think Elder Bednar gave an interesting talk on that.
01:07:03.976 --> 01:07:07.181
Seek righteousness and avoid dark internet rabbit holes.
01:07:07.617 --> 01:07:09.902
And doom scrolling.
01:07:11.844 --> 01:07:13.086
Doom scrolling, yes.
01:07:14.007 --> 01:07:15.490
Doom scrolling is what?
01:07:15.570 --> 01:07:19.056
Looking for end-of-day negative stuff?
01:07:21.079 --> 01:07:27.750
Doom scrolling, I'm surprised you used that term because it's not a term that is church-related.
01:07:29.452 --> 01:07:37.056
People talk about it's just people who sit on their phones And they just scroll forever, forever, just to look at anything.
01:07:37.096 --> 01:07:44.286
It's been called doom scrolling, but it's not necessarily that you're focused on the end times.
01:07:44.346 --> 01:07:45.527
There's not a religious thing.
01:07:46.268 --> 01:07:48.431
I'm going to look up the definition while you talk here.
01:07:48.773 --> 01:07:51.476
Yeah, but it's used in a religious meeting, right?
01:07:52.717 --> 01:07:53.840
It's a religious meeting.
01:07:53.920 --> 01:07:58.206
It's not a general business meeting, nothing like that, or a...
01:07:58.530 --> 01:08:09.206
PPT says that doom scrolling is the act of spending too much time reading or scrolling through negative news or content on social media or the web.
01:08:10.248 --> 01:08:11.570
Okay, all right.
01:08:11.750 --> 01:08:11.929
Fine.
01:08:12.070 --> 01:08:14.954
That's a generic definition, right?
01:08:14.974 --> 01:08:16.136
A universal definition.
01:08:16.717 --> 01:08:18.300
Remember, Elder Cook is an apostle.
01:08:18.399 --> 01:08:21.704
This is a significant religious event in the church.
01:08:22.305 --> 01:08:26.091
There's fixtures, etc.
01:08:26.853 --> 01:08:27.434
And so...
01:08:27.938 --> 01:08:52.680
know i i get from that through my spectrum of you know more on the spectrum that um yeah just i mean don't read all the negative stuff um i'd also you know don't read too much of the end of the world stuff president nelson talks about the end of the world maybe i'm getting a Maybe I'm the only one getting that interpretation.
01:08:52.841 --> 01:09:07.158
And then he talks about, he finishes at the end there, he says, to those who have deviated from the covenant path, I guess that's me, return to the sacred scriptures, prophetic guidance, religious observance in the home, and music of faith.
01:09:07.538 --> 01:09:12.225
He's talking about you, Jim Bennett, about being in the tabernacle.
01:09:12.244 --> 01:09:17.679
So I've no excuse to be a resigned member or inactive.
01:09:18.078 --> 01:09:25.307
I'm here with the great Jim Bennett, and that alone should be enough for me to return to the music of faith.
01:09:25.828 --> 01:09:28.171
So there's three specifics there.
01:09:29.492 --> 01:09:33.697
So again, I go back to the very first thing I said.
01:09:33.716 --> 01:09:38.143
If you go to conference and you get uplifted and inspired, great.
01:09:38.403 --> 01:09:39.564
I think that's a wonderful thing.
01:09:40.524 --> 01:10:12.679
People need help and support, and if you can get that from your know your church meetings sacraments i would encourage the church to be more um you know really emphasize what elder karen said about looking at the the joyousness and the joy aspects of the church instead of being too subdued and too solemn and i've seen too much in that and i'd love to go to a um an evangelical church where they are singing, playing guitars.
01:10:12.738 --> 01:10:16.743
I've actually been to some of those over Christmas time.
01:10:16.764 --> 01:10:23.992
We go to some over Christmas time in another church near where we live.
01:10:24.412 --> 01:10:25.172
And they're amazing.
01:10:25.432 --> 01:10:28.976
They're playing the guitar, they're playing the drums, they're singing, they tell the story of Jesus.
01:10:30.118 --> 01:10:35.505
The number of people that turn out, Jim, and these are local churches that do them here locally.
01:10:36.706 --> 01:10:41.150
I mean, they're in the massive number of people that turn out.
01:10:41.711 --> 01:10:43.292
They don't last long, in about an hour.
01:10:44.154 --> 01:10:58.588
They focus on the birth of Christ, and I get a lot of spirituality from those, religious spirituality from those, far more than I got in the last few years before I left the church.
01:10:58.729 --> 01:11:05.936
I think the church would do well to change the atmosphere, if you like, in there, to be more positive, more joyous.
01:11:05.976 --> 01:11:45.291
Let's be excited about life let's be enthusiastic and yes let's bring some instruments in and let's kind of cheer people up instead of everybody walking around with big long faces uh because i spent too much time thinking about you know all these uh all these sins um you know i don't think about my sins anymore um you know i i just focus on being the best i can being a good father, good husband, and a good person, hopefully, in the community, trying to make a little bit of a difference, and getting spirituality from nature.
01:11:45.311 --> 01:12:06.846
I think there's a lot of wonderful, you know, God created this planet, this earth, wonderful, it's very beautiful, and you can get spirituality from nature, from places, and that's where my general conference is now, riding my mountain bike with my family and my friends, through the mountains, saving Canada.
01:12:07.207 --> 01:12:08.708
And I get a lot from that.
01:12:08.988 --> 01:12:14.173
But again, if you go to church and you go to conference and you get a lot from it, great, keep going.
01:12:14.213 --> 01:12:22.743
And we all get our inspiration in different ways from different sources, and that's a good thing.
01:12:22.783 --> 01:12:34.474
So I think overall, conference looks, from my perspective, resigned, quite critical of the church, the church where I think it's deserving, in my opinion at least.
01:12:34.881 --> 01:12:42.796
I think overall it was pretty safe and fairly general and a pretty decent conference, it sounds like.
01:12:43.518 --> 01:12:45.782
So that's my final comments on that.
01:12:46.663 --> 01:12:47.085
All right.
01:12:47.164 --> 01:12:49.088
Well, let's let that be the last word.
01:12:49.909 --> 01:12:53.596
And so very much appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me.
01:12:54.337 --> 01:13:02.536
We appreciate all of you who are listening to this, and we hope that you would subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
01:13:03.257 --> 01:13:06.905
We look forward to seeing you next time on Inside Out.
01:13:07.306 --> 01:13:08.309
Thank you very much, Ian.
01:13:08.350 --> 01:13:09.431
Thank you, Jim.