The Miracle of Forgiveness

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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 miraculous Ian Wilkes.
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Ian, how are you, sir?
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I am doing absolutely fabulous.
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How are you, Jim?
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You know what?
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I'm doing great.
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I understand you're heading off to Mexico.
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You're heading to a place we went a couple of years ago.
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So you're living an exciting life.
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Life is good.
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This is part of your miraculous existence.
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Yes, this is a really important holiday for me and my family.
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And we're excited.
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Never been to Cancun, Mexico.
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Can't wait.
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Excited.
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Well, that's very cool.
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So I called you miraculous for a reason.
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because that segues into a discussion of a book that has miracle in the title, but I think the book is anything but miraculous.
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We decided that it might be a good idea to talk a little bit about a book that has had oversized influence on the church as a whole for decades.
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It's a book called The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W.
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Kimball.
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And this book, it would be hard to overstate what kind of an impact this book has had.
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For a while, it was part of the missionary library.
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Do you remember the missionary?
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We could read Jesus the Christ, I think the Articles of Faith, and a few others.
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I know LeGrand Richards' book, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, was part of it.
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I don't remember Miracle of Forgiveness being part of it.
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Do you?
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No.
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I
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do.
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So in the NTC in London, as a young missionary, we were instructed by the temple and the mission president to take the following books on our missions to Scotland.
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The standard works, obviously.
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Articles of Faith, James E.
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Talmadge.
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Jesus of the Christ, James E.
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Talmadge.
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Marvelous Work and a Wonder, LeGron Richards, I think.
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Yep, yep.
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And the other book that we were strongly encouraged to take, last but not least, Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W.
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Kimball.
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Lovely, lovely.
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I don't remember having it on my mission.
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I do remember at some point on my mission, it might have been while you were still there, or it might have been after you went home, but an edict came down from President Banks that missionaries were no longer allowed to read the miracle of forgiveness.
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Because if you read the miracle of forgiveness, you feel anything but forgiven.
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The miracle of forgiveness is, forgiveness comes up in the last two chapters.
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I've got the whole book here on PDF, and there are about 20 chapters.
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And the last three chapters are titled The Church Will Forgive, God Will Forgive, and The Miracle of Forgiveness.
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The rest of the chapters are all about sin and different ways to sin.
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So if you will indulge me here, on page 25 of the book The Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W.
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Kimball, I'm not making this up, Spencer W.
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Kimball lists...
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Every sin you can commit.
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And I just think it would be helpful.
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I'm going to read this.
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It's 145 words.
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And to put that in perspective, the proclamation on the family is about 250 words.
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So according to Spencer W.
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Kimball, the following are the sins that you can commit.
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Murder, adultery, theft, cursing, unholiness in masters, disobedience in servants, unfaithfulness, improvidence, hatred of God, disobedience to husbands, nothing about wives.
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lack of natural affection, high-mindedness, flattery, lustfulness, infidelity, indiscretion, backbiting, whispering, lack of truth, striking, brawling, quarrelsomeness, unthankfulness, inhospitality, deceitfulness, irreverence, boasting, arrogance, pride, double-tongued talk, profanity, slander, corruptness, thievery, embezzlement, the spoiling, covenant-breaking, incontinence, incontinence is a sin, filthiness, ignobleness, filthy communications, impurity, foolishness, slothfulness, impatience, lack of understanding, unmercifulness, idolatry, blasphemy, denial of the Holy Ghost, Sabbath-breaking, envy, jealousy, malice, maligning, vengefulness, implacability, bitterness, clamor, spite, defiling, reviling, evil-speaking, provoking, greeniness for filthy lucre, Disobedience to parents, anger, hate, covetousness, bearing false witness, inventing evil things.
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That's a funny one.
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Inventing evil things.
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Flesh sickness, heresy, presumptuousness, abomination, insatiable appetite, instability, ignorance, self-will, speaking evil of dignitaries.
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I don't know what that means.
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Becoming a stumbling block and in our modern language, masturbation, petting, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and every sex perversion, every hidden and secret sin and all unholy and impure practices.
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If your sin was not listed in there.
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There is a sin he's missed.
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Which one?
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And I just did it.
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Loud laughter.
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Loud laughter.
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Where is that?
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I think you could find something in there that might cover that.
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I don't know.
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I don't know.
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Spencer Kimmel, if you can hear this, hear my laughter.
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You know, I mean, we can look at this now and we can chuckle and we can laugh.
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I mean, that's absolutely ridiculous.
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But we talked in our last podcast with Beth Magnetic about scrupulosity.
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And there is no greater...
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catalyst for scrupulosity that has ever been published by the church than the miracle of forgiveness.
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As I was preparing for this podcast, I went and looked at everybody's reactions to the miracle of forgiveness.
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And everybody, no matter who you are, if you read this book, you will feel worse about yourself.
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You will be convicted of some kind of, you will find yourself in the plethora of sins that that Spencer W.
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Kimball lists.
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And it's only, you go through all of this, and it's only when you get to the end that he even brings out the possibility of forgiveness.
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Because he tries to make sure that you feel just as absolutely awful as you possibly can.
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And there are so many things in this book that the church wants no longer teaches.
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And I was sort of working on that and trying to figure out what they were.
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One is that the idea, for instance, that the passage in Alma where it talks about, know ye not my son, that this is the most abominable of all sins, except for a shedding of innocent blood.
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It's the miracle of forgiveness that codified that into policy.
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It says explicitly that sexual sin is next to murder in seriousness.
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And we no longer teach that nearly as explicitly.
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But I guess we teach that.
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I mean, that's worthy of debate and discussion to determine how much of that we still teach.
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But the way he talks about masturbation, he insists that masturbation...
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leads to homosexuality, uh, that if you masturbate, it leads to mutual masturbation and then to, as Spencer W.
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Kimball describes it, total homosexuality.
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So it's partial, I guess, if you're masturbating on your own, but if somebody else is there with you, then that's just the next logical extension.
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And I just think, what planet are you on?
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And I'm shaking my head.
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I mean, you're shaking.
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I mean, it's, it's just nuts.
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Um, And probably the most damaging stuff that's in the miracle of forgiveness is its references to homosexuality because it describes homosexuality in ways that we no longer teach.
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And it's very important to recognize that we've changed.
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We don't do this anymore.
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And yet every time the church changes, the church doesn't, um, The church doesn't acknowledge that it's changed.
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And in fact, the miracle of forgiveness has quietly gone out of print, just as Mormon doctrine, Brad Rusar McConkie, has quietly gone out of print.
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And the church just pretends it was never there, didn't happen.
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But, I mean, how do you...
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Here's the passage about masturbation.
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Uh...
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While we should not regard this weakness as the heinous sin, which some other sexual practices are, it is of itself bad enough to require sincere repentance.
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On the sentence before that is, our modern prophet has indicated that no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice.
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And we've discussed that at length.
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That's no longer the policy.
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What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality.
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For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation, practiced with another person of the same sex, and thence into total homosexuality.
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And it's interesting, the other thing that's changed in the church that goes directly against the miracle of forgiveness is that we no longer teach that a homosexual orientation is sinful.
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that to be attracted to someone of the same sex is not sinful.
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And in fact, we've gone out of our way to point out that, oh, homosexual feelings are not sinful, but homosexual actions are.
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And that's sort of where we've drawn this line.
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And there are problems with that, but we won't necessarily get into that right now.
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But here in The Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W.
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Kimball defines homosexuality.
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He says this perversion is defined as, quote, And he puts this in quotes.
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So I'm quoting him quoting, quote, sexual desire for those of the same sex or sexual relations between individuals of the same sex, whether men or women.
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So right there, it's there in black and white that Spencer W.
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Kimball, it wasn't just acting on it.
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It was sexual desire in and of itself.
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is sinful.
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And it goes on, it has, I think it's led to a number of suicides in terms of how it describes homosexuality.
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It has that terrible phrase about, okay, after consideration of the evil aspects, the ugliness and prevalence of the evil of homosexuality, the glorious thing to remember is that it is curable and forgivable.
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The Lord has promised that all sins can be forgiven except certain ones enumerated, and this evil was not among those named.
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Thus it is forgivable if totally abandoned, and if the repentance is sincere and absolute, certainly it can be overcome.
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For there are numerous happy people who were once involved in its clutches and have since completely transformed their lives.
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Therefore, and here's the sentence that just drives me nuts.
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Therefore, to those who say that this practice or any other evil is incurable, I respond, how can you say the door cannot be opened until your knuckles are bloody, till your head is bruised, till your muscles are sore?
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It can be done.
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And we don't teach that anymore.
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We don't believe that anymore.
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I think of how many people have pounded their hands against that door until their knuckles are bloody, till their head is bruised, till their muscles are sore, and the door does not open, and their sexual desire, which Elder Kimball, because he was not a president of the church when he wrote this, But Elder Kimball said the desire in and of itself is wicked.
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And people have pounded on the door to get rid of that desire.
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I mean, I talk to people, there are people in the Tabernacle Choir who have desperately tried to change their sexual orientation and have not been able to do it.
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And I think that every believing Latter-day Saint who finds themselves confronting desires they do not want has pounded on that door as hard as they can, and it never opens.
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You do not change someone's sexual orientation by being more righteous, by praying, and that's what we teach now.
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That's not what we taught them.
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So there's a whole lot more here, but that's kind of the opening rant, opening introduction.
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Have you read this book?
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When did you read this book?
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Yes, I read this in the MTC in early 80s, early 87, before traveling to Scotland.
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And as I say, it's one of the main books that we were encouraged to read.
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Going back to what you're saying in the introduction, as you read that, and I've got it in front of me, all those words, all those sins, which is the most extensive list of sins I've ever come across.
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Some of them are very strange, like...
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Filthy communications.
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I mean, what's that?
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Another one I find quite funny, I guess not funny to Spencer Kimball, is the fleshliness.
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Fleshliness, yeah.
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There's some regular ones in there, and there's some very strange ones.
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He certainly has missed loud laughter.
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He's probably missed a few of them, but that's loud laughter he missed.
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But when I read this for the first time, I felt...
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completely full of sin, inadequate.
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It gave me a feeling of there's no way I can make it back.
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There's absolutely so many things wrong with me.
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I thought I was a pretty committed, devoted, obedient individual before the mission.
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I served a mini mission to prepare for my mission, by the way, for six weeks and baptize somebody.
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I lived as a missionary for six weeks before I came out on a mission.
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I think I mentioned that before.
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So, you know, missions don't do that.
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They don't serve them in a mission.
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And I'm not saying I'm, you know, holy now, nothing like that.
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But I thought I was ready and I thought I was doing most things right.
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I read that book and I felt completely inadequate.
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Number two, when I got to Scotland and served in the Dumfries area, I served with a missionary who was just It was extraordinary.
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And I won't mention his name out of respect, but he came to me, Jim, after he'd had a nervous breakdown.
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The mission president never told me this missionary had a nervous breakdown before he came to me.
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He'd worked himself to death.
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He worked all the hours.
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He worked the P days.
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And I learned afterwards that he was driven entirely from...
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Trying to live with exactness through the standard works, and in particular, a book that we're talking about right now called The Miracle of Forgiveness.
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This missionary was trying to live and be so obedient that he could remove all the sins that you went through earlier and live with exactness, so much so that he had a mental and physical breakdown.
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He was in hospital.
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or a month before he came to me, and I was with him, and he was in an absolute mess.
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And he insisted every morning that we read the miracle of forgiveness.
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This is a book I read in the MTC.
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It made me feel uncomfortable.
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I felt completely inadequate.
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And by the way, all those sins that you've just read, you're describing the human experience all there.
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That is the whole nature of humans.
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That's what humans do.
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We've even got all of those.
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Very few people have probably got all of those, but we've got many of those.
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And then when you are taught as a missionary and as a member to live with exactness, be obedient, to be perfect, et cetera, et cetera, the pressure is absolutely intense.
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This book was published in 1969.
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And again, it discusses these issues of repentance extensively.
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And it came from actually Spencer Kimball's vast experience.
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I did a lot of research on his experience meeting with members and listening and responding to members' confessions across a whole range of sins.
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while he was a leader and certainly while he was an apostle.
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And he gathered all that knowledge and information together and then that helped him write the miracle of forgiveness.
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The book is intense.
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It's dangerous.
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I believe it's led to suicides, depression.
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Again, some of the quotes, it's very important that I think we kind of bring some of the quotes to the surface here.
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One of them is in page 196 of the book.
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It says here, it is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle.
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I'll repeat that.
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It is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle.
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Now, I had someone come to me as a leader, when I was leader in the church, who brought that to me.
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And they were bringing that to me in the context of this individual had experienced sexual abuse.
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They'd been sexually assaulted.
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And they felt they, having read this and read some other material, they questioned whether they fought this attacker off as much as they should have, or did they fight enough because they had lost their virtue and virtue in the church often is usually associated with sexual virtue perhaps not always but many times it is or a lot of the times it is in this context of this meeting I had this individual who was speaking about being sexually assaulted and they didn't know if they'd thought try to fight this person enough and carry some shame because they questioned whether they struggled enough Jim to fight this aggressor Often there was somebody who was sexually assaulting them.
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And then when they read this, they actually considered suicide because they'd lost the virtue.
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And the Book of Mormon talks about that.
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We've talked about this earlier on the podcast.
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And it's clear, not just from this scripture, but from the other material that Spencer Kimball had access to prior and certainly what we're reminded since on some quotes like Elder Romney.
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And the ensign in 1981 said this, when you are released and returned, we shall be glad to meet you and welcome you back into the farmer's circle.
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But remember this, my son, we would rather you come to the station and take your body off the train in a casket than to have you come home unclean, having lost your virtue.
00:21:07.009 --> 00:21:21.853
Some other quotes, which along the same spirit of the miracle of forgiveness, it goes on to say here, it says, there is no true Latter-day Saints who would not rather bury a son or a daughter than to have him or her lose his or her chastity.
00:21:22.913 --> 00:21:27.781
Realizing that chastity is of more value than anything else in the world.
00:21:28.241 --> 00:21:28.643
E.B.J.
00:21:28.702 --> 00:21:29.064
Grant.
00:21:29.845 --> 00:21:32.669
And another one here, President David O.
00:21:32.709 --> 00:21:33.069
McKay.
00:21:33.986 --> 00:21:37.770
which Spencer Kimball quotes in The Miracle of Forgiveness, if I may do this.
00:21:38.471 --> 00:21:40.713
Your virtue is worth more than your life.
00:21:41.035 --> 00:21:45.599
Please, young folk, preserve your virtue even if you lose your lives.
00:21:46.361 --> 00:22:06.590
So The Miracle of Forgiveness is replete with references to living with perfection, exactness, and forgiving and forgetting things whatever transgression is committed against you, essentially being absolutely perfect and free from sin.
00:22:07.311 --> 00:22:10.655
Just going back to the story with the mission that I served with, by the way.
00:22:10.695 --> 00:22:25.875
One morning, about two weeks into serving my mission with this individual, in the Dumfries flat, there's another level above the sleeping area.
00:22:25.895 --> 00:22:30.509
It's where the shower and There's some storage upstairs in this flat apartment in Dumfries.
00:22:31.631 --> 00:22:40.182
I went upstairs, and I heard, because I could hear a sound, some noise or commotion, some wailing, actually.
00:22:40.201 --> 00:22:41.423
I describe it as wailing.
00:22:42.124 --> 00:22:44.606
And I wondered what was happening with my company.
00:22:44.626 --> 00:22:56.821
I went upstairs, and as I looked through the crack of the door, this missionary, and this is the first time you've heard this, was lying prostrate on the floor, pleading.
00:22:57.122 --> 00:23:03.873
begging God, weeping, very emotional, definitely audible.
00:23:03.913 --> 00:23:05.535
You could hear them from downstairs.
00:23:06.297 --> 00:23:09.582
And he was begging for his life to be forgiven.
00:23:09.602 --> 00:23:12.826
It was laying prostrate as a missionary.
00:23:13.709 --> 00:23:16.212
And I'd only been out a short period of time.
00:23:16.252 --> 00:23:26.199
And I left, I came back downstairs and and never spoke to this missionary about this experience.
00:23:26.740 --> 00:23:28.122
Shared it with very few people.
00:23:28.823 --> 00:23:29.865
I won't mention his name.
00:23:29.884 --> 00:23:31.887
He was a wonderful missionary.
00:23:32.087 --> 00:23:33.369
He taught with great power.
00:23:33.410 --> 00:23:41.623
When he was himself and was together, he was an incredibly effective teacher.
00:23:41.982 --> 00:23:42.503
He really was.
00:23:42.544 --> 00:23:49.595
And one of the finest missionaries I served with when he was together, when he was balanced.
00:23:50.115 --> 00:23:50.997
But there were moments...
00:23:52.385 --> 00:23:55.950
And having lived with him, I saw it where he was completely broken.
00:23:56.170 --> 00:24:01.675
This concept, this philosophy, this teaching that you have to be perfect.
00:24:01.715 --> 00:24:02.817
You have to live with exactness.
00:24:03.557 --> 00:24:07.923
And if you don't, then you are not worthy and you will not inherit the kingdom of God.
00:24:08.242 --> 00:24:13.449
He wanted to make this ultimate sacrifice to live with complete exactness.
00:24:13.509 --> 00:24:21.917
He even said to me, after you fast, as I was doing, when I fasted, after I'd fasted, all I could think about was food.
00:24:23.425 --> 00:24:24.227
I like food.
00:24:24.247 --> 00:24:25.288
I was fasting.
00:24:25.328 --> 00:24:27.612
He made us fast once a week.
00:24:28.513 --> 00:24:30.777
After the fast, I was hungry and I just wanted to eat.
00:24:30.856 --> 00:24:39.269
And he said, Eli Wilts, no, you wait, you pause and you drink some water and you wait an hour or two, even after you fasted.
00:24:39.289 --> 00:24:41.031
And I'm like, why would he do that?
00:24:41.051 --> 00:24:44.116
I just want to eat because I've not eaten for 24 hours.
00:24:44.136 --> 00:24:47.501
He said, Eli Wilts, you control the body.
00:24:47.842 --> 00:24:49.243
You control, you master your body.
00:24:49.284 --> 00:25:02.066
And Eli, He taught me that, you know, he taught me that, you know, that you can and should control your natural inclinations to do something.
00:25:03.207 --> 00:25:07.711
But he actually went on some things, it went quite extreme with him.
00:25:08.271 --> 00:25:10.834
And he used to read that book every morning.
00:25:10.954 --> 00:25:18.221
And I believe a lot of his issues, having lived with him for a few weeks, were attributed to that book.
00:25:18.817 --> 00:25:22.362
And it's extremely dangerous, is the book.
00:25:22.582 --> 00:25:29.848
We made a few flipping comments earlier, but it is a very dangerous book because people feel inadequate.
00:25:29.969 --> 00:25:37.297
They feel they can't go on because they can't forgive someone, for example, because it says forgive and forget.
00:25:37.317 --> 00:25:39.618
You've got to completely forgive the person.
00:25:39.638 --> 00:25:41.461
And it's very difficult to do that.
00:25:42.281 --> 00:25:44.263
And so it's a book that was...
00:25:46.978 --> 00:25:48.880
you know, very destructive.
00:25:49.401 --> 00:25:55.669
It talks about, for example, the statement, as a man thinketh, so is he, could equally be rendered, as a man thinketh, so does he.
00:25:56.108 --> 00:25:58.231
If one thinks it long enough, he's likely to do it.
00:25:58.633 --> 00:26:04.299
So if you have any thoughts, any negative thoughts, you are, you become that.
00:26:04.920 --> 00:26:07.443
You know, like you talked about masturbation, you become gay.
00:26:07.463 --> 00:26:18.582
The other thing he talks about in the miracle of forgiveness is that, and this is in the scriptures, by the way, it's tied to the scriptures, that if you seek forgiveness, You repent, you seek forgiveness, you get forgiven, and you feel you're forgiven.
00:26:19.042 --> 00:26:24.051
But if you go sins again, those previous sins are restored to you.
00:26:24.092 --> 00:26:24.972
Right.
00:26:25.614 --> 00:26:26.875
That never made sense to me.
00:26:27.597 --> 00:26:32.164
So if you've forgiven, if you've repented and forgiven, God, that's it, that's done.
00:26:32.204 --> 00:26:33.067
You're forgiven.
00:26:33.106 --> 00:26:35.009
The sins are remembered no more.
00:26:35.830 --> 00:26:36.932
The slate is clean.
00:26:37.755 --> 00:26:40.199
But the teaching in the Scriptures and Spencer W.
00:26:40.239 --> 00:26:43.787
Kimball is that if you commit another sin, Whoa, and be tied.
00:26:44.087 --> 00:26:45.490
All those sins come back.
00:26:45.890 --> 00:26:53.180
So the pressure to live to that extent makes someone broken.
00:26:53.820 --> 00:27:03.054
So this missionary, we talk about church broke, and I never understood what that meant until I served with that missionary.
00:27:03.273 --> 00:27:03.714
It was my...
00:27:03.755 --> 00:27:06.979
Well, I won't tell you what number companion he was.
00:27:07.420 --> 00:27:08.280
He had a big heart.
00:27:08.781 --> 00:27:09.803
He was an extraordinary man.
00:27:09.843 --> 00:27:10.844
I love him.
00:27:10.884 --> 00:27:11.184
I've...
00:27:12.097 --> 00:27:12.980
I don't know where he is.
00:27:13.019 --> 00:27:14.261
He never kept in touch.
00:27:14.782 --> 00:27:16.085
I don't even know if he's active.
00:27:16.705 --> 00:27:19.510
But that book and the church broke him.
00:27:19.851 --> 00:27:20.772
It was church broke.
00:27:21.835 --> 00:27:24.759
And if the church would have said, do this, he would have done it.
00:27:25.201 --> 00:27:26.383
It was blind obedience.
00:27:27.324 --> 00:27:33.375
So the book has now become, for me, a book of, I think it's destructive.
00:27:33.615 --> 00:27:34.978
I'm not surprised.
00:27:35.682 --> 00:27:37.403
The church doesn't want you to read it anymore.
00:27:37.763 --> 00:27:39.566
I'm not surprised it's taken off the shelves.
00:27:40.067 --> 00:27:58.708
I'm not surprised it never references it anymore because it's been condemned frequently over and over again for being so destructive and destroying from professional counselors who advised people that I know, stay away from that book.
00:27:59.288 --> 00:28:02.791
So it's an awful book.
00:28:03.252 --> 00:28:03.712
It really is.
00:28:03.752 --> 00:28:08.666
And I, you know, if you have it, don't read it.
00:28:08.907 --> 00:28:09.208
Burn it.
00:28:12.633 --> 00:28:16.159
I just wanted on record that you were the one who said that, not me.
00:28:17.319 --> 00:28:17.621
I don't.
00:28:18.883 --> 00:28:26.013
Anyway, a couple of things about it that have jumped out at me as I was preparing this.
00:28:27.105 --> 00:28:38.840
One being, and I mentioned earlier, the huge lopsided amount of time spent talking about sin and the small amount of time talking about forgiveness.
00:28:40.123 --> 00:28:51.298
One of the things that this book emphasizes is that repentance should be difficult and painful and long.
00:28:52.417 --> 00:28:53.578
Here's a quote.
00:28:53.660 --> 00:28:57.663
There is no royal road to repentance, no privileged path to forgiveness.
00:28:58.384 --> 00:29:00.387
Every man must follow the same course.
00:29:01.088 --> 00:29:07.195
It is a long road spiked with thorns and briars and pitfalls and problems.
00:29:08.657 --> 00:29:14.605
And I even remember thinking this when I first read this book.
00:29:14.765 --> 00:29:15.926
I can't remember actually.
00:29:15.967 --> 00:29:19.151
I'm not sure if I've ever sat down and read the whole thing all the way through.
00:29:20.231 --> 00:29:21.513
I did not read it on my mission.
00:29:22.114 --> 00:29:31.557
Since my mission, I was in a bishopric, actually, where the bishop would assign this book to people who were in serious sin.
00:29:32.579 --> 00:29:35.728
And he'd say, please read The Miracle of Forgiveness and come back and talk to me.
00:29:35.748 --> 00:29:48.627
And I have since discovered that that was not a unique experience, that there were a number of bishops, that this was sort of their go-to, that if you came to them with any kind of serious sexual sin, because who are we kidding?
00:29:48.708 --> 00:29:57.083
That's pretty much the only reason why people would go to their bishop for the kind of thing that the bishop would give them the miracle of forgiveness for.
00:29:58.965 --> 00:30:01.029
But this was sort of the panacea.
00:30:01.538 --> 00:30:03.601
that bishops would hand out, the miracle of forgiveness.
00:30:03.641 --> 00:30:05.203
This is how you repent.
00:30:05.805 --> 00:30:09.109
And it was always a long, painful process.
00:30:09.730 --> 00:30:16.622
You know, we've talked about people who had to wait a full year to go on their missions after they masturbated.
00:30:17.703 --> 00:30:29.182
Or people, any kind of sexual sin, the church would always sort of attach this arbitrary timeline to it, that you're not really forgiven until you've waited a year.
00:30:30.049 --> 00:30:31.171
It's usually a year.
00:30:31.191 --> 00:30:32.833
I don't know why it's a year.
00:30:32.933 --> 00:30:41.324
But it used to be that if you got married outside the temple, you couldn't get married inside the temple for a year after your civil ceremony.
00:30:41.683 --> 00:30:42.464
That's changed.
00:30:42.806 --> 00:30:43.987
The church is changing.
00:30:44.007 --> 00:30:46.890
The church has changed since the miracle of forgiveness.
00:30:47.010 --> 00:30:59.425
I mean, one of the reasons I don't want people to burn this book is that I want this book to stand as a testament to how much the church has changed.
00:30:59.938 --> 00:31:06.792
I want people to be able to point to something in this book and say, we don't believe that anymore.
00:31:07.713 --> 00:31:10.279
And there are so many places where we do that.
00:31:10.881 --> 00:31:17.494
But I can remember reading passages in The Miracle to Forgive and thinking back to the Book of Mormon.
00:31:18.336 --> 00:31:31.362
You know, Alma the Younger talks about His suffering, he was wracked with, I've got the verses here from Alma 36, he was wracked with eternal torment for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and wracked with all my sins.
00:31:32.123 --> 00:31:34.386
And so he's talking about how miserable he is.
00:31:35.208 --> 00:31:49.369
But then he says, okay, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.
00:31:49.730 --> 00:32:14.959
The forgiveness was instant.
00:32:15.618 --> 00:32:17.721
It happened at the very moment.
00:32:18.337 --> 00:32:19.799
He called out to Jesus.
00:32:20.721 --> 00:32:29.513
In the next verse, And oh, what joy and what marvelous light I did behold! Yea, my soul was filled with joy, as exceeding as was my pain.
00:32:29.534 --> 00:32:36.063
And when you describe the experience of your mission companion, that was not his experience.
00:32:36.564 --> 00:32:40.288
How many times did he cry out to the Lord for forgiveness?
00:32:40.890 --> 00:33:01.528
And how it led him to laying prostate on the ground because he could not reconcile this because the miracle of forgiveness model is you have to suffer for a very long time, go through the pitfalls, go through the thorns, go through the problems.
00:33:02.388 --> 00:33:06.915
And here you have Alma the Younger, the instant he cries out to the Lord.
00:33:06.935 --> 00:33:09.180
The forgiveness is instant.
00:33:10.141 --> 00:33:21.107
And I, for my whole life, have had a hard time reconciling that because the church model says, Now, it's not as bad as it was in the miracle of forgiveness days, but it's not this.
00:33:22.210 --> 00:33:29.199
If you go into your bishop and you confess a sin, there's going to be a lengthy process.
00:33:29.278 --> 00:33:31.461
I don't know if it's necessarily going to be a year.
00:33:31.481 --> 00:33:35.307
I don't know if that same time frame exists.
00:33:36.208 --> 00:33:43.357
But we now, we talk about grace in a way we never used to.
00:33:43.970 --> 00:33:45.191
with the miracle of forgiveness.
00:33:45.551 --> 00:33:56.824
We don't talk about grace enough for my liking, but you're seeing sort of the backlash to this, a quiet backlash that is bubbling up in conference talks.
00:33:57.285 --> 00:34:03.310
Maybe not in all conference talks, but you certainly hear it when Dieter Uchtdorf talks or when Patrick Kieran talks.
00:34:04.311 --> 00:34:19.844
There is this other strain to an understanding of repentance, an understanding of forgiveness, an understanding of the atonement that just flies in the face of this book that tells you, essentially, you have to be perfect.
00:34:20.846 --> 00:34:21.827
He talks about that.
00:34:21.867 --> 00:34:23.148
He talks about perfection.
00:34:23.168 --> 00:34:31.903
I mean, why list 145 words of sins if you're not supposed to overcome every single stinking one of those?
00:34:32.684 --> 00:34:43.237
I mean, the toxic perfectionism we've talked about on this podcast, the scrupulosity, that my son struggled with on his mission and that we've talked about on this podcast.
00:34:43.918 --> 00:34:52.492
I remember telling my son that when I came home from my mission, I broke my Rolling Stones records because I listened to that talk by Gene R.
00:34:52.572 --> 00:34:55.016
Cook about Mick Jagger sitting next to him on an airplane.
00:34:56.199 --> 00:34:59.543
And my son said to me, oh, I didn't know you had scrupulosity too.
00:35:01.067 --> 00:35:01.688
And I did.
00:35:01.708 --> 00:35:22.315
And I This whole environment, this whole idea, this whole you are never enough, you are never good enough, you are never forgiven, it just flies in the face not just of common sense, but it flies in the face of the scriptural teachings, including the scriptures of the Restoration.
00:35:22.356 --> 00:35:32.230
The Book of Mormon could not be more clear about Alma the Younger receiving forgiveness on the spot, the moment he cried out unto the Lord.
00:35:32.994 --> 00:35:34.856
And we just don't do this.
00:35:34.936 --> 00:35:36.117
We don't embrace this.
00:35:36.838 --> 00:35:58.961
I think we think that there's some kind of, uh, I mean, to me, it's just a hazing ritual that we put people through that there's, there's some kind of value in that when in fact, it's a total misunderstanding of what sin is because we're told over and over and over again.
00:35:59.842 --> 00:36:13.514
Particularly in the New Testament, Paul talks about this, that it doesn't matter if you murder somebody or if you can peaches on Sunday, both of those sins will keep you out of the presence of God.
00:36:14.155 --> 00:36:18.666
We are utterly helpless without the intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:36:19.137 --> 00:36:22.443
without his atonement, without him stepping in our path.
00:36:22.523 --> 00:36:30.976
And it doesn't matter how big or how small or what the gradation is or what's the sin next to murder or what's the third sin and the fourth sin.
00:36:31.458 --> 00:36:34.762
There's no value in ranking sins.
00:36:35.244 --> 00:36:44.378
There is eternal value in having those sins forgiven by the Lord that we profess to serve.
00:36:44.418 --> 00:36:45.981
And so...
00:36:47.010 --> 00:36:59.248
Part of the thing also about the miracle of forgiveness is that this was written when he was an apostle, and certainly a great deal of it was reiterated when he became president of the church.
00:37:00.130 --> 00:37:03.797
But I have also read Edward Kimball, Spencer W.
00:37:03.836 --> 00:37:09.885
Kimball's son's account, of how he finally arrived at the 1978 priesthood revelation.
00:37:11.047 --> 00:37:36.150
And I have to think that Spencer Kimball learned an awful lot about his relationship with the Lord through his service as president of the church, as the prophet of God, who is striving with the Lord to lift this terrible priesthood ban and become more inclusive as a church.
00:37:36.990 --> 00:37:40.373
And so I have to remind myself when I read the Spencer W.
00:37:40.414 --> 00:37:44.157
Kimball A Miracle of Forgiveness that this is also the Spencer W.
00:37:44.197 --> 00:37:54.356
Kimball who finally fulfilled the Book of Mormon promise of a God who denies none who come unto him, black and white, bond and free, all are alike unto God.
00:37:54.376 --> 00:37:58.061
It was Spencer Kimball who was able to do that.
00:37:58.081 --> 00:38:10.838
And so I have to give Spencer Kimball grace for the miracle of forgiveness, which even at the end of his life, he said that he thought he had gone too far.
00:38:11.860 --> 00:38:13.501
I'll try to find the exact quote here.
00:38:14.210 --> 00:38:21.483
But Spencer Kimball recognized that this probably was far harsher than he ought to have been.
00:38:21.503 --> 00:38:28.574
So that's my rant, and I'm happy to kick it back to your rant.
00:38:29.896 --> 00:38:34.826
But at some point, we can't end this podcast without talking about Bigfoot.
00:38:35.842 --> 00:38:36.943
Bigfoot has to come
00:38:36.983 --> 00:38:37.224
into this.
00:38:37.364 --> 00:38:39.967
I'm glad you mentioned Bigfoot because I've got it in front of me right here.
00:38:39.987 --> 00:38:48.338
And I do want to talk about Bigfoot because when I'm reading that Miracle of Forgiveness, it's going along with the same pattern, the same repentance, forgiveness, and sins.
00:38:48.418 --> 00:38:54.847
And then all of a sudden, boom, this thing about Bigfoot and Cain, just like where the hell did that come from?
00:38:54.907 --> 00:38:55.929
But I do want to talk about that.
00:38:56.369 --> 00:38:57.831
I just want to respond to what you're saying.
00:38:57.931 --> 00:39:04.447
I think you're being… Very gracious, actually, towards the miracle of forgiveness in some respects.
00:39:04.646 --> 00:39:09.092
I said earlier that I think we should burn it and never read it again.
00:39:09.132 --> 00:39:12.257
You said you didn't say that, and that's correct.
00:39:12.436 --> 00:39:13.478
I said it, you didn't.
00:39:14.318 --> 00:39:28.396
And the reason is that, you know, like on this podcast, and we discussed this right at the very beginning, we come into this podcast, you and I, with very different experiences, different perspectives.
00:39:29.282 --> 00:39:32.065
We converged on a mission together.
00:39:32.085 --> 00:39:37.856
I came from a completely different route, path, route, path, completely.
00:39:38.777 --> 00:39:40.940
You came into it completely different than mine.
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:42.362
Our backgrounds couldn't be any different.
00:39:42.643 --> 00:39:44.085
It's like chalk and cheese, right?
00:39:44.746 --> 00:39:45.807
Your perspective is different.
00:39:46.028 --> 00:39:48.032
Our experience informs our perspective.
00:39:49.114 --> 00:39:51.737
I'm coming at this from a perspective also as a leader.
00:39:52.097 --> 00:39:56.746
Now, you served in the bishopric, and I don't know to what extent you...
00:39:57.057 --> 00:40:01.123
saw or experienced the impact of that book on people's lives.
00:40:01.643 --> 00:40:03.385
And he probably did.
00:40:03.405 --> 00:40:04.666
I certainly did.
00:40:04.686 --> 00:40:09.492
And I had that book, along with Mormon Doctrine, Bruce L.
00:40:09.512 --> 00:40:09.992
McConkie.
00:40:11.394 --> 00:40:13.956
They were two of the books that people had a real problem with.
00:40:14.637 --> 00:40:15.438
And they would bring the...
00:40:15.579 --> 00:40:16.239
I had a problem with it.
00:40:16.280 --> 00:40:22.306
Do you remember I was born out of wedlock and I brought the Mormon Doctrine book and quoted Bruce L.
00:40:22.347 --> 00:40:30.623
McConkie that anyone born out of wedlock was not worthy to be a God and only worthy to be an angel and serve other gods.
00:40:30.704 --> 00:40:33.568
And I wasn't happy about that because I wanted to be a God.
00:40:35.411 --> 00:40:41.262
I'm kind of tongue in cheek, I'm laughing there, but I'm like, no, now I'm doing it because I want to be like, I want to get to the top.
00:40:42.264 --> 00:40:45.168
And I can't now because I was born out of wedlock.
00:40:45.630 --> 00:40:50.056
So the Mormon doctoring was a problem for me on a number of different issues.
00:40:50.753 --> 00:41:04.349
And the miracle of forgiveness was a problem for me, but many people, or some of the people rather, that came to me as a bishop who had a problem with the book and it affected their, you know, their perspective on life.
00:41:05.192 --> 00:41:07.418
You know, the books face significant criticism.
00:41:08.097 --> 00:41:10.862
And it's very harsh.
00:41:10.902 --> 00:41:13.686
I've just made some notes here, a bit of a synopsis.
00:41:14.085 --> 00:41:20.375
It's very harsh in its tone and emphasis on severity, which you talked about, articulated really well.
00:41:21.036 --> 00:41:27.003
You know, very strong fear-inducing language I wrote down there to describe the consequence of sin.
00:41:27.485 --> 00:41:29.987
This can create a sense of overwhelming guilt and anxiety.
00:41:30.027 --> 00:41:36.838
And I saw that, Jim, in people's lives as they came and referenced the miracle of forgiveness, that they just couldn't quite cut it.
00:41:37.538 --> 00:41:38.619
They couldn't quite make it.
00:41:39.481 --> 00:41:46.592
And those who are struggling with feelings of remorse and people who are depressed already, clinically depressed, where they would read the book.
00:41:47.454 --> 00:41:59.653
And as our last guest talked about, Beth Magnetic, where people with emotional, psychological conditions, aspects of Mormonism amplify that, make the problem worse.
00:42:01.025 --> 00:42:07.315
And this book reinforced those old dogmas and those teachings, which made people feel even worse.
00:42:07.996 --> 00:42:16.809
It emphasizes a lot of pains of hell and meticulous, often agonizing process of repentance that you talked about.
00:42:17.911 --> 00:42:23.559
Psychologically, it's damaging to somebody who's prone to anxiety or depression.
00:42:23.579 --> 00:42:27.422
And You know, we can relate to that.
00:42:27.463 --> 00:42:32.487
We can certainly relate to that with people in our lives who have got, who suffer from depression.
00:42:33.668 --> 00:42:37.733
It promotes a climate of fear or can promote a climate of fear.
00:42:38.393 --> 00:42:40.896
If you look at the book, it's more fear than hope, in my opinion.
00:42:41.936 --> 00:42:44.579
You know, lots of outdated policies and interpretations.
00:42:44.639 --> 00:42:46.822
And we said, I want to kind of swing back to this.
00:42:47.422 --> 00:42:48.704
I said, burn it, don't read it.
00:42:48.764 --> 00:42:49.485
You said, no, no, no.
00:42:49.724 --> 00:42:51.887
We need to keep this evidence that we don't believe this.
00:42:53.449 --> 00:42:54.809
I'll give you this concession.
00:42:55.617 --> 00:43:01.666
fine, keep the book, don't burn it, but get on the pulpit and talk about it and say, hey guys, we've moved beyond this.
00:43:01.766 --> 00:43:03.248
Don't silence it.
00:43:03.288 --> 00:43:06.831
Don't kind of hide it and not talk about it.
00:43:06.952 --> 00:43:08.293
Oh, we don't talk about that anymore.
00:43:08.353 --> 00:43:10.456
And let's not talk about it because it's a problem.
00:43:10.476 --> 00:43:11.858
It's like everything else in the church.
00:43:12.278 --> 00:43:14.181
If it's a problem, oh, maybe it'll go away.
00:43:14.222 --> 00:43:15.884
We'll kind of sweep it under the carpet.
00:43:16.143 --> 00:43:17.025
Let's not talk about it.
00:43:17.045 --> 00:43:20.610
If we talk about it, people will think about it and they might leave the church.
00:43:21.250 --> 00:43:26.081
The church would never counsel anyone to leave the church if it's in the interest of the mental health.
00:43:26.561 --> 00:43:29.650
The book has a relationship with mental health.
00:43:30.451 --> 00:43:42.735
And so, fine, if you're going to keep the book, at least have the balls to stand up at the pulpit and say, look, this book is is not part of our recommended reading material.
00:43:43.235 --> 00:43:44.338
We moved on beyond that.
00:43:44.518 --> 00:43:52.188
Our knowledge about psychology, depression, counseling, which we didn't know about then, we now know as informed us.
00:43:52.248 --> 00:43:56.494
We talk in the temple about receiving greater light and truth, knowledge.
00:43:57.416 --> 00:44:03.565
And so 40 years ago, in 1969, when this was written, so 50 years ago, right?
00:44:04.865 --> 00:44:05.869
The world's moved on.
00:44:06.108 --> 00:44:08.155
We're much smarter now in this area.
00:44:08.175 --> 00:44:10.501
So let's say, look, this was written back then.
00:44:10.521 --> 00:44:12.326
A lot of it I don't agree with.
00:44:13.148 --> 00:44:13.769
It's weight.
00:44:13.869 --> 00:44:14.452
It doesn't help.
00:44:15.253 --> 00:44:15.876
Don't read it.
00:44:17.380 --> 00:44:27.278
You know, give us the, you know, A little bit of benefit, if you like, for acknowledging it, acknowledging the mistakes and the problems.
00:44:28.181 --> 00:44:30.284
And it was written at that particular time.
00:44:30.403 --> 00:44:35.652
And that's why I focus on this new, better material that's written with all this new knowledge and all this light.
00:44:36.112 --> 00:44:40.280
Why not have the courage to do that instead of not talking about it?
00:44:40.300 --> 00:44:44.186
Because I know people who've still got this book on their bookshelves and they still read it.
00:44:44.929 --> 00:44:48.835
You talked about masturbation being a serious sin.
00:44:48.875 --> 00:44:49.976
That's changed, obviously.
00:44:50.016 --> 00:45:02.172
Descriptions of sexual behaviors, confusion of church doctrine and guidance about how a leader interprets the book.
00:45:02.893 --> 00:45:17.548
So a bishop will read it, or a state president will read it, and depending on that mindset of the individual, they can either take it strictly, literally, and teach from it, as some people have, all they can say, look, you know, it is quite strict.
00:45:17.648 --> 00:45:24.278
It's Spencer Kimball's strict, you know, very strict, very narrow thinking, if you like.
00:45:24.338 --> 00:45:25.480
I mean, they probably wouldn't say that.
00:45:25.900 --> 00:45:30.947
Very prescriptive is the word I would use about the book, you know, very specific and very prescriptive.
00:45:31.449 --> 00:45:34.512
And a good leader would say, look, you know, don't take it literally.
00:45:34.532 --> 00:45:36.695
Don't take it as, you know, as...
00:45:38.434 --> 00:45:43.039
serious or as strict as you should or you are doing.
00:45:43.740 --> 00:45:47.184
But, you know, the church, the senior leadership would never do that.
00:45:47.266 --> 00:45:58.740
I've only seen that at my, you know, with someone like me and other leaders like me who've seen this book for what it is and actually encouraged the member who's reading it to give it, you know, proper balance perspective, right?
00:46:00.021 --> 00:46:05.769
You know, it says here that the book can also lead to discouraging victims from seeking help.
00:46:06.530 --> 00:46:09.134
created a culture of silence around sexual assault.
00:46:09.795 --> 00:46:13.440
It can also cause victims to believe they're responsible for the crimes they've committed against them.
00:46:14.081 --> 00:46:16.565
There's some comments on LGBTQ in there as well.
00:46:16.605 --> 00:46:17.887
You've talked a bit about that, right?
00:46:18.547 --> 00:46:22.273
And so, you know, a lot of it is down to the interpretation.
00:46:23.235 --> 00:46:31.918
So when you write a book like that, a prophet, remember, this is a prophet we're talking about, not Some regular apostle or some standard general authority.
00:46:31.958 --> 00:46:54.590
This is a prophet of the Lord who was alive when there was a major historical change in 1978 when Kimball was the prophet of the Lord who restored, if you like, the priesthood to the blacks and the temples to the blacks.
00:46:54.753 --> 00:46:55.695
blessing to the blacks.
00:46:56.195 --> 00:46:58.380
A very significant figure in church history.
00:46:59.260 --> 00:47:10.739
And so my closing comments on this is to whoever's listening, as church leaders, if you're listening, is to don't be silent on something like this again.
00:47:10.780 --> 00:47:12.001
Speak up.
00:47:12.503 --> 00:47:13.965
People still have issues with this book.
00:47:14.025 --> 00:47:15.188
It's still on people's shelves.
00:47:15.929 --> 00:47:16.849
People still read it.
00:47:16.871 --> 00:47:18.753
It's still...
00:47:19.425 --> 00:47:20.827
It's part of the culture of the church.
00:47:20.867 --> 00:47:35.423
We talk about, we've got people on the podcast who've got this antiquated, archaic thinking, like the blacks didn't want the priesthood and they weren't worthy of having the priesthood, et cetera.
00:47:35.463 --> 00:47:38.186
There's still people like that in the church, Jim, today.
00:47:38.246 --> 00:47:40.588
We've had them on the podcast, right?
00:47:40.608 --> 00:47:45.695
They're still alive and well and have not changed their thinking.
00:47:46.155 --> 00:47:53.068
And these books, unless we address them, and talk about them as a leader and say, look, we've moved on from that.
00:47:53.108 --> 00:47:54.411
We don't think like that anymore.
00:47:54.431 --> 00:47:55.152
We don't feel like that.
00:47:55.692 --> 00:48:04.987
You'll always have an element of the church who think like, you know, outdated, antiquated, you know, dinosaurs that think.
00:48:05.027 --> 00:48:09.914
It's very, very destructive because they're perpetuating that doctrine, that teaching.
00:48:10.434 --> 00:48:20.244
So fine, keep the book, keep the book as evidence of, you know, how far we've gone, but at least, you know, Give it a modern interpretation.
00:48:20.945 --> 00:48:35.726
Please, if whoever's leaders listening out there, just take an opportunity to talk about it and remind people that they are good enough.
00:48:36.806 --> 00:48:37.688
What did you say?
00:48:37.728 --> 00:48:39.570
We did that podcast.
00:48:39.831 --> 00:48:41.514
It was your podcast.
00:48:41.813 --> 00:48:42.755
It was your idea.
00:48:42.775 --> 00:48:44.597
It was a genius idea.
00:48:44.617 --> 00:48:45.239
I loved it.
00:48:45.719 --> 00:48:47.541
And I think it was titled, You Are Enough.
00:48:48.130 --> 00:48:48.349
Right.
00:48:49.010 --> 00:48:49.612
And do you know what?
00:48:49.911 --> 00:48:55.538
You know, I said to my missionary companion during the companionment tree, and I said, you've got enough.
00:48:55.677 --> 00:48:58.961
I used to build him up because he feels so low and all the works.
00:48:59.001 --> 00:48:59.581
I'm not doing this.
00:48:59.641 --> 00:49:00.163
I'm not doing that.
00:49:00.222 --> 00:49:00.724
I'm not doing that.
00:49:00.784 --> 00:49:01.463
I said, hang on a minute.
00:49:01.864 --> 00:49:02.686
Look what we just did.
00:49:02.945 --> 00:49:04.106
We had a great day.
00:49:04.547 --> 00:49:05.708
We taught three discussions.
00:49:06.148 --> 00:49:10.014
We had only, we only, I only had three books of Mormon thrown at us out of four.
00:49:11.215 --> 00:49:11.514
Okay.
00:49:11.574 --> 00:49:15.278
We only had like$10 slam dollars instead of, you know, the normal day.
00:49:15.298 --> 00:49:15.418
Right.
00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:39.735
I said, you know, behalf, uh, full not behind empty but he wouldn't he wouldn't take it from me right you know we are good enough we've got so much good in us and we should be focusing on that you know christ motivated the spirit of christ is not in that book i don't believe the spirit of christ is look you're good enough You're doing all these great things.
00:49:40.275 --> 00:49:42.358
You're doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this great.
00:49:42.818 --> 00:49:45.061
Yeah, there's these other areas that you have to work on.
00:49:45.461 --> 00:49:47.864
There's some areas for improvement, but you're going to do it.
00:49:47.985 --> 00:49:48.485
Do you know why?
00:49:48.565 --> 00:49:51.367
Because you just kind of kicked it out of the park on this stuff.
00:49:51.969 --> 00:49:52.929
And you can do that stuff.
00:49:53.289 --> 00:49:54.632
Will you reach perfection in this life?
00:49:54.992 --> 00:49:55.353
You won't.
00:49:55.913 --> 00:49:56.434
And no one will.
00:49:56.833 --> 00:49:57.574
And only I can.
00:49:57.655 --> 00:50:01.739
In fact, Christ is not me, you know, Ian, but if I'm Christ speaking, right?
00:50:02.681 --> 00:50:03.681
Only Christ can say that.
00:50:04.302 --> 00:50:34.818
But I believe the gospel of Christ is, is is affirmative is positive is focused and accentuates the positive and that is in complete contrast in my personal opinion having read the book at least three times and going on my perspective in the church as a leader as a bishop and people coming to me who have read this book or feel they're worthless they're useless life is hopeless and they will never make it.
00:50:35.018 --> 00:50:36.099
And so what's the point?
00:50:36.139 --> 00:50:39.963
And I've even had people who have contemplated suicide because they're not good enough.
00:50:40.744 --> 00:50:49.693
And my message is, you know, if you are feeling depressed or you're prone to psychological depression and anxiety, do not read this book.
00:50:50.233 --> 00:50:51.215
I beg you, don't read it.
00:50:52.235 --> 00:50:52.755
Throw it away.
00:50:52.996 --> 00:50:53.856
Do whatever you want with it.
00:50:54.338 --> 00:50:56.018
Go read a different book.
00:50:56.460 --> 00:50:58.561
Go read something uplifting.
00:50:58.942 --> 00:51:01.644
And there are many, many uplifting books, Jim, in the church.
00:51:02.224 --> 00:51:04.784
You know you're a bit of a scholar more than I.
00:51:05.125 --> 00:51:11.172
There are numerous books which focus on the positive and focus on we are good enough.
00:51:12.012 --> 00:51:14.856
Miraculous forgiveness is not one of them.
00:51:17.360 --> 00:51:18.320
I would agree with that.
00:51:18.641 --> 00:51:19.503
I would agree with that.
00:51:19.762 --> 00:51:25.269
And I'm heartened by the fact that Spencer W.
00:51:25.329 --> 00:51:27.713
Kimball's family would agree with that.
00:51:28.454 --> 00:51:35.646
I found an article from the Salt Lake Tribune that was published right after The Miracle of Forgiveness was taken off the shelves.
00:51:36.967 --> 00:51:40.492
And it quotes Edward Kimball's biography of his father.
00:51:40.652 --> 00:51:49.884
It says, the book's tone, tougher than Spencer's in-person counseling, reflected his belief that people rationalize sin too quickly and consider repentance easy.
00:51:49.923 --> 00:51:53.128
That goes into my whole thing that I ranted about earlier.
00:51:53.168 --> 00:52:02.400
Indeed, writes the son, Miracle was a book, quote, more on sin and repentance than than on forgiveness, end quote.
00:52:03.501 --> 00:52:08.527
Kimball, quote, later seemed to wish he had adopted a gentler tone, end quote.
00:52:09.307 --> 00:52:17.217
In 1977, the Mormon leader said to Lyle Ward, his neighbor, sometimes I think I might've been a little too strong about some of the things I wrote in that book.
00:52:18.938 --> 00:52:28.389
And his grandson is at the end, Jordan Kimball, says, I would want him to be remembered for his love, compassion, and encouragement.
00:52:28.769 --> 00:52:39.365
Miracle grew out of his experience of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, and in its time, it didn't seem out of place, but it was used beyond its due date.
00:52:40.106 --> 00:52:41.789
Even the church has moved on.
00:52:43.210 --> 00:52:47.458
And that's what you're saying, and I want to echo that.
00:52:49.460 --> 00:53:04.155
I think there's so much in the church that could be fixed, that could be improved, that could be uplifting if we were to confront our mistakes head on.
00:53:04.956 --> 00:53:08.601
Because even if you burn this book, it doesn't go away.
00:53:09.382 --> 00:53:10.945
We now live in the age of the internet.
00:53:11.025 --> 00:53:13.349
Books don't disappear if the paper is gone.
00:53:14.552 --> 00:53:16.956
This book, we know it existed.
00:53:16.996 --> 00:53:18.257
We know it exists.
00:53:19.300 --> 00:53:21.443
And we need to confront it head on.
00:53:21.483 --> 00:53:37.853
And we would be in such a stronger position when we're counseling with people who are leaving the church over this kind of overreaction that was prevalent in the 40s, 50s, and 60s that's reflected in this book.
00:53:39.233 --> 00:53:41.797
They're leaving because they don't want that kind of church.
00:53:42.297 --> 00:53:53.648
We would be in a much stronger position to be able to tell them we're not that kind of a church anymore because here's what we used to teach and we now disavow it.
00:53:53.728 --> 00:53:55.489
We don't believe that anymore.
00:53:56.289 --> 00:54:01.577
I mean, the disavowals are so far removed from what it is that's being disavowed.
00:54:02.039 --> 00:54:08.489
I mean, we've said we disavow, for instance, all of the theories put forth about the priesthood ban.
00:54:09.150 --> 00:54:14.259
Well, they were put forth by Brigham Young and the church.
00:54:14.378 --> 00:54:25.552
I mean, they act like this happened in some kind of disconnected ethereal vacuum where there's a direct link between It's, you know, M.
00:54:25.572 --> 00:54:31.978
Russell Ballard saying, I don't know where people got the idea that you're supposed to challenge people to be baptized on the first discussion.
00:54:32.679 --> 00:54:33.681
Well, I got it.
00:54:33.981 --> 00:54:34.981
I know where I got it.
00:54:35.682 --> 00:54:39.666
I got it from the mission materials that were provided to me by the church.
00:54:39.746 --> 00:54:40.748
That's where I got it.
00:54:41.228 --> 00:54:48.297
There's no way on earth I would have challenged anyone to a baptism in the first discussion if I wasn't explicitly told to do so.
00:54:48.317 --> 00:54:52.822
I mean, over and over and over and over again, we change for the better.
00:54:54.081 --> 00:54:56.885
But we refuse to acknowledge the past.
00:54:56.985 --> 00:54:59.748
We refuse to acknowledge the mistake that we made.
00:54:59.807 --> 00:55:05.452
And miracle of forgiveness, everybody can now acknowledge that it was a mistake.
00:55:06.153 --> 00:55:07.474
And so I'm going to close.
00:55:07.514 --> 00:55:21.389
I'm going to use Bigfoot as a closing because the reason we keep talking about Bigfoot, for those of you who don't understand, for whatever reason, and I don't know what point he was trying to make, but for whatever reason, Spencer W.
00:55:21.429 --> 00:55:25.960
Kimball cites A folklore story of David W.
00:55:26.041 --> 00:55:33.469
Patton riding in the woods, and up next to him comes this seven-foot-tall Wookiee, essentially.
00:55:34.210 --> 00:55:41.277
This just massive, hairy, says his skin was very black, and his whole body was covered in hair.
00:55:41.777 --> 00:55:43.059
He wasn't wearing any clothes.
00:55:43.739 --> 00:55:46.362
So he really is Chewbacca, is who we're talking about.
00:55:47.905 --> 00:55:49.666
Yeah, it's Chewbacca.
00:55:50.306 --> 00:55:52.730
In fact, I remember watching a...
00:55:53.409 --> 00:56:06.226
An interview with Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, who said that when they screened Star Wars for the executives, like, can't they put some kind of, you know, apron or something around Chewbacca?
00:56:06.266 --> 00:56:09.050
And he's like, their biggest problem was the Wookiee had no pants.
00:56:09.971 --> 00:56:14.456
But apparently Kane had no pants when he came up to talk to David W.
00:56:14.496 --> 00:56:20.559
Patton and said that he was cursed to roam the Earth and And that he could never die.
00:56:20.740 --> 00:56:22.603
And he prays for death, but he's...
00:56:23.103 --> 00:56:25.867
And anyway, people looked at that and said, well, that's Bigfoot.
00:56:26.027 --> 00:56:29.211
That's where all the legends of Bigfoot come from is the cane is wandering around.
00:56:29.271 --> 00:56:33.797
And that was big folklore through all of this, which is ridiculous.
00:56:34.619 --> 00:56:44.052
But at one point I was having a discussion with a guy in my ward and we were talking about this and we were all laughing or both of us were like, yeah, this is funny.
00:56:44.092 --> 00:56:55.335
And then this guy in my ward said, I'm so grateful that that president Kimball wasn't yet the president of the church when he wrote that.
00:56:56.597 --> 00:56:57.478
And I'm like, well, why?
00:56:57.757 --> 00:57:01.302
And he said, because then if he were, we would have to believe it.
00:57:03.123 --> 00:57:05.666
And I laughed at that and he didn't.
00:57:06.427 --> 00:57:08.588
And he thought I was faithless for laughing at that.
00:57:08.628 --> 00:57:16.036
And I said, we wouldn't, I don't disbelieve it because Spencer W.
00:57:16.056 --> 00:57:17.998
Kimball was only an apostle when he wrote it.
00:57:18.818 --> 00:57:20.920
I don't believe it because it's not true.
00:57:20.960 --> 00:57:29.454
And as President Eyring likes to remind us over and over again in this church, you don't have to believe anything that isn't true.
00:57:29.474 --> 00:57:46.840
And, you know, so it's this whole idea that if he had written this when he was president of the church, that would have been sort of an infallible statement written by the finger of God on tablets on Mount Sinai.
00:57:46.880 --> 00:57:59.902
And That whole mindset, that whole idea that we can't allow Spencer Kimball the grace to be wrong, that we can't look and say, you know what?
00:58:00.503 --> 00:58:08.833
At the end of his life, President Kimball recognized that he had gone too far with this book, that this book was just probably too harsh.
00:58:10.054 --> 00:58:19.766
And, you know, all of us, I hope none of us are judged by where we are in the middle of our journeys.
00:58:20.425 --> 00:58:26.835
I hope we're all judged by not even where we are at the end of our journeys, at least when we're talking about mortality.
00:58:27.074 --> 00:58:30.519
I hope we are judged by the direction we are going in.
00:58:31.161 --> 00:58:39.311
And there are plenty of statements by church leaders that talk about that, that emphasize that, that it's not where you are, it's where are you going?
00:58:39.371 --> 00:58:40.934
What direction are you headed in?
00:58:42.195 --> 00:58:45.728
And that's what the Lord is concerned about.
00:58:45.768 --> 00:58:49.273
He's concerned about the desires of our hearts, of our intents.
00:58:49.735 --> 00:59:01.574
He's not sitting up there with Spencer Kimball's checklist of 145 sins and trying to see if you're guilty of fleshliness, but you're not guilty of, what is it, something about filthy lucre.
00:59:01.594 --> 00:59:12.690
Anyway, I mean, but the church is so much healthier for having moved on beyond miracle of forgiveness.
00:59:12.849 --> 00:59:19.601
It would be healthier still if they would announce and acknowledge that they have done that.
00:59:19.860 --> 00:59:34.342
Because as you point out, there are plenty of people that cling to it, that in the absence of an explicit disavowal are still willing to go forward and say, this represents the mind and the will of the Lord.
00:59:34.902 --> 00:59:39.572
And it absolutely does not And we recognize as a church it does not.
00:59:39.693 --> 00:59:45.460
It is not faithless to say, I believe what the church teaches now.
00:59:47.643 --> 00:59:49.706
Because I can't believe both at the same time.
00:59:49.726 --> 00:59:54.411
I can't believe that homosexuality is a curable perversion.
00:59:54.431 --> 00:59:57.675
I mean, he uses the word pervert so many times in that book.
00:59:57.715 --> 01:00:00.559
That's the thing that jumped out at me a number of times when I read it.
01:00:00.579 --> 01:00:04.023
Because that's not a word that people use in normal conversation.
01:00:04.844 --> 01:00:05.065
But...
01:00:05.666 --> 01:00:22.023
I can't believe that homosexuality is curable if you just pound on the door hard enough, and also believe that it's not curable and that you shouldn't expect to have your sexual desires change in this lifetime.
01:00:22.204 --> 01:00:23.786
I can't believe both at the same time.
01:00:23.806 --> 01:00:30.893
I have to choose which one of those two things I'm going to believe, and I choose to believe the thing the church teaches now.
01:00:31.713 --> 01:00:42.911
So if anybody's going to push back and say, well, this is faithless for you guys to beat up on the miracle of forgiveness, I'm saying, do you believe what the church teaches now?
01:00:42.951 --> 01:00:49.079
Because it flies in the face of so much of what the miracle of forgiveness taught.
01:00:49.119 --> 01:00:50.581
You have to choose one or the other.
01:00:51.182 --> 01:00:55.530
And I choose a church that is rooted in continuing revelation?
01:00:56.161 --> 01:01:07.016
that is rooted in greater light and knowledge and in the idea that we progress, not just as individuals, but as a collective, as an institution.
01:01:07.056 --> 01:01:09.000
The church makes progress.
01:01:09.380 --> 01:01:10.842
The church goes forward.
01:01:11.202 --> 01:01:12.985
And the church has gone forward.
01:01:13.686 --> 01:01:15.628
And we need to recognize that.
01:01:15.648 --> 01:01:19.074
And we also need to recognize where we've come from.
01:01:19.094 --> 01:01:24.702
Otherwise, that forward motion will be lost on far too many people.
01:01:25.217 --> 01:01:27.661
So that's my final word on the subject.
01:01:27.701 --> 01:01:29.364
Do you have any rebuttal?
01:01:29.403 --> 01:01:31.927
Not rebuttal, there's some final, I
01:01:31.987 --> 01:01:32.907
could cover what you're saying.
01:01:33.469 --> 01:01:35.251
Just a quick final thoughts.
01:01:36.773 --> 01:01:50.612
The only true living church upon the face of the earth, and I make frequent reference to that because I kind of put a lot of weight on that, prophets, mind of God, know more than anyone, see things like no one else can do, see, feel things like no one else could feel.
01:01:50.652 --> 01:02:30.199
Why doesn't the church, with all of its wisdom, further light and knowledge, understand and accept that the advice from almost every professional currently living on the planet, psychologists, counselors, that the only way to resolve problems of this nature, you know, depression, anxiety, scrupulosity, trying to live to perfection, trying to forgive someone who's committed an awful sin or crime against you, and the only way to understand Real meaningful, purposeful growth and change and transformation is to talk about it.
01:02:32.382 --> 01:02:33.965
To talk about this stuff.
01:02:34.505 --> 01:02:41.797
When you go for counseling, the goal, one of the goals is to talk about it, to open up.
01:02:42.498 --> 01:02:44.621
That in itself is a challenge.
01:02:45.001 --> 01:02:59.385
And why can't the church on this issue and many other issues have that wisdom, knowledge, intelligence, to talk about this stuff with confidence and just say, hey, made a mistake.
01:02:59.945 --> 01:03:00.646
We got it wrong.
01:03:00.726 --> 01:03:02.128
We had a different perspective.
01:03:02.548 --> 01:03:03.210
We've improved.
01:03:03.230 --> 01:03:03.791
We've changed.
01:03:03.831 --> 01:03:04.471
Look at this.
01:03:04.490 --> 01:03:06.653
I don't want to have so much respect for them.
01:03:06.873 --> 01:03:07.375
I really would.
01:03:08.056 --> 01:03:12.380
My comment earlier about burning the miracle of goodness is not intended to disrespect anyone in the church.
01:03:13.101 --> 01:03:14.643
It is, of course, you can't destroy the book.
01:03:15.344 --> 01:03:15.945
The book's out there.
01:03:15.965 --> 01:03:16.465
It's the internet.
01:03:16.505 --> 01:03:16.965
I get that.
01:03:18.027 --> 01:03:20.411
It was partially symbolic as well.
01:03:21.251 --> 01:03:25.764
And as I said, you know, He can't disappear.
01:03:26.405 --> 01:03:28.588
But let's talk about it.
01:03:28.648 --> 01:03:30.510
In talking about it, we heal.
01:03:31.751 --> 01:03:32.552
We strengthen.
01:03:32.733 --> 01:03:33.954
Our understanding grows.
01:03:34.434 --> 01:03:39.460
We have a different perspective, and we have more of a Christ-like perspective.
01:03:39.661 --> 01:03:40.242
That's the first thing.
01:03:40.842 --> 01:03:41.643
Two more comments, real quick.
01:03:42.204 --> 01:03:44.286
By the way, this might surprise you and surprise other people.
01:03:45.007 --> 01:03:48.753
Spencer Kimball, believe it or not, is one of my favorite prophets.
01:03:49.813 --> 01:03:54.414
Aside from these issues, you know, the priesthood and the blacks, I did the right thing.
01:03:54.434 --> 01:03:57.018
I don't know the background of that, you know, how it happened.
01:03:57.077 --> 01:03:58.059
I think he made the right choice.
01:03:58.519 --> 01:04:09.012
Aside from the miracle forgiveness problems that I've got, and I've seen that adversely impact people's lives, when I heard him speak, he was one of the most kindest, loving prophets ever.
01:04:09.492 --> 01:04:12.135
Not just prophets, men, people, individuals.
01:04:12.856 --> 01:04:16.420
He spoke with love, and I felt a spirit from that.
01:04:16.800 --> 01:04:17.922
And I want to...
01:04:18.242 --> 01:04:19.063
put that on the record.
01:04:19.643 --> 01:04:33.637
I'm glad you mentioned Bigfoot there, but the third thing that I want to say, you said, and I'm not trying to misquote you here, that Elder Bowers said, it doesn't know where you got, it's not related to the birth of Jesus, but I can't let it go here.
01:04:33.657 --> 01:04:44.907
I think you said that Elder Bowers said he doesn't know where it came from to, what was it, to challenge him for baptism.
01:04:45.947 --> 01:04:47.670
I'll tell you where it came from.
01:04:48.001 --> 01:04:48.702
You heard it here.
01:04:48.722 --> 01:04:50.184
It came from him.
01:04:50.224 --> 01:04:51.505
You know why I know that?
01:04:52.226 --> 01:05:10.347
Because in July 1987, and I was in the room, he instructed the missionaries, this was before you came out, it was in the Edinburgh Chapel, that to go onto Princess Street in Edinburgh, and by the way, I remember, I've got the tape, he said that he was a missionary in the British Isles 39 years ago.
01:05:10.387 --> 01:05:13.489
He said that in July 1987, do the math, right?
01:05:14.490 --> 01:05:20.132
And he said, if you go onto Princess Street in GQ, He's talking about getting on a box when he was a missionary on Princess Street.
01:05:20.992 --> 01:05:29.409
He said, if you go there and you start teaching people, he said, you can challenge people on GQ and on the first discussion.
01:05:29.829 --> 01:05:31.012
So where did it come from?
01:05:31.032 --> 01:05:32.454
It came from him.
01:05:32.474 --> 01:05:39.708
And I know it's nothing to do with the mirror for forgiveness, kind of, but I want to mention that because I was there.
01:05:40.161 --> 01:05:44.025
And I testify to you that he said that, okay?
01:05:44.927 --> 01:05:48.530
I just want to say in closing, I'm so grateful we're talking about this book.
01:05:50.012 --> 01:05:56.697
And I'm grateful that we are focusing and accentuating the positive in people.
01:05:57.219 --> 01:06:16.961
And I will remind our listeners that a few weeks ago, the idea that Jim Bennett had, Jim, the unofficial prophet of the church, I'm kind of joking there, But the person with wonderful insight, in my opinion, had the idea to talk about individuals being good enough.
01:06:18.403 --> 01:06:22.710
And whoever's out there listening, you are easily good enough.
01:06:23.552 --> 01:06:24.494
Build on the success.
01:06:25.315 --> 01:06:26.717
Focus on the positive.
01:06:27.557 --> 01:06:28.679
Look at what you've done.
01:06:28.699 --> 01:06:29.420
Look what you've achieved.
01:06:29.440 --> 01:06:32.206
All extraordinary things that you've achieved and yet to achieve.
01:06:32.746 --> 01:06:33.628
You're not perfect.
01:06:33.947 --> 01:06:34.849
You're going to make mistakes.
01:06:36.211 --> 01:06:37.574
You won't be condemned forever.
01:06:37.954 --> 01:06:42.277
You said earlier, Jimmy reminds us a few weeks ago, we are saved by grace after all we can do.
01:06:42.318 --> 01:06:43.159
Remember that?
01:06:43.880 --> 01:06:44.559
We do all we can.
01:06:44.940 --> 01:06:45.900
We do the best we can.
01:06:46.521 --> 01:06:47.503
We be the best we can.
01:06:47.782 --> 01:06:49.905
Whatever the worldwide part, we be the best.
01:06:50.326 --> 01:06:54.690
And in the end, I believe Christ makes up the difference.
01:06:55.150 --> 01:07:06.920
For those reasons, you know, focusing on the positive, to be able to see it in contrast, I'm really grateful that we have this conversation and to remind people that absolutely they are good enough and they can make it.
01:07:06.960 --> 01:07:19.259
And you can be As much and more that you could ever achieve and nothing can stop you, especially if you've got people around that love you and support you, you can achieve great things.
01:07:19.338 --> 01:07:21.141
And Christ teaches this.
01:07:21.902 --> 01:07:24.146
And that's the message here, that you're good enough.
01:07:24.706 --> 01:07:26.409
You're absolutely freaking awesome, actually.
01:07:26.690 --> 01:07:27.731
And you've achieved so much.
01:07:28.411 --> 01:07:29.233
And you're not perfect.
01:07:29.313 --> 01:07:30.175
And that's okay.
01:07:30.815 --> 01:07:31.998
It's okay not to be perfect.
01:07:32.699 --> 01:07:33.981
Look at Jim Bennett.
01:07:34.561 --> 01:07:34.882
He's not
01:07:34.922 --> 01:07:35.242
perfect.
01:07:35.983 --> 01:07:37.405
Right.
01:07:38.114 --> 01:08:00.141
My only quick rebuttal to your rebuttal, which I endorse wholeheartedly, is that phrase, and we talked about this when we talked about being good enough, that phrase, it is by grace after all we can do, is very often cited as, okay, we do 90% and then Jesus does the extra 10.
01:08:00.161 --> 01:08:02.304
He just sort of pushes us over the hump.
01:08:03.527 --> 01:08:07.860
There has been a great deal of research about that phrase.
01:08:08.940 --> 01:08:10.882
There was a wonderful paper by Dr.
01:08:10.943 --> 01:08:12.545
Daniel O.
01:08:12.565 --> 01:08:15.128
McClellan about that phrase.
01:08:15.409 --> 01:08:24.460
That is a 19th century phrase that is the equivalent of saying at the end of the day, like how we use that phrase today.
01:08:24.500 --> 01:08:29.586
We'll say things like, well, at the end of the day, all that matters is grace, right?
01:08:30.146 --> 01:08:32.989
Well, after all we can do, what matters is grace, right?
01:08:33.729 --> 01:08:42.538
that what that verse, essentially the phrase, after all we can do, actually meant at the time the Book of Mormon was published.
01:08:43.500 --> 01:08:45.841
Essentially, despite all we can do.
01:08:47.103 --> 01:08:50.766
That it's not just Jesus giving us that extra little bump.
01:08:51.707 --> 01:08:55.011
It's that Jesus is the one who saves us.
01:08:55.931 --> 01:08:58.814
That we are completely and totally lost.
01:08:58.895 --> 01:09:14.505
I mean, if you want to talk in terms of percentages, I would say that what we do is way less than 1%, and that Jesus' infinite atonement is what saves us.
01:09:15.166 --> 01:09:27.261
And this is the trouble we get into, because President Uchtdorf, or when he was President Uchtdorf, talked about this, is that our good works are not done in order to satisfy a checklist.
01:09:27.402 --> 01:09:30.485
Our good works demonstrate our faith in Christ.
01:09:31.426 --> 01:09:42.216
And it is our faith in Christ that activates Christ's grace and forgiveness and salvation is a free gift that Christ gives us.
01:09:43.176 --> 01:09:49.002
So you are absolutely good enough because Christ thinks you are good enough.
01:09:49.882 --> 01:10:01.253
Good enough that he's willing to save you no matter where you are, as long as you have faith in him and you're demonstrating that faith through the efforts that you put forward to try to live a Christ-like life.
01:10:01.921 --> 01:10:04.364
So that's my rebuttal to your rebuttal.
01:10:05.645 --> 01:10:10.131
Barring any rebuttal to my rebuttal to your rebuttal, we should wind this up.
01:10:10.211 --> 01:10:11.773
I think this has been a great discussion.
01:10:12.774 --> 01:10:19.742
But we don't say this enough to all of you listening, but we so much appreciate you out there.
01:10:19.761 --> 01:10:30.565
I didn't tell the story, but somebody– well, I'll tell you that later– We're just so grateful for all of you, for everybody who's listening.
01:10:30.586 --> 01:10:31.948
You are enough.
01:10:33.332 --> 01:10:34.914
You're freaking awesome.
01:10:35.417 --> 01:10:42.070
We're grateful that you're listening to Inside Out, and we hope you'll join us again for next week's episode of Inside Out.
01:10:42.271 --> 01:10:43.274
And thank you, Ian.
01:10:43.314 --> 01:10:45.319
Thank you, Jim.