A Changing Church, and a Changed Conference Talk

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out, the podcast that takes a pragmatic and balanced look at the Mormon Church and faith. We consider all the good the church does And yes, we'll look at some of the problems and issues with the church and discuss ways in which the church can change and improve. As always, I'm here with my partner, the principled Mr. Jim Bennett. Jim.

Principled. That's a good one. We always try to come up with some fun adjective. That's one for the ages. I'll take it. Absolutely.

Yeah, I thought it was very appropriate. I was looking at just some ideas of one-word descriptions that we could describe each other, and that was definitely one that stood out, uh, uh, uh, of you from my perspective at least. I think you're a very principled individual. And, uh, Jim, today we've got a very interesting and actually a great episode for our listeners, and one that I wanted to do, you know, for quite some time. Uh, a little bit of context, uh, years ago, uh, when Elder Ballard was addressing some criticisms or concerns around the various, um, the different versions of the First Vision of Joseph Smith, and addressing some of those criticisms, he said this. And I think this is important, uh, background to our podcast here. Uh, we would have to say, as apostles who have covered the world and know the history of the Church, and know the integrity of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. From the beginning, there has been no attempt on the part of the Church leaders to try to hide anything from anyone. Thanks to the Joseph Smith Papers Project, we're learning more about the Prophet Joseph Smith. It's wonderful. We are. Elder Ballard goes on to say, just trust us wherever you are in the world. And you share this message, and you share this message with anyone else who raises the question, about the church not being transparent, or as transparent as we know how to be in telling the truth. We have to do that. That's the Lord's way. So putting that to the test, if we can, there is an interesting talk that was delivered by Elder Pullman, if I pronounce his name correctly. And Elder Pullman gave an address at General Conference on the 7th of October, 1980. He was a member of the Quorum of Seventy, and he delivered this extraordinary address. The title of his talk was The Gospel and the Church. And in my view, it's one of the most significant talks ever given in the history of the church, in my opinion. And yet the church went to great lengths to edit the original talk and has only provided an official account of the original, the, the edited version on the church website. And to the best of my abilities, I can't find the original text on any Church platform. And so what we have is the second edited version of Elder Ullman's talk. And so why, you know, why was that talk so significant and why did the Church go to great lengths to edit that? And what did they do to change that and to edit that? So I think it's, I think the message in the talk where he, the central theme or construct of the talk is the relationship or distinction. In the original talk, he used the word distinction. I think the second one is relationship. We can get into the specifics here. I think the specifics are important. Draws the distinction between the church and the gospel and the principle that the more you live the gospel, the less you need the church. And so when I heard that talk, and I do want to quote some of his original text because I think they're extremely important, very valuable. I can see why the church went to great lengths. If you remember years ago in 2016, we, you and I and other other missionaries and companions of ours. We attended a reunion with President Banks in 2016 in Salt Lake. I think 2016. It was a wonderful experience. There were many missionaries that you and I served with that came from all over the world, and it was just wonderful to have that reunion. And I think, actually, I think it was, I think it was that same, same weekend. I think we met in the building, the Stake Building at the time. And I think the day after, we then met with President Banks and his family at his home. But at the meeting, the formal part of the reunion, if I'm not mistaken, President Banks talked about his relationship with Elder Packer. And what I got from that is that Elder Packer had played a very significant role in President Banks's life in training, in some way, President Banks to be a General Authority. To be the great leader in the church. President Banks had this relationship with, with Elder Packer. And my impression was that the two were quite close. Insomuch that President Banks had visited Elder Packer during his time in hospital. And if there's any part of this that I've got wrong, please correct me because I want to make sure that the information is correct. But President Banks went on to say that Elder Packer had mentioned or advised to him at some point prior to his departure from this earth that perhaps the church has gone too far on some of the programs and needed to return to some of the, to some of the basic principles of the gospel. Now, I think you were in the room at the time when President Banks shared that experience. It's going back a few years and I thought that was fascinating and interesting that that would be, that he would share that with us. Have I got my information correct there? Is any part of that that is a little bit off or even completely inaccurate?

No, I think all of that is accurate. I know that President Banks on several occasions talked about sort of the mentor relationship that Elder Packer had with him. So yeah, that, that is all consistent in the idea that the church had gone too far with some programs. I, I, my, my father used to say that Elder Packer behind the scenes was very opposed to the scouting program, for instance, uh, that, that he thought that had, that had nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's, it's just really interesting that that dynamic was percolating behind the scenes.

Yeah, I thought it was a fascinating thing to say. And it's something that I have, when I was active in the church, wrestled all the time about having too many programs, being too prescriptive. You know, the Doctrine and Covenants says very clearly that it's not good that man is commanded in all things. I quoted that accurately. And I think that's right. I think it's a good principle. Josephus talked about teaching correct principles and letting people govern themselves. And there's extensive material direction and talks given on the principle of free agency. You know, we get taught information, good things, and we then decide, you know, how to implement those principles in our life with a level of free agency. And I think what's striking with Aldous Hulman's talk is that he was talking about that very thing. The relationship between the church and the gospel being somewhat different and significant. And I want to quote him because the, you know, Elder Paulman gave this, this talk in 1985, I think it was.

That was '84.

'84. I apologize. '84. And he gave it again during general conference., and he said some very striking things which really concerned the apostles and leaders at the time to the point where they went to great lengths to edit it. So let's just get into some of the things that actually said here in the original portion of the, uh, original version of the talk. Elder Paulus says here, says both the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ are true and divine. However, there is a distinction between them which is significant, and it is very important that this distinction be understood. Of equal importance is understanding the essential relationship between the gospel and the church. Failure to distinguish between the two and to comprehend their proper relationship may lead to confusion and misplaced priorities with unrealistic and therefore failed expectations. The edited version, which we'll get into, uh, shortly, what happened and how the church edited that, uh, gives a, a, quite a different, uh, version of that. He goes on to say, as, as individual and collectively we increase our knowledge, acceptance, and application of the gospel principles, we become less dependent on church programs. Our lives become gospel-centered. And I thought that was— I, I wasn't, I don't, I wasn't there at the conference. I don't remember that. Talk being given, and if I was, it wouldn't have stood out to me. I would have been 18 years old here, and I think that would have— I would have missed that back then. But I think that's one of the most important principles and teachings that any leader of the church could give, to just to draw that distinction between the church and the gospel, and that when we live the gospel— and what do we mean by that? You know, love kindness, forgiveness, understanding, patience, long-suffering, all the principles that Christ taught and was and exemplified in reality, serving, you know, visiting people in their homes as he did in the streets, you know, in the countryside there and extending his love and his blessings to to all and everyone that would be interested in receiving. That's the, that's the gospel in my mind. Don't have to be told to serve, you don't have to tick a box or fill out a home teaching or ministry form that you visited so-and-so, or tick this or tick that. You serve because you love, you serve because you want to, you serve because there is a goodness in you that wants to help and improve the lives of others. It's that Christ, that love that motivates the individual to serve. And we don't need a program essentially, or something prescriptive to tell us, oh, sure, I'll show you how to do that. Just to qualify that, I think it's important that the church does have some programs and, you know, some basic processes. Elder Pullman talks about the church being the delivery system end quote. They took that out, by the way. They didn't— the church leaders didn't like that. I listened to the talk yesterday, but he was right in that the church is the mechanism, the delivery system in which we can serve. You know, it brings people together. There's some, I think, structure. I think it's important to have some basic structure, some basic processes. We need to organize ourselves in terms of how we're serving to become efficient. And effective. I think the effectiveness is in the love and the principles of, you know, those universal principles. But we can become efficient in terms of how we reach more people quickly. So I think there's some value to having some basic programs, you know, basic systems and basic processes. But that, you know, but that's it in my mind. I think that's all you need, just the basics, the fundamentals, and then living and practicing the gospel., you know, within those basic, programs. And, and I, I found, I think the, the intent of Elder Paulman was, was to, to draw that distinction and to have members remind members really it's the gospel. That's the most important thing that we should be focusing on here. And the church is there simply to help you, you know, live the gospel and to reach out to, The brothers, um, you've read and listened to the talk, the original text. What conclusions do you come to, Jim? What's your interpretation of what Elder Pullman, what his intent was, what he was trying to do with that original talk?

Well, are you saying what was his intent with the original talk, or what was the intent of the church when they altered the talk?

The former first.

The former— well, I think you framed it very well. I mean, he, he's— he makes that distinction between the gospel and the church, and it's a distinction that I think a lot of members make individually, and that I think the church, as evidenced by the editing— and I guess I'm jumping ahead here— but it's a distinction that the church is not comfortable with, and and sees as a problem, because we have seen, we have seen in recent days evidence that leaders of the Church want us to think of the Church as the gospel, that they are essentially the same thing. Elder Kevin Hamilton of the Utah Area Presidency gave a talk a little while back where he talked about people complaining about things that the Church does. And he said, when you, when you hear the word church, substitute the word— the same— substitute the Savior. So when you say, I don't like when the church does this, frame it as, I don't like it when the Savior does this. That we're supposed to see the church and the Savior as identical. And Elder Pullman very clearly in the original talk draws that distinction. And as you pointed out, they changed the word from distinction to relationship, because I think he was right the first time, but it's not something that the leadership of the church is comfortable saying or admitting. Would you agree with that?

I totally would agree with that. And so, yeah, absolutely. I think his first talk was genuine, sincere. I think he absolutely— my opinion— he absolutely believed what he was saying at the first talk. And I just don't buy that the second version that he allegedly said he wanted to change it to under his direction, his recommendation— I just don't buy that. I think he went with his first talk for all the right and all the good reasons, and I have enormous respect for him. And I can imagine the pressure he probably felt from the reaction from some of the apostles in getting into that. And so, you know, after he delivered that address, and I, I don't know, Jim, if that was a time, or either I would, I think, I believe at the time that the talks that were delivered at conference back in '84, may not have been vetted before the talks were delivered. And I heard from a couple of people I know that following Ella Palmer's talk, they decided to implement a process or a step where the talks that were being prepared for conference, that they had to be checked and vetted by a committee under the direction of the First Presidency. And I think this is what I'm hearing from my research here, that the correlation committee as it was at that time and organized and structured at that particular time, began implementing a, a policy of checking General Authority talks prior to delivering them at conference. That wouldn't surprise me. And I think today the talks are vetted and checked before they go out. And I've even heard that some of the talks are written not by the apostles, that there are sections in the talks, uh, not written by them. Um, yes, they're reviewed by the, the apostle or general authority, uh, but there are sections in there which they don't write. I don't know how accurate that is. I don't know if you've heard anything of that, but I do believe, and I'm told by reliable sources, that each talk is, is checked and vetted to make sure correlates with the, um, you know, the, the narrative, you know, staying within, within the safe lanes of the, uh, the narrative of the church. Uh, do you have any comments or thoughts on that?

Well, when you say that you know that some of the talks are not written by the apostles, uh, I know people who have served on the personal staffs of General Authorities, and part of their assignment has been to write addresses, sometimes for conference, but other times more often to sort of adapt addresses that the apostles had written for conference for other settings. I mean, these men speak at so many different times, and I mean, every weekend they're out speaking. And so, so this one guy that I, I'm thinking of, um, he, he worked for Elder Ballard, and he wrote some of Elder Ballard's conference talks. Under Elder Ballard's direction. But, you know, writing and speaking are not necessarily the forte of, of these General Authorities. Uh, most of them have background in business or law, and I think they're called because of their organizational skills, not necessarily because they are commanding and charismatic speakers. But I, I think— I know when I first heard that, this was 30 years ago, uh, I found it disturbing to know that apostles were giving talks that they hadn't written. Now, that bothers me less and less as time goes by, as I have a better understanding of how sort of that process works. But yeah, I, I very often I think, and I think that I don't know if Elder Pullman's talk was the catalyst for this, but I think the amount of vetting that takes place now is significantly higher than it was in times past. And I think you saw that in this last conference where pretty much every talk was about covenants and the temple and the covenant path. And there was such a strong thematic consistency between all of the talks that you really got the sense that that was deliberate and that that came through some kind of formal vetting process.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. You know, these are very smart people. They've, over the years, if you pinpoint or you were to trace or track any of the major issues of the church or any issues, it often goes back to something that someone did or said that wasn't within the lane, that they spoke out of the narrative, you know, outside of the policy, outside of the principle, expressing an opinion. And people obviously hear that and they video it and record it, and then there's question and concern. So yeah, I think the conference increasingly, the talks are heavily vetted. I personally, to your point, I think this would've bothered me many years ago. It doesn't so much now. Learning or knowing that the talks are written by others or edited I have no problem with that, believe it or not. My concern is as long as it's being honest and positive, constructive, and if someone is in the background writing it, I mean, this happens with politicians all the time. You know, some President Reagan's talks were written by others, you know, prime minister's talks or comments are written by others. And I'm okay with that as long as those important principles are being taught. I have no problem with that. Uh, with Elder Palmer's talk, I think it was, uh, a game changer. I think it was very significant. Uh, the apparently the church leadership's concern with Elder Palmer's talk from my research here was how fundamentalists would interpret the talk. Don't know how they, they arrived at that, or they were concerned that, um, fundamentalists, uh, claims that they were appearing to be two churches instead of one church, or two different, uh, focuses, and that the fundamentalists and the polygamists might use that to attack the church. That's from some of my research that I've got here. I think they were concerned that, um, uh, Elder Palmer's talk would feed into those fundamentalists and polygamists, and which is interesting. I don't know. I don't see the connection there, but I think they were more concerned with people who were, you know, anti-Mormon or apostates that would jump all over his talk and claim that, you know, there are two— we don't need the church programs, we can, we can live and do what we want within, within the church. Just some other research. He said, I've got the apostles I think one of the spokespeople of the church, someone called Stack, wrote that apostles who regularly deal with Mormon apostate groups pointed out to Elder Paulman that his remarks might be misinterpreted. And Brother Paulman's brother Stuart is quoted as saying that Ronald Paulman was concerned his remarks would be used by Mormon apostate groups. And so I, I don't— maybe I'm missing the connection there, but I think the biggest reason for the church's concern, the reason why they edited it, and I want to get into that in this conversation, was they, in my opinion, they want to have control and they want to regulate the lives of church members. They, they, and to do that, you need church programs, you need systems, you need processes, you need checkboxes, you know, paying a tithing, going to the temple, Are you doing ministry, et cetera? It's like the life on the mission. You know, you had to tick all these boxes every night, every week. When you get up in the morning, when you go to bed, you know, what we wear, what we think, et cetera, et cetera. And the church exerts a level of control through those systems, through those processes, through those mechanisms, and has to maintain that control and that regulation on the church member in order to keep the, the the rank and file, uh, in line. I know I'm being a little bit, uh, one-sided here perhaps, but that's my interpretation of the talk. And any notion or thought or concept that members don't need these programs or processes or systems or tools, et cetera, uh, and only need them in a very basic format, and then you live the gospel however you want. Provides less control for the church and less grip, if you like, on the rank-and-file member, not more. And I think that's what their— I think that was a major concern. They probably were concerned about fundamentalists and polygamists, perhaps. I still don't see the connection. I can see why they'd be concerned, why apostates might seize upon this. But the, the, the, the, the point that I, uh, and trying to understand all of this is that if you don't need the programs and the processes, is the message from the church that, or if you say you don't need them or don't need these tools, if you come out and said that, are you in fact an apostate? Even though you might be living the gospel more effectively, more efficiently, might be a better person cuz you live in the gospel, you don't need all these programs. And does that— is that characterized by the church? Because he's not living all the different programs. Is that characterized as an apostate? And that, that's worrying if that's what the church thinks. But I think the church was deeply concerned that Elder Palmer's talk would, uh, deliver a message that, look, we don't need these processes and systems, these tools, etc., uh, because that's actually not the gospel. The gospel is this and not that. And therefore the church has less control or, um, influence on the church members. Am I being too negative there, too skeptical, or does that resonate with you?

No, I think that's absolutely right. I'm trying to figure out what the concern with the fundamentalists would be, and the idea, for instance, that the gospel exists independent of the church and that it can be lived independent of the church I can imagine a scenario where a member of the fundamentalist LDS Church might look at that and say, well, see, so you can live the gospel however you want, and we're just the apparatus that helps you live it. And so that's okay. And so I can see that there might be a concern there. I don't think that that would be a an intense enough concern to merit what the Church did with Elder Pullman's talk. And we've— I'm not sure if we've explicitly said this yet, but Elder Pullman was actually taken back to the Tabernacle. This was before the Conference Center was built, taken back to the Tabernacle. Portions of his talk were refilmed and they added what they called a cough track So it sounded like there was an audience and they went and they edited the talk. I mean, there have been many talks that have been edited after they've been given. In other words, if you go to the, to the written record of the talk, it's different from what's, from what was presented in conference. And I think probably the most recent that is the most controversial was Elder Packer's 2010 talk where he made some, uh, incendiary remarks about homosexuality, that nobody is born gay, why would Heavenly Father do that to anyone. We've talked about that. But if you go to the church's website and you watch the talk, the original talk is still there. You can still hear Elder Packer say what he said in conference. But if you read the written record of it, it has been edited, it has been softened. But in 1984, they thought they could get away. And it's ironic, you know, 1984 being the Orwellian novel about a dystopia where they control information and they flush things down the memory hole. That's exactly what they tried to do with Elder Paul Pullman's original talk. And, and it— I remember talking to my father about it. After the fact. I didn't know it had happened. I wasn't paying any attention. I was 16 years old. It didn't matter to me. But I said, why would they do this? And he said, well, I think some people got a little overeager and they look a little foolish. He just kind of wrote it off as this was kind of a goofy, dumb mistake. But I think, I think it's significant because it was dishonest. There's still really no argument about it. And I, I think that the, the crux of it that was so alarming to church leaders, uh, was not necessarily that, that the polygamists were going to seize on it. It was that the general membership of the church might seize on it in a way to live the gospel without attaching themselves to the church and We saw this happen in 2020, in 2021, when the church shut down for COVID. And I, I remember having conversations with some church leaders saying we need to get people back to church as soon as possible because they were worried that they might enjoy the home church more. And a lot of people did. You know, when, when the church shut down for COVID, all of a sudden people found themselves being able to take the sacrament in their own homes, at their own schedule, at their own pace, and to have meetings and teachings with their own family according to their own structure. I mean, they suddenly had a spiritual autonomy that the church at least as evidenced by Elder Pullman's talk, church didn't want them to have. The church didn't want them to recognize, you know what, a lot of the programs that you spend all of your time on in the church, they really don't matter that much. Matters is you take the sacrament and you live the gospel. I mean, I mean, there are still elements that were sort of distilled down to their essence You know, I found it very spiritually uplifting to take the sacrament in my own home with my own family. And I did prefer it to the kinds of, you know, big church meetings. Going back to church for me after COVID was a bit of a shock. It was a bit of, oh, really? This again? We have to do all of this and the rigmarole and the boring speakers and the boring lessons. And, and all of this kind of thing. And so I think way back in '84, which is 40 years before COVID or almost 40 years before COVID uh, we didn't have that kind of lived experience. But I think that reaction was what the Brethren were afraid of, that they were afraid that people would, would all of a sudden go, oh wait, You mean I really don't need to attend every stinking meeting of every stinking auxiliary and go to every Scout, you know, campout and every this, that, and the other? That the gospel of Jesus Christ is simpler than that? Really? Huh. Maybe I'm going to make some decisions that are going to make the church a little less important in my life. And I think that was terrifying to them now, to them then I think it's even more terrifying to them now.

Yeah, and then, yeah, absolutely. And remember, '84, as you know, this is before the internet, you know. Yeah, 10 years before the emergence of the internet. Um, on the— if you compare the two talks, and there are some YouTube videos out there and a number of websites that actually compare the two very, uh, in my, in my view, very significant differences in terms of the text. But between the two texts, rather, if you go back to the original talk, free agency clearly was a concern to the Brethren, to the point where the original talk referenced agency 3 times and 2 were removed and the third modified in the second edition. So clearly they were concerned about the reference of the misinterpretation about the agency. And then Fair Mormon tries to address this. There's a whole page on this on Fair Mormon, which I have some problems with, frankly, in terms of the tone and, and how they're trying to address it. Say, look, it, you know, it wasn't a problem, you know, it was his idea to change it, et cetera, et cetera. And they're trying to make light of the fact that the church took him back, I think within a few days, within 2, 3 days, and and back into the conference center, physically back into the conference center.

It was a tabernacle.

The tabernacle, sorry. At the time, before the conference center was built, wasn't it? So at the tabernacle at the time, and then had this cough track device. And they kind of talk about this. They say here clearly on the Fire Model website, clearly producing an updated version, in brackets, a version of a talk that had already been recorded, posed some problems. For one, a recording with no background noise would stand out in contrast to all of the other talks with no modification. In addition, there was likely desire not to deceive, but to give authenticity to the presentation so as to not distract from its actual message. So there's a whole section on, um, they talk about it being, say here, while perhaps, they always use this word perhaps, um, again, the smart people, while perhaps an unwise decision in hindsight, the intent was simply to let the core of the message be the focus, not the distraction of the delivery because of the changes. And my point is that, look, if, if you want the core message to be the focus, print onto the church website the actual original text. I can't find it. It's not there. Uh, the, the second edition is on the church website and there's a link from Fair Moment to the edited, um, second edition, which I've said earlier has a significant change quite a bit of a change actually between the two editions. Why don't they publish the original message? Well, I think we've, we've addressed that here. They're very concerned about seemingly too much agency for the church is a problem. So there's, there's some interesting comments, remarks from Fair Mormon on there to give our listeners a either, you know, the inside position, if you like, uh, thinking. But it's difficult, uh, uh, not to see the church intent was to remove this and to, um, to address this issue around, you know, two or three angels is a, is, is a bad thing. And it's just another reminder. And it's also, as I said right at the very beginning, in my mind it's a an attempt, you know, by not publishing the original version, it is a material example that the church has or is trying to cover something up. They don't want you to read the original text. Even today, I just can't find it. And so, you know, why not be— Elder Ballard talks about transparency. I think I quoted him at the very beginning of the podcast. He talks about being transparent and being honest in the, in the only way that, that he knows. Well, let's publish the talk. Let's get it onto the church website. Let people read it. Let's be open about it. And if, if there is a concern about programs and systems, why can't we have a healthy grownup adult conversation about too many programs, too many processes, too many tools? Elder Packer had concerns over that. Why can't we have that conversation? Why can't we draw the distinction between church programs and tools and processes and et cetera and living the gospel? I thought the whole point was to have people live the gospel. And can they not see, Jim, that in living the gospel, they get more commitment, more motivation? People are immersed spiritually. Into the cause, into the purpose of the gospel, as to bring joy to others. Surely that is what holds people and motivates people on a deep personal spiritual level, and not something that, you know, we're commanded in all things where we have to tick this and tick that. That's more administrative. And obedience, I've always challenged the And I wanted to challenge, and in my own heart and mind, I challenge the first law or principle of heaven is obedience. I don't believe that anymore. I think the first principle or law is love, not obedience. You know, Christ was successful because of love, not because of people, you know, obeyed him out of fear necessarily.

If you love me, keep my commandments.

If you love me, keep my commandments. Can the church leaders not see that the way to success with the church and growth and prosperity and spreading the message to all kindred tongues and people and blessing the lives of people is through love, not through obedience and fear? And control or regulation. So I think Elder Paulman got it right, and I think the decision and the efforts by the church leaders to suppress that, to change that, is frankly an own goal. And look at us right now, you know, that was 1984, we're still talking about it. I think about it often, sometimes others think about it. There's a lot of material out there. And I don't think Elder Pullman would want to have the negative publicity around his talk. I, I, I think he meant his original talk, and I think the church should have, um, stuck with that and allowed the members to have a own, you know, an open adult constructive conversation and what that, what that means. I, I just don't know why they the church leaders miss some of the very points that we're making here on this podcast, on this conversation. We're not prophets, we don't claim to be prophets. I'm not an apostle, you're not an apostle. But we ourselves and others, we're not alone, seem to see, you know, things that the brethren can't see. You know, the principle of agency, the principles that we're talking about, but they don't seem to see that. And so that's, that's somewhat disappointing. So I, I, I'm saddened that, uh, the church, um, continues to try to regulate and control, you know, people's lives and, um, not just in, in this way, but in many other ways as well. And we're only free, are we not, if we have free agency. If, if we're controlled and regulated, we're really not, not free. Told.

Well, a few things come to mind as you talk about this, uh, one being that the church— it— the church in some ways has taken your advice. In 2018, uh, after President Nelson became the prophet, he instituted, uh, what came to be called as a home-centered and church-supported church, or the gospel is home-centered and church-supported. That's when church was cut down from 3 hours to 2 hours. And that's when a lot of these programs were completely gutted. We have scrapped a number of programs, you know, back in 2016. Prior to President Nelson's ascendancy, when we were talking with President Banks and he was recounting President Packer's concern that we've gone too far with programs, a lot of those programs were still in place. Many of them, if not most of them, have gone by the wayside. I remember sitting in the fireside with my teenage son as they were announcing they had just scrapped the scouting program. And I was thrilled with that because I grew up in Boy Scouts. You didn't join the church in time to become a Boy Scout, and I'm not— they didn't— they don't have scouting. They didn't have scouting over in the UK, did they?

Yes, I was a— I was a cub and a scout.

Oh, you were?

I was a cub. You got these Boy Cubs. This is before I joined the church, 16, and the So the Church of England run a— the, um, the Cub program, and they also ran the Scout program.

Oh wow. All right, well, so maybe they were doing it better than we were. I mean, my scouting experience— I, I was talking to a friend of mine who has also left the church, and he was talking about— he was remembering some of the awful things that we did in Boy Scouts. He talked about a thing called the mill. He's like, do you remember the mill? And I said, I don't. He says, that's when if anybody did something wrong, you would line up, all the scouts would line up, and the offender would crawl through their legs as the scouts pounded on them and spanked them and hit them. And it was all, ha ha ha, isn't this funny? And, you know, I have just really traumatic, terrible experiences from Boy Scouting. That's not what this is about. But this is about the fact that, okay, so they scrapped the scouting program. And given all of my trauma, I thought, wow, that's great. Can't wait to see what comes next. And so I was sitting in this fireside with my teenage son as they were announcing the new young men's program. And Elder Ballard was leading the meeting and there were several sisters from the Relief Society presidency, the General Relief Society presidency, and I think there were some from the Primary Presidency. And they— the whole meeting was, this program's gonna be great. Oh, you're just gonna love it. It's gonna be wonderful. It's gonna be— and this went on for about 45 minutes. And both my son and I started looking at each other and going, okay, well, what is the program? That's great that you think it's going to be great and we're all going to love it and it's going to be wonderful. What is it? And the answer is it's nothing. There isn't really a prescribed program. There's this kind of— they have these 4 standards, like it should help build your spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional life, whatever you do. And okay, great. What are we supposed to do? Well, that's up to you. Really. But they didn't even say that. It was just, this is the new program, we're going to build these 4 areas in your life, and it's, it's going to be great. And there isn't a program. And I was talking to my wife about this, and she said, well, now you know what it was like to be a young woman in the church, because, uh, the scouting program dominated, uh, the schedule. It dominated the budget. You had all this money going into Scouts, and the Young Women had this sort of skeleton of a program that didn't really have any clear objectives. I mean, the Scouts, you had the merit badges and the ranks and all that stuff. And the Young Women's, I mean, you could get your Young Women's medallion at the end of it, but it didn't have nearly the same sort of weight or urgency or attention. And or the amount of resources that the scouting program did. So, so President Nelson scrapped Scouts, and he scrapped, um, he scrapped like road shows, uh, all these big church pageants that have been going on for almost 100 years— the Hill Cumorah Pageant, a bunch of other things. You know, when I was a kid, we did, um, did a big pageant called Third Nephi, and we did it in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, which is this huge theater where they do the Academy Awards sometimes, or they used to. And, you know, all of these— when, when they dedicated the Draper Temple, my kids were all involved in this huge program at the conference center where they had this it had to be about 50 feet tall, this 50-foot-tall facade of the Draper Temple. And they did these songs and they did all this stuff. And it was just this big, huge, wild pageant. And this— I mean, this was, what, 10 years ago? This isn't— this isn't forever ago. And, and, you know, we've now scrapped all of that. And it's all gone. And it, it leaves me saying, okay, so did, did it not matter when we did it? And I think, well, you know, when I was growing up, the church was the center of the universe. The church was not just my spiritual guide, it was also my community, my people. And all the things that we've scrapped are all the things that were any fun. I mean, they're all the things that built community. They didn't do anything else but build community. You know, when I was a teenager, my parents directed a production of The Music Man, which is a big Broadway musical, and every single member of the ward was in it, and we performed it for everybody else in the stake. And it was just this wonderful thing, and it had nothing to do with the gospel other than it was building relationships and building a community among the members of the ward. And those are the memories that I come back to when I think about my childhood. I don't think about some amazing talk that somebody gave or some kind of— what I think about are those moments of community, and we've scrapped them. All of those, all of those things I thought mattered. I thought they were significant. And now we've gotten rid of that, but we've doubled down on other checkboxes, other programs, specifically the temple. Specifically, we've now reached a point where the church kind of has decided that if the church didn't have the temple, if it didn't have, okay, if you don't have a temple recommend, you can't see your children get married, you can't participate. I mean, I wouldn't be able to participate as a member of the Tabernacle Choir if I don't have a temple recommend. The temple recommend and the temple is the one thing the church can sort of hold over you. At this point. And, and so we seem to have, in discarding all of the other stuff, we have doubled down on this stuff, on the temple stuff, on the covenant stuff, on the— these are the checkboxes that are so important that they matter more than any other checkbox that we've ever had. And I find that somewhat disturbing. Because I don't— I am not as spiritually fed by the temple as many other people are. I mean, I've talked to many people who, including members of my own family, my sister and her husband are temple workers in Arizona, and it just feeds their soul in a way that I truly envy because I haven't had that experience. But they just love the temple and they embrace it, and it's sort of the centerpiece of their lives. And that's the case for a lot of members of the church. But, you know, that's the one program I say, I think that we've now decided is the essential program. We've jettisoned everything else and we've decided the temple is the program. And, and Elder Pullman's talk could be interpreted in a way to say Yeah, the temple is nice, but really what's important is the gospel and living the gospel in your daily life. And I can see church leaders listening to that and saying, you're putting too much distance. This is, this is something that's too important and we need to make sure we hold on to this. So I can see the reasoning behind it. I can even agree with some of the reasoning behind it. I just think that some of the things that we thought weren't important, I think were very important, at least to me. And I'd like to see us reclaim some of that. You know, I've listened to Patrick Mason, who talks about, you know, everybody cheered when church went from 3 hours to 2 hours. And I've heard him talk at length about the fact that Well, okay, except that— I mean, that's fine in Utah, where your ward is a 6-block radius, and you see these people at the grocery store, and you can maintain community with them without that. But in vast parts of the world, people travel for a great deal of time. I mean, in Canada, you know, your stake, you had to travel how many hours to get to the boundaries of your stake? 6, 6 hours, you know. So these are people that are traveling great lengths to get to church, and that 3-hour block is the time when they're together. And then you, you slice that off by a third, and that's another thing that just sort of slices out some of the community, even though that third hour is dedicated to another class where you're hearing another lesson about another conference talk and it's all that stuff. For me, the 3-hour block, the great stuff about it is what happens in the hallways and in the foyers and when you're connecting to people and doing all of that. So I think that's kind of what we've lost. I think that's kind of what Elder Poland was trying to say was important. And I think in many ways we've kind of gone the wrong way.

I really appreciate you pushing back and actually qualifying through those experiences, those points in respect to some of the programs that we used to do in the church. You talked about the roadshow. I have amazing memories, experiences doing the roadshow, and there were programs. And you're absolutely right, there were things that the church did back then that were amazing, and, and they, they've, um, um, given up those. They've, they've scrapped those. And I think they, I think they were a mistake, uh, to do that. Like, if you look at the UK, uh, the YSA program where we used to live for the weekend, we used to go to London Hyde Park or Aberfoyle or Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. And we used to— every weekend I was away at a dance or something, and And, and those YSA programs were— is all we live for. And I really appreciate you coming back and giving that, um, other perspective on, on the program because it's really important. Because as a podcast, Inside Out is— we said at the very beginning— is looking at, you know, taking a balanced view. And I think you're absolutely right. And you're right also, they've replaced some of those things with the temple. They've even put a lot of emphasis, as you know, on Youth going to the temple, huge emphasis and resources over the last few years in getting the youth to go to the temple. And I think, I think in some ways that's a good thing. In other ways, it, it might be a problem for some people. Again, we acknowledge that, you know, for a lot of members, the temple is an extraordinary source of spirituality and strength. And same with youth. And, and, you know, primary children sometimes attend the temple as well to to actually go around the temple and acknowledge that. For others, the temple is a difficult experience, and they can get their spirituality and strength through other means. The temple is not the only source of spirituality. There are other ways and means in which we can get our spirituality. And the church is, you're right, doubling down and trying to move more and more of its members to recommit and new members to commit to go to the temple. There are a number of control mechanisms associated with that, which you've referenced. Temple recommend, you got to be full tithe payer. So there's still a level of, you could argue, increased level of control by focusing mostly on the temple or largely on the temple because of the things that you have to do to get there. And also when you're there, notwithstanding the changes to the temple endowment, et cetera, et cetera, some of the ordinances that you can speak to more than I can, there is still a level of prescriptive and regulated behaviors and rites and passages and other teachings and principles and physical cultural behaviors that you have to perform in the temple in order to demonstrate one's commitment and obedience. And then the other step is that if, as we've discussed, if the church goes further and actually counts and measures the number of endowments and washings and anointings and, and sealings, if it starts to measure those, um, those things, and, and if that's the, the, the metric for success or spirituality or achievement in the church, and it starts to measure group performance like in a quorum or individual performance based on number of temple, you know, how many times you visit the temple, how many endowments you've done, how many names you've done, how many washings and anointings, etc. If you start measuring that, then that is another— if that's what they do, and I think they will— that's another control mechanism to be able to measure and quantify numerically someone's commitment and level of spirituality. And I don't think you can or should measure spirituality through, quantify numerically or indeed financially. I think that's a very personal experience for each individual. And if the temple is the source of spirituality, go have that experience. Hopefully that makes you into a better person. That's great. If it's not, go find your other source of spirituality. Either way, whatever helps you become a better person and to be that kind, loving, and thoughtful and forgiving individual that Christ wants us to be. Find your lane, find your path. And I don't think it's through regulation or being a prescriptive method or method that measures numerically. I think this is a personal choice. And one that the church should allow members to be free to make and not be afraid of free agency. I mean, the gospel is founded on the principle of free agency. We talk about that extensively. And of course, that was the first message and experience in the heavens. There were two plans that were presented according to the church teachings, and people made the choice. So Yeah, I've wanted to have this conversation, so I'm very grateful that we're able to have this bigger, broader conversation in the context of Elder Pullman's talk.

No, I appreciate you raising it because I know that this has been very important to you and had quite a big impact on you. One of the lessons that I draw from this discussion too is that the church still is pretending that it has a choice as to whether or not it's going to, uh, deal with embarrassing facts and embarrassing realities. You know, back in 1984, they thought they could get away with, uh, bringing a General Authority into an empty Tabernacle and refilming his talk and that nobody would notice. They did notice even back in 1984. Well, in 2024, everybody, you know, all of this information is out there and the church is still sort of pretending that we can control how it's given, that we can sort of smooth over the parts we don't want to talk about, that we can sweep under the rug embarrassing things that we have not yet come to terms with. And we just can't do that. We just can't do it.

It—

this— we live in a world where that is impossible. And I think that's a good thing. We live in a world where, you know, when Elder Ballard says we're as transparent as we know how to be, I think he was telling the truth in the sense that that's how transparent they knew how to be. We need to know how to be more transparent, fully transparent, because we don't have a choice. That information is out there, and the church can either embrace that reality or continue to take hits as, as we stumble around and refuse to come to terms with some of the mistakes that we've made. So I think we've come to the end of our hour. Do you have any wise words of wisdom you want to share as we sum up here?

I don't. I think we've covered a lot of it. For our listeners, you can go research this yourself, go read the original text and come to your own conclusions and compare the two. It's definitely out there. But I really appreciate, Jim Bennett, this opportunity to talk about something that's so important. Again, the message is be your authentic self. To our listeners, I think that's the key to happiness, is to be yourself and to be honest and loving and kind and all the principles that Christ taught. There are many paths up the mountain and live in a way that makes you happy and blesses the lives of others. It's the very essence, the very principle Elder Paulman was trying to trying to address. So thank you.

Well, until we pull you back into the studio to get you to give the corrected version of this podcast, uh, we'll let that be the final word. Uh, thank you very much, and thank you all for listening, uh, to Inside Out, and we hope to see you next time. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim.