A Conversation with Clayton Settle

Greeting and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out. I'm your co-host Ian Wilkes, and as always, I'm joined by the supreme dark lord high commander, Mr. Jim Bennett.

I need the Imperial March to be playing behind this.

You do. I've been watching Star Wars and I thought, what's a really good title for— who would make a really good villain? And I thought maybe Jim Bennett would make an awesome villain.

Uh, you know, we were singing, actually we're getting ready to go on tour in Argentina with the choir and we're singing a song that sounds like the Imperial March and the guy next to me said, Luke, sois un padre.

And I thought that was kind of funny. I think, Guru, and before we introduce our very special guest, do you want to give us an evil Dark Lord Supreme High Commander laugh?

Mwahaha!

Oh, sorry.

That was great. Great. Okay. Anyway, without further ado, we'll get into this very special episode. So it's a real honor and a privilege to introduce someone who's really special, somebody we found actually, we got in touch with and connected with through the Inside Out podcast. And that is Mr. Clayton Settle. Clayton, welcome to Inside Out.

Thank you for having me. This is a real honor and really cool privilege.

So, well, thank you for being here. And it's an honor for us as well. It really is. We're looking forward to having this conversation with you and learning about your story. And just tell for the benefit of our listeners, how do we know each other? How do you and I and Jim know each other?

Well, yeah, I, you know what, I think I found the podcast. I don't exactly know how I found the podcast. I know that I had read Jim Bennett's book, or at least part of the book, the response to the CS letter at some point. And then I don't know how I found the podcast. Maybe, maybe I just came upon it and then I came in it in the middle. And then I just listened to all the episodes in the beginning. And so I've been, you know, on either on Jim Bennett's personal Facebook page or when y'all made the show page, I started making comments and maybe I was just a loudmouth. And so y'all figured I should come on the podcast. Not at all.

Not at all. So Clayton, uh, you, uh, are one of our listeners and we've got to know you through the podcast. Before that, we didn't know you. We hadn't met. We had no connection., and you've been a regular, uh, member of our podcast group and you've made wonderful comments. Uh, uh, mm, do we get people on, Jim, who don't make wonderful comments? I'm not sure what the policy is, but, uh, well, well, there you go. I'm having fun. I'm having fun. And so, so Clayton, uh, what's your story? What's your background? Tell us a bit about your experience with the church. Were you born in the church? Did you grow up in the church? What was that influence like? Were your family in the church? Walk us through your early church experience and just tell us about some of the successes and the joys that you've experienced over the years in the church. And if you're comfortable, you know, share anything about your family, and you don't have to if you don't want to.

Sure, more than happy. I grew up as a member of the church. I was born into the church. My dad was kind of a convert. Uh, he grew up in a less active home and he got baptized at 16. My mom got baptized at 19, so she was a new member. And, uh, I grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, which is not a big bastion of the church. I think there's still only one stake there. So I don't know if y'all ever been to Corpus Christi, but that's where I grew up. And, um, I grew up in a pretty traditional Mormon family. Um, uh, my— was an Eagle Scout, you know, I, I did, I was a seminary graduate. My dad was a bishop when I was a teenager. Um, I served a mission in Las Vegas and, uh, and Reno area or Carson City. So I was in Nevada, which was a really fun experience, really neat experience. And, um, let's see, I came back from my mission. I went to Texas A&M and, uh, I married, I found my wife there and we got married and we have two kids and we live in the Houston area. And so, um, as far as my church experience, you know, I've been in a lot of music callings. I've been a primary chorister, which is probably my favorite calling I've ever had. It's just really fun teaching the kids through music, having fun, feeling the spirit is beautiful. I've been a ward and stake choir director. I've been an executive secretary. That's about as high up as I've gone. It's a me. And then I've been a ward mission leader. You know, I've been around. I've done, done some things, been primary teacher. So right now I'm a I'm also, uh, I'm substituting as a primary chorister because she's out of town. So anyways, that's a little bit of my church background.

Yeah, that's great. You play a musical instrument?

I am taking piano lessons, but I am not good yet. I can play one hymn. I can play Godspeed the Right. That's the easiest one I think you can play on the, on the piano. So if we get in a real pinch, we could sing Godspeed the Right 3 times in sacrament meeting.

Clayton, you talk about, uh, you know, I'm talking about turning to the guy next to me in choir rehearsal. Very often the guy that I turn next to me, uh, is a guy named Hiram Ward who speaks very, very highly of you.

Oh, he did, huh?

Yeah, yeah. I, so, so I, you know, very often people will ask me, hey, do you know so-and-so in the choir? And I'll say, well, are they a tall second tenor? Because probably not otherwise, you know, particularly if it's a woman. I don't, you know, you don't get any opportunity to socialize choir-wide until you go on tour. I've gotten to know more people now that I've been on tour a number of different times. But I think, I think you'd messaged me and you asked me if I knew Hiram. And I went, oh gosh, yes. Cause I sit next to him almost every week.

Yeah, he's one of the greatest guys. I mean, I, I, it's wonderful guy. It's been a while, but we were in the same ward. I think his daughter babysat for us a couple times. So, uh, great family. Yeah. They have a lot of kids too.

Yes. Yeah. I think he has, does he have 8?

I think so.

Something like that. Yeah. So, oh, great people. But he's one of the back row boys. There is a back row. In the conference center particularly that only has 3 seats. And we often call ourselves the bishopric of the choir. We rotate, you know, whoever's in the center seat. I was actually the bishop of the choir this last week, but there's another tall guy that has joined the choir. And so Hiram's now getting bumped down to a lower row, which is sad because he's one of my favorite people to sit by.

So does that mean you're the tallest person in the choir?

No, I'm not, but it means I am the tallest tenor in the choir.

Nice.

There's, there is a, there is a baritone in the choir who is 6'10", I think, just this massive guy and the nicest guy you would ever meet in your entire life. But, uh, I don't come anywhere close. They have to specially make his suits and, and everything else because he is just A very, very, very tall man. So anyway, sorry to interrupt.

No, that's okay. Good.

And so, uh, Clayton, so what, what was your experience like growing up in the church? Was it positive? Did you come across any, you know, you, you probably went through the old youth program. You said you went to seminary. You then prepared a mission. Tell us a bit about, you know, your, your, uh, experience a bit more in the church and what was it like to prepare and go on a mission to Las Vegas. And what was that, uh, experience like on your mission?

Oh yeah, um, I, I love the church. Uh, I grew up, you know, we, like I said, we only— there's only one stake, so everybody in the stake was fairly close-knit. I think there's still only one stake in Corpus Christi. I think it's the oldest North American stake not to divide. I don't know, I don't think that's a good thing to know, but, um, that's what it was. Um, Uh, but, but I grew up, I, I, you know, I love the church. I, uh, I served a mission. And you know the funny story, everybody wants to know what kind of crazy stories did you have from Las Vegas. Most of the time the people out in the boonies of Nevada, like, uh, Carson City, even there were some weird people there. Um, we had one lady that was There was a stripper that wanted us to cast the devil out of her house. I was like, well, you should probably stop stripping. So, you know, there was some great experience. I had a, I had a—

Devil successfully cast out.

There you go.

Well done.

I, uh, I had two incredible mission presidents. My mission was great. Love the mission. Um, yeah, I don't, I, I, I would love the mission and I loved everything about the church. I still do. Uh, but you know, you, you start to find things out that you didn't know and, uh, or they didn't tell you. And then it gets kind of icky sometimes.

As you know, Jim and I served together in Scotland a long time ago. Um, we were companions. I think Jim's grateful for that, but we were in the same zone and same district and we had many, many questions. Presentatives, some of which we couldn't answer, and a lot of them we've just got were completely anti-modern. When you were having, you know, uh, on your mission, did you knock on doors? Did you proselyte online? Um, what was that proselyting experience? And did you come up with, you mentioned earlier, you had some interesting questions or conversations. What was that like? How do you deal with that? And did he, did he get support from the mission president in regards to deal with some of the issues of the church?

Well, good questions. Um, I served, I'm an elder millennial, so I served in 2008 and 2009. Uh, so it was a bit of a different time. There wasn't quite as much, there were no gospel topics essays back then. It was very, pretty closed mouth. I served with the last year of President Hinckley and the first year of President Monson. Um, so the questions we got, you know, it was the same stuff that everybody gets, but, but it was kind of like, oh well, we have all the answers, you know, and all the answers are here. And if, if you're reading that, then, you know, well, that's just anti-Mormon and that's against, you know, that's a lie. And what's really distressing is the stuff that you're told as a youth that, hey, that's a lie, don't listen to that. Um, turns out to— a lot of it turns out to be true, and you're just like, well, wait a second, that's not— this is like a reverse Uno card or something, as they say.

Give us any examples, like 4 examples.

Um, well, I think the, the biggest— okay, the biggest problem and that I have And that, that, that will come up and I'll tell you all about this story is, um, is polygamy. Because when, you know, any, I grew up in a stake that wasn't like ultra sophisticated, right? You know, there were some smart people. There were some, you know, really bashes of the gospel, but it wasn't, you know, I guess there wasn't, there weren't any professors at Utah State or anything. Right. Um, And so like whenever polygamy would come up, it would always be like this kind of like, well, you know, it was because, you know, people died on the plains and it was to take care of the widows. And it was, you know, and you're just like, you find out that was not, that doesn't seem like that was what it was for at all. Uh, so, you know, polygamy got to be a real problem for me when I was, I think it was 2014. When Yahoo News, I think, might have done this in response to the Gospel Topics essay drop, possibly, I'm not sure. But basically the headline of Yahoo News was Joseph Smith marries, has 40 wives and married a 14-year-old girl and, and married, married mother-daughter pairs and sisters. And I'm like, what? I was like, I was an Eagle Scout. I went to seminary for 4 years. I served a full-time mission. My dad was a I never heard any of this, like none of it. Now I knew there was polygamy. I knew Joseph Smith was a polygamist, so I wasn't— but you know, it was always framed in a very different way than the information was laid out in the Yahoo News article. And I was like, what? And it freaked me out and it bothered me. And it's a lot like Jim Bennett talks about, like It's the trust crisis, right? Because I'm like, you know, you start to find out, okay, well, the church said this wasn't true, like the rock in the hat. The church says that's not true. And Jim Bennett talks about his old mission president that said that never happened. That never happened. That can't be true. So, so when the church tells you that's a lie, it's not true. And then, you know, later down the line, they're like, yeah, it's true. You're like, wait a second, how am I supposed to trust what the church says is true if they tell me something's a lie and then 20 years later it's true? You know what I mean? That's a problem.

How did that make you feel then? You know, when you, when you, you get this, as I'm listening to you and learning more about you, you come across somebody who's very, um, how can I describe this? Very regular member. Serving, believing, committed, devoted, tithe payer, served a mission, uh, serving in the ranks, if you like, of the church, gone through all the regular standard programs of the church. Um, and then suddenly you find out, uh, what was anti-Mormon stuff in the past, which the church rejected vehemently, is now part of church history. How does that In your situation as a committed member, how does that make you feel?

It didn't feel good. It didn't feel good. And, um, you know, I loved President Hinckley. I loved him very much, and he's still by far my favorite— you're not supposed to say that— but my favorite prophet, the one I related to the most, the one I grew up with, and Man, it's really hard because you're taught that, you know, this is the true gospel and you can trust us. You know, the church is a place you can go to get the correct information. You know, all the stupid metaphors. Well, you don't go to a Ford dealership to learn about the Chevy. You know, all that stuff that you always hear. You know, you need to go to the source. You need to go to what the church says about it. Well, You know, but I mean, when the church tells you polygamy is for the widows and then you find out, you know, about Fanny Alger and you're like, Fanny Alger's not a widow. You know, she, she's 14 years old or no, she's like 16 or 17. Sorry.

She's older, but, but it's, yeah, point taken.

You know, and, and, and Fanny Alger's a live-in maid and, and gets kicked out of the house by Emma and you're like, And then the church is like, well, actually, that's, that's probably Joseph's first plural wife. And you're like, wait, wait, wait, what? You know, that doesn't make any sense. You know, how was, how was Fanny Alger his first plural wife when it was just, you know, she was a live-in maid and it was like, that's how it originated. And so when you hear something like that, you're like, okay, I, for one, do not believe polygamy is inspired because it started off that God said, Joseph, you need to marry the live-in maid and don't tell your wife. I mean, I mean, come on, that's crazy. If anybody, if any of one of us had tried that, we've been excommunicated. And so you're just like, that's a really hard thing to try to like wrap your head around, that that's how it started. And, you know, I applaud the church for being more transparent, but for my generation, that's a whiplash.

Well, I listened to you. I had similar experiences and I've talked quite a bit about those similar experiences. And the thing that's really interesting about what you're saying is that this is such a common experience now. I mean, this is not something that's unusual. There are so many people that encounter these kinds of difficult issues and have the same sort of reaction that you do. And we, we are only, I think, in my estimation, at the beginning of the process of figuring out how to deal with that effectively. Or how to deal with that transparently and constructively. And I, I will always be grateful for the fact that I think I had resources that a lot of other people don't have in the form of, you know, I've talked about my father, I've talked about my uncle, um, but that I came from a family circumstance where the kinds of difficult issues you're talking about were discussed, and that when I went out and found more of them on my own, which I did, that when I brought them back, there was no shame to it, there was no anger to it. There was simply, okay, let's see how we can work through this. And in doing that, I was able to sort of construct a faith that I think is sustainable in a way that so many people now who don't have those kinds of resources just don't have the tools to do. They don't have the tools to create a faith like that. Now, as you're talking, Clayton, though, you're describing— it sounds like you still go to church. I do. Just sitting in the church. Um, so how do you reconcile that? Are you, are you pimo? I mean, are you going to church and it's like, well, this is just for my family? Or is there still something about the church that resonates with you and that you're still a believer, at least to some degree.

Um, yes, I still go to church. I still believe to some degree. And I, and I want to talk about that in a second. I, I'll talk about why I go to church. Um, the thing that, the thing that is starting to, I guess, bother me a little bit is we don't have to stand with this. Like, you know, okay, I know we've— you've responded to me before about this, but President Hinckley went on national television and said, hey, polygamy is not doctrinal and I condemn it, and, uh, and, and we, we shouldn't— you know, what did he say? He said, I condemn it, it's not legal and it's not doctrinal. Okay, but it seems like we're being dragged back into— well, no, it is doctrinal, and we have Heavenly Mothers, and, and oh, by the way, um, polygamy's in heaven. So all the Mormon women, you know, they're going to jump for joy for that. And, and, you know, if you, if you look at, you know, uh, it— the first 6 presidents of the church married teenagers. And it's just like, I wish we could— I would love for the church to just like disavow that. Like, how are you supposed to get past this? I mean, let's put it this way. I grew up and they said don't date until you're 16, but a prophet can marry a 14-year-old? Wait, what? I mean, come on, it's wildly crazy out there. And, you know, and I, and I for one Yeah, you know, I, I kind of get a little upset with President Packer because I feel like if this stuff had been out there, we could have dealt with it, but we're just going to deny it and bring it up 20 years later. And so anyways, I don't want to beat the horse to death, but it's, it's extremely difficult. And I don't think that the church is going to be able to get past this unless they disavow polygamy and get it out of the doctrine of eternal marriage in eternity. I just don't think that— I don't see how that's a sustainable doctrine. I don't see how that's something that church members will be happy with. And even if it's true, I mean, I don't even think it's true. So I know there's truth and we don't want to appease the members. I get that. But is this really true? Are you telling me the Fanny Alger thing and the evolution of how polygamy started, that's how God intended it to be? I don't believe that. I don't think many members would believe that. And can we accept that Joseph Smith could be an imperfect man and have desires and screw up or whatever? You know, we don't know exactly what happened, but there's people that have claimed different things. So it's just, eh, the reason I go to church has nothing to do with any of that. The reason I go to church, and you laugh or you'll cry, you know, I don't know. That's how I am. Um, the reason I go to church, and this is what I told Ian on the phone, and I think this is, this is just it. Like the, the reason I go to church is because right before Jesus died, he sat in a room with his disciples and said, I want you to remember me by the bread. This is my body. And the wine, this is my blood. And the last thing he asked us to do before he died was to remember him every week by taking the sacrament or whatever tradition, you know, communion, whatever you want to call it. And so for me, and you know, a lot of people say, well, you can be spiritual and you can pray on your own. You can do things on your own, but when you when you come and take the sacrament, that's something that Jesus asked us to do. And if I can remember Jesus and worship him by doing that one thing, that's why I go to church. That's truly it. There's a lot of things I'm not— I'm definitely not sold on, but I think it's really important if you simplify it. And the first principle of the gospel is faith in Jesus Christ, not faith in polygamy. So, um, I believe that going to church every week and taking the sacrament to remember the Lord and his sacrifice, that's why I go to church. And that's really what I teach my family about going to church.

How big is— how, how many kids do you have?

I have two kids. I have a, a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old. 9-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy. And my daughter has already said, Daddy, why can't girls have the priesthood? You got a good answer for that one? I'm like, I don't know, sweetie. Well, I don't really know.

Well, you know, it's fascinating to hear you talk about that because, uh, he's 9. Yeah, yeah. Um, I, I, as you talk about the fact that you go to church to remember the Savior, uh, I think you're just sort of cutting to the core of, of what's important here. I was on Twitter. I, I've gotten back on Twitter, which is probably not a good idea, but that's a whole other story. Um, I was on Twitter and I was reading a, a post by a Catholic priest. Who was insisting, look, it's not personal, Mormons, you're just not, you're just not Christians. And says, unless you can affirm the following, and it wrote out, I, I'm sure it's, I didn't recognize which creed it was, but it was one of the creeds. And I read through it and I went, I agree with 95% of it. I agree maybe with even 100% of it. It just talks about, you know, the Son is of the same essence of the Father. And it's like nobody even knows what that means, and nobody really even cares what that means. And I look at that kind of a debate, that kind of 'are Mormons Christians' debate, as being just— it's just so boring to me at this point. It's just so tired. And it's really refreshing, Clayton, to hear you say, look, I go to church to remember the Savior. And really, that's the point. That's the purpose of the church. That's the value of the church. That's the strength of the church. And I just— more and more and more, I mean, and I'm happy— I don't want to dismiss anybody who is concerned about polygamy, who is concerned about many thorny doctrinal issues. But when I hear somebody say, I go to church to remember the Savior and to remember Jesus, I'm going, I can't imagine a God not being pleased with that and not finding that to be an acceptable offering. I don't know, Ian, am I wrong? Do you have a similar reaction?

Yeah, my reaction is very similar to yours, Clayton. I think you are one of— easily one of the most important guests we've ever had on. No, stop. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I'm listening to you and I'm learning from you. You represent the rank and file of the members. You are a, forgive me, a regular member in the ranks and files, serving, devoted, committed. You go to church for all the right reasons. The church that we have right now is very different to the church from the time when Joseph Smith and Brigham Young was on the pike. It's very very different.

That's true.

You go to renew your covenants that you've made with Christ. You go because of the fundamental principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You try to navigate and reconcile some of these difficult issues. But you represent— the reason why you are very important to our listeners and to the Inside Out group is that you represent the rank and file of the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You probably represent most or much of the thinking and the concerns that people have and the difficulty that, uh, rank and file members deal with. When you become a leader in the church, it, it's difficult, different and difficult because members come to you, like when I was a bishop and other stake presidents, they come to you with all kinds of questions. Most of which you don't have the answers for. A lot of it you don't have the answers for. And so it's a different relationship with the church when you're a leader. The rank-and-file member, you know, that is devoted, committed, you look to the leadership for guidance, for direction, for revelation, for knowing the will and mind of God, for trust, for integrity. You've placed, so many have placed their trust and confidence in the First Presidency. But Jim's right, you go for the right reasons. The challenge is how do you reconcile some of this stuff? I think you also provided an important insight that I think is quite common, I suspect, in the church, where you try to put these things in some kind of box. You know they're there on the shelf, or you put them somewhere, you're aware of them, but you're focused on the fundamental principles of the gospel, and it works for you. You have community, you get community, you have the Spirit, you've got your family, you go to the activities, you teach, and you follow those fundamental principles. And for you, it works. And so that's why I think you are incredibly valuable and very helpful to many of our listeners, who I think many are in the same boat as you are. And when you talk about these issues, or think about them, do you have conversations with your wife? And the other question I have as well, which some of that Jim Bennett said triggered this, have you had the opportunity of bringing some of these questions or issues to the leadership of the church?

Well, I gotta tell you, I mean, I appreciate all those comments. That was nice of you. I, when I start, especially the polygamy one, and I'm like, wow, could the church could drop this in a worse way? You know, like, golly, hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean, I considered, I considered leaving because I'm like, this is bad, this is bad. I mean, Joe, you know, and I, I got around to the Gospel Topics Essays. I, I did talk about it with my wife. It took a long time for us to talk to each other because we scared, you know, you're scared. Oh, is she going to divorce me? You know, which is kind of an irrational thing to think, but there's a lot of— I mean, you talk about motivated by love, fear, and duty, you know, those are like the three motivations of the church. They're all there at certain parts in your life, right? And so my wife is in a similar place. I, I don't want to speak for her, um, She struggles with some things in the church, but we really said, okay, we love, we love serving. We get a, we feel good when we serve. We feel good when, like, she used to be a gospel doctrine teacher, loved it. She's a, she's a high school teacher by profession. Um, you know, we, we love the community. We love remembering Jesus and that's That's why we go, and we've kind of come to that consensus, and it works for us for now. I hope it continues to work. But, you know, are we orthodox believing, like, oh, we believe everything that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young said? I wouldn't say that. Did I— have I talked to people in the church about this? You know, I would go crazy if I didn't. Um, I talked to my elders quorum president before. He's, he's has much different views than me, but he did listen and we talked. I talked to some of my old mission companions. In fact, we all kind of listen to this podcast together sometime, uh, and talk about it ourselves. So you've been— you're inspiring a lot of great conversation out there. Um, I've talked about it with I talked about it with my bishop who was just released, and I told him, look, you know, there's some, there's some things that I'm not totally on board with, but, you know, and we had a frank conversation. Um, so where does that leave me in, in putting things in a box and putting things on the side? I haven't talked to any, like, General Authorities or Apostles, if that's what you mean. Um, but it, yeah. I don't have all the answers. I know Jim's trying to find them. Jim Bennett tried to write a book about it.

I know everything. Just, I don't— you're close.

No, no, but there, there's something. I, I just had to take my spiritual autonomy on myself because I still struggle with trusting the church leaders because I feel like so You know, they put me— I, you know, when the church says something's a lie and then it's not a lie, it's not anti-Mormon, it's just the truth, that's a real problem. And, uh, so do I trust everything the brethren say? Frankly, not really. Um, you know, the tithing, the tithing scandal, and the— not the tithing scandal, the SEC thing. And, you know, there's something that y'all had an episode on, the sexual abuse I don't want to use the word cover-up, but sexual abuse, clergy penitent privilege thing. There's a lot of problems that I have that I just, you know what, I'm going to remember Jesus, but I'm not on board with polygamy. I'm not on board with some of this other stuff. And right now that's working for me. It's working good enough, but, uh, but it's still sometimes a struggle, you know. It's a struggle because you feel like everybody in there is like, you know, on board, you know. And, you know, I'll sit in Gospel Doctrine sometimes and I'll go, ugh, I don't know about that, you know. Or when someone says polygamy is for the widows, I almost want to throw up, you know. It's just like, are y'all serious? Polygamy is for the widows? I mean, I can't take this anymore. So sometimes, sometimes I'll say something, but I try to keep my mouth mostly shut.

So to that point, um, you know where I am in terms of my, you know, navigating my faith. I believe, for example, that the church made a colossal mistake on race in the priesthood and polygamy. Polygamy, both those issues amongst others caused so much pain, so much suffering, so much, um, heartache, you know, so much damage to people's lives. Just going back to, and you mentioned earlier that wouldn't it be great if those things either either obviously didn't exist, which they do, but also if the brethren kind of came out and said, look, we disavow these things. They were a mistake. We made a mistake. We apologize. Move on. It's now no longer part of the church. In fact, if you look at some of the comments that President Hinckley made on that 60 Minutes CBS program with Mike Wallace, again, President Hinckley was the prophet, and he was asked a question about polygamy. This was the interview that aired in 1996. It was a very significant moment actually for the church. And as you know, the church leaders don't go on national TV, do they? They don't go on all these news channels and talk about this thing. So this was quite rare. So in the interview, Hinckley condemned the practice of polygamy, stating, I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. He clarified that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not practiced polygamy for over a century, and that anyone practicing it today is not a member of the church and would be excommunicated. He also made the point to distance the church from modern polygamist groups, stating that they have no connection with us whatsoever. So you've got, you know, your experience with the church where you are going for the right reasons. You've got your family, you get a lot from it, which is great. You're trying to navigate and reconcile these major issues. There's an element of, or an issue of trust and confidence in the brethren. You believe some things, or most things, perhaps you don't believe everything, which I think is quite healthy. You've said that you've got people you can go to, to talk to, which is really important. I'm so glad that you've got that in your life, Clayton. If I— I didn't— What was that, sorry?

I said I had to find them. It wasn't like the church provided an outlet.

Right. I know. That's an important point. You know, I had very few people. Jim Bennett has got people, thank goodness, he can talk to, to an extent. You found people. The church didn't come and say, hey, if you've got a problem, here's some people that can help you with the problem. You had to make the effort on your own. When you, have you tried addressing these issues or asking certain questions in the gospel lessons classes and priesthood? I mean, you go into church, do these questions come up by anybody in those meetings? And have you tried to address these questions and issues in the church meetings?

Somewhat. Somewhat. Again, most of the time I've been in primary, so You don't have to deal with all the junk sometimes.

If you're in Primary, you get to talk about Jesus, sing songs.

It's great. Um, but, uh, okay, there was one thing, and this podcast made me kind of speak up because there was a lesson in Gospel Doctrine that I got to attend. This is not really an issue, but it is a mentality. There was a section of the Doctrine and Covenants that we were talking about that was talking about you know, the evil apostates, basically. And like, you know, the teacher wrote words up on the board like evil, deceptive, you know, all these things, right? And basically saying like, you know, when people leave the church, you know, this is what the scriptures say about it. And I raised my hand and I said, you know, look, I appreciate what you're doing here. I understand that sometimes there's just people that want to tear down the church and they want to be a problem and they're trying to destroy, you know, korahor it out or whatever. But in my, in my, uh, experience, that's not the case. In my experience, it's, you know, there's a kid that's gay that just can't stay in the church, or there's, there's something that the church, you know, they have to get past, uh, you know, some really hard polygamy things, or they're confused. They're either You know, or, or they have a good reason on why they made that decision. So, you know, when you write all these really bad words up here, that's just not my experience with people that have left.

I have—

I know people who have left, and we're supposed to love them. And they're not going to come back to the church if that's your goal. They're not going to come back to the church unless you love them back.

Or love them out.

You can't be like, you know, it's like if you were gonna follow this lesson to the T, if your kid's gay, you kick them out of the house and you say he's an apostate. I mean, that is like, that's kind of like the feel of the lesson almost. And I'm just like, that's not what it's about, you know? That's not what it's about at all. So that, so that I have— I talked about historical issues, not too much. I've talked about Joseph Smith made some mistakes, you know, but I can't— I don't feel comfortable saying, hey, you know, Joseph Smith married the live-in maid and Emma kicked her out. And, and then, you know, and that's like, you know, it's plural marriage. If it's plural marriage, they got divorced like 2 weeks later. So is the divorce sanctioned by God too if we're going to say that's his first plural wife? I mean, the whole doctrine does not make sense. Because if it did make sense, it certainly wasn't eternal. And if God wanted him to marry Fanny Alger, then, then God had him get divorced a week later or whatever. That makes— if you're telling me that's the origin of the divine polygamy law of plural marriage, that's just— it's— I don't think there's any members of the church that would buy that. And I think that the church needs to disavow polygamy, at least like they did blacks in the priesthood. Like, at least go that far and be like, yeah, we don't know, but, you know, we disavow it. I, I just don't see a path forward if we're going to be honest in the church by trying to defend Fannie Alger as a legitimate marriage. That God commanded him. That's the other thing. The church put out this thing where, like, when they took down the polygamy to the kids, y'all talked about that in your episode. Like, hey, God commanded. So God commanded Joseph Smith to marry the living maid? Are we gonna— is that where we're going? You're gonna defend that doctrine?

So do you have a bigger problem with Fanny Alger than you have with Helen Mar Kimball?

I don't know, but that's the origin.

So that's the problem, is that Annie Alger is the first, and that the origin—

you said that that's the catalyst for the movement of plural marriage being sanctioned by God, and you've got to be kidding me. Yeah, I have a problem with Helen Mar Kimball. I have a problem, I have a problem with it just in general, but I'm trying to say If it is legit, which it's not in my opinion, if it is legit, you're telling me that's how the Lord started it?

Uh, yeah, I, you know, I, so I, when I read The Godmakers and I read about polygamy, The Godmakers doesn't mention Fanny Alger. The first time I saw Fanny Alger was when I read Rough Stone Rolling. When I read Rough Stone Rolling and I went, what? This is, this is, this is the First World Life? I mean, I had a very similar reaction. And I had always been told that Oliver Cowdery left the church because Oliver Cowdery disagreed with the Prophet Joseph Smith. And I went, ah yes, well, you know, you shouldn't disagree with the Prophet Joseph Smith. And it wasn't until Rough Stone Rolling when I went, well, yeah, he disagreed about the Prophet Joseph Smith, about whether or not Fanny Alger was an adulterous relationship. He called it a dirty, nasty, filthy scrape. And yeah, it was very clear that, uh, this was problematic for Oliver Cowdery. It was problematic for David Whitmer. I don't know if Fanny Alger specifically, but David Whitmer was the only one of the three witnesses who refused to come back. And cited polygamy as the reason. I've always— so I've always sort of taken some degree of— comfort is the wrong word, but it's been helpful to me to look at the life of Oliver Cowdery, who reacted very negatively to Fanny Alger and who left the church, never denying his testimony of the Book of Mormon in the process. But leaving the church and still maintaining that testimony, and then very humbly returning to the church near the end of his life, preparing to go west with the Saints, and then dying before he could do that. But I looked at that and said, okay, somehow whatever happened with Fanny Alger was not enough to prevent Oliver Cowdery from completely disavowing the church and completely disavowing his testimony of the Book of Mormon, and was not enough to prevent him from being rebaptized near the end of his life. That's not— again, that, that's not a clean answer to this. And, and I think you are absolutely right that there is no clean answer to this.

If God wanted to start polygamy and he said, this is really truly my eternal law, Is that how he would have done it?

Right.

I mean, come on. So I suppose to me, if the origination is sour and it's not true, then the whole practice is not true. That's my—

Yeah.

It's not that I have more of a problem with this. I'm saying it's not on the level. That's not what God wanted to happen. It couldn't be. It makes no sense. Why would God have Joseph Smith marry this woman and then she gets kicked out of the house, gets divorced, and they never see each other again? And that's a plural eternal marriage or whatever. Maybe it wasn't eternal, I don't know. But I'm just saying, like, that, that is not how God would do it. We're a church of order. We're, you know, he's a house of order and all this. That's what they say. That's not a house of order. That's a house of chaos. That's not inspired of God, in my opinion. And I just, I do not think that's a sustainable position for the church to say that this is a legitimate doctrine from the Lord. I don't, I do not see an avenue where that happens. But that's my opinion. Everybody has their own faith. I'm, if I'm going to stay in this church, I can't believe in polygamy. I mean, I just straight up cannot do it. So if that's going to be a requirement, then, you know, things will have to go a different way. I don't go for that. But, you know, and I appreciate that Jim writes the book and tries to, you know, help people with their questions. I think that's a very honorable and wonderful thing to do. It's much more than, than many people have done. So, um, You know, there's ways you can navigate the church, but I think you have to focus on the Savior. And sometimes you have to use a little common sense. And I know that the church can't upset all the old ladies and all this by saying, oh, you know, polygamy was never on the level. But I mean, if we really want to have a church going forward, they're going to have to, they're going to have to get rid of it. They're going to have to disavow it. It's not gonna— it's not gonna— it's not sustainable in my opinion. And there I have other issues, but that one just really sticks out for me. I just— we gotta get past that. President Hinckley gave us an avenue to do that, but the, these, the brethren, the current brethren don't want to take that route. They want to go backwards.

I feel like we're doubling down at this point. We've just released two new Gospel Topics Essays in the last couple of weeks, one of them about the character of Joseph Smith that tries to square the circle of what you're talking about with regard to Fanny Alger and everything else, uh, with the, with the expectations that most members of the church have for, for Joseph Smith's character. And I watched a video by Benjamin Park. Do you know Benjamin Park is—

I'm in the middle of reading the book.

Okay, Kingdom of Nauvoo or America's—

the new one, I haven't read that one.

American Zion is one— American Zion may be my favorite, um, his comprehensive history of the church. It's very readable and it's very— it's just, it's just really, really well done. And Benjamin Park talks about the fact that, look, um, even the whole idea of character the way we think of it in the 21st century was not the way that they would have thought about it, or the way that Joseph Smith was thinking about it. And we keep trying to shoehorn Joseph Smith into our preconceptions of who we think a prophet should be, what a prophet should have done, and it doesn't work. It doesn't fit because there are so many things Joseph Smith did, particularly with regard to polygamy that you just— Benjamin Park pointed out, he's like, during the time when he was in Liberty Jail, he married 7 plural wives during that time frame. I didn't realize that at all. He said he— the way he describes it, it's like there's no way to look at that and not see recklessness in the way Joseph Smith conducted himself with regard to polygamy. And the other essay the church has put out is about polygamy and about plural marriage and tries very hard to sort of reconcile it, smooth it over. My biggest problem with plural marriage, and Ian, I think I've heard you say this too, and so correct me if I'm wrong, but my biggest problem with plural marriage, I mean, I can get to a point where I can imagine, uh, Joseph Smith being commanded to, to take plural marriage and not really figure out how to do it, and that Fanny Alger is the nearest person. And he— it's this botched, terrible, messy way to start it out. And because he didn't try to take another plural wife for many years after that, and the most sympathetic apologetic sources say that's evidence that he was a reluctant polygamist. I read a book by Meg Stout, I think her name was, that called was called Joseph Smith, Reluctant Polygamist, and I read it and I didn't find it particularly convincing. But regardless— sorry, no, no, I mean, I just— regardless, it's— the difficulty the church is now having is that so many people are right where you are, Clayton, and looking at this and going, I can't square this circle. And the church— and so this is why I think you're seeing, um, so, so many, you know, Michelle Brady Stone types on this podcast coming out of the woodwork saying, well, Joseph didn't practice polygamy, he couldn't have practiced polygamy because polygamy is so morally loathsome. But, but I'm a little off track. The thing that I find— and Ian, correct me, but I, I've heard you say that this is The thing that drives me crazy about it almost more than anything is, uh, that he lied to Emma, that he repeatedly lied to Emma, that he took plural wives without telling her. And then when Emma, in one brief window, finally said, okay, this is of God, you can marry the Partridge sisters. And he says, thanks. And he performs the second marriage to the Partridge sisters, to whom he was already married because he got married without telling Emma. I mean, I, you look at all that and it's just going, there is no way to square that circle. There's no way to say this is somehow a good thing. This is somehow not a mistake. Now, I think you can get to a place where you say Joseph, and this is, I think, the place where I've gotten to. And I don't know if this is satisfying to you, Clayton, or if it's satisfying to anybody, but it's satisfying to me. The place that I have gotten to is that I believe that Joseph Smith was a believer, that Joseph Smith, you know, the Dan Vogel idea of the pious fraud. I think that Joseph Smith was pious. I don't think that Joseph Smith invented polygamy simply to be able to bed as many women as he could, because if he wanted to do that, there was a structure already in place to do that, and that was the John C. Bennett approach. I'm not related to him. I always have to point that out every time I bring up his name. But John C. Bennett would go to women and say, you are my spiritual wife. We don't have to have a, uh, any kind of a ceremony, any kind of relationship, and you don't have to leave your husband, but you are my spiritual wife. And as my spiritual wife, we need to have sex. And Joseph Smith, all of his condemnations, his public condemnations of polygamy are very carefully aimed using the phrase spiritual wifery. And I get the sense that Joseph Smith in his mind had drawn this huge line between what he was doing and what John C. Bennett was doing. And so he felt in clear conscience that he could go out there and say, I am not practicing spiritual wifery, and at least in his mind believe he was being honest. Now, was he being fully honest? I don't think there's any objective way you could say he was. But my point is that where I have landed, where I have reconciled this, is that Joseph Smith, uh, was a messy, um, guy with all kinds of, of these things and was trying to reconcile real revelations with his own weaknesses and with his own problems. And particularly in polygamy, fail miserably. That the revelation at the core of polygamy, I believe, is this whole idea of sealing the whole human family together, which I think is an absolutely beautiful and wonderful and magnificent idea. And Joseph Smith took that and said, well, that must mean we all— that we all have to get married. And, and polygamy, for long after Joseph Smith, people would be sealed into Joseph Smith's family line. You know, my great-great-grandfather Jedediah M. Grant stood proxy for Joseph Smith and was married to his wife for time, and she was sealed to Joseph Smith for eternity. And that was just sort of the way they structured it. And we've since sort of dug out from all of that, but we haven't been willing to go as far as to say the whole idea of plural marriage was wrong. And it's going to be more difficult to do that than it was with blacks in the priesthood because we have— unlike with blacks in the priesthood, we have a canonized revelation that we would have to repudiate. And I don't know that we have a process to be able to do that. So I'm not sure how we get there from here. Ian? Does that represent sort of your frustration with polygamy? I'm sure you have more than just the dishonesty with Emma, but I've heard you talk about that dishonesty.

Joseph denied practicing polygamy. I'm trying to get that quote where he tells brethren that, you know, it can only, um, I can't, I can't find it. I was listening to what you were saying, but it's, uh, it's where he denied practicing polygamy. Uh, didn't Emma find them in the barn together, him and Fanny? Alga.

Well, allegedly.

Allegedly. Yeah, allegedly. I think, uh, there's some of that stuff, quite a bit of stuff I agree with, Jim, but I feel, um, I always have a problem with polygamy. When it was just taught to me about the missionaries, uh, when I was asking questions, because my friends who knew I was being taught by the missionaries said, oh, does that mean when you join the church, Ian, you know, 16 years old at the time, I'll have more than one wife, and they would joke that, uh, you, you know, that means you get more than one girlfriend who will become more than one wife. What a great church to join, right? It's all real poking fun at the church. Uh, but as I've researched it, uh, the, the, the pain and suffering that those women went through and the pressure, the spiritual pressure and the pressure Joseph and others put on the parents of these young girls is, is extraordinary. It, it, polygamy was wrong. It was not of Christ. It was not of God. And it was put in place for reasons I do not fully understand. And this might surprise you both, um, when I say that, and it might be hard to believe when I say that, I've never, it's come from you, Clayton, on this conversation, as I've learned from you. I've never seen or understood the point that you made in the way that I do now about if God was going to introduce polygamy, if polygamy was of God, if it was right, if it was an eternal principle, how would God introduce it on such an eternal principle? Probably the most important principle in the eternities, right? You know, doctrine of the gods, you know, the eternal doctrine of salvation, the whole point in being baptized and what the whole objective is in becoming a member of Christ's family for the eternity, being eternally sealed, is that polygamy, those relationships, those husband-wife relationship is at the very core of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so if God were to introduce polygamy as an inspired eternal principle, would he do it in the way that we're discussing? And I've never understood it to the extent— not fully understand it now, but I didn't fully understand it until I heard you, Clayton, talk about it, and you, Jim, as well. If this is an eternal principle, God would not introduce it like that.. He wouldn't, he wouldn't, um, ask Joseph to go have a sexual relationship with Fanny Algo without telling Emma. He just wouldn't. We both know that.

They get divorced. Yeah.

Yeah. It, it's extraordinary. The whole process is completely manmade.

And, and, and if you look at all of the, you know, I don't, you look at all the divorce that happened. Divorce is a sin in the, in the, in the scriptures. And, and let it, you know, Christ says, except for very certain circumstances, how many of the prophets got divorced and how many divorces did they have? You know, it's a serious thing where you're like, marriage is eternal and there's all these divorces all over the place. Brigham Young, divorce. You know, anyways, I don't know.

In contrast, okay, we have, we have a, and we've not discussed this ever before on this podcast or not elsewhere on the podcast. In contrast, How did God communicate with Joseph and Mary about Jesus Christ being, uh, the Son of God being born to Mary? Did he not visit Mary? Did he not communicate with Mary? Did he not prepare Mary for that eternal experience? Yes, he did. He prepared Mary in the way that only he could, in a most extraordinary way.

Wait a minute.

Right? So the God went out of his way. To prepare Mary and Joseph for Mary to carry the Son of God. That was foretold before Mary was even born. The whole plan was in place. We're talking about the birth of Christ. We're talking about the mother of Christ. We're talking about a conversation and a communication and a relation between God and Mary and God and Joseph. Joseph, I believe, knew his role. It was all planned. It was all discussed., and through their sacrifice and obedience, they form part of an extraordinary plan. God went out of his way to get that right. He got it right. He chose Mary, he chose Joseph, he chose the wise men, he chose the apostles. We talk in the church, God chooses people. When you get callings, the bishop will say, God, we've received inspiration from God who wants to call you into this calling. Okay. So God is a God of order. Christ is an example of order and values and standards and principles that he doesn't compromise. And God on things so important, I think on everything, but on things so important, doesn't screw up. So why would he ignore the rule book and walk away from his rules and his regulations and his plan, and then set Joseph up to have a relationship, a sinful relationship in my mind, with Fanny Alger, whom he was not legally or lawfully wedded to, who Emma didn't know about, and who allegedly Emma found seemingly involved in some sexual activity in the barn, of which Oliver Cowdery found out, and then Jim quoted Oliver Cowdery. So has God abandoned his plan, his structure, for this some reckless abandonment approach with Fanny Alger? No, we both, we all know that. We know that he doesn't do that. This wasn't God's plan. This was polygamy was never God's plan. It was never a part of his plan.

Plat.

This whole thing was nothing to do with— it was to do with men being men. And call Joseph Smith pious, I think that's a bit gracious. I was trying to think about how I could respond to you earlier, and here come my thoughts. I think Joseph Smith probably started out in this belief that polygamy was some higher law, but got into it and became quite reckless, and the whole thing unraveled. And it carried on with Brigham Young and it carried on through the apostles and they practiced it secretly and they denied it publicly and they lived it. And they even, when they were called out by the government, by the US government and, and publicly, uh, denounced it and abandoned it, even then they were doing it in secret, weren't they? We all know that, right? In the manifesto. And even now we believe in it. Look at Elder Oaks, he's sealed to two women. I'd love to get him on a stand or on a podium or in the chair and ask him, are you in a polygamous relationship with your two wives? I think the church secretly, privately still holds true to it. And so it won't abandon it because it believes in it still. And it's put out these essays that Jim's talking about, it's doubling down like Jim's talking about. And it's part of the history and it still believes polygamy is this eternal principle.

President Hinckley didn't.

No, but the leaders, you know, many leaders still do. And privately, and I've heard it from senior leaders privately, Ian, yeah, in the next life, not now, I'm not a member of the church anymore, thank goodness. I never was interested in proselytizing polygamy. I even said when I was asking questions about it before the mission, do I have to practice polygamy? And they said, well, yeah, kind of. I said, but I don't want to. Yeah, but you'll think differently in the next life, Ian. You'll feel differently. You'll think differently. You'll be happy with polygamy. I said, I don't want polygamy. I'm not interested. I just want one wife, please, if that's okay, if you don't mind. It was extraordinary. And there are people in the church today who still believe in the principle temple are, it's open to polygamy. Even the leaders, I know bishops, state presidents, and I know general authorities and some mission presidents still believe the same. Because you can go to the temple right now and you can be sealed to more than one woman. If that's not polygamy, I don't know what is.

All right. Well, that's kind of the definitive word. Well, we're coming up, we crossed the one-hour threshold here.

We have. I've got a strong feeling that—

well, no, and you're not, you're not the only one. And we, we certainly are not going to definitively find the answers to polygamy here.

I was hoping that Clayton would come on and have all the answers to it.

Clayton, Clayton, I'm sure does. I mean, you can tell that you can just tell by looking at him. I'm sorry, all of you who are listening to this. This is the man who has all of the answers. You could He looks—

he looks like he's got all the answers.

I have the answers in my head that make myself feel better.

You know, we, we're, we're at the end here, so, uh, what I want to do is give you, uh, give Jim an opportunity to speak, uh, and then Clayton, why don't you give us a final comment, and then we'll kind of round this, uh, podcast up. Jim, any final thoughts, comments?

Sure. I mean, because as we're listening to this, I know that there are people who listen to this podcast. Uh, and I, and I feel a certain responsibility that I'm the one on the inside. I have to represent the faithful point of view. And if they've listened to this discussion, they'll go, oh, well, geez, Jim didn't convince me that polygamy is great, or Jim didn't convince me that polygamy um, I, I, that I, I didn't sort of tie this all up in a bow, and I think I raised more questions than I answered. And, and I know a lot of people, at least when I wrote my CES letter reply particularly, I wrote that for people who, like Clayton, like you, bump into something awful and terrible, and their first reaction, and I think this is universally the first reaction, is how do I stay? It's not, oh geez, now I have an excuse to leave. Oh, I really want to sin. It's how do I stay? How do I stay in this church knowing all this messiness and all this difficulty of polygamy? And, you know, we haven't even touched on a whole bunch of other things that other people find equally, if not more disturbing. And, and it's— I, I just want to sort of conclude Again, by sort of coming back to what you said earlier, Clayton, about going to worship the Savior, the reason I stay— a number of different reasons, uh, but the main reason I stay is I absolutely firmly believe that this is where the Lord wants me. That when I was struggling with particularly the whole issue of of the 2015, November 2015 policy, which just about drove me out of the church, I got a very clear, and I will call it revelation, and I've talked about it many times, but I got a very clear revelation that this is where the Lord wants me. This is where the Lord thinks I can do the most good, and that the hand of God is absolutely in this church. And can help and guide people to Jesus Christ despite all of the imperfections of its leaders and of its members. And that includes Joseph Smith. I don't— I, I mean, I— there are not any easy answers to polygamy, and I think any attempt to find them ultimately destroys faith rather than builds it. I think the only way out is through The only way— I think we are just now at the beginning of the wrestle, because I think initially, initially, you know, when polygamy was being practiced, uh, the vast majority of the church had just sort of embraced it and figured out, okay, yeah, this is what the church wants. And then when we abandoned polygamy, or at least abandoned it in this life, we swept it under the rug. We didn't talk about it for 50 to 100 years. You know, it wasn't, uh, you know, when we passed the manifesto— passed like it was legislation— when we adopted the manifesto, that was 1890. We didn't stop the practice of living plural marriage entirely for 20 more years. Polygamy did not become excommunicable until 1910. So there was this huge time frame where, okay, yeah, we stopped polygamy. No, we really haven't. We're going to keep doing it. And finally, we don't stop it really until 1910. It continues to linger. Heber J. Grant, my great-grandfather, who became president of the church in the 1930s, became president of the church when 2 of his 3 polygamous wives had died. And so he presented to the world as a monogamist and tried to say, oh yeah, I'm a monogamist. And my grandfather wrote a nasty letter to the church magazine because there was some article about Heber J. Grant and his family and his daughters that only referenced the daughters of the wife that was still living, which did not include my grandmother, who was a daughter of a wife who had passed. And my grandfather wrote this letter and said, Why are you trying to erase legitimacy of my wife? You know, so we were dealing with the fallout from polygamy. I'm the— I mean, we're still dealing with the fallout of polygamy, but we were dealing with the living legacy of polygamy for, uh, half a century after we finally put an end to it. And then when we're finally— nobody's really around that remembers it firsthand, we're just, we just swept it under the rug. We won't talk about it. You know, Boyd K. Packer. Yeah. Some things that are true are not very useful. We're just not going to talk about it. We're going to pretend it doesn't exist. And that sort of worked. And it allowed for, you know, on your mission, somebody asking, well, there were so many widows on the plains, crossing the plains.

That this is all the—

I mean, I heard all those too. I mean, I didn't hear any of those from official sorts of church things. Those were the kinds of makeshift, uh, you know, band-aids that missionaries applied because they didn't have any. They didn't get any. I mean, Ian, can you remember any time when we were told, okay, this is how you address polygamy? It was change the subject. Don't talk about it. Let's just not talk about it. Let's just move forward.

Yep.

And, and, you know, President Hinckley, you're citing that thing, that, that same interview where he says it's not doctrinal. Well, was that the Larry King interview or was that the Mike Wallace? I think it was the Mike Wallace interview, because in the center, in the Mike Wallace interview, the very same Mike Wallace interview, he's asked about blacks in the priesthood, and Mike Wallace quotes a very racist thing that Brigham Young says. And all President Hinckley could say is, that's behind us, that's behind us. 'Let's not deal with those little flicks of— or flecks of history.' That's it. And, and okay, great, great, President Hinckley, but it's not behind us. It's not. We're still dealing with it. We're still dealing with the legacy of it. And we, I think, have come much farther on the issue of Blacks in the priesthood and, and racism in the church because we have, I think, been forced to address it because the, the change to that, the manifesto, if you will, for blacks in the priesthood came in my lifetime. You know, it came in the lifetime of many members of the church. We remember, we know it, we're dealing with that. And, and now in the age of the internet, we aren't allowed to escape it in the way we were allowed to escape it for 50 years or so with regard to polygamy. So, so I think we are now really just kind of at the beginning of this conversation. And if there's no way to reconcile it, if, if we come to a point where it's just, well, the reality is Joseph Smith was just the worst human being in the history of the universe, then, uh, if that's where the truth is, then we're not going to prevent arriving there by just delaying the conversation. I I think there has to be a way. I still have faith that there has to be a way to arrive at some kind of conclusion to this that reconciles this. But I don't think there's a way to do that without acknowledging real error and real fallibility. And I mean, that, that's what I keep coming back to with everything, is that the, the way out is recognizing that fallibility is central purpose of mortality, and the fact that we find it again and again and again at every level of the church from its inception, uh, is something that we should expect and embrace. I think that's the only way forward. But I don't have easy answers to these questions because there aren't any. But I have an assurance from the Lord that his hand is in this church, and that I think it's my role— I'm— that's very arrogant, but I think it's all of our role, all the role of everybody in the church now living, to go forward and confront these issues head-on and find a way through. And if there is no way through, we will find that out together. So that's my, that's my summation. But Clayton, We turn to you now for the grand summation that will give us the answer to life, the universe, and everything in 30 words or less.

That— well, I think, um, you know, when I grew— when I was growing up, President Hinckley, I think Elder Holland said something like, you know, the thing that honestly the haunting statement Well, this is either the true Church of Jesus Christ, and we have the prophetic authority, and it's, you know, I don't know exactly what the wording is, but it's either true or it's not. You know, and so the church made this dichotomy. It's either true or it's not, right? And so when you find something that you're like, mm, that sounds like not, then you're like, okay, well, President Hinckley said it's either true or it's not, so. I guess if this one thing's not true, then I gotta go, you know? And that's just such a damaging way to think about it, I feel like. Um, I think that there's another way. I think that there's a way to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, have that, um, have that faith in him, and you can work through the rest of the things, and you can come to your own conclusion. Okay, I don't know, this is heretical almost, but you can, you can come to your own conclusion. You don't have to believe what Joseph Fielding Smith said in 1973 is, you know, the Lord's— what exactly what the Lord would have said, you know. And, you know, I think one of the most, I guess, haunting things to me is that President Hinckley statement, which I'm gonna go— I love President Hinckley, but That one was troubling to me. And then the scripture that says God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, which is probably a whole nother podcast. But I'm like, golly, if God's the same yesterday, today, and forever, he changes his mind a lot in this church. You know, but, um, there's another way, and that way is you go to church because you love the Lord. You go to church because right before he died, he asked us to remember him. And that's the main reason that I have a faith in Christ. And I know that doesn't necessarily go to the restoration and the heart of the truth claims of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But if you feel Christ in this church, like Jim Bennett just said, if you feel that his hand is in this church, if you don't necessarily agree or, you know, can't come to grips with everything, but you still love the Lord, then there's a place for you in this church. And that's what I tell my kids. I said, Jesus is the only perfect one. Joseph Smith through President Nelson and these guys, they screw up. They try their best, but they screw up. It's the Lord's church. This is Christ's church. And that's what you gotta have your testimony focused on. And so that's You know, that's what I try to do. I don't always get it right. I don't have all the answers. I certainly don't, and I don't know if I ever will, but I do love Jesus, and that's why I stay, because I want to serve the Lord and I want to remember the Lord.

Jim Bennett, I think that's one of the best answers we could ever get in response to your question. In closing, I want to say this, Clayton. I said it earlier before, I believe firmly that you are one of our finest guests ever been on because I said that you represent the rank and file of the members. You are a devoted, committed member trying to make it work. You found a space and a place to make it work. You go for the right reasons, Jesus Christ. Uh, you, you've got a very healthy outlook. You don't, if something doesn't feel right, It usually is because it isn't right. And you're an intelligent guy. You've got feelings, you've got thoughts, you analyze stuff. And I say, I also think that you represent the very best of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in terms of the bedrock of the church, the member. I think your thoughts and feelings are probably indicative of many thoughts and feelings, representative rather, of others. Who are in a similar space, and you've— you're trying to figure it out. You're honest with your kids. Your kids got questions, and I, I applaud you for that. You— if you don't know the answer, you tell them. If you think something's wrong, you tell them. That's what a good father and a good husband does. And if there's something right and you believe it and you know it's right, from facts and truth, you tell them. And that's, that's, that's most important responsibility, is getting it right as a husband and getting it right as a, as a father. And I, I think that's amazing that you're doing that. I feel very grateful, Clayton Fleet, that you're taking this time to come on to the Inside Out podcast. I'm grateful for your sincerity and your love of things that you believe in. And you've got an extraordinary family. And I just feel I've learned from you this evening. And I'm very, very grateful for that. Jim Bennett, I want to take this opportunity to thank you again, as always, for being an amazing co-host, I couldn't do this without you. Jim's contributions are just unbelievable. I always learn from Jim on every podcast. I've learned from you as well, Clayton. So on behalf of all of our listeners this evening, I want to thank you, Jim, for taking time out as always to be with me on the Inside Out podcast. Thank you very much. And Clayton, I want to thank you as well for taking time to come on the Inside Out podcast. Thank you to you both.

Thank you both. This was, this was fun, and I really appreciate and honor and respect you guys. Thank you.

Likewise. Thank you.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.