A Conversation with Richard Bushman

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out. I am Pete Brooks, and as always, I'm here with the illustrious Mr. Jim Bennett.

Jim, how are you today, sir? I'm as illustrious as ever, thank you very much.

Good, good. Uh, and to describe someone as illustrious means that they are well known, respected, and admired for past achievements.

I think that describes our guest. I guess you're about to say that.

And I was just about to say that. And I, that word aptly describes our next guest, who's a, a quite an extraordinary and highly distinguished individual. And so it's a great honor actually to welcome Richard Lyman Bushman. Richard, welcome and thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

Happy to be here.

Okay, perhaps a better way to introduce you to our listeners, many of whom I'm sure know you already, some perhaps less familiar with your work, is if we could kindly ask you to provide an overview of your professional and church life. I think that would help in terms of context, especially with those who are familiar with your work. For example, your education, work callings, authorships, historical research, documentaries, etc. And I, I, I believe that also you were a lead historian for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. So quite, uh, quite an exciting, uh, um, uh, background. If you could share some, uh, information about yourself, uh, for our listeners, that would be wonderful.

Well, as I got to thinking about this occasion, I I thought there's quite a few things I might say about myself that could be interesting to readers. So I may go on 5 or 10 minutes. Is that okay?

Absolutely. And I, as mentioned earlier, this is really important for context because you've done some extraordinary work and your background, your experience informs your perspective on so many things. So yeah, please take whatever time you need.

Well, as I started jotting down some notes, uh, it sort of fell into 3 categories. Uh, one is my spiritual life, by which I mean, uh, what motivates me, what drives me. And second is my academic career. And the last is my church life. So those are the 3 chunks. Of what I have to say. Um, I was, um, born in Salt Lake, but I think it's quite important to know that I was part of the diaspora. My father left, uh, Utah during the Depression because they couldn't get work. He was a fashion artist and, uh, freelance. And, uh, so we moved to Portland. Where he got a job with Mother and Frank, and I grew up in Portland. My parents were married in the temple, but I don't think they were very active in the Church until they got to Portland, when they became very active. And so I was raised a Latter-day Saint, the usual ways, until I got to college, intending to go to BYU, but I happened to graduate 1949 at a time when, um, Ivy League colleges and especially Harvard were revising their admission policy. They had relied too heavily on prep schools in the Northeast, and they wanted to recruit, uh, students from around the country. So I was invited out of class one day to talk to Dana Cotton, very New England name, and, uh, eventually ended up with what was called a national scholarship. This is a scholarship aimed at finding people all over the nation. So I was part of that, uh, that class and it really changed my life. Deeply. I felt very much at home there. I loved Harvard. But it had some effects too. And I'll tell this story. I've told it many times. You may have heard it. But it keeps taking a new shape. I was studying history and science. I was sort of interested in a liberal arts view on science. I had studied first physics and then math in my first couple of years, and then I went into history and science and worked with a very distinguished scholar. I saw him every couple of weeks. He'd assign me something to read and we'd talk it over. His name was I.B. Cohen. And he, I don't know, he became sort of interested in me. I was a little different type coming from the West. He knew I was a Mormon. And one time he said to me, he said, you know, Richard, around here people think Mormonism is garbage. And it was a little bit of a shock to me. I don't remember stinging or feeling fear. But a little resentful that he had treated my people that way, as garbage. Um, but it represented something deeper that was going on. I was encountering sort of, um, 20th century skepticism and materialism, and more specifically logical positivism, which argued that the only things that were real with things you could touch or sense and then deduce the conclusions. It was sort of stylish at that time. It came from Bertrand Russell. I became quite enamored of it. So much so that I had, in the middle of my sophomore year, decided I couldn't say I knew God was, was, uh, God existed. There wasn't enough evidence. What's the evidence there's a God? And so I was in the unfortunate position that I'd been interviewed at Christmastime in my ward in Salt Lake to go on a mission. And by the time I got home in the spring, This resolve and plan was undercut by the fact I didn't believe in God. And I told my stake president that. He said, oh, don't worry about that. It'll all change in the mission field. Got into the mission field, and Jay Howard Mawn, my mission president from Logan, said, do you have a testimony? I said, no, I don't. And he said, okay, well, would you read this book? And tell me what you think of it. Put me on a train, sent me up to Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the Book of Mormon in my hand. And I had labored and thought over that, um, asked all the questions, all the difficult questions that beset people. They were a different set then, but I listened to them all. Could the witnesses be trusted? Were they all his family and friends? And then on the, on the Church. And so all the questions I could. And by the time the mission president came back to Halifax for his own meeting, we were all to wear a testimony. And I stood up and said, "I know the Book of Mormon is right." So I came with a testimony. And for years I told that story, sort of the story of a young man hit by 20th century materialism and skepticism, who then overcomes it by going on a mission, becomes a faithful member of the Church thereafter. But there's, about 5 or 6 years ago, there, an incongruity in this story struck me, and that is, that I said I didn't believe in God, but here I was in the mission field. What was I doing in the mission field if I didn't believe in God? So I came to the realization I didn't really not believe in God. I'm really, I'll tell you frankly, a believer by nature. I just believe these things. They just seem right and true to me. So I don't have to fight him very much. Um, but there I was in the mission field as a one-time atheist or a temporary atheist. And I realized that the real problem was not I.B. Cohen and logical positivism. It was my long, drawn-out discussions at the dinner table with my fellow students. We would sit for hours after dinner and sit around and talk about everything under the sun. And my religion came up a lot, and I had to talk about it a lot. And I realized that the problem was not that I didn't believe, but I couldn't explain my belief in a way that was intelligible., and I felt helpless and sort of defeated by that. And I would tell you, uh, brethren, that experience lies at the heart of my intellectual and spiritual life. My great aim is to make my beliefs intelligible, not persuasive in the sense that it compels belief the way scientists try to compel people to believe with the evidence and experiments and so on. But I just wanted to make it intelligible so they could at least understand where I was and why I believed as I did. And that, that's the story of my life. When I went to BYU, I wanted to make BYU a Harvard in the West. I wanted it to be a believing Harvard. I somehow wanted to blend that high culture and intellectual life of Harvard with my belief in the church, and where belief in the church was one among many. I didn't insist that everyone accepted this, the only true gospel, but I just wanted it to be understandable. And so that's really what I've tried to do and what I encourage in others is to write for a broad audience and try to be as intelligible as you possibly can. Not necessarily bearing testimony, but being clear and coherent. So, um, that's sort of the heart of my spiritual life. And, um, I'm not combative. I don't argue with people. I don't even try very hard to make them believe. I just want to make myself understandable to people. So that's part one. I go on to say I'm going on a long time, but I hope I'm— it's okay.

Well, you take the time, Richard.

Okay. So my academic career. I decided after I got back from my mission to study history. And so I've been a history historian ever since. But I didn't study church history. I wasn't interested in Mormonism as a topic. I was interested in American cultural history. And especially, um,, early American history. I will admit that I had a plan that I would try to study American cultural history up to the Civil War, a sort of antebellum, uh, colonial antebellum history, with the possibility that sometime down the line I could write about the church. In a deep, in his cultural depth, that I would know enough about the world in which Joseph Smith was brought up that I could explain him in some manner or way. But that didn't mean that I just did religious topics by any means. I, I didn't wrote everything under the sun. And, you know, I was No one would think of me as a historian of religion, none of my colleagues would. They would, I was just a social and cultural historian. Uh, religion was, was all part of that. So, uh, that was sort of the way I was going along. Um, I started teaching at BYU, then like all, like many academics, I started moving around. Taught at Boston University, um, for a number of years. Moved to the University of Delaware. Finally ended up at Columbia. All the time writing books. I wrote a book called From Puritan to Yankee, um, about, uh, character in the social order from 1690 to 1765. And that was my, my dissertation. And I was writing all sorts of books. Along, along that way. Meanwhile, I was very interested in what Mormon historians were doing. I knew Leonard Arrington very well. I was in on the organization of the Mormon History Association, and, uh, I would respond. They asked me to write something, I would do it. So when Leonard asked me to write a book about Joseph Smith before a church organization, I wrote at Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism. And I would write an article here and there. But still, you know, when I was saying now I'm doing research, it was on another subject. And that was true up to 2018. In 2018, I published a book called The American Farmer in the 18th Century. So I was very interested in farming. It was partly to see the background that would explain Joseph Smith and his culture. And so there was always that sort of churchy thing in the background. But I was seriously writing for other historians. I didn't relate it to the Church at all. That's changed in recent years. Ever since I did Rough Stone Rolling, I really thought of myself as primary historian of religion. Like lots of old men, you sort of go back to your roots when you get into your later years. You want to write about them. So I recently published a book, uh, about Joseph Smith's gold plates. So that's sort of where I am, um, career-wise, professionally. That's what I'm up to. All right, final, the church life. I was involved in church service, that is, taking positions in the church, really from my mission on. Our mission, I started my mission during the Korean War, and the mission was cut back deeply. Instead of having 150 missionaries, for New England in the mirror times. We had 50. We had a third of our normal contingent. I was the assistant to the mission president, and I didn't have a companion. He gave me a car and had me travel all over New England meeting with the missionaries. But we were so short on missionaries, he didn't even give me a companion. Then when I finished, my mission was in New England, I went back to Harvard. I'd been at Harvard 2 years before my mission, served, then came back for my last 2 undergraduate years and my 5 graduate years. So Claudia and I were made the heads of the new, of the mission for all of New England. And so I was very busy in that. And then from then on, when I went to BYU and so on, you know, I just had sort of one church job after another. I had, you know, elders quorum president, and I had been a scoutmaster in a seminary teaching. I had been branch president or bishop 3 times. I was a State President of the Boston Stake, as a counselor at Elton Perry, and when he was called to the General Authorities, I was made President. And as soon as I got to New York, I was, um, I was called as a Patriarch in 1989, and so I've been a Patriarch ever since then. That's sort of the end of your Church assignments, and to hold on. So my view of the church is the view of someone who's trying to manage the church in one capacity or another. And it's had a great effect on my life. One time I was in Williamsburg, for a conference of the Council of Early American Historians. I was on the council that year, and, uh, Williamsburg is sort of the center where the, the organization is settled and where the William and Mary Quarterly is published, which is our number one journal. And, um, I went to dinner with the editor of the journal, a man named Michael McGifford. And he came from a very strong Presbyterian family. His grandfather had been a very distinguished, uh, theologian. But Mike had a lot of trouble believing. He was a Unitarian, a little sort of thin on his belief, but torn because he felt he should believe and couldn't and, uh, back and forth. So when we were coming home from a dinner one night, just two of us, he asked me, how can you believe, Richard? You know, he knew I was a Mormon. That's hard to believe in Mormonism in the academic world. That's really wild and crazy. And so he thought, how do you do it? And, you know, I worked up this argument and that argument, sort of rational. And he sort of nodded his head, yeah, yeah, yeah. Finally I said to him, you know, Mike, I'm a bishop. As a bishop, I have people come to me with problems that I can't begin to handle. I don't know what in the world to say to them. If I couldn't pray to God for help, I just couldn't survive. And he said, ah, now I see what you mean. Your religion is, your God is functional. You believe because it works in your life. And I think that's true for all my, my church assignments. That I'm sort of a believer because, you know, to be a Scoutmaster, that's a heck of a job, or a seminary teacher, um, with a bunch of ruffians coming to my house every morning. Study of the gospel are going to cause me trouble. No, you just have to have help. So I would say I'm sort of a believer. I believe the truth of it, and I'm never in trouble with that. My trouble was not Joseph Smith. There were a lot of arguments against him in my day too, but they all seemed sort of a matter of interpretation., and they didn't seem decisive. My problem has always been with God, is there God? But with a God that sort of was there in my life, in my experience, as in my church jobs, that was the God I worshipped. Well, that's kind of a lengthy tale. I hope your viewers Will you follow me that far?

I think they will. That is quite extraordinary and distinguished career. You've achieved so much. And again, it's a great honor to have you with us here today, Richard. And when the three of us met last week to discuss and plan and prepare for this conversation, We agreed that we would— Jim Bennett was very excited actually about asking a number of questions that we'd been thinking about for quite some time. And Jim Bennett was like, well, I want to— I would look to asking this question, I want to ask this question. And so we were discussing back and forth about, you know, what's the most appropriate way of using and respecting your time and asking some pretty interesting and compelling questions. And so we agreed that we would send you in advance a number of questions for your review, and your response, I think, early on before we started the process is that you were— seemed to be quite comfortable with the questions, many of which I think you've probably heard a number of times. So if you are okay, Richard, if we could get into some of those questions, that would be great, if we can. So the first question, so Jim and I, we put these questions together and I've got my name next to some of my questions. He's got his name next to some of his questions. So I'll ask my questions and we'll kind of take it in turn. And of course we, Jim and I share some of the questions as well. We were thinking about the same things. And so my first question is, you know, perhaps the most important work or some of the most important work that you've done, academic, historical, religious historical work you've done. Was writing Rough Stone Rolling, which I have a copy of, which I think everybody— I'm sure many people have a copy of. It's quite an extraordinary piece of work. And the title suggests that Joseph Smith started out as a rough or unpolished character. And again, correct me if this is an incorrect assumption, but do you think I was thinking about why you gave it the title. Is that because you saw Joseph Smith as a, again, relatively unpolished and like a stone rolling down the mountainside, the rough edges are brushed off and becomes much more polished, more refined individual? Is that how you saw Joseph Smith? And was that behind the reason why you gave the book the title.

It was, it was also a colorful phrase. I thought it was really sort of a fun title. I discovered the background of that, um, uh, some years later when I was visiting a Masonic lodge. It had an open house. One weekend, and we went to this Masonic Lodge and walked through it. And on the dais, you'd go up, there's a big chair sitting on it, and on the steps there were two big stones. One was a very rough-hewn stone and the other was quite smooth, it'd been worked. And I, we asked the guide about it, he says, that's what masonry does for you. It takes men who are just rough-hewn stone and smooths them off and makes them, you know, beautiful and sculptural. And I realized that, that language, that got into Joseph Smith's language because he'd become a mason. So that's where it came from. He had no idea when he chose it. But Um, no, I actually, that question, I never thought of it that way, and I don't know why since I'm the one who used the title. Um, and in some ways, uh, it doesn't describe Joseph in that he started out pretty good. That is, uh, You know, I think it's the first, your first major work is a 500-page history that goes rolling on and on. Yeah, that's, that's some polish required to do such a thing. And so it, and the same is true for his revelations. The first revelation, as it appeared in the Book of Commandments, when first where God spoke through him, other than the Book of Mormon, has in it the phrase, "The works and the designs and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught." That's July 1828. He is just, you know, 22 years old. Those are the first words he spoke. He's speaking for God through himself. And starts out in that sort of grand manner. I thought that was, you know, that's pretty startling. So, um, I think, and the first chapter of the Book of Moses, that's a gorgeous piece of writing. I asked an intellectual historian friend of mine to, to read it one time when he was visiting here and gave it to him as bedside reading. And he came back the same morning as sun, and I said, oh, what do you think of that? And he says, it's so beautiful. You know, it's just a lovely piece of language. So that's June 1830. And so you can't say that he didn't have a gift for writing under the Lord's inspiration, right from the start, but he was a country boy. His neighbors thought of him as a, as sort of a liar, as a, uh, as sort of a treasure seeker, person who claimed gifts. So he sort of has a very low status in society. He's, he's the lower class. He's lower working class, and he was always very sensitive about that. And he suffered from what's called, by the Marxists, the permanent insult of class. He's just, just because you are that low grade, you are always thought of as lesser. He was very, very sensitive about that. But by the end of the line, his life, you know, you have Josiah Quincy. And Charles Francis Adams, two hotshot Boston Brahmin, come to Nauvoo, and they're very impressed with him. He can talk to them casually. He can make jokes. Josiah Quincy says that he had a natural gift for writing as much as anyone he'd ever known and for leading as much as anyone ever known. And he could go to the Washington. He could talk to reporters. He could talk to the President of the United States. He wasn't intimidated by any of these. So all of his life experiences had really honed his capacities and his gifts as a talker and a personality.

Thank you. Jim Bennett, you had, I think, the next 3 questions that you compiled. So, okay, could lead us on those. That would be great.

Well, my, my questions focus primarily on the Book of Mormon. Ian made fun of me when I said I was your number one fan, but I am indeed your number one fan. I'm just such a huge fan of, of, of everything I've read of yours. And I had mentioned to you that my family When Rough Stone Rolling was published, my parents gave all of the children a copy of Rough Stone Rolling as our Christmas present. And just an absolutely magnificent work that really provides— I think it's the definitive work about Joseph Smith. And but one of the things that I found interesting in it was your comments about the Book of Mormon. Rough Stone Rolling isn't about the Book of Mormon. It's about Joseph Smith. But one of the things you said in it that I thought was really interesting is you said something to the effect of the Book of Mormon refuses to argue its own thesis. That is, it was presented by Joseph Smith and early members of the church as a history of the Indians. And in fact, there's nothing in it that really reflects what you would expect a 19th century history of Native Americans to be. There are no wigwams and there are no teepees and that, you know, there's none of the clichés or any of that. You said something along the lines of you go to it looking for that and you find ancient American Christianity instead. And this has always struck me as evidence that Joseph was a translator, not the author. He didn't quote frequently from the Book of Mormon throughout his life, and in fact didn't seem to even be all that intimately familiar with its contents, which if he had written it, if he was the author of the work, that doesn't make any sense. So my question is, how well did Joseph actually know the Book of Mormon? And, and, and just any commentary you can give on sort of his relationship with the text as a translator, or as opposed to an author. How you view that?

Well, it's, um, we're in a very confused state right now on how translation occurred. And this isn't an argument between Mormons and non-Mormons, it's among Mormons themselves. And, you know, we have Roy Skousen's thesis that he sees in the seer stone or the Urim and Thummim the very words and just reads them off so that it's sort of straight dictation. Of what he's seeing. But on the other hand, there are others who say, believing Latter-day Saints, like Sam Brown, or what's his name, Brent Gardner, Blake Osmore, who say, no, it's a loose translation. He's taking the words as sort of adapting them to make it clear to a 19th century audience what the book is. So it's got a lot of evangelical language in it. It's got all these passages of King James English, which Nephi could not have known, and many other items that are right on the 19th century, because it is a book that was to be read by the 19th century. The Nephites didn't read the Book of Mormon. It was written for us. And so it had to be translated in loose, loose ways. So, I don't know how we're going to stand on that. I would say that I just don't think you can make the case that Joseph Smith composed it himself. It's just too complex. It comes out of the blue. Automatic writing doesn't begin to explain the complexity of the book. And it's kind of a strange argument. He couldn't have written it. But I just, I just have never been the least bit persuaded by any historians that this book just came out of Joseph Smith's experiences. You can get little bits of this and little bits of that, but the overall structure of the narrative is just too, too complex. So what I'm getting around to— I'm giving you very long answers today, I'm sorry about that. If you— this is Grant Hardy's position, a very distinguished scholar of Mormonism. I think most of your listeners will know the name. He believes in Skousen, that it's a fairly tightly controlled thing that Joseph Smith almost read off right there for him. On the other hand, Grant says there's a lot of 19th century material in it. So if you've got a Nephi text by an original Nephi, that's— and then Joseph Smith just reading out the words and writing them down, you're almost forced to an intermediary translator. I mean, it's a wild hypothesis. You can't begin to see how it would work. But someone who is taking Nephi, turning it into a text that can be understood in modern times, and then Joseph Smith being told the very words that he put down. So I don't feel comfortable with that. It's just too strange. But it's sort of where we are at this moment.

Well, that actually goes into my second question. Which I think you've answered to some degree. I wanted to ask about the translation process. Did he just read the words off the stone? You know, all of the— you know, my mission president, I had two mission presidents, one I shared with Ian, and then Ian went home. And my mission president went home and was replaced by Joseph Fielding McConkie, Bruce R.'s son, who On our mission, Gabe's own conferences where he talked about what he considered to be very controversial ideas in the church, and he mocked the idea of Joseph reading off of a seer stone. He said that's absolutely ridiculous. The only reason we have that is that David Whitmer said it many, many years after he had been disaffected with the church, and that's just not true. And whereas we seem to have come around to the fact that yes, there are other contemporaneous witnesses to talk about the seer stone and not the Urim and Thummim and the rock and the hat and all that stuff that is getting us into trouble here at the moment. But the one document we have that Joseph Smith wrote contemporaneously, or at least the revelation he received, is the 8th section of the Doctrine and Covenants where Oliver Cowdery is berated because he wanted to translate, but he took no thought save it was to ask me. And that the Lord said, you have to study it out in your mind, and which very much suggests that Joseph was an active intellectual participant, that he wasn't just a newsreader, that this wasn't just dictation. And as you've talked about, you know, the fact that it's written in King James English is very much, I think, Joseph Smith demonstrating that that's, with his understanding of the King James Bible, that's what religious language is supposed to sound like. The revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants are written in King James English. I don't think that King James English is what we're all going to be talking in the celestial kingdom. I mean, that just seems to be something that's tied to Joseph Smith's particular time and place. So I kind of want to combine a couple of questions here in that I'm curious as to what you believe the relationship between the text on the plates was and the text in the Book of Mormon, because I know I've just read your book about the gold plates. You believe in the existence of the gold plates. You believe that there was a Moroni. I'm curious if you also believe some of the other sorts of fantastical claims, like do you believe the three Nephites are still wandering the planet? And if so, why don't they ever speak to us in general conference?

Maybe they are.

Maybe they are. Yeah. So some of these brethren, they age very slowly. President Nelson May very well be one of them. We'll see. But so that's kind of a sprawling sort of question. But how do you reconcile sort of these fantastical elements? And how do you— and what do you think the translate— what was going on in Joseph Smith's brain while he was translating? I remember in Ruston Rowland at one point you talk about What's missing from all of these accounts is Joseph's sense of himself. And I'm very curious as to, in your studies, what you've come to conclude with regard to Joseph's sense of self, sense of his own prophetic mission while he's engaged in producing the Book of Mormon.

Well, I agree with you on two points. One, the Doctrine and Covenants implies you really have to think and concentrate in order to do this, study it out in your mind, that could be just penetrating into your inner spirit. It doesn't necessarily mean composition, that you're dreaming up words. It could, but it doesn't have to. On the other hand, I think that the Book of Mormon text as we have it has lots of 19th century stuff in it. I think there's a lot of reshaping of things. I couldn't nail down which ones precisely, but I have some nominations. So I think it has to be thought of as a loose translation from the original text, which we of course have no way of knowing what it was. So, all right, all right. Sometimes you just don't know the answer. You can ask the questions, but there's just not enough evidence to give you the answer, and I think you just have to, to, uh, rest with that. When it comes to miracles, I mean, do we believe that, uh, who was it, Joseph Knight or one of the Knights was elevated were the three Nephites. The thing is, once you admit there's a realm of supernatural existence, supernatural intelligence, you can't tell what's possible. Just because something's fantastic to our frame of mind doesn't mean you can— can— that our frame will dominate the whole universe. Everything that happens has to be, you know, consideration of us. It even changes for us over the centuries on Earth, among earthly people. I'm reading a book about elevations, and how, you know, early saints would have a beatific vision, and they would be lifted in the air for a couple of hours and stand there. Huge amount of evidence. That this actually happened. You say, oh, can't possibly happen. We know that can't be. Well, again, the guy who's making the argument, Yale historian, says there's the evidence. It's all there. So you just have to sort of, I'd say, you just have to suspend belief. I think it's wrong to say it couldn't have happened. That's out of the question. That's an arrogant statement. That's a little hard word. I don't mean to use that, but it goes too far. But I, so I just sort of live with as it is.

Richard, just to jump in real quickly, for clarity, for understand, you know, looking, reading Bristol-Rolling. Joseph Smith, did he use the seer stone and the plates interactively to translate the Book of Mormon?

I have no idea. We know he looked into either the seer stone or the Urim and Thummim.

Urim and Thummim, right.

And We have accounts that he, the plates lay covered on the table. So he, he may not have seen the plates at all. He had to have them. They had some effect on him. We don't know exactly what, but, uh, you know, he got them out every morning from under the bed or wherever they were, put them on the table beside him, but he didn't necessarily look. Look at the plates.

Jim Bennett, did you ask your questions?

Those are my Book of Mormon-related questions, and my next ones change the subject, so I'll turn it back over to you, Ian.

Yeah, I just had one more quick question, if I may. You know, when I was, you know, when I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the missionaries gave me, while I was investigating the Book of Mormon, I read it. I wasn't well-educated at the time or, or literate. But I, there were passages of it apart from the wars and all the stuff that was going on, all the battles, there were elements of the Book of Mormon that I did understand even at the age of 16 and being somewhat uneducated at the time. And I felt that the characters, Richard, were real. You know, Nephi and Moroni, uh, was real. I could really resonate with, um, with some of them. And I felt a spirit when I was reading about them. Um, I think you probably answered this already, but were the characters in the Book of Mormon real, in your opinion?

I, I still am back where you were in your day. I think they're real. Um, I mean, this is a very ancient time, and as you go back, there's less and less direct evidence that you can assemble. We, you know, there's not a lot of evidence for Jesus. We've got, but we've got some. And so we believe that he actually walked the earth. Same's true for Homer, or some of the characters in Homer's writings. But By and large, I took a course in Greek history at Harvard, and a guy named Sterling Dow taught. And they believe now that, you know, behind the Odyssey and Homer's writings, there was some historical reality. It's been sort of revised and reshaped, but there's something there. So I said, yeah, it's not only a matter of you read it and say, oh yeah, that's real stuff.— Joseph Smith couldn't make this up. It's Nintani. But that, you know, they seem like real people doing real things. So I'm sort of with you in your earlier state.

Thank you. And then Jim Bennett, you had a question here that changes the subject, but we thought this was a really good and interesting question. About the priesthood.

Well, yeah, so, and we're going to get into some little more controversial stuff here. So I am of the opinion that one of the biggest challenges are really at the root of just about every problem with the modern church is this sort of false doctrine of prophetic infallibility, that we're never willing to admit that we make mistakes, that the church institutionally is never willing to admit that we make mistakes. I mean, we make these kind of blanket concessions that yes, mistakes are possible and mistakes happen. You know, then-President Uchtdorf gave that famous talk where he says that in the history of the church, people have simply made mistakes. But when you ever start to sort of ask, what are those mistakes? You're shut down fairly quickly. You're really not allowed to pursue that. So this may be putting you on the spot a little bit. So feel free to answer how much or how little you would like to. But do you consider, for instance, I am of the opinion that the ban on priesthood and temple blessings for people of African descent was a colossal mistake rooted in 19th-century racism and the 19th-century justification for slavery that Black people bore the curse of Cain. And it continued, in my estimation, it continued partially because it was reflective of the mores of the time for a very long time. It wasn't really until the early 20th century or even mid-20th century where people start to question that, hey, maybe this isn't a good idea. But, but I think it continued even longer because people weren't willing to say Brigham Young could have been wrong on something like this, or that his successors could have been wrong in perpetuating it. So I'm curious where you fall down on that kind of an issue. Do you think the priesthood ban was a mistake? Do you think this sort of idea of prophetic infallibility is a problem in the Church today?

Well, I'd certainly be willing to entertain the possibility it was a mistake. I mean, I think it's asked too much of General Authorities to be infallible. That's asking an impossible thing. On the other hand, I'm a little uneasy about imposing our sense of what is absolutely right and what is absolutely wrong on the past. We, especially right now, we're in a moment where we're merciless and insisting that all that oppression that was involved in slavery and so on, was just a moral horror. And all we could do is condemn those people for making this horrible mistake. And the same is true for Brigham Young's decision. It's not that I insist on his infallibility, but I think if you step back, there are other ways, there are other possibilities about the importance, about the, the, uh, long-term, uh, effects of that decision that at least you can think about. As you say, Brigham Young's great mission was to create unified science society in the Great Basin. He had to gather people from all over the world and create the culture which still sustains the Church to a large extent, that Utah culture. It's sort of the root place for keeping us going. So that's, that's an important mission. If he had introduced priesthood, temple, which would lead to intermarriage, he might have put strains on the Church that were felt by other churches. The Methodist split, the Southern Baptist split over the question of slavery in that very decade. By postponing it until the time when sort of the American culture had shifted, when the 1978 change made, everyone rejoiced and we were thrilled and And there's probably little corners of racism remaining. That's true everywhere. But it didn't come anywhere near dividing the Church. Bruce McCaulkie went along with it. Everyone did. So I wouldn't really make that argument as what I truly believe. But it makes me a little humble about me passing judgment on Brigham Young's decision.

I think that's a very thoughtful and helpful answer.

Whereas I, notwithstanding, I believe that and understand that there are many people back then who lived at that time, you know, who had, you know, white folks as well, of course, obviously Black folks had a, big problem here where, you know, with slavery obviously, but I believe a lot of people found the whole thing abhorrent and, you know, the concept of slavery owning someone, you know, and the concept of, of the decision to ban or restrict sacred temple blessings, endowment, sealings, et cetera, and priesthood authority, equal rights to Black people. I think there were people back then who found that a problem. And, you know, I, you know, for me, an element of this is quite simple. Is it right or is it wrong? And from what I've researched, it's fundamentally was, was a mistake, was wrong, a terrible decision in my opinion to ban and restrict Black folks from these sacred blessings. Notwithstanding, you know, what you said earlier about, you know, is this a— on the part of Brigham Young, was this a strategic decision looking at the impact of slavery and these decisions and how they split other churches? And I just think if I was catapulted back in time into that time, would I feel the same way I did now? And I think I would. I, you know, it's about a sense of right and wrong., and I don't think, for the most part, I don't think history changes that. And so, and I'm not alone in thinking and feeling like this, of course. I think a lot of people have a problem with this. And, and the church has produced that essay, you know, the Race and the Priesthood, which I thought was, quite interesting. It was a, a trigger for me to explore that issue and more other, and other issues. But the church, of course, is not willing to, at this stage, you know, make it a formal apology. I think the church says we don't receive them, or we don't give apologies. And it's— we all know that the church leaders are not perfect. I think they will tell you privately and probably publicly that they're not perfect, that they are not infallible, that they make mistakes, and Elder Duffus has acknowledged that. I think the race of the priesthood is a— will continue to be a very difficult issue for the church, and I I don't have any answers how it gets around that other than just to come out and say, hey, we, we messed up, we made a mistake. Um, Jim, you had another, uh, couple of— sorry, Richard, do you have any comments on that? Do you have a— do you want to respond to that? Or if not, we can go to the next question.

Well, I understand your views completely. I think there are a lot of people in the church who feel the same way. Um, It's just that I'm, I'm, I'm a little, um, uneasy delivering moral judgment on some people. I, I mean, of course there are people you detest, think they were awful. This may be one of them. But, um, so long ago and many different circumstances. So I'll just say I understand you perfectly and agree that you have a position that's shared by many people in the church.

Yeah, thank you. But Jim Bennett, you had another— looking at the list of questions, you had another couple of questions that you wanted to ask. Sure.

So, you know, as a history professor, as an author, As a scholar, you have engaged more deeply, I think, with a lot of the thornier aspects of church history and doctrine than most members of the church, most lay members of the church have or will. And I'm very curious, as in your experience, because I know there are a lot of people who read Rough Stone Rolling and in my experience, I found it to be a tremendous testimony builder. It was really fascinating to me to see Joseph Smith as a human being and not as a demigod, but also to see that the thing that I found so remarkable about it was Joseph Smith was sort of continually surprised by his own revelations. He would get so far and say, okay, well, this is the church, this is the restoration, then all of a sudden it's Oh wait, here's the vision of the three degrees of glory. Oh wait, here's a vision of baptism for the dead and temple work. Oh wait, there's more, there's more. And Joseph seemed to be really surprised by that. And it— that's neither here nor there other than to say that that understanding of Joseph Smith gave me a greater appreciation for him and a greater testimony, if you will, that he was indeed divinely inspired and a prophet of God. Other people have read Rough Stone Rolling and had the opposite reaction, and they felt, oh my gosh, I didn't know Joseph Smith married Fanny Alger, his housemaid, who was a teenage girl. I didn't realize that Joseph Smith did all of these things that were not talked about in Sunday school. And, and when those kinds of things are discussed in gospel doctrine classes, if they ever are, because they very seldom are, they get shut down very quickly. And so I'm very curious, particularly with your experience, because you have obviously engaged with these kinds of ideas, engaged with the more controversial ideas, the more difficult doctrines and historical events. How much freedom, or academic freedom for lack of a better term, do church members actually have? If church members are concerned about the fact that Joseph Smith was married to teenage girls, how can they express those concerns? How can they get those concerns resolved? Where's the line for expressing disagreement with church leaders and/or church doctrine?

Mm-hmm. Well, it's strange. I got After the book came out, I got people coming up to say, oh, you've saved my testimony. My father was baptized because of this book, all sorts of high praise. And I thought it was, I was really rolling. I'd done something wonderful. Then I got people saying, my son left the church because of your book. He couldn't take it. And, um, I felt bad about that. Often people would say, well, it's a wonderful book and I, uh, I liked it, but it's not a book you'd want to show to a new convert to the church. You'd have to be already be sturdy in the church. And I said, it's just the reverse. The people who have trouble with the book are people who have been brought up in the church and have this idealized view. The prophets who disrupted new converts' readings. They just think, well, he's an interesting guy, did lots of wonderful things. So, but, you know, you hate troubling people. But all through my early life, people would ask Leonard Arrington the question, you've looked at all the material in the Church headquarters about Joseph Smith. Have you ever found anything that disrupted your testimony? And he could assure them he had not. But as long as you're worried that if you turn over a stone, there'll be a scorpion underneath it, you just cannot be secure. You have to be willing to go with all the facts, get them out in the open, or you'll always be unsteady. And it's true that, you know, the grandmothers of the Church who want to have a Joseph they love, who's idealized, a perfect gentleman, sweet and good on all occasions, that they're troubled, but it's to save their grandsons and daughters who need to know the whole story in order to stay in the Church. So, That's sort of my answer to the first part of your question. The second part is, how do you talk about these things without getting your bishop all upset? I think we're getting better. Certainly in Manhattan, you can talk about anything, and no one— in my ward— and no one gets excited about it. People get up and sort of bear a testimony of their uncertainty. So there's lots of room for— I think in general, we have to look at the larger picture that we have a Kingdom of God based on Revelations where we try to be brothers and sisters to each other and help each other out. I don't think that's helped by attacking the General Authorities. I think the fact that we believe in revelation anchors not only the revelation to President Nelson, but the revelation to us. It's the idea that God is guiding the Church. I think we have to respect that and be very generous to one another. And it's true that Jim authorities are not necessarily generous guys, or at least the people you hear about. I never had any trouble with them. But it's a complicated thing. But I do say this. I think if your heart is pure, your mind can roam free. That what you want to do is make sure you're close to the Lord. And that you're seeking his guidance, and then you can think anything you want and pursue any thoughts. I don't think it's necessary to tell them to everybody you ever knew. I have thoughts I wouldn't tell to people I ever knew, but I talk about it with my wife, I talk about it with my friends. I don't try to hide them. But I'm not so sure that my ideas are so right, true, they have to be expressed. The world has to know all the things I'm, I'm believing and thinking. So I think if you get in a position where you're teaching or writing your ideas, trying to persuade others that you know the truth that others don't know. Then you're probably gonna get in trouble.

Well, it's interesting the way you framed that because it kind of goes along with where I have found the line. Something that I've said frequently on this podcast, but on other occasions, is the amount of tolerance or acceptance for a wide variety of opinions and a wide variety of beliefs within the church is, I think, much higher than people realize, that there is a much broader tolerance for that. But the converse to that is the amount of tolerance for any criticism of any specific leader is much lower than people realize. I, I think I would get in more trouble for making fun of a General Authority's choice in ties than I would for expounding on my ideas of Heavenly Mother. I mean, I don't think anybody would mind if I had these wild-eyed ideas that I'm expounding, but the minute I go on any degree of attack, no matter how small, and say I really got a problem with Elder So-and-so, and I don't see any tolerance for that at all.

But Jim, I have some advice for you.

Yes.

Leave Salt Lake City. Move to New York. Things are tinkering in the church here.

I keep trying to tell my wife to do that. We visit New York on occasion, and we visit my cousin who is in your ward. And my grandparents, my mother's parents, were the presidents of, I think it was the Eastern States Mission at the time in the early 1970s. And the church owned 973, I think, no, 937 Fifth Avenue, which is those building. Well, yeah, yeah. And I remember going there as a very young child. I was 4 or 5 years old. And I have since told my wife that if we are ever billionaires, we're going to buy that building.

It's been on the market for $50 million.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So if you want to go in on it with me, I mean, I'd be happy to do that. But no, I absolutely love Manhattan and I love New York. But I think you may be right in that, in that the tolerance level for some of that is, is higher when you get outside of of Salt Lake City and you get outside of the Mormon corridor. But I still think geography becomes less and less important when we have vehicles like this. You know, this podcast, you're in Manhattan and Ian's in Canada and I'm in Sandy, Utah, and this is going to be public. And if I were to start using this as a platform to criticize a general authority, I don't know that it would matter. That I was doing it in the hinterlands or if I'm doing it in Utah, it's public enough that I think the brethren get concerned about it. But that's, that's sort of been my experience in that, in that I think people get all bent out of shape with the idea that, oh, I can't express my point of view. And I find that when I express my point of view and I divorce it from attacking a leader for it. Instead of saying, I think Elder So-and-so is wrong for teaching this, and instead I just engage the idea and say, I have a problem with this idea. Now, I've never gotten into trouble for that, whereas I have— I've never gotten into serious trouble, but I've brushed up against a little bit of trouble when I bring in the name of a general authority, if that makes sense.

I'm sure that's true for lots of people.

Richard, what you said earlier, you said that really struck me, was that if you have a pure heart, you know, your mind can roam free. You know, when I was— the Race and the Priesthood essay triggered a lot of investigation for me at that time, I think 2013. I had— I think I was serving on the stake presidency at the time, and I had I thought I had a pure heart. My questions were honest. I had lots of questions. The essays were rolling out from there on, you know, I think they released a number of different essays. I had a bunch of questions. I wasn't alone in asking my questions. There were members in our stake who had similar questions, some of whom approached me and I had no answers. But when I tried to ask questions, I was shut down and told that I should be behaving differently because of the state presidency at the time and need to be acting with a little bit more decorum, more understanding my role and my calling, etc. And I felt shut down. And I didn't feel— I felt when I went to church that my right to ask and to express my view, express an opinion openly, honestly, constructively, ask questions, that was taken away. And I found that incredibly frustrating. And this is in British Columbia in Canada. So New York sounds much more liberal. Perhaps if I want to go back to church, I should go to New York. Sounds like a much more open church culture than what I—

what I would see in that situation is insecurity. The people you ask the questions don't really have answers. They can answer lots of questions, but this just baffles them and they feel frustrated and unable to do their jobs properly. So it's a difficult situation for everybody.

And I agree. I think the church would do so well if it could, you know, be mature about this and don't isolate people or don't make them feel— don't intimidate them and don't kind of label them as apostate because they have questions. Let's, let's listen to people. Let's respect them. Let's love them. Let's be kind. I mean, you know, it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Jesus Christ Church. Um, you know, we teach that, uh, we love people, we build people, and people have questions. You know, God created us like this. We have a free mind. Allow us to ask questions. And let's, if we don't have the answer, just say we don't have the answer. Let's just be honest that we don't know the answer to that question. And I respect that approach. Jim Bennett, you had another question. And then I had a couple of final questions for Richard, which are on the list. Do you want to take your next question?

Okay, well, and I'm sorry to keep putting you on the hot seat. Because these are, these are, this question is a little bit loaded. But one of the things that I am seeing with the rising generation particularly is that there is no tolerance for anti-LGBTQ bigotry. And a lot of young people are sort of coming up in the church and They're not going through the kind of huge faith crises that we talk about, people in my generation or other generations. They're just sort of shrugging the church off like an ill-fitting suit. It's like, oh well, they don't accept gay people, I just don't have any interest in this, and they're just sort of walking away. And I see LGBTQ inclusion as being one of if not the primary catalyst for that disaffection among the rising generation. And I'm curious if you see that as well, and if you envision a day where LGBTQ people are fully accepted in the church and even allowed to be sealed in the temple. And as an ancillary to that, the other thing that I'm seeing is that young women growing up who are professionals in the workplace and, you know, are every bit equal to their male counterparts out in the rest of the world, don't have any tolerance for showing up at church and being second-class citizens and not being allowed to have the priesthood or have any kind of a leadership role where They can't be overruled by a man. And so, so my loaded questions are, do you envision greater inclusion for LGBTQ people and greater inclusion for women, even with the possibility of women getting the priesthood?

I think those are excellent questions. I agree with your analysis. These are large questions for our kids who are sensitive to injustice. I mean, their society has alerted them to these problems, and they are real problems. I've got 3 gay kids among my, uh, my grandchildren and 1 trans daughter. Uh, and of course we've accepted them without any question. They still feel part of the family, but they don't everywhere. And I, I don't know what's going to happen. I wouldn't predict what's going to happen. Um, what I, um, what I think is we have a perplexity, a contradiction. On the one hand, we're trying to defend the traditional family. Families bearing children is a growing up. With their parents, uh, is at the heart of things. And we have trouble accepting queer families where they have two gay people or what have you. Um, that's, that's hard for us. But the, at the heart of it is protecting the family. On the other hand, um, we have immense pastoral urges. Bishops really want to take care of their people and find a place for them. And so what do you do about the gay kids who are leaving the church because they feel uncomfortable? Your heart goes out to them. You want to find a place for them. I serve as a patriarch in the Young Single Adult Stake. So I talked to the stake presidents about it. And I say, would you do anything to act against, take action against any gay people in your congregation? He says, of course not. It's never mentioned. We accept them all on an equal basis. So we're just stuck there, and it's a very uncomfortable position. I'll tell you another group I'm very aware of because I'm reluctant to, um, I'm reluctant to predict changes. There's a fairly large group of people who are gay who have knuckled under, married, and borne children, and they've done it because of the rules. And they do not like to hear that those rules will change, because there are great sacrifices being made on the basis of gays not having a place in the temple marriage. So, I don't want to hurt them. I think we're going to have to go slowly on this. We have to work our way through. And change will come. Change does always come., you know, all these difficult issues. But right now it's just a lot of pain so far as I can tell.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Richard. Um, I had a, a couple of questions on the list, Richard, from me. Um, in, uh, as you, as you heard earlier, Jim Bennett served, uh, together. We weren't companions, but we served At the same time, I came out. I went to the Scotland Devon Mission in January, I think, or February 1987. Jim, you came out in September '87. You and I served together. We kind of attracted together, and you're up in north of Scotland where your grandfather David O. McKay served his mission. Um, Sorry, great-grandfather, I apologize. We had an extraordinary time, a very challenging experience. But in July, before you came out, Jim, in July 1987, Richard, Elder Ballard arrived and reorganized, restructured the Scotland Edinburgh Mission. This was the end of the 3-year period from President Joe Dunn, Lauren C. Dunn's brother, and Elder Ballard was installing President Ben B. Banks, and this is July '87. It was the Edinburgh Chapel. I was there. The entire mission was there. And Elder Ballard presided over that reorganization, restructuring. The stake president at the time, Jim, was Richard Van Hagen, who was the Edinburgh stake president. He's—

I remember him well.

—passed away since. He was an extraordinary, remarkable individual. I think Stephen Kerr, who was the state president, Area Authority 70, was Richard's counselor at the time. And so we had an extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit, Richard, with the restructuring of the mission at that time with Elder Ballard. Elder Ballard talked about his mission, actually talked about tracting and standing on a box on Princess Street in Edinburgh when he was a missionary. He said 39 years ago, and he said that in 1987, I remember that. Distinctly. He— we had a session at the end of the meeting with Elder Ballard where the missionaries could ask questions. And I had a question about the geography of the Book of Mormon. And his response was, well, we— I don't want to get into that. I'm not interested in answering questions or discussing the geography of the Book of Mormon. It was an aspect of the Book of Mormon I was most interested in. And my question there, as you can see on that list that we sent, What are your thoughts on the geography of the Book of Mormon? And do you have a position on that?

Well, this is one of my other suspended judgment cases. There's a Geography of Latter-day Saints that has a section on the geographies of the Book of Mormon. There are 14 theories about where the Book of Mormon events took place. One of them is that they all took place in Malaysia. That Nephi never got to the Western Hemisphere. He landed in Malaysia. So, and a case can be made for each, every one of these. The big division now is between the homeland theorists who believe Book of Mormon took place around the Great Lakes, and then the Central American theory, you see, they were Southern Mexico somehow. And though there are a lot of geographical details in the Book of Mormon, you know, about this city and that city and this sea and that sea and this river and that river, uh, none of them quite fit perfectly. So there just is not grounds for making serious decision. I hate to say this, But I would have given the same answer. To ask to talk about Book of Mormon geography, you should have been a little more sympathetic to your curiosity, which was like good curiosities worth working on. Uh, now all I can say is I'm pretty persuaded that's not a large distance. You got all these stories of people moving around, how many days it took. So it probably was within an area. About 500 miles or so. And I think it must have been in a moderate climate because there's no talk about winter storms or cold or heat. It's just that it is, is, is so, and that's about all the farther I can go with that, Jim.

That rules out Upstate New York there for sure. My, my struggle with it is, you know, the frequent references to Zarahemla, this great city, you know, where is that? And then the final battles there in the Book of Mormon, where I think— again, correct my information if it's incorrect— where there's a great battle with Moroni and Mormon. What I understood and always was led to believe that that occurred at the hill or in the area of the hill Cumorah. And the fact that no physical evidence has yet emerged, as far as I understand, in that area of these great battles with hundreds of thousands of individuals fighting, you know, swords or arrowheads or other physical evidence in the area of Hill Cumorah. And so I, you know, when I was studying the Book of Mormon, Beyond as a Young Missionary, these are the questions that I had. That was my goodness, I was going back 35 years or so as a humanist, right? I'm not the only one to ask these questions. And so, um, I was just fascinated by, you know, these events and where they took place, because, because to your point, um, there's some very specific references, you know, the Nara, the lands, different cities. It goes into a little bit of, uh, information about that. And I was always fascinated because I always wanted to go, Richard. I I thought, when I read the Book of Mormon and I'm into it, that I'm immersed and these characters are so real and I feel the Spirit. And I remember sharing with my companions, I may have shared it with you as well, Jim. I said, after my mission, I want to go to Zarahemla. Okay, where is this place? I looked on the map, there was no Zarahemla on the map. I know there's a Moroni on an island in the Pacific. The island's called Comoro, if I pronounced that right. And then the city there is Moroni. But I just wanted to go to these places. And that was, I guess, partly the motivation behind me asking Elder Ballard this question.

It's a great question. Well, if you went to Mexico, you could find a guide who would take you to Zarahemla. You know, there are all sorts of people down there who know how it all worked out.

Well, just to that point, very quickly, we were in, we went to the Chichen Itza over Christmas a couple of years ago. And when he found out, the tour guide that we just picked up when we were there, we found out we were from Utah. He says, oh, let me show you the evidence that Jesus Christ visited here. We went, well, the Chichen Itza was built in what, 1400 AD, long after the events of the Book of Mormon. But, but yeah, you will find plenty of people down there that are going to be happy to, to tell you whatever it is you would like to hear in that regard.

No, go ahead. Sorry, Rashid, go ahead, you speak.

I was just going to say that this homeland theory locates all these events around the Great Lakes. Because it gives them some water. But that's become mixed up with the sort of politics. It's sort of right-wing political thinkers who have clustered into this Homeland Theory group. So it all gets kind of corrupted by other considerations.

Right. Real quick, I remember going to, I was in living in England at the time and we flew over to do the pageant at Camorra. We went there twice actually, and I was so excited to go to the pageant and it, I was absolutely immersed in the idea, total believer that, you know, these great battles that happened at the Camorra. I mean, you know, why would I think anything else considering we had, we, you know, the church had organized this big pageant that had been running for, you know, as long as anyone can remember, you know, at the actual site. I remember these very, at the time, this is Jim, this is probably, could be before the internet emerged in, in '94, I think it was. And there was quite a lot of anti-Mormons that were shouting. They had these big, you know, I'm from England, this whole thing's a new experience for me. And there was a group of men and, and some women that were shouting as you walked, you parked your car and you walked towards the, where the chairs were, chairs were, were at the at the pageant there, and they were shouting all kinds of anti-Mormon stuff, including no evidence of these great battles at the Hill Cumorah. And I thought they were absolutely off the rocker, crazy people, anti-Mormon. And now fast forward, you know, to where I am right now. I'm thinking, well, you know, where is the evidence of these great battles at Cumorah where the church had commissioned the pageant? I mean, for goodness' sake, we wouldn't have the pageant there unless unless it was a site of significant historical, historical significance, rather. So yeah, I've always, always been fascinated in that. I don't know if there's a book out there, a definitive book on the geography of the Book of Mormon, but if there isn't one, perhaps someone should write it. Maybe that's your next assignment, Richard.

I'm afraid it's beyond me.

The other question I've got, and again, we're so grateful, you've been incredibly patient with our questions, and you've been so gracious with your time, and we thank you so much. The other final question I've got, and you can certainly, after these questions, add any other comments or thoughts on any other item that you feel comfortable you would want to add, is some time ago, I don't know when, but a number of years ago, you had a, what seemed to be like a private or small meeting with a group of members of the church in a building, a church building or a stake building. I don't know the background or context. You could speak to that. And, and I think there was a, there was a question and answer piece to the meeting. And there was a number of questions that were being asked, perhaps around some of the truth claims. And you were videoed or filmed saying that, and again, I don't wanna misquote here, so please correct me. That the dominant church, uh, narrative, sorry, the dominant narrative of the church is false or untrue. I'll repeat that. The dominant church, sorry, I'll get it right. The dominant narrative of the church is false or untrue. I hope I didn't misquote you there. If I did, please correct me. And would you like to respond to that? Maybe clarify, is anything in that comment or statement you made that you'd like to update or change or amend?

Well, the wrong word there is false or untrue. I think what I meant to say is it has errors in it. But what I was thinking when I gave this is I've already corrected it. I've written a book that tells the true narrative so far as I can understand it now. So in a way, it was a plug for rough stone rolling.

Okay. Well, thank you. Go ahead, Jim Bennett.

Well, I just remember a lot of people who are critics of the Church have seized on that video. I think what you said, the dominant narrative, you didn't say it was false. You said something along the lines of, it can't be sustained. And in that same talk, you also said something that you've said in our conversation here about the idea of, you know, grandmothers want this idealized version of Joseph Smith, but when we cater to them, we lose the future. We lose the children that are coming up who don't have a lot of patience for this kind of idealized again, has errors in it. Because I thought it was very clear from the context that you were not saying what a lot of the critics were trying to pretend you were saying, which is that you were rejecting the church. You weren't rejecting the church. You were saying we need to correct the errors that are in the dominant narrative. And the errors have been perpetuated to some degree because it makes people, makes the grandmothers feel good, even as it's driving the young people away. I mean, is that kind of an accurate assessment of what you were trying to say?

Yeah, that's right on target.

That was my aim. So I mean, I thought that was very clear. And I, it's, it's so wonderful, I think, to have voices like yours and to have your unique voice out there because I think you demonstrate that you can talk about difficult issues, talk about possible errors, talk about all of these kinds of things in a way that, that absolutely demonstrates that it's coming from a place of faith and coming from a place of belief. And that is just so refreshing and so rare. Because in a polarized environment, particularly with regard to religion, where people are leaving organized religion in such magnitude, to be able to say, okay, yeah, we can talk about these things, we can talk about these difficult issues, and we can do so with kindness and respect. We heard President Oaks in this latest conference talk, reiterate President Nelson's idea of being a peacemaker. I think that your legacy is one of great scholarship, but also of great peacemaking, because you've been able to present these ideas in a way that shows respect and kindness for people on all sides of the issue. And I am just so grateful that you have been able to— that you have had this career and that you have contributed so much. Certainly to my own testimony, but I think to testimony of countless thousands, if not millions, of other people.

You want to hear my latest word on that subject? Sure. I was moved about a year ago to bear testimony, uh, in church, standard sacrament meeting. And my testimony is the tide is turning. It's turning gradually. It won't be highly noticeable, but there was a period when disbelief was a standard, when there were very militant atheists fighting against God and ridiculing a religion and really quite fiercely trying to tear it down. That's changed. You know, the level of the New York Times or Harvard University or Yale, the voices that are saying religion addresses serious issues. We need to find a way to speak to these great questions of our lives, and we need to keep the religious dialogue going. We can't just dismiss it and you know, march out of the churches saying, I want nothing more to do with them. And it'll take a long while for that change to occur, but I think it's, it's coming. It will affect us. It'll affect all religions, but we will be affected too.

We're, uh, we're coming up to the end here, Richard. Uh, Jim, as you know, we've, we've We've asked our questions, and Richard, thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to be with us today. In closing, I just want to add very briefly to what Jim Bennett was saying. You know, when I heard you say that, and I appreciate you correcting that, you know, what I was saying, it's important to get the accuracy around what you said at that meeting about the dominant church narrative. My take on that was actually quite positive. That might surprise you. I think some people saw that as being, ah, you know, the church is not true in certain areas. And here we have Richard Bushman saying that. I didn't get that. I got that there were aspects of the church that were more layered. You know, this, you know, the complexity in the history, there's different colors, it's rich, it's not. You know, this or that, so to speak. There's so many different layers that we need to understand about the church. You know, like the First Vision, there's not just one version of the First Vision, there's 9 versions of the First Vision. Each one gives a different layer in regards to that experience, which I thought was very positive. So my interpretation from that was actually very positive. And I thought, well, this is great. This is somebody who was telling us the facts, the truth. You know, the church is not all, you know, clean and straightforward. It's complex. There's problems, there's issues, and let's talk about them. And so I was very grateful to hear that, and also very grateful to hear your insights in this conversation that the church, the tide is turning, And Jim and I, you know, I'm on the outside, Jim's on the inside, but even as someone on the outside, I have faith and confidence that the church will change over time, will continue to improve and get better, be more inclusive. And I feel that that will happen. So, we're very grateful, Richard, for you being with us here today. Do you have any final comments or thoughts or— insights or, uh, advice, direction for any— for either Jim or I or any of our listeners that you would like to share before we close?

I've done— talked myself out. But, uh, I, I really value the impulse behind your broadcast, an effort to speak clearly and freely, to bring up all the problems but in good faith and brotherhood, kindness. And I think that your work is bound to sort of make the Church itself a place that's more comfortable for more people. They'll feel a freedom and a willingness to latch on to the Church as to connect in ways that work for them. And, um, we'll all be better off if we're open, as you two are trying to be.

So on that final note, Richard, we will close. Thank you again, Richard, for being here with us. Jim Bennett, thank you so much for your input and your insights as well. I thoroughly enjoyed, learned so much. And of course, thank you to our listeners who we hope will join Join us on the next episode of Inside Nuff. Thank you.