A Conversation with Steven Pynakker

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with the barbidgerous Ian Wilkes. How are you, Ian?

I'm feeling exactly how you describe it, but I have no idea what it means.

Barbigerous, adjective, characterized by having a beard.

Okay, well, that's me, uh, and, uh, I had a bit of a beard shave this morning, so, but I still have a beard, so yeah.

Oh, you're slightly less barbigerous, but you are still a very barbigerous man.

Thank you. And I'm thinking of wearing a high eye patch like a pirate and speaking like a pirate next time, so, uh, That, Barbigerous, did I pronounce that right?

Yeah, yeah, I think so. You learn, see, you come on Inside Out and you learn things you didn't know before.

That's it. We're an education platform on strange words.

That's correct. Well, we're an education platform on a number of strange things, and we're going to introduce something, someone who has been a friend of the program since the beginning. And I don't want to call him strange because he is anything but. He is a delightful human being. But where he is positioned in terms of his relationship to the church is kind of a strange place to be. And, and many people have referred to this man as the Switzerland of Mormonism because he gets along with people inside and outside, almost as if he fits the exact profile of what this podcast is supposed to be. But very grateful to have him join us. We've been on his podcast, and we're very grateful that this time he returns the favor. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Inside Out Stephen Pynaker. Stephen, how are you, sir?

Well, I'm doing very well. It was a real pleasure to have you on my channel Mormon Book Reviews when you first started your, your, your podcast, and I'm glad to see that it's, you know, most podcasts don't make it you know, 90% of them, you know, don't even make it to 20 episodes. And so just want to congratulate you guys on, you know, keeping going at this thing. And it's not easy. It's a lot of hard work. And I respect anybody that's been— that's attempting to do it. And for those who are actually able to, you know, stick to the grindstone and continue with it, I admire. And so I want to give you guys the props for making this thing work. And I'm sure you're having an impact on people's lives like a lot of our podcasts do. And, and honestly, this, this has had an impact on my life, too. You know, it's been a remarkable journey that I've been on.

Well, you know, that is high praise coming from you because I think that you do this better, as well or better than most of the folks who are out there. And you have a wonderful skill for bringing people together. I still get comments, some of them positive, many of them not, from the conversation you moderated between myself and Jacob Hanson. You're smiling.

I just got a comment yesterday or earlier today. I mean, there's still people commenting on this video to this day, you know.

Well, and I remember when I did that, I reached out to you afterwards and I said, you know, I'm really nervous that I kind of went over the top. And you were— couldn't have been more gracious. And you said, I won't release anything you don't want to release. And you let me look at it before it went out. And I decided it probably was okay to go out. Maybe that's a mistake in retrospect, but I think it's been an interesting part of the conversation.

Honestly, I think it was an important conversation to have, and I think that it was raw and it was authentic. It was very real. And I think that it really did show that there are fissures within the church that exist. And I even had somebody say, I've never seen anything like that before. Between two people in the church. And honestly, these are conversations that need to happen because this is, you know, the future of the church. And so I think it was actually one of the most important episodes I ever did on my channel.

Well, I appreciate that. But it's interesting as you look at that and you talk about what's happening in the church and the future of the church, you are an unlikely spokesman for advocating for the future of the church because you are not a member of the church. You are an evangelical Christian. What was it that drew you? You always talk about what— I watch your podcasts religiously and you also talk about how an evangelical encounters the Restoration.

Yeah.

So how did you begin encountering the Restoration? And why did you begin encountering the Restoration?

You know, I, you know, I actually went on a couple— I can't believe it now. It's been, it's been over 2 years since I've been on Mormon Stories. And imagine starting a YouTube podcast and you have like 20-something subscribers and you get on John Dehlin's radar within 2 weeks of starting your channel. And I knew I had something very special there. So I went and then less than a year later, I'm on Mormon Stories. And it's probably the first time and only time that he gave a whole week to a guest. I was on from Monday through Friday. We taped over the course of 2 days, 12 hours, 5 episodes, Monday through Friday for a solid week. And I don't think he's ever done that. And it was really an important place to tell my story. And so I was able to tell my story there. And many of you probably already know it. But really, it started with encountering a Book of Mormon as an 8-year-old boy at a Marriott Hotel. And became entranced with the Arnold Freiberg paintings and thought them to be very fascinating. I would find out later on, on my— I did, because I interviewed Richard Bushman last fall and I told him that story and he told me, he said, Steve, you do realize that those paintings were commissioned by the church specifically to reach youth? He says, so apparently it worked because it reached you. And so I didn't realize that was part of the story, that originally those paintings were meant for youth. And then they found themselves as basically the official paintings in the Book of Mormon. And so here I am, this evangelical kid who is fascinated by this group that has their own Bible, their own scriptures. It looks a lot like my Bible and has these fascinating paintings of wars going on and battles. And look, there's a scene where it looks like Jesus is returning, like the Second Coming in the middle, you know, in the— during the ancient times. And it was just mind-blowing, this whole, the whole concept just through the paintings alone. So that was really the first hook there that kind of interested me. And I've always been interested in all different types of religions, but, and I've studied many, many, many, many religions. And but I always got on my way back to studying Mormonism because it's just such a fascinating story that I don't know, it's like it's this rabbit hole that you can't exhaust. I think You could look at Scientology, and I think you could probably do Scientology— and I'm not necessarily equating Scientology with Mormonism, but I'm just saying, like, as new religious movements go, I think you could pretty much lay out everything that Scientology believes. It's all— it's kind of all there. Whereas Mormonism is just like— there's so many different depths and different things are going on, and you got over 700 sects of Mormonism throughout the world. And, you know, some are still around, many are still around. And you have independent Latter-day Saints. So just— it's just a fascinating story. So I'll get back to originally I was going to be a young— I'm going to be a Christian apologist who's going to show that Mormonism is a false religion. You're going to hell and you need Jesus. And as I studied Mormonism more and more and read No Man Knows My History, Rough Stone Rolling, I actually started to admire Joseph Smith. And also at the same time, in my early 20s, I started deconstructing my faith. So I'm deconstructing my faith. I'm moving away from being an evangelical, conventional evangelical Christian, to eventually becoming atheist agnostic for like 12 years. And I think that's really the key thing was I've suffered lifelong depressions. The very last episode of Mormon Stories was called— that I was on was called How Mormonism Saved an Evangelical's Life on Mormon Stories. And To me, that's the epitome of the channel and who I am, that I can go on Mormon Stories and do an episode, What an Evangelical Loves About Mormonism, or How Mormonism Saved an Evangelical's Life. And, and it was, it was, it was well received by everybody. And essentially, I suffered real deep, deep, deep, deep, dark depression. And basically, I think that instinctually, our brain, our mind is trying to find ways to, if you'd like, if you are suffering depression and you lose interest in everything, essentially you also end up losing interest in life and you end up offing yourself. So I think it was a defense mechanism that kicks in, say, okay, you're really interested in Mormonism, Steve. So I literally threw myself into studying Mormonism, um, reading papers online, um, getting— reading books, checking books out of the library, just, just had this obs— this obsession with studying Mormonism. And so a little over 3 years ago, I thought, well, I'm going to do this little book review show and I'm just going to review the books that I have in my collection. I thought maybe I'd have 200, 300 subscribers and just be this niche channel, right? Well, next thing you know, like I said, within a few weeks of starting the channel, I get on the radar screens of some pretty well-known people. And I'm like, man, this is pretty wild. And I even said on my very first episode, maybe I'll even interview people, you know. I wasn't even— maybe occasional interview. And though it went from being a book review channel to basically becoming, you know, really one of the more important channels for interviewing both people that are in Latter-day Saint tradition, out of the Latter-day Saint tradition, never mows. I've had some of the top Christian theologians, Lutheran theologians, Pentecostal theologians. I've had outsiders, I've had Catholics come on, I've had some of the top atheists. Um, Aron Ra, who's one of the biggest atheists on YouTube, and Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine, gonna be on my program. So I've had this great diverse audience that essentially is having this broad conversation that's more than just Mormonism in one sense. It's also, you know, the war in Israel. I've talked to some of the top rabbis in Israel. I literally have some of the top Hebrew scholars in the world on my program. And so it's just become— it's kind of evolved into this really big thing that covers a lot of different things. And it's been just a fascinating, you know, journey that I've been on. I hope that answered your question.

No, it absolutely did. I— it's It's, it's always fascinating to me to find people who are not part of the Mormon tradition, who are not members of the church or members of any of the 700 different offshoots that you have mentioned. It's always amazing to me to find people who find Mormonism fascinating. You know, I remember there was a scholar by the name of Jan Shipps Oh yeah. Who would always be quoted in everything whenever the church was brought up in a public setting. And she knew as much or more about the church. You're looking at your bookshelf, I bet.

Yeah, because I have one of her books. I'm just seeing if I can find it.

Yeah, but, but I would always, I would always listen to her and I'd say, well, geez, if you're that fascinated with my church, why don't you join my church? And I'm not going to frame that question to you, Steve, in the same way. Rather, I would very much like to hear how you're— oh, there it is. Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition by Jan Shipps. Yeah, yeah. How has your fascination— when you talk about how it saved your life when it sort of pulled you out of a deep depression by being able to throw yourself into the study of something you were interested in. How has your fascination with the Restoration impacted your own personal faith. Are you willing to talk about your own faith as an evangelical? I mean, you came from being an atheist to being an evangelical again, right? And you're an evangelical who hangs out with Mormons. And I'd just be really interested to hear where— connect the dots on that map. Yeah.

You know, it's really fascinating because, you know, back in the day, actually, one of my big social friend groups I used to hang out back in the day were a bunch of ex-Jehovah's Witnesses. And, you know, so I felt— I've always felt— I think people that are marginalized, I always felt a certain degree of affinity for. And I think it has to do with, in addition to me being an evangelical Christian, and around the same time that I'm finding myself interested in Mormonism, I also find myself that I realize that I'm also attracted to other boys. So here I am, this gay evangelical who then is very sensitive to people who have been marginalized in society. And always kind of felt like an outsider as well. And I think what's so interesting about Mormonism in particular, as it relates to evangelicalism, is how similar American evangelicals and Mormons are. There, there's so many, so many of the same concerns and fears and values and beliefs, and even the way they vote. There's so many very similar patterns there that I find fascinating. But then even just to see all these, like, different ministries, if you will, within Mormonism that are very— there's like, oh, like, well, this, this, this group of Mormonism can relate to this group within evangelicalism. And I can find so many parallels that I think because I'm an outsider, I'm like, I can pick them up. And most people don't see it because these groups are so separated from each other in many ways. They're so similar. And that's what I find so remarkable is finding the similarities. So I feel like especially somebody who came out of the charismatic Pentecostal tradition, and we believe like, you know, God speaking to you today and people having visions, I really feel like in many ways I can talk to a Latter-day Saint much easier than I can to necessarily a Presbyterian who doesn't believe any of that stuff. So I think that it's just— I think, you know, so like Dr. Christopher Thomas, who wrote the book A Pentecostal Reads the Book of Mormon, which, by the way, is the very first book that I ever reviewed. And Dr. Christopher Thomas just recently stepped down as the president of the Book of Mormon Studies Association. So here you have another outsider, and this book was published by a Pentecostal publisher. And this is a well-regarded commentary and breakdown of the Book of Mormon. And he had told me, he said, Steve, you're bilingual. You can speak both languages in a very unique way. And so that's really the interesting thing is that, you know, look, I had to— I, in 2009, I went to the Kirtland Temple, and I went to the, the mission. I got a personal tour of the, of, um, the village, you know, that your church operates. And of course they operate the, the temple now too. And I remember going—

you broke the news on that, right?

And I broke the news. Yeah, that's the crazy thing. We could— we'll, we'll double back, we'll talk about that, because I think that's another interesting pattern that's happened with the show almost from the beginning, was I just remember going to the missionaries, uh, wife, and I'm like— or not the missionary, the mission president's wife, I'm sorry— and go in and say, how do you pronounce Nephi? Is it Nephi? Nephi? I didn't even know how to, because I just read. I never had conversations with Latter-day Saints. Nephi. I'm like, okay, that's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. And so yeah, you know, that was, you know, I've just had this real interest in it, but I didn't know anybody. And then yeah, we could fast forward to just a couple months ago, I end up breaking the story of the temple being sold in Kirtland before it's released by either one of the churches. I mean, I scooped everybody. And it was interesting because just over— just when I just started the channel, maybe had 50, 100 subscribers, I had Mark Staker come to me and say, hey, we're doing a study of the the pollen study of what they were growing at Tunbridge Farm in Vermont. What were they growing at Joseph Smith Senior's farm when they farmed the land? So I'm going to run it through this collider and we're going to wait for the test results, and I'll come back on your program and reveal the test results of what they were growing at Tunbridge Farm. Now, this is just a pollen sample, right? And in one sense, it's not a big deal, but in my sense, it was like, here, I'm going to break this story on my channel before anybody else and had one of the top historians that works at the church historians department to come on my program to talk about what they were growing in Tundra's farm. This is when the channel had like maybe— when he came on in May, it had 200 subscribers and he broke it on my program. And so almost from the beginning, this channel has been like one of those places where I, for whatever reason, I just— I think sometimes things just land in my lap. I have a really good gut instincts for kind of sniffing things out and reaching out to people. You know, way before everybody else is doing the church financial stuff. We had the whistleblower come on, Nigel from Canada, come on the day after it aired on The Fifth Estate on the CBC. We had him on a program. We were the very first. And that was with my help from Rebecca Bibliotheke, who helped as my co-host, helped book that. But we were way ahead of everybody with many of these stories. And it's almost like everybody else gets caught up and I'm moving on to the next story. Already, you know, and I'm working on a couple other news stories, too. So it's just kind of interesting. But then here we have a couple of, you know, here's this whole thing. Oh, we found plates in Saudi Arabia that match the Book of Mormon. And all these faithful podcasters come on and they do this big thing. And within 48 hours of them putting that stuff on, guess who? What? I have Dan McClellan come on to show, basically debunk it. And even I get a message from John Dehlin. He says, man, good get, Steve. 'Cause 72 Hours, he's on Mormon Stories doing the same thing, but I beat everybody. I had Dan McClellan, who's one of the top experts on those particular items saying, and guess what, that story, that disappeared. Like nobody's talking about that anymore. Almost overnight. You know? It's pretty amazing to me that I live in a 50-year-old mobile home with my mom in Florida and have access to all this information and have connections everywhere. Like, in the Church Office Building, at Deseret News, in all the different departments at BYU. I mean, literally have all these connections that there's very few people that have that, you know, and it's really crazy. But then also having all the connections to the Community of Christ. And then basically, when the Joseph Smith photograph story broke, who's the first interview? It's on my program with Lachlan Mackay. You know, they're fielding calls from the New York Times and all these others. And here I have the, the very first interview of somebody who, you know, of, of direct descendant of Joseph Smith, who basically declared that this is the Joseph Smith photograph, was on my program. And that was because I developed a relationship with people, the likes of John Hamer of the Community of Christ. So I think what happens is when you develop relationships and trust with people— that's why John Highcheck, who's a member of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Strangites, approached me first and said, I want to break the story on your channel first, Steve.

Why?

Because of the trust, the mutual respect that I have for people, because I don't choose a camp and everybody's mistrustful of everybody else. So I just kind of blew all those silos up. And in just one of those unique places where people can come in and people like will go and say, well, I'm going to have— I want to come on your program, Steve, because if you have it on, it has more credibility. Than if it went on to another program that would— like, if this would— if this was— if this interview was on Mormon Stories, it'd be viewed as an anti-Mormon photograph, right? Um, 15— you know, 10, 12 years ago, this probably goes on Mormon Stories. So it's just kind of interesting where we've kind of created this little niche, you know, that, that the people— it's a safe space that if somebody wants to know, like, hey, I can get— this is one place where it's going to be unbiased, and Steve's given me a platform then, then people are going to take it more seriously too.

Eva, I think Jim Bennett's introduction that you are the Switzerland of Mormonism is absolutely bang on. Listening to your experience and the broad spectrum of different relationships that you've got and the different books you've read, different religions, and a very safe, neutral place to have a, a whole range of different conversations. You've got a very distinct relationship with the church. You've got all these different stakeholders engaged, etc. You mentioned earlier that you, as you studied Joseph Smith, and you got into the early history of the restoration of the church, you had an admiration for him. Have you— I'm sure you've read this book. I'm holding the book up. Yeah, it's about American Crucifixion by Alex Beam, which I'm just getting into just now. So again, another individual who's not a member of the church. You've— have you read that book?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I read it actually right before the idea. I mean, I actually read it. It's been a few years now. So right around the time I was starting to think the channel— to start the channel, I was reading that book.

Yeah, right. So with what you were saying, excellent explanation, description of your perspective of the church, different relationships.

You've read these extraordinary books.

What's your take on Joseph then? You know, you've done all this research on different religions. You mentioned that at the beginning. A couple of questions. What's your perspective on Joseph? And also, with all the research, what stands out in Mormonism, if anything?

I think Joseph Smith is an audacious person because he dared to encounter scripture in the 19th century and start a religion in the era of the printing press, as Holm Brody said. And that's an interesting thing because I think that you can see, if you want to get an idea of what does scripture, what does a scripture, what does producing scripture look like, what does a scripture producer look like, What does a prophet look like in a modern context? And our best understanding, I think, of understanding scripture producers and prophets can be best understood through somebody like Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith was a very complex man who was— he's not some— I tried, I tried to make him into— he's a human being, okay, who has some flaws. Absolutely. He's a flawed man. I actually appreciate this photograph because it makes him more real. Not, not the Ken doll image that we have of Joseph. Right. This is a more real photograph. This is a man who's complicated. And honestly, there's very little about the corpus of Joseph Smith, especially the early days, that I have a problem with. I do have issues with the later doctrinal things that he has where he kind of deviates from conventional Christianity. However, I think that the early Joseph Smith, one, I'd say that what would later be called the First Vision would be Joseph Smith having a born-again experience. That's what he had. So now I can relate to him because, of course, born again, that's very evangelical. I also think he had a heart for souls. If you read the letters he wrote to Emma, he was talking about being in New York and he just, he said, oh my gosh, my heart grieves for these people. They need repentance and, you know, they need to come to Jesus. So there seemed to be a real sincere desire on his part to help save souls. I think he had a real burden for the Native Americans, like all these people need to be reached, um, in a way that's different than a lot of the conventional views of Christianity viewed the Indians back then. I think he had a much more charitable approach to Native Americans than many people did back then. Um, he said, hey, you have this great heritage. You're a mighty, great and mighty people that have this great heritage, and I want to reintroduce it to you. So, so he has this— he's not— he's thinking differently than the rest of the culture, which I find interesting. But also, I tell people, said, you know, I can take— let's take everything, every negative thing that's ever been said about Joseph Smith, and let's just say it all happened. I don't believe it all happened, of course, but let's just say it all happened. It does not disqualify him for being a scripture producer. Because many of the patriarchs were polygamists themselves. And they were, they were, they, they lied, and they were scoundrels. And I mean, I don't see how evangelicals can attack the character of Joseph Smith, but then give David a free pass. He had a man murdered so he could have his wife, right? So for me, I think that Joseph Smith, none of his negative qualities disqualify him from being a prophet or a scripture producer, because he seems to actually, by having all these flaws, if you will, it seems to check off a lot of the boxes that would align him with many of the flawed patriarchs of the Bible, as well as the flawed characters of the early 1st century church. I mean, read Paul's letters. My gosh, there were sex scandals happening in the very early church. It's always been there. There's nothing new under the sun when it comes to Joseph Smith in many ways. Does that answer your question? I just think it's a nuanced conversation I'd like to have about Joseph, because on one hand you could say, man, this was a great prophet of the Lord, and then you could say this guy was a scoundrel, and I'd be like, okay, are we talking about David or are we talking about Joseph Smith?

Yeah, it does. It's a great answer to the question, because again, from your perspective, your history, you're not a Mormon, you're coming into this with, you know, open-minded, you're looking at every angle. Every perspective, talking to different people, people on the inside, people on the outside, people who not even, uh, you know, you've read books of people like Alex B, who was not even in the church, and an extraordinary piece of work in that book, in, in my opinion, as I'm learning about it. And so that, I think that's what brings extraordinary value to, uh, a perspective of the church. And you've looked at Joseph's life, you see his flaws, his problems, uh, many of them, in my opinion, deliberate decisions, planned decisions. At the same time, we see somebody who is, to your words, audacious, kind, and has some attributes which are prophetic in many ways. And you look at him in a very balanced perspective. So as you studied the life of Joseph and looked at the church through the life of Joseph Smith, what stands out? And yes, you answered the question, thank you. And I'm sure there is other answers to that same question. But what stands out in all of your research? What's unique or distinct with the Mormon faith? Or is there no— nothing unique or distinct? Is it?

I think it's, it's, it's, it's unique in its— what makes it so interesting is that it's birthed out of evangelical Second Great Awakening evangelical culture. So there's those early days of Mormonism. I tell people, so that in that April 6th, 1830 setting, It was a group of born-again, Spirit-filled Christians who were Bible believers. Them's my people. It was founded by Christians. But what makes him so audacious is that this idea that, hey, we can have new scripture. I mean, that's, that's, that was an audacious thing to do back then. But I think that there's validity to— I'm not saying that the Book of Mormon is scripture, although it's not scripture for me, but it doesn't bother me that it functions as scripture to a Latter-day Saint. It's fine. Because to me, the idea that the canon is closed is a Catholic doctrine. It's certainly not a Protestant doctrine. I think that God can choose to speak to people any way that he sees fit, including through the production of new scripture. So, so that's, that's an audacious thing because no, nobody dared do that. No religious leader or prophet that would come, come, you know, over 2,000 years of Christendom, nobody dared to produce new scripture, right? He did. And that's audacious. Just That, that alone makes it remarkable. I think that he—

if we—

I just, I think that we can see so many parallels with Joseph Smith, with characters like Muhammad as well. Um, this is a man of, uh, Joseph Smith was a very complicated man who on one hand was this great— he'd be a wonderful human being to many people. And then, and then also what was so interesting about him was he could have a falling out. I, I, I likened it to I said, back in the day when I was on Mormon Stories, I said, Joseph Smith and I would have been frenemies. I said, he would have excommunicated me from his church and I would have excommunicated him from my church. And then we would have buried the hatchet. And then that Sunday I'd be giving the sermon at the church. I said, that's the kind of relationship I think I would have had with Joseph Smith. We were peers at the time. And so I think there's this ability to forgive people, which I thought was pretty remarkable, not hold grudges like even people that did bad to him. He would— he had the ability to you know, hey, let's reconcile, let's forgive, and let's move on, which I found interesting. But then just looking at him as like almost like an American Muhammad, where he builds this empire on the banks of the Mississippi, um, has one of the largest standing armies of the country, running for President of the United States. This is amazing. This is an amazing person of great consequence, and you can't write the American story without Joseph Smith being featured prominently. I think more— he should be featured more prominently than he is in the American story. So yeah, there's just so many things that make it— you can see parallels between characters, but then you can see also just very unique things that to do what he did in the relatively short period of time in his life is—

I don't know.

I mean, well, how— what other parallels are there? There aren't a whole lot in history. That's what makes it so amazing to me.

Well, I— what you— how you describe Joseph Smith is my reaction largely to the Book of Mormon, is that whenever I have frustrations with the church as an institution or anything else, I keep coming back to the Book of Mormon. And I can't really get around the Book of Mormon in terms of its power as scripture for me. And Ian and I have talked about that at length, and I don't necessarily want to get into that. But this morning, I was listening to another podcast, the Salt Lake Tribune's podcast Mormonland, and they had on an evangelical pastor who actually was a guest of the Tabernacle Choir a couple of weeks ago.

Jeff McCullough, my friend Jeff McCullough.

Yeah.

Oh, so you and Jeff McCullough are friends. I figure you would know each other.

I had Jeff McCullough on my program when, when he was this tiny little YouTuber that nobody ever heard of.

Oh, wow.

And I could— off camera, I'll tell you who introduced us to each other, too. No, Jeff and I have been friends from the beginning.

Oh, very, very nice. Well, I mean, I've never met him. I saw him when he stood up. You know, the choir invites people to come and sing in a rehearsal, and then they stand up and are introduced by Mack Wilberg, and we all applaud them. And the guy sitting next to me said, do you know who that is down there? And I said, no, that's Pastor Jeff. I went, well, I don't know who Pastor Jeff is. But listening to this, to this interview, he was asked, you know, what is it about the church that you find different from your own tradition? And, and he said that he was really disturbed by the idea of a premortal existence with the fact that Latter-day Saints think the fall was a good thing, whereas evangelicals believe that was the great tragedy that introduced sin to the world. And then he said, and then the whole 3 degrees of glory. He says, I just don't understand that because for an evangelical, the idea is hell is being cut off from the presence of God and heaven is being in the presence of God. And everybody who is saved is in the presence of God. And you Mormons tier that to the point, you know, Swell, the people at the top are saved and they're in the presence of God. And then you have this lower salvation and then a salvation below that. But it was really interesting to me to hear him sort of frame the doctrinal challenges that he had with the church. Are there doctrinal things about the church that you just can't get around that just sort of drive you crazy?

Yeah. You know, I've talked about doctrinal differences and, you know, I tell people, I said, you know, by having these unique conversations with my channel, on my channel, is that I get to introduce more conventional Orthodox Christianity to a largely now Latter-day Saint audience. Even though my audience is probably one of the most diverse audiences there is in this field, it's become more and more faithful recently over the last couple years. And it's like, here's a place where I can— and Jeff has done a great job at kind of describing what is conventional Orthodox Christianity, which I'm a little bit heterodox in some areas, I would say, but But I think that it's really important to talk about, like, God having a body, you know, of flesh and bone, you know, just all these different beliefs that Mormonism has that's different, or that God is not really creation ex nihilo. God is not the creator. He's more of a great organizer of material because material is, you know, eternal. Then it makes God more of a creature as opposed to a creator of the universe, right? So those are issues. And again, that's what's so fascinating to me is that I actually have— I was supposed to speak last at Rod Meldrum's conference, a Protestant defense of the Book of Mormon was going to be. And I've actually given this presentation before, a Protestant defense of the Book of Mormon, where I basically show that Orthodox Christianity, for the most part, is taught in the Book of Mormon. And I tell people, I say, honestly, I think that if one wanted to kind of judge any doctrinal things that come forth after the establishment of the Book of Mormon is that you have two witnesses. You have the Bible, you know, the Book of Mormon, and anything that comes out after that, it should comport with the two witnesses. And if they don't, then we got to ask ourselves, like, if the Book of Mormon has the fullness of the gospel in it, then does that mean that the King Follett discourse is the correct view of God? You know, and I think that when the Bible, when the Book of Mormon says that God is a spirit, and that Jesus and God are the same, or Jesus is God, you know, it's essentially telling us pretty close Trinitarian views of the— so my whole argument is, is that I would like to use the Book of Mormon as a tool to kind of make the case for conventional Christianity and Orthodox Christianity, because it's within the pages of the Book of Mormon. And I always find it interesting that it was with a lot of people who maybe their shelf is broke and they're kind of checking themselves out of the church, the last thing they— it's almost 99% of the time, it's the last thing that they give up on is the Book of Mormon. It's usually the Book of Mormon is that one thing that keeps them tethered to the Restoration. And sometimes they'll end up just going to a different Restoration group, you know, that's more Book of Mormon based. So there's something— there's a power there, you know, the keystone of our religion, right?

The Book of Mormon.

There's a power in the Book of Mormon that makes it unique in a way that I think is remarkable. And I would argue that part of that power is that the Book of Mormon teaches conventional Orthodox Christianity.

Well, that was Ed Decker's big thing. When I read The Godmakers back in the '80s, his big complaint was the Book of Mormon contains almost no Mormonism.

Mm-hmm.

All of the temple worship, the covenant path. The focus of the Church today is on a bunch of issues that really don't get any mention. The Book of Mormon talks about them building a temple in the wilderness. It doesn't say anything about what happens in the temple. They say they build it after the manner of Solomon, but it doesn't describe the endowment or, or the central focus of temple worship. In the modern church. So I think that there really is a case to be made for that. So are you saying you think that Latter-day Saints should reject a good chunk of the Doctrine and Covenants and all that sort of thing because you don't see it comporting with the Book of Mormon and the Bible?

Not necessarily. I think, I think because, you know, the, the church and Joseph Smith make a lot of other claims that maybe you could say kind of supersede the Book of Mormon in one sense. The idea of having a living prophet who could receive new revelation, even Joseph Smith making changes to the Book of Mormon in different editions, like even that wasn't, you know, because originally in the first edition of the Book of Mormon, Jesus was the— Mary was the mother of God. Right. So, so, so we can see that Joseph didn't seem to have much qualms with not only changing the Book of Mormon, but also changing the Bible. But I just like to go back to the original source materials. So I like to use like the early days Bible and the Book of Mormon. And in the Book of Mormon, I'm not saying that— I'm not here to tell the church what to do. The church went on its own trajectory. The Utah branch in particular, as opposed— what's so fascinating is that the groups that stayed back are much more conventional Christian. I mean, the Community of Christ is de facto— it's a Protestant church now. It's a mainline Protestant church. It's— and so you could see that there's within the early days especially, and I always go back to the early because it's the primitivists, right? Like, like the idea of restoring things back to the primitive church, right? That's kind of what was one of the impetuses of the Restoration was get back to a first century church. And that's why I argue that the Bickertonites are the closest we have to a first century or early primitive church of Mormonism. Is the Church of Jesus Christ. My good friends over in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, and their founding prophet was William Bickerton. And I would argue that they're closer, a lot closer, much more closely aligned with the April 6th, 1830 Church. I call them the April 6th, 1830 Church. So even today in the 21st century, there's an April 6th, 1830 Church. If you want to go back to primitive Mormonism, that's the place to go. And I'm just making a point. I'm just making a point that if, you know, within the context of there being a great apostasy, and that you saw all this stuff that was being built on the original church to the point that, you know, you have, you know, bureaucracy, and you have all these, you have this hierarchy, and then you have all these buildings, and you have all these things. What I find so fascinating is you could almost look at the development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and almost like see how the first decade could be the first, or the first 5 years could be the first century of the church. The next 5 years could be the second century. I mean, like, it's almost like everything's like encapsulated in a very short period of time to the point that 1844 Mormonism looks completely foreign to 1830 Mormonism. And that's the same argument that the Restoration was making about the Great Apostasy. That this church that exists now doesn't look anything like the first century church. So just even with using restoration language and understanding things, one can make an argument one way or another. Now, the others would say, hey, this was part of the revelation.

This is—

it's its own— it's its own tradition. It's its own faith tradition. I'm not going to go and say you're doing it wrong, Utah-based Saints, because it's its own religion in its own right.

Right.

That I— and it's had its own evolution and its doctrinal innovations. That's, that's part of what they are. Now, when they try to say that they're Christians, I would say I go this far. I don't go— I've never gone— because some evangelical apologists who don't actually spend much time actually in, in depth with what I'm doing, very superficially attack me, will go and say, well, you say the Mormons are Christians. And I'm like, give me one example where I said that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a Christian church. So I've never said that the Mormon Church is Christian. I've said that if anything, I would argue that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the theology is what I would call heterodox Christianity, not orthodox, heterodox. I would say it's Christian in the context of it being heterodox. It's certainly not orthodox. It's certainly not conventional. And very few people would say that it is. So that's the definition there. But I also say that also I believe that our faith is based on an individual basis. It's your personal relationship that you have with the Savior. And so I tell people, said, you know, there's Catholics that are Christians, there's Jehovah's Witnesses that are Christians, there are Muslims that are Christians, there are, you know, and there might even be a few evangelicals that are Christians as well. And so, and so in the same way that there are Latter-day Saints that are Christians, I think that, that God doesn't care what building you go to on Sunday morning. Yeah. Do you have a personal relationship with the Savior? I think is the better question to phrase it. And that's the other thing too, is like Nobody— very few people that actually attend their churches, and this is in the Protestant, Catholic, and Restoration world, very few people believe 100% of the doctrine of the church that they're taught. So it's unfair to categorize somebody, well, you believe this and you believe that. It's like, no, that's what your church believes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's what the individual believes. So I think it just goes on a case-by-case individual basis, I think is the best way to— I just tell people, said, you know, if you go to me and say you're a Christian I'm just gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. And I just sort of look for the fruits. If I see good fruits, okay, you're a Christian. If I don't see any good fruits, well, you know, I don't see Jesus here, you know? And that, I just think that's a great, Jesus gave us the measuring stick, you know, by their fruits. And that's just what I look for.

Well, Ian, that's kind of where your faith is at the moment, isn't it?

It is. This is a fascinating conversation with you, Steve. As I listen to you, I'm making the connection between a lot of the modern-day evangelical, including the Mormon Church and many other Christian, uh, organizations, space in North America, in the United States and Canada. I, I do see the Mormon Church as a Christian organization. The Christian faith, if we understand Being Christian is, is simply trying to behave and act the way Christ did in the New Testament. And I see lots of evidence of that in the Mormon faith. There's an important distinction and correlation from this, this part of the conversation with the, all the history of these Christian faiths and other similar faiths in North America and where they came from. You know, I, I grew up in England and I'm not an expert on religion or Christianity or Christian religions. But when I was growing up, I joined the church at 16 years old, as you know, and we used to go to Bible class on a Sunday. Um, we'd go to the church now and again, not too frequently. You know, the vicar would, uh, would teach us. It was the Church of England, the Anglican Church. We learned about the Trinity. Uh, the Trinity was very confusing for me as a, you know, as a kid, confusing to a lot of adults that you had one God, but, you know, but three, you know, three different spirits in one God. It was, you know, Anglicans believe that there was only one God, but there are three elements to this God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. And that humans being decisions, that human being decisions to reject the eternal God and live according to their own standards, which is sin causes this relationship or relational breakdown between them and God and Jesus Christ. And so there's an important history, I think, with North American Christian and Orthodox religions and the history with doctrine. When we used to go to church, I remember one Bible class said that Henry VIII, had received authority from God in some form and was instructed by God to form the Church of England. We know that there was an argument, again, I'm not historian here, but there was a relationship breakdown between Henry VIII historically and the Catholic Church, and he wanted to marry, I think it was Anne Boleyn, I think it was. I remember these classes in history school growing up in a Church of England, school. And, uh, so I get a, a, another perspective, uh, but they taught that Henry VIII was some kind of— I don't think they use the word prophet, but, uh, you know, like an evangelical that broke off and had the authority from God and, and became, uh, became the Church of England. And that's why we got the Church of England, all these different breakoffs. And then of course when I was investigating the church, the bishop said that the Church of England was, in the word, They didn't hold back. It was an apostate group, and that Catholic Church was the abominable church. That's what I was taught. And the Church of England was also an abominable church, an, an abominable church, and was an apostate church. This, this period of time from when Christ was crucified and the apostles were murdered or, or passed on, uh, that the authority, uh, of Christ was was lost. There was a great extensive period of apostasy. All these different religions emerged. Catholic Church obviously, you know, continued at the time. Church of England, other breakoffs happened. Again, I don't know the history of the Methodist Church. I know that Joe Smith had a relationship. I think his mother was a Methodist. I think his parents were Methodist. And so you've got this fascinating, you know, if you look at the church in modern-day perspective right now, you know, where does its roots come from? You know, all this doctrine, we see this in the Book of Mormon, of course, we see a lot of Presbyterian, I see a lot of traditional Anglican doctrine, the messages in the Book of Mormon, which I really resonated with, actually, when I was being taught the gospel through the missionaries. And so you've got this extraordinary perspective, looking at the history, What did you make the same connection, Steve, with, you know, as you research the church and you go look at Joseph Smith, but you go beyond that and you look at where the church doctrine history came from, you've alluded to that on this conversation. Do you make the connection to, like I have, to the Church of England, the Catholic Church, you know, because there's been a lot of breakoffs, a lot of restorations around, you know, those two organizations that do How do you make those connections with the church's history and where it all came from and how Joseph Smith was influenced by his parents and that? Yes, yes. But history that goes way back, you know, over, over centuries. It's not, you know, it goes, it goes back over many, many centuries.

Yeah. No, that's, that's, that's very true. And actually, there's a great book, Refiner's Fire, that talks about not only just the There's also like the folklore, the magic and myth, of course, that dates Mormonism, those early Mormonism from 1644 to 1844 or something like that. There's a lot of the past had a great influence on Joseph Smith and the development. So yeah, you know, it's really interesting because his older brother went to Dartmouth for a while and he maybe picked up some of the new thoughts, some of the ideas that were coming about there. You had people like Emanuel Swedenborg, who had similar views of the afterlife that Joseph Smith had. You seem to— what's happening is you have this— of course, Whitney wrote the book The Burned-Over District in the 1960s, talking about how Upstate New York, that particular part of New York, had all these different waves of different religions and innovations come through. You had an uncle that was reading Thomas Paine. So you had— then you had Unitarians, and you had Universalists, and you had all these different things that are competing. And then you have, you know, this— essentially America is a Protestant nation at this time, right? So it tends to be very anti-Catholic. And so that you have a Protestant— he's also viewing things from a very Protestant lens. And if you read Jonathan Neville's book Infinite Goodness about the influence that Jonathan Edwards had, the great evangelical theologian of the 17th century, had on the Book of Mormon itself, on the text itself, it's pretty remarkable. So you see all these influences that, that are out there in the Book of Mormon and the church. And what Joseph Smith was trying to do was making a response to a lot of the disputations that were going on in Christianity at that time. And so one of his earliest critics, Campbell, talked about how it seems to adjudicate all the different The controversies of our day get settled in the Book of Mormon. And so I think what this is, is it's an attempt to— there's this idea of trying to be resistant to the idea of sectarianism and the damage that it's done. You got to keep in mind that Europe was at war for a very long time amongst the competing sects. You have now, you have people saying, well, like the Presbyterian pastor who went to the Smith family and said, that Joe— that Alvin is burning in hell because he did not get a Presbyterian baptism. Right. I tell people, I said, I think that one of the places that Mormonism was, was birthed was at that moment when that pastor went to Joseph and said, Alvin's in hell. And I think Mormonism in one sense was Joseph Smith's attempt to find a way to get Alvin into heaven, which to me, it's beautiful in that sense. Like, I love that. That, that, that, you know, no, like, this is— this was taken very seriously by the family. So a lot of, a lot of what you're seeing is there's a reaction to a lot of the negativity of religion and Christianity had on people's lives. And I think what Joseph was trying to do is say, no, we got to get back to— we need to restore the church to where it once was, which was, you know, people had, you know, they all looked out for each other, they kept things in common with each other. I think there's a there's just a lot of— I think he had a lot of idealism about the first-century church and that we need to get back to that and just saw this corruption that was going on. And so Mormon— the Book of Mormon, Mormonism is a response to the flaws of Christianity and the negative negativities of the Christian— of Christianity. And I think that that's admirable, that Joseph Smith was trying to, in his own way, restore Christianity and that impulse is always gonna be there. And that's why even within the charismatic movement that came about in the 20th century, it was a restorationist movement.

I think you're absolutely right. And I would add to that something that I think is extraordinary distinctive and unique and certainly resonates with me as I was investigating the church at the age of 16, being in the Church of England, Bible class, reading the history, of Christianity and some of the lessons there, history lessons on religion. We used to go to religious class at school. It was a class you had to attend. You can't, you couldn't opt out of it at that time. And getting a Church of England perspective on Christianity. And then I remember, you know, some of my thoughts back then was all this fragmentation of Christianity from the time of Jesus Christ was on the earth, the New Testament, and all these different religions and faiths doing different things over the years. And then here comes Joseph Smith, has similar questions. I didn't have the same experience of Joseph Smith, of course. I certainly had questions about all these different religions that maybe came up in the missionary classes when I was investigating the church. It was a, you know, they asked me, you know, why do you think there's so many religions? I was like, yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And here's Joseph Smith with all this complexity, all this history, his family, where their religion came from, Anglican and Catholic historical trenches of Christianity and all these different variations. And the concept of, look, they're all wrong, all the misguided have got, as the missionaries used to say, that they hold up a mirror, they bring a little mirror into the classes and into the lessons and they say, look, This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. They would hold this mirror to myself and a few other investigators, and they said, when Christ was on the earth, the gospel was complete. It was whole. There was nothing missing. And, and they, they'd said, when you look in this mirror, what do you see? And I said, well, we see ourselves and we see, and they say, do you see the full picture? And we said, yeah. And there's no broken pieces, there's no fragments. And we, we, that really resonated with me. And then they said, if we drop this mirror, What happens? And I said, well, it breaks. And then they said, well, that's what happened when Christ was— and by the way, this is a style and tool that I use actually, Jim, when I was a missionary in Scotland, when Jim and I were at a mirror that you would show them as the mirror. No, no, I know I would have pretended I had a mirror. The missionaries taught me had a real mirror, a little one that they had in their pocket. But I pretended that when I was teaching the investigators that I had a mirror. And then I said, look, when this mirror drops, what happens is it breaks. And they said, that's what happened when Christ was crucified and the apostles were removed from the earth. And what happened is that people came along who wanted the faith, the religion, to look for some truth. They pick up one piece of the mirror and they say, well, Jesus Christ taught repentance. This is how he taught it. Or he taught forgiveness in this way. We found two pieces, but then we'll fill the rest in with their own ideas. And that's how these other churches formed. That's exactly almost word for word how the missionaries taught me, and that's where I taught my mission. And so you've got this extraordinary historical roots in Christianity, and it's still taught to this day in terms of Henry VIII being, if you like, the savior of the British Empire. You get different perspectives on by the Henry VIII. But what's interesting is that Joseph came along here, saw, had what I believe to be an absolutely genuine, sincere question. I think he had questions about his soul, questions about life, questions about, you know, perspective on life and the future and God. I really believe it was sincere, genuine. I really believe sincerely he had a profound, genuine experience, vision, perhaps imaginary. I don't believe it to be a real vision. We won't get into that, but I believe he saw something spiritually. I do believe that. And he had this profound experience and he had a question about his soul, about repentance. So we know one of the versions of the first account is he went primarily to seek forgiveness. And I accept that. And other versions are, you know, which church to join. And he got the answer from God the Father and Jesus Christ personally, who looked exactly the same as each other. And by the way, according to Truman Madison, only the Holy Ghost can distinguish between God and Jesus Christ according to the Truman Madison tapes. But he had this profound experience, and he was told that none of the churches are true, and you have to form your own church because the authority, the priesthood authority that Christ had, had been lost upon the earth through this great apostasy. And what an extraordinary message, you know, to create a faith and a religion that says, look, the only way to God is this way, all the other ways are wrong, or at least partly wrong. That was the argument. That's what I understood. But we've now, as we taught as missionaries, and now as I was taught as, as an investigator, as the missionaries taught me that the Restoration restored the mirror in full without any cracks or any fragments. And here we are in the modern-day period where the church has been fully and wholly restored. And that happened through the Prophet Joseph Smith because of who he was and he was called, et cetera. And so I find that extraordinary, you know, all these different— and what an easy sell in my opinion. All these religions, all these questions, all these doubts, all these confusion on religion. Here comes Joseph Smith with his audacious approach, writing scripture, to your point, Steve, and saying, hey, God has restored the church in full. The mirror is complete now, and we have the authority. And the only way to get to God is through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, through Malta, and to be baptized. And by the way, we're the only church on the earth who has the authority, because the missionaries taught me that church, every day, had no authority to do what he did. The Catholic Church had no authority. Nobody else has authority apart from the Mormon Church. We're the only ones that has authority. And then I research and study that there was a succession gap between when Joseph was martyred, murdered. We won't get into that, but his life was taken. I don't think the leaders of the church at the time expected Joseph O'Hiram to die at that time, and certainly not in that way, in that terrible experience. And there's a number of different arguments for, you know, what happened there and why it happened, et cetera, and who was involved. And again, we won't get into that, but my understanding is that Joseph Musser died unexpectedly. The Brethren were not planning for any succession. I understand that there were no succession, that the authority— and I'd love to get your perspective on this, Steve, and you as well, Jim— that there was no official handover prior to Joseph Smith's death, or Hiram's death, of the official priesthood authority over to Brigham Young, who was the next prophet. And, and so you've got this extraordinary individual coming at this particular time in that part of the world, saying, "We've got the restored gospel. Here it is." And it was quite extraordinary. I mean, a lot of work and effort went into— I mean, look how fast and how extraordinary they were to put all these different pieces together for the church, you know, the structure, the organization, the priesthood, marriage, all this doctrine, all this inspiration was coming frequently through Doctrine and Covenants. How The pace of it was extraordinary and what an extraordinary achievement. And they've got this complete mirror now. And then all of a sudden Joseph is gone. He's martyred, he's murdered, and there's no passing over of that authority. Steve, what the— Jim as well, what's your perspective on that, on those few thoughts and also in particular the succession piece of the church? You know, the church claims to have— it's the only church, true church upon the face of the earth, the only church with authority, the only church that can bring salvation and exaltation. No other church can do that, although it's not been saying that of late, but that's what it believes. What's your perspective on that position? And also, what's your perspective on the succession gap? Or have I misread that or misresearched that?

Well, Steve, Steve, you, you would have a perspective on that that I think few people could match because you talk to a lot of the people that have been on the down end of, of the succession crisis. Yeah, yeah. No, I would love to hear your perspective.

Yeah, it's really interesting because there's— there was— it wasn't a clean, a clean, uh, transition, of course, because if it was, then we wouldn't have these problems. So that's those— that's a definite legitimate issue that if you want to talk about succession and all that kind of stuff, it was very messy. No doubt it was. Everything was in the tumult. And you had, you know, I mean, look, if you want to look at somebody who really could make a really strong claim, well, there's two people really can make strong claims: Sidney Rigdon, but James Strang. And James Strang is an interesting character because he claimed to have a letter of appointment, had a visitation from an angel, found plates, translated them, crowned himself king, just like Joseph, of the world, just like Joseph Smith. Many, many of the people that followed Joseph Smith ended up in the orbit of James Strang. Many of the more prominent people were there in his orbit for quite a while. For a period of time.

Martin Harris.

What's that?

Martin Harris.

Yes. And William Smith. And, and, uh, so you had, uh, this, this guy that's making very similar claims. What's so interesting is that then he was originally against polygamy, then he embraces polygamy, and then he actually runs for office just like Joseph Smith, but he actually gets elected and actually passes some of the very first anti-slavery legislation in the Michigan legislature, which actually kind of started a chain going on throughout the Midwest and the northern states that kind of exacerbated the Civil War later on. And then he gets martyred. He, he, you know, if you're looking for somebody who parallels Joseph Smith, maybe some of it was intentional. I don't think it was intentional on his part to get assassinated, but, but I think it's interesting that you can look at James Strang and say, as an outsider, and say, boy, if somebody was an heir to Joseph, I mean, that's a remarkable— some pretty remarkable parallels, you know, that you're seeing. And then you're just— you look at, you know, why is it that a lot of the people stayed back and didn't follow Joseph? Why is it that Emma Smith didn't follow Brigham Wright? Why is it that a large portion then chose to be organized under Joseph Smith III? And that church didn't formally, you know, recognize— become a church in 1860, April 6th, 1860, and under the leadership of Joseph Smith III. And what's so interesting is like, you know, the idea of prophecy. Like, you know, a prophetic person is somebody who is a man not of their time but a person outside of their time. And who is more outside of their time than somebody during the Civil War is giving the priesthood to Blacks? That's Joseph Smith III. So, so to me, it's like you can find these little claimants, these little groups and things. And then, then of course, I got my friends, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Monongahela-based saints who, you know, I'm friends with the President of the Church. I've met all the apostles of the church. I'm very tight with them. And I call them the Pentecostal believers in the Book of Mormon. And I attend their services. They got two churches within driving distance of me from here. And You know, they make some pretty strong claims on behalf of— they get their priesthood via signi regnit. And they just have the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Jesus, and the priesthood. And it's interesting to see that church, and how remarkably similar it is to a conventional evangelical church in many ways, more conservative in its dress and apparel. They're not like in contemporary music, but It's, it's very familiar to me, the Church of Jesus Christ, in a way that, that's— it's, it seems more closer to where I'm coming from. And I just, I find the spirit of that church to be really remarkable. So you have just these— I've been— had— I've had the privilege to give a sermon at a Community of Christ church. I've had the opportunity to get blessed by the apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ. I've had the opportunity to engage with the Strangites. And, uh, and all these other groups. And man, you know, as an outsider, how am I to differentiate between the claims of a prophet who creates new scripture than that with Matthew Gill, who's the prophet, seer, revelator based in England? And he carried us the Chronicles of the Children of Enoch, and he claims to have translated the document, these plates, as well as, uh, documents of the people who built Stonehenge in England. And within the context of the Restoration, we're supposed to anticipate that there would be other scriptures that would tell of Christ that would rise up throughout the world. And so Matthew Gill is another example of a prophet who actually gave us scripture. And, you know, he's a good friend of mine. And not only that, but, you know, if you want to know what the Adamic language looks like, This is the Adamic language. This is the opening verse of the Book of Jaronik. That's the Adamic language. And it's, my name is Jaronik, son of Ishna, from the house of Ishna. And that's signed by Matthew Gill, prophet, seer, and revelator. And he sent this to me in England. And so like, as an outsider, like, people go to me and say, well, why do you talk about the Adamic language, Steve? I'm like, why do you bring that up? I said, well, it was actually Brigham Young and Joseph Smith that brought that up. You know, they introduced the concept. And so to me, it's like, that's what I find so interesting is talking to all these other groups because— and then the argument would be, well, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah is the biggest, that makes us the true church. I'm like, well, then if you're going just by size, well, let's say the Catholics are the true church, right? So why is it, you know, to me, the idea that there'll be a remnant being the true church, actually, in many ways, actually, I think you can make a stronger case for that than you can for a big institution. Now, And I just kind of— I gave us a little tour of all these different groups that claim it's some from the 19th century and some here, right in the 21st century, right, that are producing scripture to this day. And I'm like, you know, how do I— how do I take the claims that Joseph Smith made, made of plates and translation about an ancient lost race? And then— and then I have to say, well, why is it that this isn't part of the conversation? I brought this book up to Richard Bushman when I interviewed him. And he was very intrigued by the whole idea. And he even said, I wish I would have consulted you for my book, Steve, because what a great story, you know. And, and that's, that's the thing. Like, like John DeLinn, my good friend, he told me early on, he said, what we all could use is epistemological humility. So I also use Mormonism as a challenge to conventional Christianity.

Why?

Because I think we need— because I think a lot of these arrogant Christian apologists were saying, oh, they're all going to hell. And they staged their little protests during the temple openings and during General Conference. And these are not nice people. And they're very nasty. And I'm like, you do realize that there's more evidence for the tangibility of the plates than there is for the Exodus, and that there is for the resurrection. And they don't like that. But that's the reality. We have better witnesses for the place than we do for the resurrection. We have no archaeological evidence that there was an exodus. So next time you want to go, oh, you know, talking about the anachronisms of the Book of Mormon or the lack of archaeology, I'd be like, oh, so you're going to bring up horses? Well, guess what? The Bible tells us there were camels located in places where there weren't camels. There's anachronisms about even the animals that they were using in the Bible itself. So I think it's really important that that's See, if anything, I'm much harder on the evangelical camp than I am on the Restoration. Because I think the beautiful thing about the Restoration is that it forces evangelicals and Protestants, fundamentalist Christians, to have to deal with the reality that many of the criticisms that one can make about the Restoration can also be made about the Bible and Christianity. And unless they're willing to do that, then they lack courage. And I think they're cowards to not to go after Mormonism, use all these arguments, but then not use those same arguments on your own faith is cowardice on my part. So that's why, you know, and I try to reach out to these Christian apologists, say, listen guys, you're doing it all wrong. And they don't want it. They're not interested. They're not interested in having conversations with me because I make them feel uncomfortable because I'm challenging their faith. I tell Bissett, I'm here to challenge your faith. I'm here not to— I'm here to challenge your faith, not to weaken it. I'm here to challenge your faith, to strengthen it. And sometimes that has to deal with just the reality of history and archaeology. It's not so clear-cut here, folks, that almost every argument I could make against Mormonism I could make against Christianity in many ways. So why don't we have a little bit— let's exercise a little more humility here, folks, and not be so up on our high horse and just recognize that You know, I could be— you could be wrong. And I'm really— my heart really gets very heavy over what a lot of these evangelicals have done and said about the restoration over the last 200 years. And I really feel that in one sense, God placed me at this period of time to help bring like people like me and Jeff McCullough and David Boyce of 52 Churches and Eric— not Eric— Greg Johnson and other Christians, Richard Mouw, who in the, in the 21st century are having a different conversation with the Restoration, which I think it's— we're due for that. 200 years of fighting is— it's ridiculous. I'm sorry, I kind of went off on a tangent there, but I hope I'm—

Well, I think that's a tangent that sort of sums up this entire conversation, because I think if there has ever been an example of epistemological humility, I think Stephen Pynecker He's at the head of the line there.

Thank you.

Because I really believe what you are doing is so helpful to so many different people. And, and I see the need for that kind of humility in the church. You know, as in my own faith journey, I've sort of come out the other side to the point of universalism, and that I think that Mormonism is universalist at its core. There's always been that sort of tension. You know, you describe— I went and looked at the 137th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, which was added to the Doctrine and Covenants as late as 1978. But that's the vision that Joseph Smith talks about seeing his brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom. You know, somebody had told him Alvin's in hell, and he has a vision where Alvin is in the celestial kingdom. And I think if you press Mormonism as much as you can, you find that eventually everybody gets there. I think that all the strands of Mormonism have this sort of strain of universality, universalism, that I sort of hold on to, which is why I never really get bent out of shape now by people who claim that Mormons aren't Christians, because I just find that to be a really uninteresting discussion.

No, it's, it's, it's, it's a— I love that. It's uninteresting. The conversation bores me. I'm not interested in even having that conversation. It's just, it's stupid because it just— everything that you want to throw at the Latter-day Saints, I can throw right back at you, man. And that's why they don't want to talk to me, because they know that I would, you know, I got to throw that all right back at you. You know, I mean, when they say, well, they have, you know, they they talk about the God, you know, like, well, they have a different view of God. I'm like, you know, 99% of Christians, if you ask them the Trinity, to describe the Trinity, they're going to describe to you modalism, which is considered a heresy. So is it you go to the correct church that believes in the doctrine of the Trinity, but even though the people of the church don't understand the Trinity, does that make them— if they don't understand the Trinity, does that send them to hell? Or is it you're saying that because they go to a church that teaches the Trinity, even though they don't understand, they're going to heaven? I mean, it just gets so stupid after a while, you know?

Well, and you get this idea of you get to the other side and there's Jesus standing there with a theological quiz.

Yeah.

And I just, I just don't believe in a God that's that petty. Yeah. I look at John 3:16, you know, for God, you know, Jesus was not sent to condemn the world.

Yeah, yeah.

Through him all the world may be saved.

Yeah.

And I, and I believe that. I believe that eventually everybody gets there. I don't know how long it's going to take, what the route is, but I think that that strain and maybe that's heretical within the Mormon tradition, but I think that you can sustain that strain through an understanding of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and Joseph Smith's successors, at least in the Brighamite Church. And I think that conversations with, with evangelicals and conversations with anybody outside of the Restoration Movement degenerate far too often into who's going to hell and who isn't.

Yeah, it's stupid.

And, and nobody knows, right, the mind of God. We can't— we're not supposed to make those judgments.

I agree.

We're supposed to love each other. We're supposed to. And And I'm just so grateful for people like you that lay the groundwork for that, that make it possible for those conversations to at least begin. I think, I think it's only relatively recently I would sort of pinpoint the Mitt Romney presidency. He was never president, dang it. The Mitt Romney candidacy in 2012 when he was the Republican nominee. Yeah. The moment Yeah, you've got the McKay-Coppins biography there. Yeah, but, but that was the moment when, when Billy Graham took Mormons off the list of cults that was on his website, when the Republican Party sort of had to make peace with the fact that the Mormon was the, the standard bearer for the party and at least in America, the evangelical movement is so intertwined with the Republican Party. And, and that's a whole other discussion. It's— but, but the point being that it's only recently that we've stopped throwing rocks at each other, or at least we've slowed down.

Yeah, it's, uh, I mean, because you could argue that basically they've done the numbers. The reason why Mitt Romney lost Ohio is because hundreds of thousands of evangelicals stayed home, that they weren't going to vote. So there's still that negativity that was there directed towards Mormons. And I would say that I think we're, we're seeing on the, on the peripherals, um, you know, 3 years ago when I started this channel, nobody was doing what I was doing. And then next thing you know, uh, I kind of was— there's, there was a few people about 20 years ago, Richard Mao and Greg Johnson were doing stuff standing together. And they were the pioneers. And I actually, when I had Jeff McCullough on my latest interview with him, we talked about how they laid the foundation for us, a modern 21st century evangelical conversation with the Restoration. And this is all relatively new. And it's— but I do think the groundwork has been laid in the early 21st century. And so we're having more adult conversations with each other. I think that it will lead to better relations between our movements over the course of the next 10, 20 years. That I don't doubt. And honestly, I think that the evangelical world is much more influential on the Restoration than vice versa. I think that the Church often follows the lead of the evangelicals in many ways culturally. And I think that we're going to— it's going to be really interesting to see this evolution that is occurring in the evangelical world to see what kind of impact it's going to have for good and for bad on your church. So I'm— I feel like I'm here to help facilitate those conversations. You know, this— look, I'm not some huge major channel, but pound for pound, you know, I'd put us up with about anybody on its influence that it's had and the effect that it's had on their— I mean, breaking the news stories, having, you know, given presentations at, you know, I was asked to give presentations at John Whitmer Historical Association, Mormon History Association. I didn't put in for it. I was reached out to. And so to have people who have much, you know, they have PhDs and all these great people within, they respect me. They almost look at me as a peer. They've never pulled rank on me. Like they just, they're just excited to come on my program. So to have some of the top theologians, the top Mormon scholars come on my program, has been a unique privilege. And that's what's so exciting. And then just the culture, just even the culture stuff, you know, we have movie directors on, we have actors on, we've had famous, some relatively famous people on, we've, you know, and just to do that is just really amazing and even struck up friendships with a Mormon Apostle. It's just great to be in this really, I think, I'm in a privileged place, and I feel blessed that I'm able to have these types of conversations with people like you and, and many other people.

Well, we're so grateful that you've had this conversation with us, and we hope to have future conversations with you.

I think, I think we should have you guys back on my program too. What do you think? I'd love to.

Even, what do you think?

I would be honored, I really would. Um, I just want to say on a personal note, Steve, how grateful I am to have met you through Jim Bennett. Thank you, Jim Bennett. As I listen to you, I find you extraordinary, actually, in terms of humility, your knowledge, but your knowledge comes with a feeling of humility. You've got all this knowledge, but you don't— you're not arrogant. You don't claim— I love the fact that you're open to the idea that you may misunderstand something, or you may have made an error. You're always searching, uh, you know, for things. And you've got this perspective and this research and different religions, and you're, you're not a member of the church, and you, you, you— every claim or accusation against the church, you can come back with a, with a response. I think very human, very humbling. Um, but my goodness, what a— you're one of the most extraordinary individuals I've ever met. I hope I'm not embarrassing you by saying that. Um, and so I feel Personally, my life is blessed just from this conversation. I've learned, I've been a listener just like many of our other listeners on our podcast. I felt I'd been learning so many things from you and I would be honored frankly to return to your podcast and learn more from you.

And I want to say that I wasn't intending on this conversation to go this long. I've been suffering with my health the last couple months. And I have to tell you that for both of you to do like basically an hour and a half interview today, this is very exciting to me because I didn't know if I had it in me. So the last few interviews I did are like 20, 30-minute interviews because I was afraid of— I have a condition with— it's a condition that's a pretty severe form of tinnitus called high— oh, I forget the actual term.

High—

either starts with an H.. And I've got this great team of audiologists and ENT people that are helping me through this. And about a month and a half ago, basically I've been bedridden for a good part of this period of time. And this ear doctor who lives in Sarasota, he has his practice in Sarasota, Florida, which is the next town over. He's like, you know what? I'm part of a tinnitus support group. And it was a real blessing to have this tinnitus support group. Because I, two of the doctors, two, there's two doctors in the tinnitus support group that both have tinnitus and they both kind of taken me under their wing because as I described my, my condition to the group, they were like, they perked up because like, ooh, this guy has it bad. Like I have about as worse as anybody in that group. And so I'm, I'm just like, I'm avoiding sound because basically this, it reacted, it's reactive to sound. And essentially I was staying in and just being bedridden. And he reached out to me, said, "Why don't you come to my practice?" So we spent 2 hours talking to each other. And I just told him, I said, "Listen, I just want to be able to go out at night and hang out with my friends and have a beer or two." And he goes to me and he says, "You know, there's a German restaurant right down the road. Why don't you and I go and have a couple beers?" Now, this ear doctor did not charge me for a 2-hour session. And then he, and I said, "Well, I got to at least buy you a beer." And that really opened— he says, Steve, you got to start living life again. So then next thing you know, I'm hanging out with friends again. The next thing you know, I'm starting to tape interviews again. I'm starting to live life. And so I just want to say it was a real privilege to be able to come on because this was a challenge for me. I thought, well, maybe I can do 45 minutes, 60 minutes, but I'm glad that we had this conversation today because it showed that, no, I can get back on the saddle and do long-form interviews again. So thank you for blessing me.

Well, had no idea that that was a challenge that you were facing in terms of the time here, but I completely lost track of time. I could talk to you for another 2, 3 hours if you were interested, but we'll let you get back to your life here.

Well, I just want to just remind people, your listeners, check out Mormon Book Reviews on YouTube. Got over 500 episodes. I was doing 3 episodes a week, cutting back a little bit till I can get back on track. But basically, we've talked to everybody and we've broken many news stories. We do in-depth, deep-in-the-weeds conversations with some of the top scholars of Mormonism. So if you want to learn about Mormon history, but also modern Mormon culture, all these kind of things, you know, we've had Chad Daybell's neighbor come on my program. That was a big episode. So we also do true crime on our, on our program. So it's, it's, it's, it's more than just Mormon history. It's Mormon culture. And it's also broadened out to the culture in general. And also we even discuss world affairs, including the conflict in Israel. So if you're just looking for an interesting channel that has a lot of interesting variety, it's not just Mormon scholarship. It's a much broader conversation that we're having. And I really feel like in this period of time in which we're having all these— our country is being torn apart in this election year. What I'm trying to do is model, model how we can have conversations with people that don't agree with each other. And have a safe space for all the voices of the Restoration will be heard. And that's really what the context of this channel is, is to show that not only outside of Mormonism, that even within the context of outside of Mormonism, this is how we can have civil conversations. I don't, I don't know why there isn't more of this type happening, but if evangelicals and Mormons can be civil to each other in the context of this channel, I think that's a real important thing. So I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my, my story a little bit. I hope I was able to answer all your questions and let's continue the conversation. I'd love to come back on your program at some point as well.

Absolutely. So we'll let that be the final word. Thank you very much, Stephen, for your time and for your gracious discussion. And Ian, as always, thank you as well.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Steve.

Thank you. We'll see you all next time on Inside Out.