Apostolic Interregnum Thoughts - with Greg Prince

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

I am doing really well today, Jim. How are you?

Well, I'm all right. We once again welcome Greg Prince back to the podcast. Greg, it's just wonderful that you keep joining us.

Well, as long as I'm invited, I will come.

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, because your insights, I think, are going to be really helpful here. We thought we would recap what just happened at General Conference, which concluded just a few days ago. It was a remarkable conference in many respects, one being that it happened during an apostolic interregnum, which was a term that President Oaks specifically used to describe what was happening at the conference. It was a conference that was being led by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles because the First Presidency has not yet been reorganized, um, uh, in the wake of President Nelson's death. My guess is that This will sound dated because we're going to release this at the end of the week, and my guess is we will have a First Presidency by then.

So, and maybe insert a bit of history there, please. This first apostolic interregnum happened on the death of Brigham Young, and it lasted 3 years, right? And much of the reason it lasted was They weren't sure that there should be another prophet president in the wake of Joseph Smith's death. And it took that long for them to figure out that, okay, we need to do it and here's the way we'll do it. And then Brigham Young became president 3 years after Joseph's death.

Well, and they didn't reorganize the First Presidency immediately after Brigham Young's death either, did they?

No, no, I think it was maybe Wilford Woodruff who said the word of the Lord came to me and said, don't wait around anymore to do this, whatever.

Right. Well, I know Lorenzo Snow talks about that as being part of a vision that he received in the Salt Lake Temple.

He may have been the one who started that.

Yeah, he talked about going into the Holy of Holies and praying and feeling like he was just talking to the ceiling and then walking out. And my father, we were standing in the celestial room right after I first got my endowment in the Salt Lake Temple. And my father said, this is the spot right here. Well, Lorenzo Snow says that he saw the Savior standing on a breastplate of gold, telling him to not wait to reorganize the First Presidency. To move forward. So that's, uh, that's one of the few, I think, times where presidents of the church since Joseph Smith have specifically talked about seeing deity. We don't get that a whole lot anymore. We get hints of it, which— but, uh, well, so just overall—

yeah, Jim, just sorry, uh, just on that, because that's a big thing you've just said. It's huge, right? So we as an investigator, I was taught by the missionaries that the heavens are open, uh, revelation continues to, uh, flow towards the prophets and, uh, the prophets to the apostles see, uh, heavenly visitations on a fairly regular basis. There's a long history of that in the scriptures and a long history of that in the Doctrine and Covenants. You know, it happened frequently. What we don't talk about that now because that doesn't happen or it happens and we just don't talk about it.

Well, it depends on who you talk to. One of the things that's interesting is, for instance, when I was in Argentina last month and Kwet'en L. Cook accompanied the choir to Argentina, he gave a talk in our sacrament meeting, which happened the Monday after we arrived because we traveled on Sunday. And we arrived on Monday and we had a sacrament meeting and Quentin L. Cook said, uh, we don't talk about the specifics of how we are called as apostles, but I want you to listen to me. I, when it comes to the Savior, I know his voice. I know his face. And I, afterwards I was talking to somebody who said, well, he couldn't have been more clear. He's clearly seen the Savior. And my reaction was precisely the opposite. I thought, if he's clearly seen the Savior, then he would clearly say he's seen the Savior. And well, he's not allowed to talk about that. Well, if he's not allowed to talk about that, then how does he get away with— does he think that he's fooling the Savior by sneaking past him with this, I've seen his face, I've seen his voice stuff? I had this conversation in a group, in a private group, with somebody who said, Uh, he's, he's doing that, uh, in order to not offend the other apostles, because Quentin L. Cook insists that he has seen the Savior in private conversations, but other apostles don't make that claim, and so he doesn't want to step on their toes, which sounds to me like one of the best explanations for that. Uh, but I, I find that kind of coy did they or, or didn't they kind of stuff to be really, really frustrating myself.

I'll give you an opinion on that, Jimmy, for me. So, you know, seeing an angel, God, or a visitation from heaven is a big deal. I mean, it's huge. I mean, just think about that for a moment. You know, a, a messenger from the other side of the veil, a heavenly messenger visits this world physically and communes with man as a man converses with another. We make that claim. I don't think we've ever denied that claim. I don't think we've ever said that those things, uh, have stopped happening. We always said the heavens are open, but that is the most significant event in history of the human experience, human race. A God, an angel visiting a man or a woman on the earth. Okay. And if that's happening, then surely the world needs to know. And if it's happening, what are the What are they talking about? What is the direction? What is the instruction? Why are the prophets not saying we've had these visitations? Is it because they come across as crazy or unhinged or would be laughed at, mocked probably? But if it's happening, and it happened previously in the restoration of the church, the leaders back then were unafraid to talk about that and to speak about that and say, hey, these things happened. This is where they happened. This is why they happened. This is why it happened. And we're talking about them. And there is a lot of material evidence on the visitations, including, but not limited to, the Kirtland Temple. So either it stopped, the church has apostatized or done something wrong, and we no longer receive those revelations. And you'd expect to learn about them in general conference, right? You'd expect to hear about these visitations, these experiences in general conference, or at least read about them somewhere. So either it continues and we, uh, don't talk about it because it's too sacred, which is bizarre to me, or it stopped happening, or it never happened, or it is happening and they're afraid of being mocked and made laughter. Either way, if it's happening and they still believe it's happening or profess that it's still happening, then we need, surely we need to know about that because that's kind of the most important thing ever, right? Especially right now. Anyway, Greg, Greg, what's your opinion on the prophets receiving physical visitations from heavenly messengers?

It's really hard to argue from their silence, and that's what we're trying to do here. I don't know. I really don't know. And if you look back, particularly over the last century, there's just very, very little that's been said about it. I remember there was one entry in the McKay Diaries where I believe it was a reporter said, have you ever seen the Savior? Came right out and asked him that, and he put that in the diaries, and his response was, no, but I have I have heard his voice.

Well, there was another thing I remember in your book where somebody asked, when was the last time you talked to God? And he answered Thursday or something like that. Do you remember that?

I don't remember that part. No.

Oh, okay. So I don't know.

I do know I was in a meeting in, it was in Long Beach, California. Not long after Harold B. Lee became the Church President. And he said in his talk that, something to the effect, by night, as in dreams, and by day, as clearly as if I were to pick up a telephone, something like that. That's about the closest thing I've heard directly from any of the leaders about this?

Well, I know that my other great-grandfather, Heber J. Grant, did not even consider himself a prophet. Uh, he did not like the song "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet" because he considered the prophet to be Joseph Smith, not him. And he saw his own role as being entirely managerial. That he was the president of the church and it was his responsibility to manage the church, but did not see himself having the sort of prophetic authority. So it's, I think it varies from person to person and from experience to experience. And it was really interesting for me, and maybe this is jumping way too far ahead if we're talking about conference, it was really interesting for me to hear President Oaks talk. Particularly at the end of the conference. Ian, I think you bet that this was going to be a conference where they were going to come out and boldly address the world. And I think you would have lost that bet if you'd put any money on it.

I'm skint, as they say in the UK. I've lost every— I backed the wrong horse. I've lost— well, not entirely. There's a couple of things that I thought were quite interesting, but you know, my big bold predictions, uh, were— didn't come to pass for sure.

Well, very clearly, and President Oaks made specific mention of this, very clearly this was the conference that was baked in prior to President Nelson's death. And President Oaks in his talk even said, okay, this part that I've just given, I wrote after President Nelson died. And that was the part where, interestingly, he said, we're not announcing any more new temples, which I actually wanted to cheer. I was like, good. You know, we've got 200 temples on the docket. Uh, we don't really have any plan to fill a lot of these temples. They're being built in places that don't have the membership base to be able to sustain them. And the fact that President Oaks was willing to say, we're putting a brake on this. I thought was, was really kind of bold because everybody's come to expect it, and he's saying, we're not going to do that, we can't do that. But he also said, this was the part that I talked about, was that I wrote after President Nelson's death. The rest of this I wrote before his death, and it was approved, he said, before his death, which I thought was interesting. Who approves the talks of the First Counselor in the First Presidency, if not the President of the Church. So apparently President Nelson read the talk and approved of it.

Let's spend some time on the temples thing. I think it's— it may be the most important thing that was mentioned in General Conference.

Yeah. What do you think of it?

I have wondered for a long time what the underlying impetus is for this explosion in temple building. Uh, back in the late '50s, early '60s, there was a somewhat analogous explosion in the building of chapels. We had a building missionary program at that point. Which had ups and downs, but, uh, I think on balance it, it was a very smart maneuver. It started a lot of young men on career paths all over the world, but they were building chapels in places that really couldn't sustain chapels. I was in southern Brazil from '67 to '69. The last city I worked in had a chapel that looked as if it had been transplanted directly from Utah Valley. And we would have maybe 10 or 12 people show up at sacrament meeting. Full-size chapel. And I heard from one of the brethren who had traveled extensively in the South Pacific that there were Utah-style chapels on remote Pacific islands, and he scratched his head saying, why? Now, President McKay did what no other president had done and put 3 temples where there was not an existing stake. Unprecedented. That was done in England, in Switzerland, and in New Zealand. But he did it intentionally, ahead of his time on the field of dreams theme of "if you build it, they will come." What he was doing was to have that simultaneous with his announcement that the policy of gathering was no longer to be followed. And he felt that if we were telling the Saints, stay where you are, we were obligated to give them temples. So it was, I think, a much different rationale then than now, but the Washington, D.C. Temple which is within the boundaries of my stake, is now operating only 3 full days a week, whereas it used to be the flagship temple of the Church in the eastern United States and drew in its temple district from countries as far away as Brazil. So I, I don't understand some of these temples that are in places where it doesn't appear that there are enough active members even to staff the temples. Much less address the question, who will the patrons be?

Well, no, that's absolutely true. You know, my cousin talked about going to Belgium. I think it was Belgium. And his son is in the military and they were over there. He was visiting his son and they scheduled a temple appointment and they were going to be late for it. And they called the temple and said, I'm sorry, we're going to be late for it. And they said, oh, don't worry, we'll wait for you. And they got there and there were 4 people in the session, including the 2 of them. And it was the only session for the whole day. And it was the only day of the week that the temple was open. You know, you're seeing this over and over and over again. I mean, this was the reaction. You know, a lot of people ask me, weren't you thrilled? When President Nelson announced the new temple in Scotland. And I said, no, I wasn't, because I know what the church looks like in Scotland right now. There is not anywhere near the membership base to keep that staffed and to keep that full. Who's going to run that temple and who's going to patronize that temple? There just aren't enough members to justify it. And so you're seeing this over and over again. And the sense I got was that this is kind of the Scientology model. Scientology as a religion has all but collapsed in terms of its active participation among Scientologists. There are, by most estimates, about 10,000 to 20,000 practicing Scientologists across the world. But they boast about their magnificent growth because they've got a lot of money and they're buying a lot of real estate. And if you go to Seattle, for instance, they bought this city block in Seattle for their, their big Scientology center. And you go inside and there are 2 people in there running this entire place. There's a big Scientology place here in Salt Lake City, and, uh, I have never been inside, but I have friends who have gone inside who say it's the same thing. You've got one person, maybe 2 people in a, in a building that could accommodate 200 at least. And it's just, so the sense I get is that we are compensating for a lack of growth, uh, by just buying up temples because we can control, we have enough money and we could control that. And now Elder Cook, particularly in this conference, is saying, well, growth isn't a problem anymore. We had more people join the church this last year than ever before, and growth is just off the charts. And on and on and on. And I don't know what to make of those numbers. What do either— how do you— what do you guys make of those numbers? Do you think Elder Cook is accurately reflecting the growth of the church?

It's very difficult to put a finger on this because the church, which used to be obsessed enough with statistics that the statistical report in the April conference would take 3 or 4 pages in the conference report. And gradually they started eliminating many of those items, probably because they weren't going in the direction they wanted. So now we have very little in terms of hard data to assess this. I think much more significant than the total membership number, the 17.5 million or whatever it is now, is to look year on year at the number of stakes. Because you don't get stakes created in the absence of retained growth. And that's a number that over the past 3 or so decades has dropped precipitously. The number of new converts and baptisms of children of record that are required for each new stake. That's a very telling number.

In the UK, where we've got friends and family who are in leadership positions, so two things. One, on the temple point, Jim, there's the England London Temple and the Preston Temple. And we know people very well who work in the temple, those two temples. And they report that throughout the week it's, it's, uh, empty. There's very few members that show up through the week and then it peaks on a Saturday is like, you know, cause people are working, right? They've got families, they're working. They haven't got time, you know, people are trying to survive. So they need to work, work extra job. You never got time to go to the temple through the week. So Saturday is probably the only time, uh, to do this. And then it peaks pretty high. And then of course it's closed on a Sunday and Monday, but that's it. The temple's just kind of a one-day-a-week event. And then on the wards and the stakes there, we've had my old ward, um, divided, uh, you know, the Wakefield Ward used to be Wakefield, then it went to Horbury Wakefield where I grew up, and now it's come back to Wakefield. So there's quite a few wards and stakes which have now amalgamated, uh, you know, they split or they, they've, um, they've come back together again. There's been quite a lot of reorganization, restructuring of stakes and wards in the UK. So UK is hemorrhaging members. It's not retaining members. They've even closed and sold some of the buildings. I think it was a building in Glasgow, Jim Bennett, they sold off.

It's, um, they sold the Drum Chapel building, uh, decades ago.

Yeah, they sold the Drum Chapel, but I think there's been another building at least that they've sold. So, you know, the church is restructuring and in its strategy is trying to show that as growth. You know, we're reorganizing stakes and we're doing it because we're growing. Well, in the reality in the UK, it's not growing. There's a little bit of retention in England. The situation in Scotland is abysmal. It was bad when we were serving missions 30 years ago, real, in real bad shape. It's in far worse shape now for sure in Scotland. I don't know where they're gonna, you can't even get people in certain parts of the UK to fill basic callings. Either they're not available or for some reason they're unwilling or not interested in taking up some of these responsibilities. So I can't speak to the numbers in the US or Canada. We're seeing small, steady growth, not so much hemorrhaging here like the UK, but Europe, or certainly the UK, is just a lack of convert baptisms and a lack of retaining people. And the other thing I wanna add as well, we've talked about this quite a bit on the, on different podcasts. The church is not reporting so much now on convert baptisms and the growth that it used to spend all the time on reporting because it's not experiencing the growth. I don't buy the numbers from Elder Cook at all. I'll just, I, the reality on the ground in certain places is, is, is mixed. And so where's the church turned to, to measure growth? Well, it makes sense if it's being strategic to measure growth on things it can control. It can control the number of temples. If it's a real estate thing, I'm confused about that because what's the purpose of a temple? Well, unless you're going to convert it to apartment blocks and whatever, then, you know, its purpose is very specific. Uh, it's got a very specific function. Uh, but if it starts to measure, and I mentioned this on the, um, on our messages earlier through the week. One area it can show growth, which I think it should, and it can, and I think it's intelligent to do this. There might be some pushback on this. There's a policy in the handbook, or there was a policy in the handbook, that you don't measure the number of endowments that we do in the temple, right? You don't measure washings and anointings or sealings. That's a metric that we don't measure historically. We measure ministering or home teaching and measure convert baptisms and measure, you know, other aspects, but not necessarily the temple. I think that's going to change. I think the church will start to measure and report on endowments, washings, anointings, and sealings. And I believe we will start to hear more stories of even at General Conference, where leaders will stand up and share their experience that a member or members of their family who have passed on, who have died, whose work is being done in the temple, that they've had an impression that they've accepted the gospel and that those 5 family members, or that one family member who is in the, uh, other side of the veil, who's heard the message, received the gospel, accepted the covenant, that the church is growing on the other side. I think that, cuz you can't argue against that, you can't disprove that. And those are, you know, that's not inconsistent with what we teach. We teach that we go to the temple as proxies on behalf of our loved ones, our family members, and that those individuals have the opportunity to hear the gospel and to accept the gospel, and that we do the work for them in the temple. It's not a big jump to go from those experiences, which are established very clearly in doctrine and policy and on practice in why we go to the temple, to start reporting progress, uh, of those individuals going to the church, albeit in the next life. I don't think those caps start counting numbers of people who have, you know, accepted the gospel on the other side of the veil, but I think they're going to be spending more time discussing that and focusing on that and communicating to the members, look, There's not just growth here. The work, these temples that we're building, um, are, uh, uh, facilitating growth, if you like, on the other side of the veil. And I think that would be an intelligent, smart, and strategic move on the part of the church. As I say, you can't argue against that. It's consistent with what we teach. But other than that, how do they, uh, control, regulate growth? Where can they report growth? You know, it, it's gonna be a challenge for them. So they have to look at how the, because the, the church is supposed to be rolling forward across the earth and it's supposed to be flooded the earth, right? And if it stops, they can't report that it's stopping. Go ahead, Greg.

The two growth areas are Africa, which clearly is in the number one position, and then Latin America. So if you're looking globally, those numbers tend to skew the class average. If you look, Ian, as you say, in Western Europe, I think many of those countries are probably in a negative growth pattern.

I agree totally, 100% on that.

Well, let's dive specifically into conference, and I think we can flesh this out a little bit more when we get to actually to Elder Cook's talk. Did either of you watch— how much of conference did either of you watch?

I was tuned in for 3 sessions.

Okay. Did you watch any of it, Ian?

Zero.

Okay. Yeah. You're not, you're not in trouble. I'm not trying to.

No, I know.

I'm pleased to report zero, but I have done my research and I've got some interesting, uh, tidbits, uh, nuggets to share when you're ready.

Well, so I was there for Saturday morning session and I was there Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon, and I did not watch the two sessions where I was not there, but I have since read the talks from those sessions. And it was, if you sing in the choir, it's a wonderful, there is nothing negative about it. It's a joy. It's a blessing, full stop. That said, Sunday conference day is a very, very long day. I mean, you get there at 7:15 in the morning and you rehearse for music and the spoken word, and then you do your session, and then you rehearse in between sessions. You have about a half hour to eat lunch. They give you a box lunch, and then you come back. And by the end of it, I was just exhausted. Uh, but, uh, Saturday morning, President Eyring conducted. He was seated. Yeah, he did not stand up the entire time. He's wheelchair-bound to a wheelchair. And he announced the apostolic interregnum. And then President Oaks spoke as President of the Twelve, gave very brief remarks, uh, just sort of explained that he is not the President of the Church yet. And he says there will be no deviations other than this initial set of remarks by President Oaks and substituting himself in place of President Nelson as the closing speaker of conference. And he just sort of did that housekeeping and then stepped down. And then it was Gary Stevenson. And Gary E. Stevenson gave the only talk that I know of that directly referenced Michigan. He, he mentioned it in the beginning of his remarks, which makes me think— and I didn't see them on the teleprompter. For some of the talks, we could actually see the teleprompters. But usually they turn the teleprompters off and we just watch the, watch the speakers the way you would watch them on television. It made for a really interesting moment at the beginning of the Sunday morning session because they did not turn off the television on Sunday morning, so we couldn't see the teleprompter and we were singing a hymn that we didn't know the words to. Uh, and so if you watch the Sunday morning session, see if you can tell that the choir is fumbling. And because Mack Wilberg got really angry at us, we're all just, because we didn't know what the words were, uh, which I thought was really funny. But anyway, Elder Stevenson gave a talk and his talk was focused on being a peacemaker, on building bridges and not walls. I thought it was really wonderful when he said something about if you're going to post, think, does this build a bridge? And if it doesn't, don't press send, don't post. And I thought that was a really important message given just how much negativity there is, particularly with regard to the church online. I— this was, I thought, the best session of the morning conference, or the best talk of the morning session. Um, we had, uh, Tracy Browning spoke. She, uh, talked about primary songs. I thought her talk, there wasn't much to it, but she was a woman of color speaking, and so she was representative of a group of church members that don't get representation very often. Um, I'm looking at these other names. There were 370s that spoke. None of them jumped out as anything that was interesting. President Uchtdorf spoke. And talked about how Wikipedia talks about him as a German aviator, airline executive, and religious leader. And he talked about retaining proficiency as a pilot requires practice, and so does discipleship. It was a lovely talk. Not a whole lot of— again, to your point, Ian, not a whole lot of reference to the real world. Which was one of the reasons why I thought Elder Stevenson's talk stood out, because there was direct real-world application to it. But I thought there just wasn't a lot of heft to that particular session. Anybody else? What were your impressions, Greg? Was that one of the sessions you watched? Yeah, yeah.

I enjoy listening to Elder Uchtdorf. His use of the English language as a second language tends to be better than ours as a first language. He's just eloquent and so poised in his delivery. It almost doesn't matter what he says because you're glued into watching him. I agree with you, the others were less memorable.

Do you remember Elder Stevenson's talk, or did that not stand out to you?

I thought it was good. It didn't stand out. Uh, Jolene and I will occasionally say, if you cut these talks out and pasted them in another general conference, would anybody be able to tell? Yeah, I think generally the answer is no.

I think Elder Stevenson's might have been the only one that might have been out of place in another conference.

Certainly reference to Michigan would make it so.

With reference to Michigan. But, but if you took that reference out, it wouldn't have had any— make any difference. And the rest of them, yeah, were all— there wasn't a whole lot there. Ian, any, any comments on that first session?

Uh, I can't remember which was in each session, but I do have 2 or 3 talks which I found quite interesting. Do you want me to, do you want to focus on the first session or do you want me to comment on a—

I'm just, well, I'm just plowing through the sessions and just giving an outline. Feel free to jump in wherever you feel is appropriate.

Okay. I will do that. So I think, uh, the conference was, I mean, I've reviewed many of the talks and I know that these talks were written when President Nelson was alive. They were approved and they went forward with. The 95% of the program. And I get that it was a very safe conference. You know, there's temple, uh, comments. There was a few references here. I'm going to talk about Elder Rasband's talk in a second here, but I thought it was, um, a good conference in terms of its regular, you know, standard type conference. But I also saw it as a missed opportunity. Like we discussed the previous week when the three of us got together, we made these predictions. I think I was the boldest one out of the three of us saying, hey, here's an opportunity to, um, address the issues of the day and across the world, etc. And I see it as a missed opportunity. It is the only true church upon the face of the earth who speak with God on a regular basis. I think that, um, I think they could have taken the opportunity, but you know, whatever. Uh, there's a few things that stood out to me, uh, which I think was interesting. Elder Rasband's talk. Was on the proclamation was fascinating.

Let's get to that just because that's the first talk of the next session. So you're, you're right in line with where we are. So this is Saturday afternoon. Elder Rasband was conducted by Elder Bednar. Elder Rasband was the first speaker. Your thoughts on that?

Okay, so I didn't watch conference, but I'd done quite a bit of research. So Elder Rasband, and this will, you'll find this interesting, gentlemen. In April 2024, Elder Rasband gave an absolutely compelling talk titled Words Matter, April 2024. In that talk, he said this. Remember, he's a Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and therefore he's a prophet. He said here, words set a tone. They voice our thoughts, feelings, and experiences for good or bad. Unfortunately, words can be thoughtless, hasty, and hurtful. Once said, we cannot take them back. That is why first and foremost, the Lord's words matter. He goes on to share an experience that showed him the importance of power of a prophet's words. Remember, Rasband's a prophet. Elder Rasband explained in that April 2024 talk that he prepared a dedicatory prayer for the Bangkok Thailand Temple months in advance, but the night before the dedication, he felt prompted to add sentences and words that refer to President Nelson's October 2023 General Conference, Think Celestial. Elder Rasband said, I sensed certain words were missing, and by divine design, they came to me in a revelation, and I inserted these words in the prayer near the end. He speaks the words, he says, may we think celestial. Fast forward, to October 20th, 2055, the same prophet and apostle, Elder Husband, uh, misquoted the proclamation to the world. So the proclamation of the world reads this, um, fathers are to preside, uh, over their families in love and righteousness. I repeat, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness. But Elder Rasband, who states that words matter, prophets' words matter, missed out an important word. He said this, we read in the proclamation, quote, fathers are to preside in love and righteousness. Did either of you spot that missing word?

I did not.

No.

Now I, you, I don't know what you guys think of that, but I think that's kind of a big deal. If you are gonna give a talk the year before, about the importance of getting words right for a prophet, because words matter. And, and fast forward, you're giving this big talk on the proclamation, which is a very controversial document for many. And he talks about that, and I, I applaud him taking it, you know, being direct about it. If you're gonna quote the proclamation on words matter, please quote it accurately. Don't miss out important words like over. Because that word over is a very important word to me and I'm sure to many others out there as well. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I, I again, I didn't watch this. I've since read it. I know that Elder Stevenson's talk— Elder Stevenson— Elder Rasband's talk was easily the most referenced talk from this conference, uh, because a lot of the people that use the proclamation as a weapon to marginalize LGBTQ people were thrilled that Elder Rasband used words like doctrine. He insisted the talk— that the proclamation on the family is doctrine. He said treat it with reverence as the word of God. And then he told a sort of revisionist history story of how the proclamation was presented to the church. Uh, he tells the story, and, and that isn't it wonderful that we presented it in the Women's Conference? And if you research what actually happened, Chieko Okazaki was really miffed that it was presented in the Women's Conference because They had another plan for what to do in that conference, and President Hinckley said, we're going to read this proclamation. And she said, it would have been nice if we would have had a chance to read it beforehand. We would have liked to have added to it. We would have liked to have some input in it. Uh, so the proclamation was read without any input from the Relief Society. And, and Elder Rasband tells this story. Of just how wonderful this was, that it was presented to the women first, and on and on. It's also interesting to me that the significance of the proclamation has clearly grown with time. I'm now allowed to, I think, admit this, because I was on Mormonland with Peggy Fletcher Stack, who was the senior religion reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune., and she was very uncomfortable, uh, with me telling people that we are cousins, but we are cousins. And then I was on there and she says, in the interest of full disclosure, Jim is my cousin. So it's out there. And so now I can say this. I remember having a conversation with Peggy and she said that she had a conversation with, uh, what was President Hinckley's wife's name? Was it Camille? Camilla?

No, that was Kimball.

Kimball. So I'm trying— Marjorie. Is that right?

Yes.

Uh, yeah. So she had a conversation with Marjorie Hinckley after the women's conference, and she was supposed to cover the women's conference and could not be there and watch it live. And so she talked to Marjorie Hinckley afterwards, said, anything interesting happen in this conference? And Marjorie Hinckley's response was, oh no, same old, same old. This was the conference in which the Proclamation on the Family, which is supposedly the most revelatory document of our generation, uh, was first presented to the Church. So clearly Marjorie Hinckley didn't think so in 1995, and its significance has clearly grown over time. But it's so interesting to me to see how eager so many people are to seize on any indication that the proclamation is something more than it actually is. You know, in the Inconvenient Faith documentary, Greg, you're the one that tells the story of Elder Packer trying to canonize it on the fly, going off the teleprompter to say it qualifies as a revelation, only to have that struck from the record when the talk is printed. You're seeing some of that here from Elder Rasband with the use of the word doctrine, because everybody is seizing on that word online and saying, see, he said it's doctrine, aha, there, it's settled, we know that this is doctrine. And I just go, when was it not doctrine? It's always been doctrine. The issue is, what does that mean? Because those who seize on that word As you say, Ian, words matter. People use the word doctrine in a way to imply something is, uh, eternally true and unchanging. And we know from history and experience that there is no doctrine in the church that is eternally true and unchanging. Every doctrine in the church has undergone some degree of change, some radical change, some complete abandonment You know, the Adam-God theory was presented as doctrine at the veil of the temple and now is completely repudiated. So the idea that this is doctrine— the best definition, most workable definition of doctrine that I can find is the one that you find in the dictionary, which just says the teachings of a church or an organization. And I remember President McConkie, my second mission president after Ian left, said, uh, doctrine just means teachings. We teach our doctrines. And so very clearly, the Proclamation on the Family has always been doctrine by that definition. The idea that it is unchanging and unchangeable and is written in stone is belied by the fact that it has already changed how we interpret the Proclamation on the Family. Has changed significantly since it was introduced in 1995. Nobody in 1995 would have believed that it could accommodate the endorsement of the Respect for Marriage Act, making gay marriage legal in all 50 states. Uh, President Oaks had to issue a sort of correction to it when transgender members were interpreting the section about gender inclusively. And he made it clear, no, no, that's not what we meant. We meant your assigned gender at— assigned sex at birth. That's what that means. Well, okay, but that's not how it was interpreted initially. I mean, the idea that the word doctrine somehow cements something in place in a way that it can never be reinterpreted, never even be discarded, never be— it's just ludicrous. But that seems to be the primary message. That a lot of people online have taken from it. So I did— did you— what— and Greg, was this one of the sessions that you watched, or have you—

oh yes, yes, that, that talk caught my attention. Ian, first, to your point, your point reminds me of the evolution of the church policy on birth control, that where they started from a policy that said if you practice birth control, you go to hell. They eventually backed out of that and over a period of about 90 years backed into a reasonable policy, but they did so by leaving something out when they restated the policy later on. And that may be what's going on here. The other thing that struck me was this didn't sound to me like what Elder Rasband would have chosen to say. And I had a recollection of President Holland's infamous musket speech that I suspect without evidence that this was done by assignment. Elder Rasband, you will give a general conference address on this topic, it being the 30th anniversary of the proclamation.

Yeah, I can, I could buy that for sure.

Somebody did some research, uh, to determine— because backing up for just a second, there's always speculation every time the proclamation comes up, uh, when it's going to be canonized, when is it going to be included in the scriptures. And in order for it to be canonized, uh, all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have to unanimously agree, and then it has to be presented to the church by common consent. And the fact that that hasn't happened indicates that there must be divisions within the Twelve as to whether the proclamation merits that kind of canonization. And somebody pointed out that 7 different apostles that are currently seated have never mentioned the proclamation on the family in any conference talk. And I was surprised to learn that one of them is David Bednar. David Bednar has never mentioned the Family Proclamation, and he has this reputation as this sort of hardliner. He's the one at one point who said there are no homosexual members of the church, and yet the Family Proclamation has never appeared in any of his conference sermons. Is that— do you think there's anything significant to that, or am I just reading the tea leaves too darkly and paranoidly.

I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. All right.

Well, Jim, you touched upon some really interesting things. How many, uh, that's got me thinking on some stuff. How many talks do you think has been given since General Conference began? How long has General Conference been running?

Oh, it's been running since the, this was the hundred and Well, you do the math from 1830. First General Conference was April 6th, 1830. Um, so, um, this is the 190th, 195th, 195th.

195th. So we've been doing it for a long time and we're pretty good at it. And thousands of talks, agreed? Thousands and thousands of talks across a range of topics. What's missing? What's missing is, um, a talk on what is doctrine and what is not doctrine. When does doctrine become not doctrine, or when does it become canonized? And a talk missing on, uh, when is a prophet not a prophet? When is he speaking as a man? And what is the process for changing doctrine? And how do we know when the prophet speaking the words of God are his opinion? What's that? Process. I don't know any talks that go into that in, in great detail.

There are actually a number of talks that address each of those issues, and they're all contradictory.

Okay, interesting.

I mean, there are a bunch of—

I, I—

it's Elder Christofferson gave a talk where he says nothing is really the mind and the will of the Lord unless it is unanimously approved by all of these guys. President Oaks has given talks that are different. I mean, the reason you haven't heard sort of a definitive talk on that is that there aren't definitive answers to those questions. Right. But just— well, just look at— looking here, going through quickly, Saturday afternoon session, everybody else in the session, these were '70s. The only one that stood out was Kevin G. Brown. Uh, and it's not that the substance of his talk was all that significant, but the delivery was just really energetic and impassioned. And Kevin G. Brown is an African-American, and there were 4 Black, uh, General Authorities that spoke, uh, in this conference, which I thought was somewhat significant. Uh, I, I was wondering if maybe that this was a hint that we're going to get a Black apostle to replace President Nelson. But Kevin Brown's talk was just really— I went back and watched it because I was told that it was a real standout, and the delivery was just really stunning in terms of— you don't see that kind of energy in a lot of conference talks. These are essays as my Uncle Howard used to say, that are written to be read, not to be spoken. And so when you see actual talent in terms of delivery, it's notable. Uh, did you get that impression, Greg, when you watched it?

Yeah, and I wonder how much of that, probably to oversimplify it, comes from Black DNA. I've been in quite a few denominations, uh, predominantly Black, and there is a markedly different energy there that I love. You don't see that coming across in the Sunday school voice that most of our General Conferences and most of our sacrament meetings have. Uh, to me it's wonderful. I wish we had more of it. When there was the inaugural breakfast for the first Obama administration, one of the Area Seventies here was asked to give a 3-minute address, as were like a dozen other people at the prayer breakfast. And I was very grateful that his address came before the keynote address, not afterwards, because the keynote was a black preacher who knew how to get an audience worked up. It was magnificent. And if our guy had spoken after that, uh, it would have landed with a thud. We are so bland in our presentation. And I think in addition to having a tradition of boredom, we don't teach our preachers how to preach. We somehow assume that that will come naturally. It doesn't. And you can tell in a minute if somebody is the pulpit who has been trained in the art of preaching. We miss that.

I agree. I know you talk about this in your Roadmap for Improving Mormonism. A lot of people who go to the church, or many, I'm sure are quite bored. Even people with extraordinary messages who don't present the information in an interesting way, you can lose that. I can count on maybe one hand, maybe two over the years, you know, 35 years, the talks I remember, you know, how they delivered, how they communicated, and the feeling that I had. And we don't have that training, the speakers are not trained. To your point, Jim Bennett, one of the great talks here was delivered by Elder Peter Johnson, who is Black, and he gave a fascinating talk.

I thought that really was Sunday morning, I think.

Yeah, he says, so how do we become and how do we become and help one another become devoted disciples of Jesus Christ? We minister to the one. We minister in the Savior's way involves compassion, kindness, patience, and love without judgment. As we minister to the one, we invite the one to come into Christ and to worship in the house of the Lord. He goes on to say here, we learn from Jesus Christ the power of ministering to the one with love and without judgment. He also shares the experience about the Samaritan woman at the well, who felt unimportant, alone, discouraged, and unseen, and she may have felt that she did not belong. And I could really relate to this, Greg. Jim Bennett when I read, I didn't listen to the talk, but I read it. And he says here, throughout her life, she had 5 husbands and the man she was living with was not her husband. Others have imposed an unrighteous judgment without knowing her life circumstances. This may be one of the reasons she came to the well alone in the hottest part of the day. And yet she was one of the first to whom Jesus declared he was the Messiah. To him, this woman was a daughter of God. I hope the members, um, you know, hear that and, and, and listen to that and follow that, um, because I think, uh, it's really important to follow that teaching and that instruction because there's so much judgment for those who leave the church. I think I shared, uh, with you a while back. I don't think I shared with Greg, but a couple of years ago when some good friends of ours learned that I had left the church, they said, Ian, we're still praying for you. We're hoping that you'll return. We'll put your name on the prayer roll in the temple. I said, sure, you can do that. I said, I'd have to get, you know, rebaptized because I've resigned. And they went, oh, oh, we didn't know that. And they said, I don't know if that will work, putting your name in the prayer roll. On the altar because I've resigned. And they said that probably might not work. Um, and I've learned since that, uh, you know, that is kind of a semi-official position of some people in the church that if you're not a member of the church, well, you are not part of the ministry. You, you're not ministered to, you're not part of the one. And that's how I feel. That's been my experience. So I hope that the members listen to that talk and follow it because it's a great talk. And I also think it's great that the church is being more diverse and inviting and calling people of all backgrounds, all ethnicity, all colors onto the leadership. And I hope we will see a day where we'll have a a Black apostle because the church claims to be an international church and is the gospel for everyone. So I think the church leadership needs to reflect that. I think, yes, you're going to have it based on skill and merit and, and other qualities for sure, but also, uh, reflecting the, uh, internationalism of the church and the different cultures that, uh, beyond Utah, beyond America. I think that's really important. And so I think this is a good thing. A great talk, and I think this is a really good step that the church is doing in being more inclusive in regards to inviting people of all color and all backgrounds into the leadership. So I applaud the church for doing that.

Well, the thing that really stood out to me about that talk was that Elder Johnson specifically mentioned his experience discovering the reality of the priesthood and temple ban and how devastating that was to him. And that is not something that is frequently mentioned from a pulpit. The idea of some fact from church history that is troubling and triggering a faith crisis is, I think, a real step forward in terms of acknowledging the reality of troubling facts in our history and in our doctrine.

Yeah.

What was your reaction, Greg?

Yeah, I, I have heard Black members single this man out as their choice for an apostle someday, and I would be comfortable with that.

I would too. Um, and I'm wondering, I, I, I— he's on a lot of people's short lists. For who the new apostle will be. I'm betting by the time that this episode is released, we will know who that will be. So it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to be able to go through this. So we're coming up on an hour, and we can go through all of this, but I wanted to devote an adequate amount of time to Oaks's conclusion to the entire conference.

I was going to say the same thing. Great.

Because, I mean, go through a lot of these other talks, um, there, there wasn't a whole lot that I thought was particularly notable. Um, it was fun to see Matt Holland speaking. He was very interesting. He spoke about Jonah, and I sat there going, is he trying to say Jonah is an actual literal story? And he really straddled that line pretty well, I thought, because he never quite came out and said that. But if you believe Jonah is a historical story, well, first of all, you're wrong. But second of all, Matt Holland didn't say anything that would have offended you. But ultimately it was a fairly slight talk as far as I was concerned. Um, President Oaks. So I'm sitting here, I'm just going to give you a little bit of my play-by-play. Because I'm sitting up in the choir loft, and I've been watching all of this, and I'm exhausted. It's the end of the day on a conference Sunday, and I'm really anxious to go home. And President Oaks stands up, and I'm going, okay, this is really the first time he's going to address the Church as its leader, even though he is not the President of the Church. He had spoken earlier, but it was just all housekeeping stuff. He wasn't doing anything. And I thought, okay, what is he going to choose as his sort of inaugural message? And one of the first words that came out of his mouth were a reference to the family proclamation. And my heart just sank. I just went, oh no, really? Really? We're just going to get— didn't we already get that? From Elder Rasband, you're really just going to double down on the family proclamation. And I went, oh no. And I have never been more happy to be wrong in my life, because I thought his talk was absolutely wonderful in a lot of respects. One being, it was delivered with a kind of humility and a kind of sort of recognition of the mantle that has fallen on him that was undeniable and really powerful and very different from the tone you usually get from President Oaks. And it was a very personal talk. He talked about being raised by a single mother. I didn't know that President Oaks had been raised by a single mother. I probably should have known that. But he talked about his sort of personal experiences, and he was putting it and framing it in the idea of the fact that lots of families don't fit the mold of the family proclamation. And that reference to the family proclamation at the outset had me think, okay, this is going to be another LGBTQ bashing talk. He didn't mention LGBTQ issues at all. He used the family proclamation as a sort of expansive vision for the future and for the eternities, and the idea that we are all part of a human family. And I got, for the first sense, a sort of, uh, positive, visionary, revelatory approach to that proclamation that I have never seen before., and that gave me a renewed appreciation for it, because my response to the Family Proclamation has always been, this is just kind of a legal document that doesn't really have a lot of weight, and the fact that we call it doctrine doesn't really matter much. There's just not much to it. But President Oaks sort of gave a vision for it that I could get behind. Now, there's been a lot of complaints about some of the things that he said, like He complained that the birth rate has fallen, and it's fallen in the world, and it's falling in the church, and he wants to see that reversed. And I— a lot of commentary has been, yeah, good luck with that. The world has changed to the point where you need two incomes to be able to sustain a family, and the big families of yesteryear just aren't really realistic for today's generation. And I'm sympathetic to that argument, but I just was so incredibly grateful for the fact that I'm no longer afraid of an Oaks presidency. I can see, genuinely see the hand of the Lord working on him. I mean, I've been saying this for years that you can see him wrestling with a lot of these issues. Even his sort of adamant refusal to allow for greater inclusion for LGBTQ people. You can see him wrestling with that. You can see him trying to find different ways to justify it, and none of them really fitting and none of them really working. And now that he's out in front, now that he's the guy in charge, you can absolutely see, uh, how seriously he takes that responsibility, that he isn't assuming that role with the kind of arrogance that a lot of people were expecting or any kind. I mean, there was a, there was a vulnerability to him that was just altogether surprising because that is not a word I would ever associate with Dallin Oaks. Uh, this is not a man who was vulnerable. This is a man who always knows what to say. He was always the smartest man in the room., and is always in charge and also always sort of distant. And I didn't feel distant from him. I felt a connection to him. Uh, and I, I was just, uh, really genuinely pleased. It, it made the whole conference for me because up till that point I went, okay, great. These are a bunch of bromides. These are exactly the kinds of things Ian was talking about. These are not talks that anybody is going to remember. Remember, or that anybody's going to cite or quote even 6 months from now, let alone years from now. But that final talk was, in my mind, one of the finest I've ever heard from a pulpit there, and a real— a really encouraging sign that Dallin Oaks may very well be the guy the Lord wants to be leading this church at the moment. So I was very encouraged by that. Does that reaction resonate with either one of you? What was your reaction watching it?

I think that the emphasis on the family as the key unit of stable society is spot on. Uh, and if we can go that direction and in effect reinterpret the proclamation on the family to be inclusive rather than exclusive, I think we'll be in a better place. If I were to write my own proclamation on the family, it would consist of 6 words: you define it, we'll support it. And in a way, I think that's where he was going, talking about having been orphaned by his father at the age of 7. His grandfather stepped in to form a de facto new family unit. Um, that's great. I think we need to hear more of that and allow people throughout the church to define their own families where their circumstances allow it. Uh, I was in the bishopric of the First Singles Ward in Washington, D.C. over 40 years ago. And what we saw even then were de facto families that would just sprout up. It would be people supporting each other, having no blood relationship, but make a functional family that was very helpful.

Uh, Ian, did—

have you read the talk or, um, I have, and I actually, uh, I said I didn't listen to the talk. I did. I actually listened to this one, and I think it's one of the most significant talks I've heard in a very long time, and it will be— it is one of those talks that I will remember. I think Greg has nailed it, by the way. I just want to, you know, I think that's really important. And I also want to say that, uh, in regards to the proclamation, had we followed Greg's advice about bottom-up advice from the grassroots, the proclamation, I think, would read very differently. If we got feedback from the Relief Society and other members, I think it would read quite differently. I've worked closely for a short period of time with Elder Oaks. He interviewed me personally, privately, with Elder Cook. I was in the office with him. There were 3 of us in the office when we had been called onto the stake presidency. Elder Oaks did the interview. Elder Cook was his junior companion, as Elder Oaks referred to him. Later, we received some training. Elder Oaks presided over the, uh, I conducted the conference. Elder Oaks presided at the conference, the reorganizing of our stake. When I was having dinner with him and spent some time with him that weekend, I found him to be very professional, clinical, but very courteous, respectful, very intelligent, but not so much emotional. When he shares his profound experience. He says here, I will never forget the promise of my maternal grandfather, Harris. When we children were living on his farm near Payson, Utah, he gave me the tragic news that my father had died far away in faraway Denver, Colorado. I ran into the bedroom and knelt beside the bed, crying my heart out. Grandpa followed me and went to his knees beside me. And said, I will be your father. That tender promise is a powerful example of what grandparents can do to fill in the gaps when families lose or are missing a member. I, I felt a spirit. I felt emotion. I've never, um, seen or heard or felt anything like that from Elder Oaks. I think you're right, Jim. I think this, um, mantle that will soon be upon Elder Oaks change him and influence him. And who knows, we might see a softening and a repositioning on some of these hardline doctrines and positions that he's held for quite some time. So I think it was a great talk. It was an extraordinary talk. It will be remembered for a long time. And I think it's a precursor. I believe it's a precursor to the church re-uh, visiting the conversation about what is a family. I was raised, my mom was a single mom. I didn't know Elder Oaks, grew up in a single mom environment. I can relate to that. Family is different for a lot of people. It's not just the mom and dad and the kids. That's the traditional conventional model, but families are different now. I think reinterpreting the population is going to be really important, and I think we might see that. And you said at the beginning, Jim Bennett, that, you know, doctrine is— doctrine changes, right? Uh, and I think that the doctrine and the position on the proclamation, uh, will, will change and will soften as we go forward. I think overall conference was, um, a great conference. It was standard. There was some snippets of really important information, but again, I still see it as a missed opportunity to address things frankly and respectfully more important topics than President Nelson. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful or diminish the importance of remembering the great work that President Nelson did. And we need to probably mention that quick here, you know, the temples, the covenant path. He did extraordinary work. I mean, it was an extraordinary prophet and it's important to remember. And also there were other important topics. That the world is struggling with, and we see the church, we expect the church to, uh, address, or at least try to address, those problems in the world. And I still hope that the church leadership will do that in the coming general conferences.

Jim, let me just jump in here and relate something that Ed Kimball, the son of Spencer told me. He was working on his father's biography during the same period I was working on President McKay's biography. He said, my father was the best follower in the church. He would not have changed anything. And then one morning he woke up and realized that President Lee was gone, and now he had to lead, not follow. And he said, then the church changed. Now, I don't think you would say that about President Oaks, that he would have been reluctant to change anything before, but when a man moves from one chair into the president's chair, change can happen and often has happened. So we will await and see what that change is.

Well, uh, yeah, I, I am, I, I'm really kind of excited about the potential. As to where we're going to go, because I think this conference— this isn't a final destination by any means, but it certainly was, I think, a, you know, a great beginning. And it will be very interesting to see where President Oaks takes us. It'd be very interesting to see where the Church goes. But it's been also very interesting to be able to discuss this conference with you guys. And very much appreciate your insights. Any parting thoughts before we wrap this up?

I've said what I can say.

Ian?

I have nothing to add.

Nothing to add. We have said everything that needs to be said. We are the final word on everything. Glad to hear that. So thank you. Thank you both. Very much appreciate your contributions here and appreciate your insights. Thank you to everybody listening to this. We very much appreciate you. If you have any feedback you'd like to give us, please email us at insideoutfeedback@gmail.com. Also, we are currently experimenting with live streams on Wednesday evenings. At 8:00 PM Mountain time. And so, uh, put that in your schedule if you're interested in following us and having discussions and actually participating in those discussions. So, uh, very much appreciate this. And, uh, we look forward to visiting with you all again next week in next episode of Inside Out. Thanks, Ian. And thanks, Greg. You're welcome.

Thank you, Jim.

Thank you, Greg.