Come Away to the Sunday School

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

I am doing well. How are you, Jim?

I'm all right. So you're traveling, you're all over the place. Where are you right now?

Yeah, we've been away for spring break. We've had the most amazing spring break. We did the Oregon coastline and the, I think you've probably been to that part of the world before, but these are beautiful endless beaches, uh, you know, from Washington right down to, uh, Northern California. So we just had a, the first week was a beachfront property, which was just, you literally walked from the, the back of the accommodation, um, into some sand dunes onto the beach. And it was just very spiritual. It was just beautiful. No one around. It was just amazing. And then we headed down into California through the Redwoods, which I'm sure you've been and seen. And Redwoods, when you go to the Redwoods, again, there's another spiritual— I, I get a, uh, quite a spiritual feeling from these just ancient woodlands that, uh, you know, been around forever. Just beautiful. And then we came down the Highway 1 down California and we hit, uh, Bodega Bay, uh, which I'm sure you've heard of. Do you know anything about Bodega Bay?

I don't.

Bodega Bay is where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds.

The Birds?

Yeah, that movie. Yep. So famous British, uh, director there, Alfred Hitchcock. Uh, the birds, when we got there, the birds were behaving, which is nice. We didn't get attacked by millions of birds. And then we came around the corner and when you come around the bottom of that little, uh, end piece there, you then greeted with the most glorious, uh, uh, vista of, uh, the most amazing city, San Francisco and the bridge. And so we just thought that was spectacular. We've been there many times and then we headed and down there there's a connection point at Robin Williams Tunnel. And then we headed over the Golden Gate and we spent a week in San Francisco on the cable cars, Chinatown, some of the amazing restaurants. We walked everywhere. We, we know San Francisco really well. We don't need a map. Just a beautiful city. And now we're headed, uh, we took in a basketball game, the Golden State Warriors, and then, this is my travel log, isn't it? I don't know if people want to hear my travel log. We're now in Seattle. We've come up, uh, over the last couple of days or so, and we have a UFC fight this evening, or this afternoon and this evening. My son's into the UFC fight, so we've got a pretty spectacular day before we head over the Canadian border, uh, and back to work on Monday. So yeah, anyway, thank you for your listening to my travel log there.

Well, I hope you win your UFC fight. I think you're gonna do very well when you get into the ring. That'll be nice.

Yeah, I, I, I, I, I'll just start again soon, but I think I can, uh, I think I can do this. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So fun times and really excited. And by the way, love your podcast with Greg Prince. I came in right at the end there and just listened to some of the tail end of it and it clearly was a wonderful conversation. So well done.

It was very fun to see you pop up in there because the first thing you did was insult Ian Wilkes. And I thought, who is this jerk? I was there and then your picture was right there and I went, aha, somebody's having some fun here.

Yeah, that's my dad, British humor. So yeah, a little bit of sarcasm.

Well, yeah, so we are recording this the same day we are releasing it. It is a Saturday morning here and that gives you plenty of time to finish your vacation and finish your UFC fight and head to church on Sunday, where you will find a ward that might have a female Sunday school president at this point. Are you excited? I mean, are you looking around for a ward where you can find a female Sunday school president? Is that your—

That would be— yeah, that would be pretty significant. We've, we've talked about this. Way back, you and I, I know online there are people who saying that they've called it and they may have, but I, I don't know if you remember this, but when I was on the state presidency, you know, when we've talked about this on Inside Out, I mentioned it and you've mentioned it. I've mentioned it because back in 2009, I think that's what it was when I was called into a stake presidency in British Columbia. It was the stake president, the newly called stake president that mentioned this. It was either him or the other counselor. And that was the first time I'd heard the concept of stake Sunday school, of women being called into stake Sunday school or ward Sunday school. It was never my, uh, uh, idea or thought or concept, of course, but I did hear it, and I heard it from an active stake president in a stake presidency way back in '09. When we talked about it, I thought it made sense. You know, there's no ecclesiastical, uh, authority, priesthood reason why a woman can't be called into, um, stake or ward Sunday school. So I've kind of had that thought, you know, percolating in my mind for quite some time. Uh, and you've had your own thoughts on this. And from time to time, uh, you know, Inside Out's been around for 3 years now in April. I think we've been talking about this on and off for at least 3 years. That, so in my mind, that's where the idea came from. It didn't come from me, it came from our newly organized state prison. What, what's your earliest, uh, thoughts on, on thinking about this, Jim Bennett, and your memory of having these conversations about this. What is a very significant development for sure.

Well, um, in the grand scheme of things, I feel like it is significant. I think in terms of the facts on the ground for this specific change, I don't think it's particularly significant only because I don't think Sunday school presidencies are significant. I, I, and I say that as a former member of multiple Sunday school presidencies. My favorite calling in the church other than serving in the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, where I serve as a musical missionary— that is my official calling, which means that they are not allowed to call me to anything else in my home ward, which is really kind of delightful on its own too. But, um, my favorite calling other than that is gospel doctrine teacher, and I have been— I've held that calling multiple times. And then, uh, a couple of bishops have said, hey, you know what, uh, we want to use your teaching expertise to help other teachers, and so we're going to call you into the Sunday school presidency. And I went, oh gosh, really? Well, what does that mean? What it turns out meaning is I got to ring the bell at the end of Sunday school to announce that we were moving to the next round of the 3-hour block. I mean, that's pretty much it. I also, uh, was sort of on-call substitute. Somebody didn't show up to teach their class. I went in and taught the class. And I kind of like that. But if you look at how a ward operates, you look at the ward council, you look at the responsibilities that everybody in the ward has, the Sunday school president really just doesn't figure into that at all. So, I mean, I don't think that this is a calling. I'm not sure who it was. I think it was a member of my family who just said, oh, now women can be just as bored as the men can be in Sunday school. And I mean, so, so in that regard, it isn't— I think that this calling, it, it's, it's wonderful that they have acknowledged that you don't need priesthood authority to be a Sunday school president. But in terms of how it's going to change life on the ground in, in your ward or your stake, and incidentally, I mean, you talk about stake Sunday school presidents, the, the announcement indicates that stake Sunday school presidencies are still male and still need to be governed with priesthood authority. Also, strangely enough, um, presidencies all have to be unisex. In that if you call a female Sunday school president, the counselors also have to be women, and vice versa. If a man is Sunday school president, the counselors all have to be men, because we all know there is nothing sexier than Sunday school. The, the temptation as you're ringing bells in hallways for men and women to do illicit things is just too overpowering. I mean, it just seems very silly and childish. That, that men and women who work together in the world in every circumstance somehow wouldn't be able to constrain themselves in a presidency. I mean, it's so, so in and of itself, this actual change isn't going to change much. Where I think it's significant is that it's a crack in the dam. It's when you make a change like this, then it becomes harder to justify other sorts of things. Why, for instance, can't the ward clerk be a woman? Why can't the ward executive secretary be a woman? Why, you know, I mean, you go through all of these callings that are only for men, and once you sort of crack open the door, you see that there are plenty of other things that— and then it just becomes harder and harder and harder to justify the kind of patriarchal setup that we have in the church. And sooner or later you get to the question of, okay, well, why can't women have the priesthood. We're not at that question yet, or I mean, we're at that question for people that are considered to be sort of on the fringes of things, but that's not a question that seems to be percolating up into the, um, upper quorums of the church. But sooner or later, you, you end up with that question. It's the next logical step. And the reality is There is no scripture revelation, any direct message from heaven saying that the priesthood needs to be all male. It's always tradition. It's always, well, Christ only called men to be apostles. Well, that's how it's always been done. Well, all of the prophets were men, which actually isn't true. Uh, you have Deborah the prophetess described as a prophetess. And whenever we start teaching about things like that, you also have a reference to a woman named Junia in the New Testament who Paul indicates was an apostle. Uh, but we sort of wave, hand wave those away and just try to find other ways to fit our understanding of priesthood into the all-male box. And so, so I look at this as a positive step in the right direction, but if this is our end destination, I think that's kind of pathetic. So does that make sense?

It does make sense. I listen to your thought process and your assessment reminds me again of the conversation we had as a newly organized stake presidency organized by President Oaks, who called us and set us apart personally. And the conversation— I think this happened in the first few weeks of our presidency, uh, state president, I think it was the state president— kind of raised this concept. I don't know how we got onto it. And we then had an interesting brief conversation about the other callings that a the sister could be called to very much along the same lines that you described just now. Uh, so I share a lot of your thoughts and feelings, uh, with probably some additional, uh, insights into this interesting topic. Uh, for example, let me, uh, At this juncture, let me ask you a question. When you were called into the Sunday school presidency, was it a stake or ward level calling? It was a stake or ward Sunday school.

Ward Sunday school.

What was the scope of the calling? Can you remember?

Uh, it was pretty much, uh, again, pretty much my responsibilities boiled down to, uh, I was an on-call substitute if there were no shows. And I rang the bell at the end of the hour and that's pretty much it. I didn't do, I mean, it, it was, it was one of the most, uh, insignificant callings I've ever had.

Interesting. Uh, did you receive any training from the Stake Sunday School presidency?

No, not that I remember.

So here's the thing. I, our ex— my insight is into this is probably a little bit different than yours. Because we received training from senior leaders as a stake presidency to train the stake Sunday school presidency. This is really important, Jim, actually. And so I see the calling quite different perhaps than you do, based on my experience and based on the training we received in the stake presidency. But there was the seriousness and the importance of the stake Sunday school presidency, or the scope of that assignment, included quality of teaching. So it was very significant because it raises the concept of correlation. And the stake, in my experience, and in the training we received on the stake presidency, the stake Sunday school presidency, one of the remits or responsibilities which was extremely serious and very important, was to raise the quality of teaching across the stake. And it was broken down into two areas. One was learning. So how are the members learning and receiving the message? And what can you do specifically to increase the quality of learning? Very important that. In fact, it was taught to us and trained that there was nothing more important actually in the church than to learn efficiently and effectively, the learning experience. And the other side of that training was the delivery, the actual teaching, the quality of the teaching, the content, the delivery. And in our stake, Jim Bennett, we had, uh, uh, teacher training workshops. Did you have that in your stake?

Yeah, yeah, we did.

Okay, well, that was assigned to the stake Sunday school president, who actually, by the way, was a professional teacher. This individual was, uh, an award-winning lecturer teacher, I think, in a high school or college. I think he did both. Fantastic teacher. He was called as the state Sunday school president, and, and he trained me as a counselor in the state presidency about what it meant to learn efficiently and effectively. He was teaching me as a professional using his professional skills, and he also talked about the importance of teaching effectively and efficiently, and he took these training, uh, uh, programs. And he basically taught the stake presidency how, you know, the process and the standard to achieve in the stake in terms of the content, you know, what was correct in terms of doctrine and policy and history and what wasn't. Did you have any of that kind of experience at the ward level?

No, not really. I mean, everything— I mean, one of the, one of the main problems with the this whole Sunday school program is that it's just so facile. There's just no depth to it. And I mean, Sunday school classes for the most part don't really address anything substantive or meaningful. Everything's just kind of going through the motions. So no, there wasn't anything like that.

Right.

So I can't comment any of the stake, but our stake was operating at that level. Across every particular function. And I'd never seen or understood that calling both at the ward level or the stake level in that way, uh, until that particular time. This was professional training. We were, as a stake presidency, we were required to attend the teacher training because we were teachers. The stake presidency, essentially the, the ones in charge, and we're responsible for the quality of teaching. To make sure everything's being taught correctly. And if you think about it, you know, when we talk about correlation and talking about General Conference and General Conference talks and lesson material, you know that the church goes to great lengths to make sure that the message is correct or reliable or defensible and correlated. You can't have a teaching or a concept or principle out of sync or in conflict with something else. So the effort and the skill to make sure it's all choreographed, and we know that there are holes in it for sure, but that's the level that we operated at the stake. So I saw the stake Sunday school presidency and the ward Sunday school presidency as very— looked at it very differently and in a much more serious tone based on that level. And there were ways of measuring the quality. They would do like little quizzes and tests to make sure that you knew your stuff. So I think we were a pilot stake for raising the game in terms of learning experience and teaching experience. So through that lens, that perspective, that insight that I have, I see these callings in that context at least being quite significant. To your other point, I agree. I think you're in the, I think you are saying that it's an important symbol. It's an important, you know, crack in the dam, I think you said. And I agree. I think it's symbolic that this could potentially open the way forward for women to receive other leadership callings. Okay, perhaps not start off with anything in terms of ecclesiastical or priesthood authority. However, you know, the stake and ward Sunday school can make decisions. They've got a budget. If the training and teaching at the level I've just described, well, it's kind of kind of the serious stuff, right? They, they get to influence, uh, you know, the, the, the quality of teaching. They measure the quality of teaching across the state, which is the church takes extremely seriously, by the way. We were, we were advised that by general authorities that the teaching, the content is the most critical thing because that's what, you know, that's what our faith hinges on is learning and teaching the, the message of Christ. There's nothing, it's kind of central to everything, right? And so I agree with you that I think it's symbolic and I think could open up the way to, you know, stakes in the school where a sister could be called there, no reason why they can't. There's other callings. And then going beyond that, you and I have talked about this with hope and some enthusiasm. We don't see any reason ultimately why a sister could not be a bishop. I get the You know, the unisex thing, I understand that. I think there's some importance and value to that, but there's no reason why a woman with two female, you know, sister with two female counselors couldn't operate easily successful, frankly, as a male bishopric or a branch presidency or even a state presidency. I don't see, On the other side, the flip side to that, if you look at other religions like the one I grew up in, Church of England, and you know, you know a bit about this 'cause you served in Scotland, you know about the Church of Scotland, you know, you know about the, the Free Kirk, you know how male dominated those religions are. You know firsthand 'cause you've, you've served in, you know, you've, you met people from the Free Kirk. I've met and taught those individuals, these men, and even met ministers as you have, and the feeling and strength and, um, uh, unyielding, unbending, uh, mindset that these men have got, especially men of the cloth, right? As it's just like, uh, there's no way that of those kind of individuals will allow a woman to be in charge or even, heaven forbid, make decisions. And I come from that religion originally, you know, before I joined, you know, the Mormon Church at the age of 16. I grew up in the Church of England, went from time to time, and it was all male-dominated. You know, men are in charge, men make the decisions. And if you go back in history, in these kind of organizations and many other organizations, there, there is very few— if you go back far enough, there's just no women in charge at all. You know, women didn't— couldn't even vote, uh, not that long ago, right? So men have up this— these systems of control to keep women out of decision-making. If, if you did a flow diagram, and I won't get too technical here, of the, the callings in the church, And I invite you to challenge this, by the way, that I would say, hmm, most key, key decisions of importance and value has to go through a man. Would you agree with that?

Oh yeah. I mean, one of the ways it's framed when we did the Inconvenient Faith documentary, I always come back to Janis Spengler saying there is no decision that any woman makes in the church that cannot be overruled by a man.

Right, right. So that is a culture, right? It's a cultural thing. It's a man thing. It's a system of control. Men, uh, for a whole bunch of reasons, don't want women making decisions. Yeah, I think some men feel threatened. Intimidated. I think they're the ones that feel quite insecure, that feel it's like an authority thing, right? You know, there, there are certain types of individuals that are quite dominant. They want authority, they want to make the final decision, and only a man can make that decision. We know that that mindset, uh, is, it's in the corporate world. We see it in, you know, in the In the business world, we see in, in these different religions, et cetera. And I, and I, and I think it's so, uh, out of date and antiquated and so far removed from modern progressive thinking. It's just, you know, you look at, we've advanced a lot as a civilization for sure, but on that front, we've still got a long way to go. You know, it's, you know, 2026 and we're still having difficulty, struggling with allowing, and use the word allow, that's an interesting word to use, isn't it? Um, with women making decisions and relinquishing that. It seems that some people find it very difficult to relinquish authority because they feel threatened, intimidated, probably feel a woman can't make that decision. And it's just so out of date. And antiquated. And you think the true church, again, you know, we, we, we make reference to the true church. We think the true church is it being, as it's trying to be, um, equal and fair and balanced and show leadership in ways that other churches are not. You know, we look to our church to lead on things, don't we? Because it's the only true church. And you'd expect the Only True Church to be leading on a whole bunch of stuff and to, to be changing, to be kind of trailblazing on things, right? Um, there's an interesting tie here, Jim, with the, um, Community of Christ Church, isn't there? Uh, remind me, what did they do with women in the priesthood then? I think they did go I think, I think they do have an equal.

Well, the president of their church is now a woman.

There we go. Right. So they have modernized themselves. They've got this modern, professional, liberal, um, balanced, mature, even thinking where they see men. In fact, the scripture's clear. All are alike unto God. When I read that scripture, I think that I take that literally, Jim Bennett, you know, all are alike under God. That means that all, we all have qualities and attributes, strengths and weaknesses, male and female, you know, old and young, et cetera, et cetera. And I think the Community of Christ Church has embraced that concept completely. I think from what I, I'm not an expert in, in that particular faith, but, you know, calling a woman to be the prophet and, and then calling other, uh, men and women equally, uh, you know, based on skill, presumably, and attributes and qualities, et cetera. That's surely, that's the way to go. And I think our church should look very closely at the example of the Community of Christ. And follow that path, follow that, uh, you know, uh, way forward. President Oaks has singled out podcasts. I think he doesn't, he doesn't like certain podcasts. He doesn't like people, you know, telling him what to do. Doesn't, you know, the church doesn't like being told what to do, and we're not in a position to do that. And I don't think this is gonna change. You know, it's gonna, it's another example of many where it will be decades, perhaps, Jim, where before a sister is called onto a bishop. I mean, that would be huge. Do you think that would ever happen? Do you think the, uh, our church would follow suit with the Community of Christ, or do you think we're being a bit unrealistic?

Well, again, uh, Changes in the church, I mean, yes, it would be wonderful if the church were to lead out on things, uh, and it would be wonderful if the church, rather than being the last bastion of institutionalized racism until 1978, had instead championed civil rights from the get-go. And to some degree, Joseph Smith was willing to do that, and Brigham Young put the kibosh on that. But that's another thing altogether. And, and I'm— to me, and that's kind of another discussion. I mean, you keep bringing it back to this idea that, okay, well, the only— it's that, that means we're not the only true church. And I don't see it in those terms. I mean, I, I think whenever you look at the Lord's covenant people, they aren't necessarily the best people. I mean, if you look at the children of Israel, in the Old Testament, how many times were they wandering in the wilderness, screwing up? So, so, but I think that's a separate discussion to some degree. I don't want to go too far down that, that rabbit hole, but I want to talk about the implications here and where I think this is going, because I think greater inclusion on every front is inevitable, uh, whether the church likes it or not. The church, uh, is continuing to make accommodations to reality. I mean, this is— oh, okay, yeah, we really don't have any justification for withholding a Sunday school presidency from a woman. Okay, here you go, there it is. We've got women as Sunday school presidents. We're done. Can we be done now? You know, and no, you can't be done now. It doesn't work that way. One of the— this is mildly political, but back in the 1980s, when the Soviet Union was still a thing, and Mikhail Gorbachev says, oh, we're going to do glasnost, we're going to do openness, we're going to do transparency. And, but we're only going to do it this much. It's like, no, you don't get to just do it this much. Once you open the door, once you have a crack in the dam, eventually the dam breaks. Eventually you can't withhold that because that's the direction that everybody wants to go. And sooner or later the church is going to have to get there. Will it get Will it get there in 10 years? Will it get there in our lifetime? I don't know. I don't know. But that's the trajectory. And it's, it's really interesting to me because a couple of other things. I've got a video here. It's about a minute long. And this is, uh, Jean B. Bingham, who's the former, uh, general president of the Relief Society. And she's talking about the changes in the temple language. You know, under President Nelson, there were changes made to the temple endowment ceremony that most people did not think they would see in this lifetime. When we first went through the temple, Ian, as you remember, women covenanted to obey their husbands, uh, as long as they were following the Lord. And many people, including me, were really unsettled by that. It's like, really? Women obey their husbands? That's the covenant? And so in 1990, that language changed to, uh, I covenant to obey the law of the Lord and hearken unto your counsel, my husband, as you hearken unto Father. Uh, so the woman doesn't covenant directly to obey her husband, but really there isn't much of a change there. Because she's still making the covenant to her husband. She's not making a covenant directly to the Lord the way Adam is. And she still has to hearken unto his counsel. Adam doesn't have to make a covenant to hearken unto Eve's counsel. So, I mean, it's a step, a very small step, but again, a step in the right direction. Well, under President Nelson, the woman and the man both speak directly to Heavenly Father and make exactly the same covenant. And that, that's a much, much bigger step. Although again, observers say, okay, well, what happened was that whole idea of the man being in charge, we just slipped some language into the ceiling. Prayer or Covenant, where the man is told on the ceiling that he presides. And so, so we're just sort of moving— it's a shell game and we're moving the shells around. We're not really changing anything, but we have more inclusive language. So this unfortunately seems to be the way that the church makes changes, slowly, haltingly, one step forward, maybe two steps back before going forward again. But Gene B. Bingham here in this video I'm about to play talks about the experience of changing the language, uh, in the temple covenants. So let me, let me, uh, unmute this. I don't know how to start it over, it just keeps going.

Is the way that he phrases it.

Never ever felt put down or dismissed anything negative. It was always welcomed, and your contributions were valued.

You were president of the Relief Society of the whole world during COVID the change in ministering, home-centered, church-supported.

I have seen over and over and over that the Lord Jesus Christ is in charge of His Church.

You've seen revelation firsthand. Are there any moments in those meetings where you could see that revelation come to pass?

I was called to come and meet in the temple and talk to the Brethren about possible adjustments to language. My name is Jean Bingham, Relief Society General President.

Take us into one of those rooms. What was that like for you?

The original language made some women feel that they were not as valued. That was a total misunderstanding. If you know the Savior, you know our Heavenly Father at all, they value the daughters of God. It didn't change the doctrine at all. It just changed how it was said. That was one of the most sweet experiences of my life. We would go in and we would—

President Oaks basically acknowledged that the Church hasn't always fully utilized the great gifts of its daughters is the way that he phrased it.

You never ever felt put down or dismissed, anything negative. It was always welcomed and your contributions were valued.

You were— Okay, so it's going in a loop there. So I— we started in the middle and came back around to it. But what's interesting to me about that video, well, I'd love to get your reaction first before I pontificate. I mean, that's your, your first time seeing that. What's your reaction to that?

Yeah, I've got a few comments. I've got two primary thoughts. One is, I know you didn't wanna go down the rabbit hole earlier in regards to the Only True Church, and I get that. However, you can't escape the fact that in this example as well, we're reminded that Christ is at the head of the church. He's in charge. She said that, right? So we can't get away from that. I know we don't— gonna talk about, but that's a really important thing to, to, um, to highlight. She also mentioned that women felt undervalued, unappreciated. And then she said it was a misunderstanding. That was not the intention, right? I got the impression she was putting that responsibility on the women. You women attended, you got it wrong, guys. You misunderstood. That's not what the intent was at all. I didn't like that at all. That kind of irked me, frankly. And if I've got that interpretation, others might have that interpretation as well. The other thought is that, yeah, they, they, it's like a, the word that comes to mind is concession. These are, the church is under pressure on across the different fronts. And in order to manage expectations and people's faith in the system, they make a concession. They'll change something, you know, like the state's Ward Sunday School. This is another example to your point where the church has made a concession and said, hey, okay guys, you wanted this. We never intended that. You misunderstood it, but whatever. We'll actually make some changes and make it a little bit clearer so that you feel valued. It's another concession. It's a small but important step. So overall, generally, it's good, you know, that they're making these changes. It's generally positive. It's kicking and screaming. It's a, you know, if you did put the pressure on the church, here's the thing. Would the church be making these changes if they didn't feel pressure to make these changes? Probably not. So, and do these changes, you know, where do they get that information from that women didn't feel valued? Is that a survey? Did they do a survey? Probably. Does that survey exist? You know, what, what do, you know, what's that process for really finding out what people think? And, and also if you're gonna change the words in the temple, Doesn't that go through some kind of revelatory process that you, you say, you know, you've got this, these concerns from the membership, you then take them to the Lord as the prophet, especially on the temple endowment and the words. You know, we talked earlier about Sunday school training and teaching and the, the, the essential, um, uh, work. As we were taught and trained, that you teach correctly and effectively. And the words matter. Each word matters. Each word is important to make sure that we understand the gospel. So when you're taking, uh, the, the language, the issue around language, and, uh, to the Lord on something like the temple, presumably there's some revelatory process that you go to the Lord And if you like the Brother of Jared, where the Lord expects you to come to him with a solution, the brethren will have said, uh, Lord, you know, like we do on a bishopric or stake presidency, we wanna change the words to these words for these reasons. Presumably that happened. Uh, they don't talk about that, I don't think. But they're my 3 or 4, uh, initial reactions, thoughts to what I just heard.

Yeah, and I agree with all of those. Your first reaction there is the one thing that really rubbed me the wrong way with this. The idea that, oh geez, some women just misunderstood. Golly, I don't understand why women would think that they're subservient to their husbands. Just because they make a covenant where they're subservient to their husbands. I mean, there's so much— the word gaslighting really is overused and kind of a cliché, but I don't know that there's any other word that applies here. There's so much gaslighting.

I agree.

With regard to so many things in the church. I am reminded, for instance, Do you remember on our missions, when were we supposed to challenge people to be baptized?

Oh yeah.

Do you remember?

I do remember. So I was trained in the NTC and on the mission by the mission president and the missionaries to challenge at the first opportunity, including the Holy Ghost dialogue. Or in the first discussion.

Yep.

If, if we felt so, you know, prompted to do so, so early on we were encouraged to challenge and I, I did, I was one of those mishas that I couldn't believe what was coming outta my mouth, Jim. I just met this person like half an hour ago. I'm not kidding. You know this, you know this from personal experience. Within half an hour, at times I found myself challenging or inviting someone within an hour, being gracious here, on my knees, praying to ask if this was the true church on the earth. And if they felt something that they, that, that, that meant, 'cause I kind of preempted it, that meant that they, the Spirit is inviting them to get baptized., and that happened often, you know, because I was kind of a bold, uh, kind of missionary, you know. That's what I was taught to do. I didn't shirk from that. And within an hour, people were on the knees thinking all kinds of stuff, and there we were challenging to get baptized. I only met them an hour ago.

Yeah, I mean, I remember specifically, like, there was a training led by Elder Ballard, a video training that we watched. And I remember because Brandon Clark was the AP at the time. And in, in the training, there was a sister missionary who was an African-American, and her name was Sister White. And I remember Brandon Clark turning to me and mouthing the words, "Sister White," like, isn't that odd? So I guess we were borderline racist in that moment. But I, I cite that because I remember the specific training. It, it did not happen— it was not just sort of, uh, you know, we got the wrong impression. Uh, in that training, Elder Ballard specifically said you should be challenging people to get baptized in the first discussion. And the idea was, the minute they feel the Spirit, it is never wrong. To challenge them to be baptized. That was repeated. I mean, so, so that came directly from Elder Ballard. I remember the exact training when that happened, but that was repeated over and over again. And I even have a memory— I'm less certain on this— but that there was a little sort of paragraph in the marginalia of the First Discussion pamphlet that said, if you feel so inspired, challenge them to be baptized. So Elder Ballard is also the guy who, when the fallout from people being challenged to be baptized way too early and just— it sort of all collapsed into a big mess— the church then came out and said, don't do that, we don't really know why you're doing that. I mean, we can't understand— and it was Elder Ballard— it's like, we— nobody really knows where that mistaken instruction came from. And I sat there going, I know it came from you. You said that to me in a video training. It came from you. And so this kind of gaslighting, uh, just really makes it difficult to applaud and appreciate change when we're supposed to essentially— I mean, if you listen to Sister Bingham there, she says, oh, this doesn't change any of the doctrine. This doesn't change anything at all. This is just nicer language for the people that mistakenly thought that covenanting to your husband meant you were covenanting to your husband. You know, I mean, it's, it's just the, the church is never able to say, yeah, you know what, that old language was bad, here's some better language, we're sorry we, we didn't quite get it right before, now we're doing it better. The church is never capable of doing that.

Yeah.

And, and that is, that is the reason I think that change comes so slowly is because you have to make changes in a way where you can plausibly pretend that there hasn't been a significant change.

Yeah.

And, you know, the, the only exception to that in my lifetime has been the Priesthood Revelation. But even the Priesthood Revelation, if you go and read Official Declaration 2, It talks about how the time has come that has long been promised, as if we were all expecting this to happen. And the revisionist history is, oh yeah, we always promised that Black people were going to get the priesthood, and it's not a surprise. It was withheld for a while for reasons we don't know, and now here they have it, and we always knew that was going to happen. Well, no, we didn't. You go back and you read the statements of Brigham Young, and he says, yeah, Black people will get the priesthood after everybody else does, uh, and every son of Abel has the priesthood, and the Lord has come, and it's in the Millennium. I mean, he made it very clear. Well, yeah, it'll happen. And then you have people like Mark E. Peterson say, oh, black people can go to the celestial kingdom. They'll go as servants, you know, to the white people. I mean, we, we, we, we just, we, we try to, and again, it comes back to my, my broken record of infallibility, fallibility. We try to prop up this illusion of infallibility, and every time we make a change, we have to somehow claim that what we were changing was right and what we're changing to is right, even if they're diametrically opposed to each other. The other thing that happened since the last time we talked is that I went down to the Journal of Mormon Polygamy conference, and I was one of the panelists in a discussion about the 1886 Revelation to John Taylor. And it was a really interesting discussion. We had a guy in there who was a fundamentalist, and I think he was a polygamist, although he didn't— I mean, he seemed to very strongly imply that, certainly believes in polygamy. And there was Rick Bennett, who is an independent historian. I'm not related to him, but I am happy to claim him. He's a good guy. And he gave a very sort of scholarly kind of framing of everything. And then there was another guy who was a lawyer who just dismissed it out of hand, the 1886 revelation. And he was more of sort of an orthodox mainstream Latter-day Saint. And I talked about it. I said, look, I don't have any special scholarly insights into this. I'm just going to talk about this in terms of my own understanding of revelation, how revelation works. And at one point in the discussion, I told the story, and I've told this story on the podcast before, but I think it fits into how we're talking about this now. Told the story of the Manti Temple. And when they announced that both the Manti Temple and the Salt Lake Temple were going to be remodeled, those were the only two temples that still did a live endowment ceremony.. And the promise was at the outset, don't worry, we're going to keep these as live endowment ceremonies. And these are pioneer-era temples with historical artwork and murals. We're going to keep all of those too. So you don't need to worry. We're just going to spruce up the— spruce up the building and everything's gonna— we're still gonna— we're not gonna change any of that. Well, That went out the window with the Salt Lake Temple very quickly. They announced that they were going to just move to a film, and rather than having a live endowment, and they gutted all of the pioneer era murals that were in the temple. And they said, don't worry about it, because we've taken pictures of all of them, so we know what they looked like. I'm like, that's, but you told us you were not going to do that, and then you did that, and then it's it's somehow our fault that we're unsettled by that. So the announcement is then made, yeah, we're going to gut the Manti Temple too. It's no longer going to be a live endowment, and we're going to tear out all the murals. Well, the murals in the Manti Temple were painted by Minerva Teichert, who is— was a pioneer era artist, uh, who had a very unique style and is very uniquely Latter-day Saint.. And I've never seen the murals in person. Apparently some of them have some sort of racial problems with them. They're very dated and they haven't aged well necessarily, but they are a historical artifact and they're part of our history. And just gutting them to turn the Manti Temple into just another temple like all the other ones is, you know, there was a lot of outrage about that. It was, okay, you told us you weren't going to do this in the Salt Lake Temple. You did it in the Salt Lake Temple. Now you're telling us you're going to do it in the Manti Temple. We don't like this. So there's this huge outcry over this, and eventually Elder Rasband comes back and makes an announcement to the church and says, we have had a revelation, and the revelation is We're going to build another temple nearby in Ephraim that will be a working temple, and we're going to transform the Manti Temple into a museum, and we're going to preserve all the Minerva Teichert murals, and therefore it will be a museum but it won't be a working temple, and that's what the Revelation told us. If he had stopped there, I would have been thrilled, but he didn't stop because what he said next after that was the protests and the pushback that we got about gutting the Manti Temple had no impact on this revelation. It was not a consideration. It had nothing to do with this. This revelation came fully independent of the people who were clamoring for it. And that drives me crazy. That drives me nuts because that's never been the way revelation has worked. That's never been the way we've been taught how revelation is supposed to work. We have always been taught that you get revelation when you ask a question. And so, Ian, when you make the point that the church is responding to pressure, yeah, of course it is. That's the way it works. That's the way it works. You know, in any situation, when you're in a professional environment and you have a problem, you respond to the problem. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how life works. Oh my goodness, we didn't anticipate this. We have a problem now. How are we going to solve it? I mean, that's how life works. But somehow the church is trying to tell us that that's not how the church works. The church just sort of barrels along forward, pays no attention to the demands and the clamoring of the membership, and out of nowhere come these revelations. And isn't it great that we just sit there and take dictation from the Lord? Without having to do any effort on our part to do all of that. So that illusion is so important to the Church, and I don't understand why, because it cannot endure. It's not going to survive. It certainly cannot— it, it didn't work here with regard to the Sunday School presidencies. It didn't work with regard to the temple language changes. It's just, it doesn't work that way. Everybody can see what's happening here and everybody can see where this is going. And it's going in the direction of greater inclusion. And I think that's wonderful. And I applaud every step we make in that direction. Why can't we be honest about what we're doing? Why can't we be honest about the mistakes that we've made? And the fact that we've made changes that have made things better because they weren't as good before. Why can't we do that? So that's my big rhetorical question and my big flourish here. I know we're, we're coming up on the end and you've got a hard stop here. So, uh, but I'm curious to hear your reaction to any of that or any other sort of parting summation you want to give to this?

We have— Inside Out's been around since April 2023. We've said some interesting things. We've discussed some interesting topics. However, I would say, I would argue if there's any section that our listeners, including ourselves, should play and replay at least twice. It's what you've just said in the last 10, 12, 13 minutes. In my opinion, what you've just discussed, what you've described, what you've highlighted, what you've articulated is easily, arguably one of the most important issues Facing the church. Easy. When President Holland was asked one of the— I think it was President Holland, he was asked the question, what's the biggest challenge facing the church? He said growth, didn't he? Your comments, your articulation over the last 15 minutes has identified and communicated in the clearest possible way I've ever heard on any conversation online, offline about the issues facing the church. The two key things that I got from you, which is extremely significant, is the how the church works in terms of the functioning as it ties to the revelatory process, meaning that when we have a problem, we're taught on a personal level, as you know, and on a collective level to go to the Lord. We may not have an answer, right? We have a problem. We may not have the answer, Jim Bennett, correct?

Correct.

But we may have an answer. We may have an idea. You know, I think about Brother Jared and the Lord who Who teaches us, by the way, in the scriptures that it's not good that man is commanded in all things, correct?

Correct.

Um, and we learn line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. We know that. And the Lord expects us to do our bit, put the work in, and make an effort on our part. Do something. Kind of figure out of a solution. If you haven't got a solution and you've tried your best, fine, you can still go to him. You can figure out, you can get a solution in the prayer process. So you can go pray. I've had this experience more often than not. It's been like this for me where I haven't had an answer. I haven't got a solution. But as I'm praying about it, a solution comes to my mind. And I know that that could come from me, it could come from the Lord. I'm okay with that. But you're right, when we have a problem, we can go to the Lord with the problem and say, hey, this is a problem, can you help us fix it? There is a requirement, there is an expectation, in my mind at least, that the Lord expects us to do something about it, right? And not give us all the answers all the time. You know, go do the work, Ian, go put the effort in, try to figure out yourself before me giving you the answer all the time. Just try it., right? And so we think about it, we ponder, we pray, and we might at some times come with a solution and we pray about it. This happens in bishoprics, stake presidencies, happens in, you know, at the very personal level between an individual and, and the Heavenly Father. And a solution comes to mind, and it's amazing. Often it's an answer to something that we struggle with. That's how I understand the church to work. And you've described that in a way that I've not heard before, in the most efficient, effective way of pronouncing it. That's the first thing. The other thing that you've, uh, early on in that, uh, comments, you've also highlighted, uh, equally the other major challenge facing the church, which is not growth, frankly. It's this thing that I deal with in my professional life, um, called change. Uh, Greg Prince has talked about change in the professional world. We talk about change management. You know, if you look at projects, that's the very nature of projects is that they change. And how do you— it's called project change management. You know, the things change all the time, and good leaders understand change. They kind of track it and monitor it and forecast it and kind of deal with it. You know, a good project manager looks down the, uh, the project timeline to identify risks to the project, to the scope, the schedule, to the budget. That's what a good project manager does. You don't need revelation for that. You just need some skills and training. And, but that's what, you know, a good project manager should do. And so the pressure on the church, which is pretty intense,, and these strategic, valuable, welcome for sure, um, timely, uh, absolutely concessions is the word I would use over, you know, ward Sunday school with, with, uh, sisters being called in the ward Sunday school. I think it's a, it's a stepping stone for the stakes in the school. There's other callings, uh, although it's welcome and, and I don't wanna undersell it. Um, it is welcome and it's needed. We still have this problem, what I would describe as resistance to change. They, they, they prefer not to change, but they know they have to. So what can they change? What can they, what concession can they give in order to satisfy and placate some of the hotspots, those intense bottleneck pressure points, which is assessed and identified in their risk management organization where you look at the top risks, you know, that risk matrix, you know, what are the most pressing risks, issues, pressures that the church is facing? They're very intelligent people. They will, they will know those risks. They will know those pressure points. They will identify them, understand them, they will rank them, and there'll be a strategy to deal with them and to provide concessions to show that the church is listening and is somewhat progressive. Albeit, uh, if we do have to make a change, by the way, it's because you didn't understand the doctrine and you didn't understand what was being said in the temple. And because that was never the intent. But hey, you know, here's a concession because it's kind of on you that you didn't get it right. Which is what you also talked about very, in a very effective way, frankly, which absolutely pisses me off when I hear stuff like that. Um, anyway, this, this, this problem of resisting change and we use the word stifling innovation in the industry, right? Individuals who block, who don't have the vision, they don't like change because they're like, you know, they've got some control thing, et cetera. And more change means less control. We see that in the corporate world. And you have, and I wanna go back and listen to the words that you said. I think it, we need to, I wanna invite our listeners to go back and and to listen. You put it together so well in a way that I've not heard before. And it just highlights the problem with the church. The challenge is that they, they don't want to change and they only change because they have to. And when they do change, it's this concession to try to, uh, it's like a, a, a, a, a pressure reducing valve, the kind of turn it slightly just to take the pressure off, let a little bit of water through. And again, we'll only react when the pressure gets so intense. To me, that's not a church led by Christ. That's a church that's led by control and some fear and a little bit of them being pissed off that they have to make this change. You know, we don't make the change if we don't want to, but you're making us, but here you go. You know, if you were more faithful and more obedient, then you'd get it, but look, you want these concessions. It's just not the way to manage that revelatory process. The way to do it is what you've said, go to the Lord. You know, when we kneel, you've been in a bishopric, you kneel with an open heart, an open mind, humble, faithful, receptive, listening, and you free your mind of, of, of, you know, don't make the decision before you've gone in. Just open, open your mind and let the Lord, you know, work with your mind. That's how it works. But as you get higher to the top of the church, it seems like it doesn't work like that. They've got this very clear, defined structured preferred pathway that they'd like to stay on. That's why I think it connects in there with the Covenant Path. But hey, don't get off the Covenant Path, don't push us too far, don't tell us what to do, don't be a loyal opposition, you know, this thing, and faithful opposition, because we don't like that. And we don't give apologies and we'll change when we want to change. But they only change under pressure. And the other Last comment I wanna make, uh, is that if we weren't having these conversations on this podcast and others like us, you know, in the podcast world, which President Oaks doesn't like, I think generally doesn't like many of these podcasts having these kind of conversations. That's, that's my, that's my view. I don't think they, I don't think you talk about we're having the conversations that the church would like to have. I've thought about that, by the way, since we last talked, chatted about that. And I think there are people in the church that, um, hear these conversations and they don't want to have these conversations. There are people in the church that don't want to have these conversations openly, publicly like this, because it means pressure and it means change. And that is contrary to the gospel of Christ. Christ is about progress and improvement and solutions and solving problems and learning from them and growing from them. You know, we grow. There's got to be some growth. If there's no change, there's no growth. Change equals growth. Growth equals change. And the church does not do change very well at all. So there are my thoughts and feelings. This for me has been one of the most extraordinary conversations I've ever had. I, I know I've said that a few times before. There are segments in this, uh, conversation, uh, which you've led, Jim Bennett, which for me, and I'm sure many others, articulates the problem extremely well. And I think there's some precious nuggets, frankly, in the comments. Of, of what you've said, and I hope that the church listens to that section and responds accordingly. Do I expect them to change anything significantly? No. But you know, I think they know what to do, they just don't want to do it, and that is disappointing. At the same time, we have to keep the pressure up. I know they won't like me saying that, but we have to keep Having these conversations, we're not doing the pressure because we want them to be for the sake of being pressure. We're not doing it for that, are we? We do it because we want the church. We, we, we love the church or love a lot of part of it, lots of it that we still love and respect. We want to improve and, and change and get better. I know that to some in the church is very arrogant. You know, Ian, you're not even a member. Jim Bennett, you're in the church and It's not your position to tell the church what to do. We'll do what we want, we want. It's, you know, you're way outside of your, your scope of your membership. Um, but if we don't have these conversations, if people aren't having these conversations in the public arena, in the public square, as Greg Prince would say, then change, it might not happen. And if it does, it will extremely rare. So we have to keep having these type of type of conversations for sure. So they're my responses, thoughts to you, what you know, what you said.

Very much appreciate that. Uh, you mentioned Greg Prince, and I was reminded, um, he said this when we were filming him for NKINGITV, and he was being asked about, will church ever change on LGBTQ issues? And he said, well, if they do, the announcement of the change will begin with the phrase, well, as we've always taught, you know, that it will be framed in a way that this is consistent with what we've always taught, this really isn't a change. So I very much appreciate you putting it in those terms and very much appreciate your insights on this. I think this has been a great discussion. I also want to frame this the way Greg Prince does, that this isn't— we're not making any demands on the church. We're not trying to lobby the church to do anything. We are offering this up as an offering, lovingly offered, as, okay, this is, this is our experience, you know. And if Gene B. Bingham can look at the women that had a problem with the temple language and say, "Oh, okay, well, here, let us respond to that." All we're doing is saying, "Here are the challenges that we see, and we would love to see some kind of response." Anyway, Ian, I realize you've got to run, but very much appreciate this time with you. This is a lot of fun. I really enjoy these sorts of one-on-one Conversations. We have so many guests that sometimes we lose sight of these. So this is, this is great. But we also very much appreciate all of you out there who are listening to this. Please feel free to respond to us. You can send us an email at insideoutfeedback@gmail.com. You can visit our Facebook page. And we just love having this conversation. We'll be having another livestream on Tuesday night. And so we are just grateful that you are along for the ride here, and we look forward to speaking with you next time in our next episode of Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.