Contention, Division, and Schism

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I'm here as always with my partner in crime, Mr. Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am very good, Jim. How are you?

I'm doing great. You had a nice vacation, came all the way down to the United States into Idaho.

I did. Yeah, I did. We went to, uh, we went to Silverwood, which is a theme park, and, uh, it was fun. It was, uh, we got burned a little bit with the sun and it got pretty hot. But, um, yeah, it was, it was fun. We had a great, great time. Americans are very friendly. The service experience was amazing. Best in the world. Americans know how to deliver service.

Very, very nice. And I understand how it would be strange for you to encounter actual sunlight after coming down from Canada. Yes. So I don't know if they have a sun up there or what it is.

They do. They do. Sometime you see it now and again. Reflects off the snow. You know, most of the Canadians, the Brits, our skin is milk bottle white. And so even a glimpse of the sun, we kind of, you know, we turn red up. We're all quite lobster red at the moment, but we, yeah, we get a little bit tinged, but it was fun. And again, we all found every time we go down to the US, we find it a very positive experience. We find people very friendly. A lot of people ask us about our accents. We get asked, you know, which part of Australia are we from? And I say we're from this northwest part, about, you know, 10,000 miles northwest.

Yeah, very, very, very far northwest.

Far northwest. They can't distinguish sometimes, well, not just Americans, but people here as well in Canada, you know, whether we're from South Africa or from Australia. We've even been asked, you know, do we, you know, have we met the Queen? And we haven't. We've been up, we're not that close to the royal family. Just, just yet. Just by the end of the podcast, I might be offered a lordship on a landship or something like that. Landship. And some, some land somewhere that I could call my own.

Well, that would be nice. That's never happened to me either. And you, while you were actually making productive use of your time, I was down here, uh, making entirely unproductive use of my time in a conversation with a guy, and I almost don't even want to mention his name because he's apparently taken our video conversation and edited it and posted it on his site to make himself look like the winner, like it was this, this royal battle and that Jim Bennett just wasn't able to respond. And so he's cut out the entire end of the conversation. And, uh, but I, I look back on this conversation. Stephen Pynecker, as you know, is the guy who interviewed us on Mormon Book Reviews. Uh, I think we've been on there twice now. Um, or maybe just the once.

We've been on that together just the once. You might have— you think you've been, been on with him.

Okay. Maybe I've been on more.

Yeah.

But so I made the mistake that this guy is a guy who I was sort of aware of peripherally. And there was this Facebook group that I'm in where somebody commented that he had become an early morning seminary teacher, and I was an early morning seminary teacher. I love being an early morning seminary teacher. And in a lapse of judgment, I responded to that comment and said, oh, it breaks my heart to think of this guy poisoning these seminary students as their early morning seminary teacher. And of course, this got back to him and he said, oh, well, Jim has gotten me blocked. And so I could never talk to him. And, and I would really like to have an exchange with him. And Stephen Pynecker reached out and said, well, I'd be happy to moderate something if you guys want to have a conversation. And I sort of felt trapped at that point because I always say I'll talk to anybody, right? I mean, I've talked to harsh critics of the church and given them hours of my time. And so I thought, well, I kind of have to give this guy enough time if I'm going to take potshots at him like this. I ought to give him an opportunity to respond. So We taped this exchange, and it just got increasingly frustrating as it went on because it wasn't an exchange, it was a debate. And I hate debates when you're talking about the church because they get heated. I mean, when we were on our missions, how many productive Bible bashes did you have? I mean, that's what debates are to me. These are Bible bashes. These are people trying to catch somebody else in a slip-up, in some kind of a slip of the tongue, and to embarrass them and to catch them off guard. Has very little to do, nothing to do actually, with understanding another human being. And I got heated as it went on, and at one point I said, to him, look, sit down and shut up. Because he kept interrupting me. He kept— he wouldn't let me finish my sentences. And it was just this. And I was just finally said, look, sit down and shut up. And after it was over, I called Stephen Pynecker and I said, I am really concerned with how heated I got. And I'm just not sure that I'm comfortable with it. And Stephen could not have been more gracious. He said, I won't release it if you don't want me to. I may contact this guy and if you want to, you can do it again. And this time maybe be a little less heated, he said. But I think you actually came off better than you think you do. And I said, okay, well, will you let me watch it? If I— I'll review it and, and I'll let you know what I think. And in reviewing it, I actually felt much, much better about it because as frustrated as I was, I never raised my voice. I never screamed at him. When I said, sit down and shut up, I said it in the same tone of voice with which I'm speaking to you. And I was astonished. I mean, I kept feeling like I was cutting him off. And yet I wasn't. He, I mean, he kept cutting me off over and over and over and over again. And the only way that I felt like I could finish my sentence, that I could finish my thought, was finally to confront him like that. But Stephen's comment was, I think it was a valuable conversation because it was very raw. It was very real. And it wasn't, you know, manicured. And we got to some, I think, really interesting, powerful issues. But it, it highlighted what I think is going to be the, the purpose of this podcast here today. It highlighted my frustration with the fact that I think the people who are most damaging to the church in terms of our public persona and our public face are actually active members of the church who go out and represent the church in a really destructive and poisonous way. And they're embodied by a group of people that use the label #DesNat on Twitter. #DesNat standing for Deseret Nationalism. This is a group of people that use the hashtag #DesNat and they were advocating for a theocracy in the United States where essentially the church would run the United States as the State of Deseret. And they incorporated a lot of white nationalism. There was some antisemitism, some Holocaust denial, just a bunch of really reprehensible stuff, not to mention misogyny. Beyond belief and just vicious attacks on the LGBTQ community. And this went on for a while. And they would also cite Brigham Young. Brigham Young at one point said, um, uh, he, he gave a talk at one point where he brandished a Bowie knife and said, I want to go slit the throats of all of the apostates in this church with this Bowie knife. And so Desnat would use Bowie knives in all of their visual iconography. They make videos of themselves brandishing Bowie knives. There was one crazy guy who would mask himself and make what looked like a terrorist video as he did this sort of dance with Bowie knives. And it was, it just represents the ugliest part of the church. The good news is that this group came along called DesNet Exposed that doxxed all the original DesNets, found out their real names. Usually these were people who were posting anonymously. They had all kinds of— they would post using like, I'm J. Reuben Clark, or I'm, you know, Porter Rockwell. I mean, they'd use these, these old church leaders to hide behind. And these guys got exposed. And one of them was an assistant attorney general in the state of Alaska. And he lost his job when they found out all of his racist white nationalist garbage. And pretty much everybody that this Desnat exposed, exposed, lost their jobs or suffered some kind of consequence. As far as I know, none of them suffered any ecclesiastical consequences. I would like to have seen some of them be disciplined in the church for spreading hate and bile. So the actual hashtag doesn't exist really anymore. There's only a handful of people that use it, but most people are scared of it because they know that it can get them into trouble. And it rightfully has sort of an affiliation. It's like using a hashtag, hashtag Nazi or something like that. So people recognize how wrong it is, but the attitude is still there. The bile is still there. And I— in the New Testament, in the book of Timothy, it talks about people who, by way of whom the way of truth will be evil spoken of. And I think that's what you see in a lot of the ways that church members represent themselves on social media. I have since— I haven't canceled my Twitter account. I wanted to, but I also wanted to post links to this podcast on Twitter. I have over 2,000 Twitter followers, and this is a great way to get the word out on Inside Out. So I haven't completely erased my account there, but Twitter is just collapsing, and Elon Musk is driving it into the ground. And the one weekend where he refused to pay his bill to Google, and was rate limiting the number of tweets you could see was the weekend I finally went, I'm done here. But, but a big part of the reason I'm done there too is that there are at least 5 different Twitter accounts that all they do is call on Twitter for any kind of what they call a progmo approach, progressive Mormons. And I'm apparently front and center for a lot of these people. And they'll repost something that I post and then add a comment that, you know, here's Jim Bennett representing Satan again or something like that. And there are all these accounts that I'm thinking, who has the time to spend that much time on Twitter, let alone that much time to devote simply to dump on other church members? And it's vicious and it's awful. And I think if I were not a member of the church and I went on social media and I were to use search terms to find out about the church, and these were the guys that come up, which they do, these are the guys that are the most active on Twitter. These are the guys who actively represent the church more vocally, more stridently than anybody else. If I were an investigator, there's no way on earth that I would give that church the time of day because these are these terrible people that are representing it. They're representing the church with hatred. They're representing the church with— and when David Archuleta, uh, very publicly parted ways with the church and did so, I think, very gracefully and graciously, He didn't take any potshots at the church. He hasn't been crusading against the church. You're familiar with David Archuleta, are you not? Do you know him?

A little bit.

Maybe that's too American, but David Archuleta was a winner of American Idol. Big. I mean, this is, this is a couple of decades ago or 15 years ago or so. He was just a kid, but he was a kid from Murray, Utah, and very much an active member of the church. He went on to Sura Mission in Chile. And he, you know, I, the first time I saw him perform live was at Barbara Ballard's funeral. Barbara Ballard is Russell Ballard's wife. And I went to her funeral and the entire Quorum of the Twelve and the entire First Presidency was in attendance. And the last thing at the end of this funeral was a song sung by David Archuleta that was absolutely gorgeous and absolutely beautiful. And he was just this huge icon of the church. And he's also a gay man and struggled very publicly with being a gay man and being a member of the church and finally said, I just feel I have to step away and I love this church and I love all these things, but I have to step away. And so he stepped away. And then immediately all of these desnat types on Twitter are just swarming in and saying, good riddance, this is terrible, this is awful. And I posted something along the lines of, I wish David Archuleta well. I have made no covenant to dump on anybody who leaves the church. And of course that's reposted, and here's Jim Bennett, he's an apostate because he's not getting in line to beat up on somebody who's left the church, which again, I don't see as my responsibility or even something that is desirable. I don't think members of the church should be beating up on those who leave. I think that's precisely the opposite of what we're taught to do, precisely the opposite of what Christ did when he left the 99 to go search for the one. But whatever. But here we have on social media just such a toxic community that is very often the first point of contact people have with the church. And it's depressing and it's devastating and it needs some kind of mitigation. And the Brethren, to my knowledge, Either they don't know what to do or they're not bothered by it. I'd like to think that it's the former, that they see it and they're not quite sure how to handle it, what to do with it. They're afraid of alienating these people. A lot of these are people, for instance, who really balked during the pandemic when President Nelson told us that we should all get vaccinated. And they post anti-vax stuff all over Twitter. And maybe President Nelson was just speaking as a man here, and he's not really a prophet. Maybe he's a fallen prophet. I mean, that whole community is just one nudge away from schism, from leaving the church and starting their own much more reactionary conservative church that doesn't go along with the woke, quote unquote, kind of stuff that they see in the brethren that aren't willing to be nearly as vitriolic as they are. So it's one of the reasons why I continually come back to President Nelson's talk in this last conference, because I saw that actually as being aimed directly at Deseret. But the problem is everybody who hears that talk thinks it's talking about somebody else and not them. And they would absolutely point to me and say, that includes me. And based on my contentious, heated exchange with this guy over the last weekend, they may have a point there. I am by no means a shining example of somebody who can completely avoid contention and somebody who can be the kind of peacemaker that President Nelson is calling for us to be. But I see this as a real problem and a real challenge and something that needs to be called out. And it really is painful when the damage to the church and the most damage to the church is coming from inside the church and not from outside the church. So as I recount all of this, I'm very curious. First of all, you saw my big exchange with this, this other guy. Uh, what was your reaction to it? I got a message from you saying that you wanted to have a go at him. You want me to set that up? I bet I could.

I wanted to have a, a conversation with him, uh, for sure. I wouldn't put in the terms of how I go with him because that— but I would be, um, I, I would— I'm, I'm in a very different position to you. You're in the church, uh, you're active, you subscribe still to a lot of the positions and doctrines and teachings of the church. So I'm in a very different position to you, and I think my exchange with him would be, would be very different. Let me respond to your questions. I'll try to break this down. I've known you for a long time, and the Jim Bennett I know is, comes from a very entrenched church history, a legacy, a, a, a pair which is, that is somewhat unique, certainly unique to my background, my experience. You also come from a political family. You've got, your family's got a long history of, of politics in the Republican Party. Um, the church has a long history with politics. The church membership is a cross-section of society with people of all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of political, religious views. You've got people in the church who still hold on to Catholicism, who were former Catholics or Evangelicals or Jehovah's Witnesses. You know, they, they bring, um, those old, principles and, and thoughts and mindsets with them. They, they bring that into the church. Going back to, to yourself, you've— I've always known you to be somebody who's very genuine, very sincere, moderate. Yes, very passionate. You can be loud when you want to be. You can be softly spoken when you want to be. But you are, um, what you see is what you get. And, and I, I think The people that know you would agree that they, you know, for the most part, you are level-headed. You can get, you know, passionate. You know, I've heard some of the interviews and that's okay. I don't think you're insulting. I think, you know, when you're talking about politics and religion, these are very emotive subjects and it's important, I think, to show who you are, to show your passion, show your emotion, show your thoughts and your feelings. The second part of my response to you would be going back to the membership. I've been in the church, been associated with the church in all kinds of capacity, from seminary teacher through to missionary, bishop, served in a stake presidency. And I've got to know people in the church pretty well. And they carry— they hold a lot of extraordinary views. As a church, we have peculiar beliefs compared to people outside the church. People look from the outside and think we're pretty, we're pretty strange. You know, we do baptisms for the dead, we pay tithing, we have these history of polygamy, history with race in the priesthood. We have Brigham Young, we have Bruce R. McConkie, we have some very interesting and unique individuals who are part of the, you know, part of the church history, which have taught, certainly compared, you know, to the world, some very strange, peculiar doctrines. However, those aside, those peculiarities aside, the church membership, as I said, is a cross-section of society. They carry political positions, political views, and they carry religious views and different perspectives in religion and politics. But there's an element in the time I've been in the church, there's an element of the church which is quite, in my view, quite extreme. And this is what I've seen from my own experience. I've had too many conversations that have been initiated by others about the church becoming more prominent in politics, more prominent in government. And essentially taking over the, uh, the governments of the United States. And according to prophetic teachings, um, according to the doctrine of the teachers, that the church will come to the rescue of the American Constitution, for example, that will be hanging by a thread, and only the church and the church leadership and the church authority is the organization that's got the mandate and the resources and the authority to save the American Constitution. There's no reference to other constitutions. There's frequent references to America being the promised land, that Israel and America be the promised land. I'm from Yorkshire. I thought Yorkshire was the promised land, but it's not. Apparently America, Missouri in particular, and Israel are the promised land. There's frequent references for you, no problem, but there's frequent reference to America saving the world. But in particular, when we get it right down to narrow it right down, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will come to the rescue of the American Constitution and the Church will save the day. And I've met many, many people in the Church who really believe that literally. I've met many people, too many people in the Church that still believe that Blacks should not have the priesthood and should not attend the temple. Even today, there's an element in the church who are people who are white supremacists. Is that— did I pronounce that right?

Yeah.

Uh, you know, it's the, uh, the White Order. Uh, there's variations. I've met people who, uh, have shared extreme views. Some of these views have actually come into, believe it or not, into interviews. When you're a bishop, when you're serving in a state presidency and you're conducting temple recommend interviews, or you're conducting interviews for within a sort of, uh, interviews for callings, and you get to know some of these folks, and they, they open up, and it's extraordinary. Some of the people that look quite ordinary on the outside and look pretty balanced in terms of politics and religion, some of these individuals hold extreme views, and it's very worrying. I was quite shocked. I never saw this as a rank-and-file member. I only saw this as a, as a bishop, and I only saw this really as a, you know, serving on the state presidency. In regards to the leadership, the church leadership responsibility and position on this, I believe, and I have shared these concerns, I've actually reported back to General Authorities through other leaders, these issues that have come up from time to time from certain members who hold these extreme views. For example, there was an individual believe that we should reinstitute— I think, um, Brigham Young coined it, I think he created the principle or taught it originally— self-blood atonement. And, you know, an eye for an eye. And even, um, committing, or at least performing actions to terminate somebody, even if they haven't murdered somebody, or even if they are actually a threat threat to the church, that there'd be a preemptive action or strike by Brigham Young and the church militia at that time. You look back at the history and that, that militia, um, with people comprised of people of extreme views would actually do a preemptive strike of a group of people that the church felt at that time would be a threat to the church. And I've met people today who still believe that, that the church needs to be very, um, much more forthright, get more involved in the politics. These people, they are pushing the church to become more politically active, speak up on a range of issues, which I think the church should, by the way, on some things. You know, as the only true church upon the face of the earth, I believe the church should speak up on certain political things. I think it has a, um, are those things that are universal which, you know, the right and wrong things, you know, doing the humanitarian things and getting involved in the protection and safeguarding of lives and the basic human rights and the basic human values of people. Absolutely. I think the church has a very important role there and isn't doing enough on that stuff. In regards to it being aware of these extreme organizations, or rather, I wouldn't say organizations, but extreme groups of people, let's call them groups of people that are part of the church members. And you've got these little groups that operate in different parts of the world. And these members get together, they hold a particular view, and they try to use the gospel teachings and own quotes to justify their, you know, their positions or their extreme views. I believe the church leadership are aware, in fact, I know they're aware because I've reported some of these issues to the church leadership. I think they are concerned that they will— I don't know if they know, I don't think they know how to deal with it. I don't think they're going to talk about it at General Conference, these issues, these groups, some of them again extreme groups, because they don't want to give them oxygen. They don't want to highlight them or even bring awareness of them because a lot of members probably don't even know they exist, these groups with extreme views, et cetera. And they probably don't know how to deal with them, and they probably don't want to isolate them either. And so I think the church is in a difficult position. I think for the most part, Jim Bennett, in my experience, most members are pretty ordinary people, pretty balanced, pretty decent people. They might be Republican or Democrat, they might be Labour or Conservative or Liberal, etc., or belong to the Green Party. And that's okay. You know, these are fairly, you know, standard mainstream people, but you do have those extreme right-wing, often Orthodox extreme white people thinking groups that do operate within the church. So I think it's important to call them out. I think when we see these extreme views and small groups operating, I was even aware of a group of members here in Canada that would meet to talk about how to reverse the policy and the revelation on Blacks holding the priesthood. I'm aware that those people do exist. They meet and they talk about these, and they pull out all those old quotes from Brigham Young. You see, here's the problem. The, one of the biggest challenges facing the church is how to disavow its, uh, modern position and, and the direction it's going to modernize itself, to bring itself out of obscurity. And that in my mind includes, or part of that is getting more into the mainstream normal, maybe not so like normal's not the right word, but more balanced. Normal thinking and not having extreme views of race or culture or, you know, having extreme positions on politics or other extreme views on different things. The problem they've got is how do they do that without disavowing? How do they disavow those extreme views that bring me on, tied Bruce and my conky Maybe at times Joseph Smith and other past prophets, Wilbur Woodruff, et cetera, had talked about this. How do they modernize themselves without throwing and disavowing from those extreme views? Let's face it, they're extreme views without disavowing or throwing those prophets under the bus. And what happens is these groups, they get together and they dig out all these quotes from Brigham Young and they use those quotes. To justify their position. And they use those quotes to show, highlight that President Nelson has perhaps gone too far. That this, you know, the pandemic, the COVID the— we had something similar appear in Canada. I think there was something similar in the UK as well, where they felt President Nelson had gone too far and was dictating to them what they should and what they shouldn't do. And so I do see a situation where you're going to have Groups break off, um, whether they would organize their own church or organization, I don't know. But I do know those people, they meet, group together, and I, we've had to deal with them. We deal with them on a personal level, we've had to deal with them on a group level, and some of the views are very, very disturbing. So, you know, that's my response to this, this person that, uh, you had on, really, Steve Panikkar. I, I think when you have to change or edit anything in the time that you had together on the podcast, you have an agenda. If you've got to change or edit something, you have an agenda, and it means that you're trying to, trying to change something or influence something, because that editing it, you, you're going to miss out important context, and context is everything. Very important that you have the, the raw, uh, complete, um, unedited version of the conversation so people can make their own assessment, arrive at their own, uh, opinion, their own judgments, and, and, and so be it. But when you edit something, you have an agenda, and I'm always very suspicious of people like that. And I think some people come on to podcasts, they pick at people, and they come on because they want the oxygen, they want the face on the podcast, they want to be heard, and, um, they're there just to pick a fight. And sometimes they don't have any substance, they're there just to, um, because they, for some reason, they feel inadequate, perhaps not complete. Fully as a person, they feel the need to do this, pick faults, misinterpret, twist, turn things, and they do that by editing the material. So, you know, I actually exchanged, I've shared you my comments there through Messenger, and I gave you my thoughts and opinion on the part of that conversation that took place. But I think all we have, I think the most important thing is to be ourselves, be honest, be authentic. We're not always right, you and I, on politics. We're not always right on other thoughts and opinions. I think it's important to be teachable. I think it's important to have a conversation, keep it civil, listen, not interrupt, um, and listen to the other views. We can learn from that, of course. I always I trust people, people who haven't got a hidden agenda, who are genuine and sincere. I listen to those people. And the others that do have an agenda, it's difficult to take them seriously. But all we can be is ourselves, authentic, and speak our truth. And again, we sometimes are right, sometimes we're wrong, and that's okay. We're all, we're all human. But those people have an agenda. I think we have to watch out, and we have to be on our guard. And it's unfortunate because you can't really settle into a conversation with a level of confidence and trust. You can't really be yourself because, you know, the person is trying to, you know, kind of manipulate the conversation. So there's my two bits for what they were.

No, that makes a lot of sense. As you were talking, I was thinking about how the church is responding to this. And when you're talking about political extremism in the church, Some very interesting things have happened lately that demonstrate that I think the brethren are not only aware of it, but they are trying to find the appropriate response. And the most obvious version of that is the church's new position with regard to political neutrality. You know, before every election, the church has a letter read from the pulpit where they say, you know, the church does not take a stand on politics. Please go and vote. They've expanded that to say things like, when you vote a straight party ticket, you are— they use very strong terms. I wish I had it in my brain here, something along the lines of, you know, you're going against God's plan or you're following Satan's plan when you just vote straight party. And that is, I think, a huge step because at least in the United States, the church has been so unilaterally Republican and the church is so identified with Republican issues that they're, you know, Ezra Taft Benson was the last guy to explicitly say you can't be a Democrat and a good Mormon at the same time. But that attitude is still there, even if people aren't willing to voice it. And I can remember in 2010 when my father lost the Republican nomination for the United States Senate, I actually ended up going to work for the Democrat. Who was running in that race, and his name was Sam Granado. And he was a very close friend of then-Church President Thomas S. Monson and was very plugged into Church leadership. The president of the Tabernacle Choir actually filmed an ad for us, a television ad endorsing Sam Granado, the Democrat. And then we made the mistake of identifying him as the president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which got people very angry. Because they wanted us to not use his church affiliation. And they were right, we shouldn't have, but we did. But, but on that campaign, we were assigned an unofficial advisor to our campaign by the church, the guy who went on to become the church historian, Elder Stephen Snow. Is a Democrat and came on and said, and said in no uncertain terms, the church very much wants to see Democrats do well and, and win office because the church is trying very hard to get away from the image and perception of being a Republican church. And, you know, my eyes just kind of opened with that, that the church was interested enough that they were able to assign a general authority to come help our campaign. Was really kind of mind-blowing to me. But if you look at, at least in American politics, if you look at prominent members of the church, the highest-ranking elected official in church history, it's a man by the name of Harry Reid, who was a very liberal, prominent Democrat and also a very active member of the church.

Across the church globally, and certainly in North America, in particular in the US, that the, the, the, there are, there are individuals, of course, and there are groups within the church that hold to certain political beliefs and positions and aspirations. You know, we see that, you know, on, on members who are Democrat or Republican. We see that in the, in the UK. We see that here in Canada. And so you've got, you know, the members are a cross-section of society, uh, you know, the peculiar teachings, uh, place those to the side for a moment, because I think there's certain aspects of the church that make the church quite unique in respect to its teachings and doctrines and history, um, significantly unique. But those peculiarities aside, members have their own positions on, uh, on politics and, and, and events that are taking place in the world. So the members are a cross-section of, of society in general, and they hold all kinds of views. Some are regular, traditional, conventional views, others are quite extreme. For example, in the church, you have people that believe that the church has moved too far away from the version of the church when it was restored in the time of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I mean, the church has— it looks very different to the church back then. If Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were alive, they probably wouldn't recognize much of the church today. It's changed significantly and in my opinion, overall for the better, actually.

I would agree with that.

And thank goodness for that. But there are people in the church and I know these people, some of these people that think that we should go back. We've gone too far. We should go back to some earlier version, you know, like a computer when you— when it's not working, you know, you want to go back to a previous date when the computer is working fine, that kind of bigamy. Like, you've also got people in, in the church here in Canada, certainly in the US, that's— and, and in the UK, I know somebody in the UK that still believe in the principle of polygamy.

Oh, sure.

And I've got— I know somebody really well that had shared their view with me recently, actually, and, and asked me, um, what my thoughts were. And I shared with them a part of the conversation I, I had when Elder Oaks was here in Canada reorganizing, restructuring our stake at that time. And the, the conversation, um, wasn't a direct conversation with him, but I remember having this conversation about his— I think at the time his, his first wife passed away and his second wife, um, they'd all also been sealed to him. And I heard from reliable sources that he was sealed to both women, and that he was looking forward to being with them both in the next life. And so Elder Oaks, one of the similar examples, is sealed to two women.

Same as President Nelson. President Nelson's first wife died, and he married a woman that is about the same age as his daughter, right? And, uh, and he sealed them both, right?

And I heard that, uh, Elder Oaks is, uh, absolutely delighted about that and that we will continue to live and practice polygamy in the next life and that he will be with at least two women in the next life. So when I shared that, um, with this individual that I know in the UK, um, he was, uh, he was delighted because he was asking if This person who I know really well, his wife had passed away, and him and I were— he was asking me whether— I know, I know him very, very well, he's a good friend. He was thinking about dating again and potentially getting married again. And I said, I think you should, that I think it's important. You don't want to be alone for the rest of life. I think you've got to have a meaningful relationship, um, you know, in life. And I think your wife would be happy if you got married again. He asked me the question, and then he said he would, uh, want to marry a member of the church and be sealed to this person. And then I— he asked me about that, and we had a conversation, and I shared with him, you know, what I heard about Elder Oaks. And so the church still privately, at the highest level, believes in the principle of polygamy, and the members— it shouldn't be surprised that there are some members in the church that know that, that know that the Brethren still think this and believe this, and they're well aware of it.

Made any secret of it.

Yeah.

President Oaks gave a talk not that long ago, 3, 4 years ago, where he talked about— he made a joke. I mean, he presented it sort of as a joke. He said there's this woman and She's married a man who is sealed to another woman who had passed away before their marriage. And this woman is concerned that she's going to have to live in the same house with this other wife. And the way President Oaks presented it, it was like, this is the pettiest thing in the world. Uh, what a silly woman to have to worry about what house she's going to live in in the next life. And all President Oaks was able to counsel her was, trust in the Lord. In other words, we don't know, we're not gonna— but, but, but the church has made absolutely no bones about the fact that, that polygamy continues in the next life. And there's a great book by a woman named Carolyn Pearson. Have you heard? I'm sure you probably— you may have heard of her, but she's She, um, she's a great advocate for LGBTQ rights. Her, her husband died of AIDS and, uh, she wrote the primary song, I'll Walk With You. I'll walk with you. I'll talk with you. That's how I'll show my love for you. And it's, it's used to talk about people who, you know, if you don't walk like some people do, but most, many LGBTQ allies have sort of embraced that song as their anthem. In the church. She wrote a book called The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy that talks about the fact that polygamy hangs over the head of so many women in the church because they're terrified that if they were to pass away before their husbands, that they are going to have to share their husbands in the next life. And men aren't nearly as concerned about it and make jokes about it. And, you know, hey, if you were to die, how would you feel if I were to go talk to Sister So-and-so? And men very often treat it lightly, but she— this book is filled with stories of women that are just haunted by this, just terrified by this. And, you know, when I married my wife, uh, she made it very clear. She says, I don't believe in polygamy. I think polygamy was a mistake, and I don't think that there there's going to be polygamy in the next life. And I was terrified that I'm marrying a heretic. She's— how dare she? So I don't think it's a secret. I think it's very open that the brethren still believe in polygamy as an eternal principle. There's much, I think, in the temple ceremony that reinforces that idea. So I I, you know, if people don't believe that the Brethren still sort of teach polygamy as an eternal principle, that's, um, they're not paying attention. That's incidentally one of the things that got me so heated in my exchange with the guy we talked about earlier, uh, because he kept saying polygamy isn't an eternal principle. Polygamy, you know, the Book of Mormon, Jacob chapter 2 makes it very clear that polygamy is is forbidden except in very rare circumstances. But, uh, I thought, boy, go back and listen to what Brigham Young had to say. Brigham Young was very explicit that the only people that inherit the highest order of the celestial kingdom are people who enter into polygamy. And John Taylor, third president of the church, who died in exile, essentially. He was in hiding from federal authorities trying to arrest him for polygamy. Rick, a revelation that he had received that polygamy would never be taken from the earth, that polygamy was an eternal principle. And it's written, you know, in the voice of the Lord. There are some people who've tried to demonstrate that it's not in John Taylor's handwriting. It's not actually, you know, this, that, and the other. But Their preponderance of historical evidence is that this is a legitimate document. So I don't think there's, there's any question that theologically the church is still very firmly rooted in polygamy. And we've tried to brush it under the rug because we know that it's not socially acceptable. We know that people aren't willing— people wouldn't join the church if on the front door we told them, hey, We believe, uh, if you're a man, you're probably going to have lots and lots of w— of wives in the next life. I think, incidentally, this is the reason why the brethren are so reticent to say anything about Heavenly Mother, because, uh, there are plenty of, of references in the early church to multiple Heavenly Mothers. That God the Father is a polygamist with with not just, you know, 50 wives, but maybe 50 million wives. And maybe each of us has our own specific Heavenly Mother. You remember Elder Minor?

Yes.

He was my zone leader in my first area, and we shared a flat with the zone leaders. So I— and we went on splits a lot. I got to know him really well. He's a wonderful guy. And we were out tracting once, and he said to me, so, Elder Bennett, do you think you and I have the same spiritual mother? And that just blew my mind. What are you talking about?

Of course we do.

Of course we all do. Heavenly Mother, Heavenly Father, there's only one. No, I mean, it was very different to him from what he'd read that there was lots and lots of Heavenly Mothers out there. So we would have to, I think, do some major theological surgery. To sort of reorient our whole understanding if we were tried— if we ever tried to excise polygamy fully. So we've made accommodations in saying, for instance, that you don't have to be a polygamist. Uh, there are some statements by the early Brethren that sort of downplay the idea of polygamy. But you know, when you talk about this idea of you know, different fringes and factions within the church that believe different things. I just spoke this morning to somebody who is in conversation with a group that insists that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist. And they're, you know, the entire Reorganized Church, now the Community of Christ, uh, was premised on the idea that polygamy was created by Brigham Young, that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist. That this Section 132 was a forgery written by Brigham Young. And I just look at that and go, there's so much more historical evidence that you have to flush down the memory hole. I mean, how do you treat Fanny Alger, for instance? Oliver Cowdery left the church over Fanny Alger because he thought Joseph Smith was having an affair. So do you assume that that's not a plural marriage, that that just was an affair? And I asked that of this guy this morning and he said, no, they just kind of say, oh, we don't know the whole story. It wasn't salacious, whatever it was that Oliver was upset about. We just don't know. And I think, boy, you know, I don't know how long you can keep your head buried in the sand, but that's the way people are.

And I think I read, and it's fairly common, it's quite well known that, you know, the church came under significant pressure from the government in the late you know, 18th century and the church assets were being seized, you know, by—

right. Correct. Yeah.

That was, you know, the polygamy is a major, major issue at the federal level. And then the church had to make a declaration that it would abandon the principles and practices of polygamy, continue to practice it for a decade or two into the early 1900s, 1910, I think.

1920s. Yeah. So, so, so 1890 is the manifesto.

The manifesto.

And we point to that as sort of the moment polygamy ended. And that's nonsense. And in fact, if you read the actual language of the manifesto, it is not written. It's in the Doctrine and Covenants, but it's not written in scriptural language. It's, oh, the federal government has informed us that so-and-so has been you know, that we performed these sealings. Well, we don't perform any marriages that are not in harmony with the law of the land anymore. And that's it. And there's no kind of— there's no hint of a revelation having taken place. And what was very clear was the manifesto was a public statement, but the church was in no way willing to abandon plural marriage. And so that's where the Mexican colonies came from. We set up all these colonies outside of the United States that still exist, at least nominally. I mean, they're not entirely church colonies anymore, but, but they refer to them down in Mexico as the Mormon colonies. And that's kind of the background of them. But that's where Mitt Romney's father was born. He was born in these colonies because You know, uh, the church was just saying, okay, we can't do this in the United States, let's do it somewhere else. And they talk about the second manifesto, uh, being 1905. Okay, Joseph— Joseph F. Smith made polygamy, um, grounds for excommunication. The church then, um, you know, absolutely made it necessary for you to be a monogamous, not just publicly but also privately. But there's also great evidence that that didn't end it either. Uh, there were a number of post-Second Manifesto 20th century polygamist marriages that were sanctioned at the highest levels of the church. So, you know, it's It's really, really messy and really difficult to figure out how to move away from that. So that's a huge schism in the church. And I'm wondering, do you think we are heading for more schisms? Do you think, for instance, if we allowed for gay temple sealings, that you would see kind of an FLDS sort of schism of people that think that once again we've rejected the true church and Joseph Smith's church.

Yes, it's interesting you say that because I was— as I was listening to you, I was thinking two things. One, we don't live far actually from a fundamental Latter-day Saint group here in Canada who actually practice polygamy. They've got their own polygamous community in British Columbia, in Canada, about maybe 4 hours away from here. And some of the active members in the church— I know some of these people in the community, and some of the active members in our stake also know members of this community. And some of the members are aligned, if you like, to some of the fundamental teachings of polygamy this group are involved in. But They're not part of the church, this fundamental group, completely separate. But they do practice polygamy and they live about 4 hours from me. To your second question, I think it's a really— that's the other thing I was thinking about. There are people that I know who would absolutely respond with furious rage if the church accepted in full the legitimacy of someone being gay or gay marriage, or that, um, a place gays on equal footing, you know, if gays were able to go to the temple, receive callings and blessings and call them to leadership. And, um, if the church were ever to do that, which it should— I don't see any reason why it should not do that. That they would be a massive, massive— it's hard to say, but there would be a significant, very serious negative reaction where I think, in my opinion, you would have people leaving and you would have people organizing another version of the church. They just can't and won't get their head around that, you know, those kind of changes. If you, if you want to look at what's happening in the future, just look, look to the past. So if you look at what happened with polygamy, you know, where the church, you know, the Second Manifesto, when it finally, um, officially rejected polygamy and they had a, you know, it was grounds for excommunication, people practiced polygamy, were people that could not and would not accept that, even the Second Manifesto. You know, I've studied this a little bit and I spoke to people And there are people that actually left the church and they formed these fundamental groups on polygamy because they thought, no, this is— polygamy is what Joseph Smith did, and Brigham Young introduced it, is an eternal principle, to your point, etc. And it's so fundamental to the church doctrine and so entrenched within every aspect of the church history and the doctrine and the policies that are then, you know, abandoning that is actually seen by some as It's the father of apostasy. You know, I joked yesterday on the podcast that God is trying to save the church from apostasy. It was kind of a, you know, a little bit of a humor, my attempt at humor. But going to your question, yes, if the church made a significant shift in policy and practices and were more inclusive in full on an equal footing towards gay people and gay rights, in callings, leadership, temple blessings, essentially gay people having full access to all the rites and rituals of the church like you have, like I used to have, nothing held back in full, then, then yeah, I think you would see a split, significant split in the church, similar to what has happened with the Church of England, um, over the years, where, you know, Methodists broke off, and you've got other splinter groups that break off from—

well, the Church of England itself is a splinter group.

It is, it absolutely. And it's also had further splitting groups since then. You see this, you know, you see this around the world in different faiths, different religions, you know, people, you know, people break off. Yeah, you would see a, um, a, a significant seismic, uh, split, uh, in the church that was split it right down the middle. I think he from— and I think that if you look at that, the demographics of that, you probably would have, you know, traditional Orthodox, perhaps older generation people just in a more conservative thinking that just could not and would not accept such a change. I think the church it is, it knows full well what would happen, um, and it's not ready to make that change yet. I think it will happen in maybe 30, 40, 50 years, perhaps when you and I are not here. Certainly won't happen when, you know, while our folks are there. But I think you would see something like, uh, the kind of split that happened when their polygamy was, uh, was outlawed by the church, and people just wouldn't accept it, and they formed their own fundamentalist group. So yeah, that's— I think it would be that, that significant. I really do.

I, I, I think I agree with you. I, I just look at the polygamous splinter groups. I lived in St. George, Utah, right at the bottom of the state of Utah, and right near the FLDS compound, which is right on the border, Colorado City, Arizona. And Hildale, Utah, uh, which is where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had its headquarters. And then when Warren Jeffs was arrested, it's kind of a mess now. But, uh, those are the guys that broke away from the church, included some apostles, included John Taylor's son. Uh, at the same time, In terms of a percentage of the church, it was relatively small and remains relatively small. And these splinter groups are relatively still in comparison to the mainstream church are really relatively tiny. And you're seeing some schisms now. You have Denver Snuffer. Are you familiar with Denver Snuffer?

Yes, yes, I've heard the name.

Uh, he, he is, he has had a vision of Christ and he wrote a book called Passing the Heavenly Gift where he essentially talks about the fact that the church has fallen astray from where it was when Joseph Smith restored it. And you have a lot of these, they call themselves the remnant, and you will have a lot of these remnant people scattered all throughout the church, but in terms of raw numbers, they're fairly small and a, and a good number of them are still active members of the mainstream church while they participate in this remnant movement. So the idea of an actual genuine split, I wonder if we're sort of too far down the road for one of those. Uh, it would have to require some kind of really charismatic leader to, to spearhead it, and I don't see anybody in the Twelve that would be willing to do that.

If there were such a charismatic leader, an individual that would do that and break off, um, then I think you would have people follow him, you know. People, if he was pro-gay, pro-gay rights, this is the direction the church wants to go, full exclusion, full blessings, full rights and privileges to all rituals, you know, for, for gay, gay people, and, and, uh, he would have followers for sure. I really believe that would happen. Well, it sounds like that would happen.

It sounds like you're describing your job description.

All right. I don't know about that.

Church of Ian Wilkes.

Church of Ian Wilkes. I feel sorry for anybody joining the Church of Ian Wilkes, but I'm probably not the best person to do that. But if they were, if somebody were to, at that level, were to break off and say, hey, look, you know, we need to become much more inclusive and, and, and, and more universal in terms of the teachings. I mean, that would split the church right down the middle. You'd have traditional thinkers, you know, conventional Orthodox people, and you'd have the more liberal, modernizing, um, more universal, more open or inclusive group that would go in two very different directions. So you absolutely, I think, be split right down there. Right down the center.

I really do.

Would that happen? Unlikely. Could it happen? Yeah. Who would do it? I don't know.

Well, that's a very good conclusion, I think. I think we're out of time here. But it's really interesting because, I mean, just circling back to the beginning, at the end of my exchange with this guy that got heated, he kept talking about, you know, the church in 50 and 75 years, as if it's a foregone conclusion that the church is going to be here in 50 and 75 years. My end response that he cut out of his edited version that he's posted on his site was that I am concerned that if we don't move towards greater inclusion, if we don't resolve some of these problems, the church— I don't think the church is in any danger of fully disappearing, but the church is very much in danger of sinking back into deep obscurity and only appealing to a very sort of hardline reactionary group of people. And I think the church's days as a missionary church, as a proselytizing church, will be numbered. We're already seeing some of that, and I think we're going to talk about that in, in a, in a future podcast. But, uh, I, I just think it— as we navigate the future of the church, we have to remember that the future of the church depends on us. We are the church. The church isn't anything outside of its people. Outside of its members. And we have to decide what kind of church we want to have and what that church is going to look like going forward. So I very much appreciate these kinds of discussions because they open my eyes to things that I hadn't thought of before. And I think your insights are really quite valuable to people no matter where they situate with regard to the relationship with the church. So with that in mind, um, Please make sure that you subscribe to our podcast and tell your friends about us. We'd love to have you as part of this conversation. So until next time, we'll see you on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

You did.