Disability - with Greg Prince

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here closer to the equator than my partner in crime, Mr. Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I'm doing well all the way from up here in Canada. Hope you are doing well.

Yeah, well, I'm seeing all the stuff about how terrifyingly cold it's going to get. Are you getting that up in Canada as well?

Some really weird stuff happening that we've never experienced before with the weather. Calgary, where my daughter lives, right now is -21. Here it's like, uh, 0 or 2 degrees. Typically we've not had that, and we've had hardly any snow, which is unheard of. It's— we've never experienced such a mild winter in this part of Canada. So yeah, there's definitely— the climate is changing, that's for sure.

Well, we're going to bring on here someone who is not a change, which is a wonderful thing because we're so grateful that Greg keeps coming back to our podcast. But we welcome historian and scholar Greg Prince back to Inside Out. Greg, how are you, sir?

I am well. I may not be closer to the equator, but I live near the epicenter of the entertainment capital of the world, which is about 20 miles from here.

The entertainment capital of the world is 20 miles from D.C.? No, it is D.C. Oh, well, your sense of entertainment is quite different from mine, I think.

It's what 50 years here will do to you.

Oh, there you go. That's absolutely lovely. Well, we're going to continue the discussion. Oh, we could go off on all kinds of tangents there. I just— but I want to get focused here because whenever, Greg, whenever you're on, we always get messages. Saying, oh, we just love this roadmap. Where can we find the roadmap? And we always tell them that the roadmap is not publicly available, which I think is wonderful because it lures people back to listen as we go forward and discuss what you've done here. And in the last time we had you here, we were talking about the whole us versus they issue. And we are now at a section of your roadmap titled Disabilities, and it says the problem: it is unlikely there is a ward in the Church that does not have a member with a disability, and while there may have been attempts to develop outreach to families with disabilities, they have fallen short, at least in our experience. We have lived in the same ward for 40 years, and there has not been a single occasion when a home teacher We never had contact with a minister— since that name replaced home teacher— or a quorum leader, bishop, high counselor, or stake president even reached out to us and asked to hear of the challenges that autism brings into our entire lives. I am not aware that any of those people has an autistic child, and so I am quite sure they know very little about the disability and how deeply it affects all aspects of family life. So this is a part of your roadmap that really hits close to home for you. I mean, you have an autistic child and that defines much of your professional energies. You've created a foundation to help people with autism. Do you want to sort of expand on that, comment on that as to, I mean, your however much of your own personal experience you want to share in that, or how it applies to the church in a broader sense.

It, it affects everything in our lives. And I think most families who have a severely disabled family member experience the same thing. If you don't have a family member with a disability, It's very, very difficult to comprehend how complete the effect is of that disability on family dynamics. Uh, in the, the case of our son who is severely autistic and who is now 36 years old and still lives with us, it's a 24/7 thing. Fortunately, we have a team of aides that's with him during much of the daylight and evening hours, but still it affects everything about our lives. It would be wonderful if we saw that the church, or any church for that matter, was reaching out and trying to make a difference in a meaningful way. Disabilities, particularly as the people with disabilities age, cannot be attractive to people. My wife calls it the puppy syndrome, that children with disabilities invite sympathy, but as they age, less so. I think people have good intentions, but the portal of entry is mystifying to many of them. Perhaps they are fearful of the person with a disability. Perhaps they don't want to feel like they are intruding on a family's privacy. For whatever reason. Those conversations rarely, if ever, take place, whether on a congregational level or on an individual level. That's something we see all the time, we grapple with. We have not seen an effective response yet. One of the problems is that if you have a ward, say 250 people, I don't know what the, the official size is now of a ward, but say it's that. You may only have 2 or 3 people in the entire ward who have a disability, and they're likely not to be the same disability. So you don't ever have enough with any given condition that a congregation has an effective means of saying, oh, we can address that here. We'll have a special class for this or that. So you're kind of left hanging and often left in isolation. And what's What's really frustrating is the unspoken thought that, well, gee, they're kind of standoffish. We don't see them involved in church activities that much. Yeah, the reason you don't is that they're totally consumed. And I don't think anybody realizes the extent to which they are consumed. There's my lead-in.

No, I think that's an absolutely insightful way to put it. Uh, we've dealt with this in our own family in a very different way. Uh, uh, I had my oldest daughter, uh, suffered a spinal cord injury and is paralyzed from the waist down. Uh, but this is a physical disability, not a mental disability, and she's been able to adapt, uh, remarkably well to the point where she is now, um, a physiatrist. She is now a medical doctor. In her second year of residency in Chicago. And she is the kind of specialist that treated her after she got her spinal cord injury. So she is physical medicine and rehab is her focus. Excuse me. And, and so we had challenges dealing with her disability, but It's very different because she mentally had absolutely no problem, uh, and physically, while there were challenges associated with it, it was not nearly, I think, as consuming as your experience has been. I mean, there's a marked difference, I think, between physical and a mental disability. Uh, how does the church handle that? Because it seems like it needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. I don't know how you can do a sort of one-size-fits-all solution.

I don't think you can. I think the church is struggling with how to address the issue at all. In part, it's because, as I said, there isn't a critical mass within any given ward that would allow you to say, here is a special class, a special curriculum we had devised. The theology of disability is essentially nonexistent within Mormonism, and I think within most religious traditions. People who would be well-meaning and would say, oh, this is a blessing, and whatever you want to fill in those blanks. Generally are well-intentioned and very harmful. That just doesn't help at all. I think it would be much better to say, we really don't have a clue what the theological implications of this are. What we do have a clue at is we need to be helping each other. How can we help you? But we've never been asked that question.

Well, you say in the roadmap patronizing comments such as your child will have automatic entry into the celestial kingdom are harmful, even if well-intentioned. Yeah, I assume you've heard that on a number of occasions.

I'm not sure if we've ever heard that with Madison because we've heard almost nothing. With respect to Madison. It really mystifies us. And here we have devoted essentially all of whatever our remaining years are, not just to focus on Madison, but to have created a foundation 18 years ago that's trying to address the 5.5 million autistic adults in this country. So it's not like we're hiding in the darkness, ashamed of our child's disability. It's just the opposite. And yet the church community has, on an institutional basis, pretty much been oblivious to it. Now, we have had friends within the church, some within our congregation, that have been wonderfully supportive. Financially to our foundation. We're deeply grateful for that. But in terms of an institutional response that has a practical output, uh, it's been nonexistent. And I suspect that's often the case in other congregations with other disabilities.

Well, Ian, when you were a stake president, or I'm sorry, in a stake presidency, how did you deal with disabilities, or did that even show up on your radar?

It did.

It did.

That's a great question. I, when I joined the church at 16 and go through the YSA program, serving a mission, I was indoctrinated, conditioned, uh, repeatedly to understand the church in a certain context, i.e., It was for families, mom and dad and kids. You know, we heard it at the pulpit, you know, that's the core objective, was to get married, have children, etc. And as I look back in my experience as a bishop and serving on a stake presidency, almost the entire structure, organization, doctrine, principles, behaviors, practices, cultures was organized and structured around families. It wasn't until I became a bishop. The state presidency is the, uh, state president specifically is the guy that runs the show, I think, for a huge part of the church. A lot of stuff that happens, uh, in the church, um, significantly happens at the state level. State president is the, is the key holder, but the state president is not in my experience, as close. It should be, but it's not as close to the members compared to a bishop. So when I became a bishop, my perspective on the church's main narrative, i.e., everything's organized and structured and taught around families, that conventional traditional family unit, I was shocked at times, surprised when I interviewed individual members, including members with disabilities, members with other issues, and learned in a very direct way. I think I learned this on our mission quite a bit in Scotland as I went into the world and met all these people that you and I met in Scotland and you, it kind of broadens your perspective on life. As a bishop though, it's different because you're actually with the individuals in a very close personal way, serving with, serving in callings. And they, the members, if they trust you and respect you and they feel they can open up and share things with you. And that was my experience. In fact, the first week, two weeks, it was, uh, I was overwhelmed, uh, frankly, with members coming to me who had held long issues, long-standing issues on a whole range of different things, including disabilities. And I think at that time, the first time I saw, uh, the church through a, uh, a spectrum of different feelings and experiences, uh, representing my ward that I was presiding over, uh, you know, had different issues. And so, so the disability, uh, issue came up very quickly for me as a bishop. We, I'm talking about temporal. So we had, the building wasn't designed to be, uh, um, uh, friendly towards, uh, people with disabilities. There were, uh, you had to go down the steps, you know, there was a physical challenges to get into the building for certain people, wheelchairs and other people with other physical disabilities. So there was a lot of help needed, um, that I didn't really understand, frankly, until I became a bishop. And just, you know, getting more involved. I understood it a little bit from the home teaching program. You know, I helped a family with disabilities when I was younger, but I was just a kid. I didn't really understand, you know, the different challenges. Fast forward, you know, becoming a bishop and then experiencing the temporal physical challenges. That was something that we have to address. In our buildings and how do we facilitate individuals with disabilities and help them get to church and reduce some of the barriers. But I think the thing that concerned me the most, and I was taught this by the missionaries, in fact, one of the missionaries that came onto the podcast that taught and baptized me, which you had an interesting encounter with him. You left the podcast, you stood up and you left. And right. So this is an individual that, uh, I won't talk about the personal things there because he found me and baptized me and I, and I, in, in many ways I have a lot of love and respect for him for that. But, um, he, uh, along with many others held this position about, you know, race and the priesthood, but he also held a very strong position on the reason why people have disabilities. And I was shocked to hear as an investigator That the reason why, uh, individuals with disabilities have the disabilities is that they were, and again, I'm just sharing my, what I was told as an investigator all the way through pretty much my entire church life, that individuals with disabilities either did something wrong in the pre-earth life and were not valiant. But were so desperate for a physical body that they would take any physical body. And again, I'm sharing with you what I was told or what I was taught. Or they were valiant and as a result of their, although they were, uh, uh, significantly valiant or more special or more valiant than anyone else to the point where God, uh, assigned them a body with physical disabilities. Because they were so special and so chosen. So I had these two different narratives that I was, I was taught. And as I think about this, you know, there were individuals and families that were getting up at the pulpit, you know, as I was joining the church and being involved in the church and listening to these talks and lessons, who would often, not always, but would often make reference to someone's disability. And say that they were more special than anyone else. And I heard that a lot, and I didn't really fully understand it or appreciate it, and still don't fully understand it, to be honest, until I became a bishop. And so, you know, when people with disabilities came to the bishop and opened up about how they really felt about their disability, something that I had very little knowledge or understanding of, to be honest, it just completely opened my eyes, and it was quite an emotional experience, as I never understood it or saw it in the way that they do. And they talked about, you know, things that bother them when they come to church, that they don't fit into the mold, right? They're not in the, you know, they're not in this, they're not in the group, they can't go out and mix, they've got these physical barriers that restrict them. They're not part of that mainstream cultural experience that a lot of us take for granted. I know I did. And so, you know, with those members opening up to me and sharing, you know, members with disabilities sharing their mental disabilities, physical, et cetera. It was emotional. And I tried my best to be understanding and compassionate. And I, it just was an extraordinary experience. And then I researched things like, you know, like this, you know, where there's comments from previous apostles about people being less valiant. Harvey Lee said this, and I think this is reliable. This is taken from Decisions of Successful Living, page 164 to 165. He says this, this privilege of obtaining a mortal body on this earth is seemingly so priceless that those in the spirit world, even though unfaithful or not valiant, were undoubtedly permitted to take mortal bodies, although under penalty of racial or physical or nationalistic limitations. We've had these conversations about, you know, in the pre-Earth life, in the council, it's like when you get on a mission, you go on your mission and you learn, you know, 7, 8 of us came out on a mission and then within 24 hours you learn who your trainer is going to be, right? You went through that, Jim Bennett, right? Uh, great. You experienced that and you learn where you're going to go and who you're going to serve with. I, I, that, that kind of seems similar to what the pre-Earth Experience Council was, that, you know, Ian, you're going to get, you're going to be born in England, born in Yorkshire into this poor working-class community, have all these experiences, um, or someone else is going to be born in Africa with, you know, an extreme political violent situation and you may or may not survive. And by the way, the color of your skin is gonna be black and you're gonna be disabled. You know, that just seemed absolutely not just absurd, but, but just awful. I can't think of anything more awful. I mean, and then that the idea that people accepted that or chose that, you know, the missionary that came on the podcast, Jim Bennett, about race and the priesthood, said that the folks who were black chose to be black. That was their choice. And they chose it in order to get a physical body. The whole doctrine, the history behind the doctrine, the offensive, outrageous quotes and comments and statements by past church leaders that should have known better through inspiration and intelligence, yet made these comments, remarks, which I think a lot of people found deeply offensive. And just to finish here, as a bishop, Jim, didn't happen as a stake presidency, but as a bishop, I had two people come to me who had read this stuff, who had physical disabilities, who were deeply hurt and offended. Now, I can only speak from my own experience. I don't have children with disabilities. I have a good friend of mine, one of my best friends has two children with severe disabilities, but I don't have that personal experience like you guys have got. But I, the whole doctrine and history on this is just an absolute sham. It's a mess. And the church never— we never hear about it now, do we? But I heard about it, you know, quite often. So, yeah, I just think it's another, another area of the church that needs to be addressed. And some of these comments need to— Pastor Bartleby disavowed, frankly.

Well, are these comments, Greg, that you've heard, this idea that your child is somehow being punished for something they did in a pre-earth life?

That part we've never heard. I think I would have punched somebody out if he or she had tried to say that to us. I think part of the dilemma we now see in the church is that we couldn't resist the fundamentalist tendency to have an answer for every question, and often a one-line answer. Bruce McConkie took us way down that rabbit hole, and I wonder if he ever heard a question where he didn't think he knew the answer and knew the right answer where everybody else had the wrong answer. I think what would be most helpful is for us collectively to take a step back and say, We have no clue what the cause of this is. What we're sure of is that you and your child have, for whatever reason, been placed in a situation that requires the entire community to respond with compassion and, where possible, with some type of assistance. We don't hear that. Just to step back and not say what we've said in the past would be a step forward. What Ian just said about disabilities, you change one or two words, that's what people used to say about blacks and priesthood. Exactly the same thing. And you saw how helpful that was.

Sure. Well, Ian, you quoted Harold B. Lee. Uh, I mean, I think it was almost in the same sentence. Where he talks about people who were less valiant or less righteous in the pre-earth life. They either come to the earth with black skin or with physical limitations. I mean, this idea that we need to have an answer for everything except for— it's, it's interesting to me that our answer to this is so polar opposite. I mean, one of the things we never said about black people when we were discriminating against them and withholding the priesthood and temple blessings from them. We never said they are so righteous, or they were so righteous in the pre-earth life that they don't need the priesthood. But we never went that way. And yet now that seems to be the way that so many people who are looking for having an answer to everything, uh, seem to be going. I— when I was in a bishopric We have a special needs ward in our stake, and they were going to come and host the sacrament meeting in our ward, and I was conducting. And my bishop, bless his heart, said to me, "You— what you need to say at the beginning of this sacrament meeting is that we are all privileged thou today to be hearing from people, all of whom are going to the celestial kingdom. And I remember just kind of looking at him going, I'm— I didn't say this to him. I just said, I'm not going to— I just said to myself, I'm not going to say that. I just— and it wasn't— I wasn't— I think, Greg, sadly, I wasn't sensitive enough to recognize how offensive that would be. Necessarily, but it just did not sit well with me at all. And it just seemed strange and it seemed very patronizing to me, to the people who were there. I didn't want to turn around and say, okay, you're so special. Right? It just, it, anyway, so I didn't say it. And my bishop was, I wouldn't say visibly upset, But right after I sat down, he stood up and he was not scheduled to speak. And he said, I just want to say here, and he said it, that you are now going to hear from people who are all going to the celestial kingdom. And he didn't scold me afterwards for not having said it. I think maybe he just sort of saw it as an oversight. But it is, it is just so wildly bizarre to me that we can be in a church where you could have a Harold B. Lee saying, well, these disabilities come from wickedness and evil before the pre-earth life, and the exact opposite, these people are even more righteous than you could possibly be. Uh, what— where does that dichotomy come from? I mean, is it— is that just because we just feel like we need to have an answer and we're scrambling?

I I think I can connect a couple of dots that may make people uncomfortable, but don't we do something similar with LGBTQ, where we don't necessarily relate it to the pre-existence, but we say, you know, you made the choice to be this way. And so we're dumping it on their shoulders when in fact we know now, largely through very solid biology, this isn't a choice. So let's take a step back from our certitude about an afterlife of which we know nothing and deal with the here and now and recognize that We do not understand why any of us are exactly the way we are. What we understand is we are all children of the same God and we need to treat each other as siblings of equal status. Does that make sense, Jim Bennett?

It does. And I, I mean, that's kind of where I land on this as well. And I have always taken a certain degree of solace from the idea that what happened in the life before this one informs this life. Now, we don't have any sense of what that means. I mean, because the, the sort of simple way to apply that is to say, well, if things are good for you in this life, it's because you did something good in the previous life. It's the Sound of Music principle. I must have done something good. Somewhere, someplace. Whereas I don't think it means that at all. I mean, I don't know. I mean, nobody knows. And I think we need to be comfortable saying that nobody knows. But I think that, you know, if there were people, I think it's very possible that there are people who are thrown into very difficult circumstances because they demonstrated prior to this life that they could handle difficult circumstances, and they were called upon to deal with the circumstances. Or there are people who are thrown into very easy circumstances because they wouldn't be able to deal with anything else. I mean, we don't know. So this is all speculation, and it, it becomes really problematic when we start to apply any degree of certitude to that speculation. But I do think there is some value in the theological principle of an eternal life that began or never really began, that is co-eternal with God, and that whatever happened prior to coming to this earth informs what happens on this earth. Do, do Do you find, Greg, do you find solace in that kind of an idea as well? Or given your experience dealing with the kinds of things that have been said about your family, is that not something that resonates with you?

If I could reduce it to a few simple phrases, um, it would be don't judge. And how can I help? Even if we had just those two things, we'd be in a better position. Anything else, it starts to get you into terrain that becomes very rocky very quickly. Related to that, for instance, would be how many of the amazing people you've known in your life got a really shoddy ticket out of this life. And how many well-meaning co-religionists were quietly saying, hmm, wonder why he got that. He must have done something to deserve that. Somebody like your dad, Jim, who died of a very nasty kind of cancer.

Yeah.

What did he do to deserve that? Well, the answer probably is he didn't do anything to deserve that, right? Shit happens. And, and that, that may be one of the foundational blocks of our theology, if we would just admit it.

Well, it's— that, that's exactly right. And I think, you know, the— some of the comments that we got— and again, I, I think my— our circumstance in our family isn't quite quite analogous to the circumstance in your family. But a lot of the comments that we've gotten over the years have been things like, uh, everything happens for a reason. And when my daughter succeeds, or when something remarkable happens— for instance, she, um, she got scholarships, uh, that put her all the way through her undergraduate school for a full ride and a full ride through medical school, which is really, I mean, she, she graduated from medical school without a penny of debt. She's engaged to a guy who she met in medical school who did not graduate without a penny of debt, but he's going to be in it. He is an anesthesiologist. So I think that he'll be fine. But, um, but a lot of people would say, well, see, it's all for the best. See, and it's like, well, no, no, it's not. It's not all for the best. I mean, yes, there have been grace, there's been grace, and there have been blessings, and there have been wonderful things that have happened, but I would throw all of that away in a hot minute if I could make my daughter whole again.

Yeah. And again, Getting back to autism, we have seen families destroyed by this. We have seen marriages destroyed by this. And anybody who would like to say, well, this is such a blessing, I'd like to have that talk. We simply do not know, and we do our best, but very often These things that happen are beyond our capability both to understand and even to cope. And if I see, uh, a marriage that has been destroyed because of a disability, I'm certainly not going to pass judgment on that couple because my immediate thought is, well, Wow, I hope ours can stay together because we have the continual challenges of autism.

Well, I think those comments come from a place of fear. They come from, because I know that when this happened in my family, I had not realized in my own mind just how transactional my relationship with God was. I had always assumed that these kinds of things happen to other families, and I didn't really consciously say because they deserve them, but I did sort of say to myself, but it won't happen to me because I'm righteous, because I'm good, because I'm keeping the commandments, because I'm paying my tithing and saying my prayers. And, and then it happens. And I think that the comments come from a place of fear from people who are trying to figure out some way to ward off something like that happening to them. Have you seen— does that— have you seen that?

It goes back to what we've talked about before, what I call the formulaic gospel. You do A, B happens. End of discussion. That works until it doesn't work. And if you want to see how it really doesn't work, read the book of Job.

Right.

Well, it begins with the statement, Job was a perfect man.

Yeah.

And yet the rest of the book is how every time he turns around, he's getting knocked down and everything that meant anything to him is taken away. And it's not a happily ever after story. Now, in the end, it says, oh, well, these things were restored to him. That was written later by a different writer, apparently one who couldn't stand the ambiguity that the original poem left you with. And I think that's more the experience of people in the real world. If you think the formulaic gospel is the way to live your life, you're probably going to be in for a rude awakening at some point.

Well, the Book of Job— I went and read the Book of Job when I was going through all of this and found it frustrating on two different levels. One being that same sort of ambiguity, but the other being the, the— I mean, it was very— it's very clear. And most scholars will, will tell you that the, the Book of Job, the central poem, is bookended by— yes, by an introduction and an epilogue that were written long after the fact that try to tidy it up. Yep. Which to me, it makes it 100 times worse in a lot of different ways because the opening is there's God and then the devil just shows up. Although we're in the Hebrew Bible and so talking about him as the Christian devil is sort of anachronistic. He's just an adversary, but it's written now in the current language as Satan. Satan shows up and has direct access to God and says, hey, let's make a bar bet on Job.

Yep.

I bet I can make his life hell and then he won't like you anymore. Oh, well, now let's see. I mean, to me, that's— it's like I can't worship a God that makes bar bets with Satan about the suffering of his children. It doesn't make any sense to me. The God that shows up in the tone poem makes a little more sense in that he's saying, look, you know, you You don't understand the cosmos the way I do. You know, where were you when the foundations of the world— we proof text parts of the book of Job to try to talk about, um, the pre-mortal life. And I think we're yanking those woefully out of context. We talk about when the— where were you, uh, when the sons of God shouted for joy at the foundations of the world? And we take that as, ah, see, that's proof that we were all there shouting for joy. No, that's God saying to them, you weren't there.

Yeah, no, you don't have standing.

You don't have standing. You don't understand any of this. But then you get to the epilogue, and the epilogue is grotesque. Yeah, it's absolutely grotesque. It's like, well, yeah, Job lost his wife. Lost his 12 children, but he got a new wife. Then he got 12 new children. And isn't that great? And I'm just thinking, this is the— I mean, I just don't understand anybody who could try to put that kind of a tidy little ribbon around such a messy, difficult story. And, and that's all from that.

The whole point of Job is the messiness of the real world in which we live. To me, there are three important messages there. The one we usually dwell on is, gee, bad things happen to good people. You've heard of a book by that title. And the second is, hey, how come the wicked go to their graves smiling? They have prospered. And number 3 is, damn it, I demand a face-to-face meeting with God. And the voice comes out and said, fine, when you get a face, we'll talk. That's it. That's the message of Job. But that reflects the reality of the human condition. And what it really underscores is what faith is all about. It's what Job says in there that is not a proof text for resurrection. It's him saying, all right, even if you send worms to destroy my flesh, which is as bad as it gets, I'm still gonna see God. It doesn't make sense, but I'm going to do it. That's what faith is. And if you can appreciate that ambiguity, you won't understand it, then Job has tremendous strength to offer because it's saying, hey, you know, you think you've been shit on, move over, that bench is deep and we're all in this together. And unstated there is the hope That is particularly the Christian hope that, look, this doesn't all end when we die. We don't have a clue what's next. Our hope is that the equations get worked out later that aren't worked out here. But we're certainly not going to pass judgment along the way.

The, the roadmap, the Greg Prince Roadmap for Improving Mormonism. Has allowed me to see the church in a very new light. You know, I have all of my experiences like you two have, and the Roadmap consolidates a lot of thoughts and feelings, raises questions, and identifies, uh, and, and characterizes real opportunities for the church to change and improve. I shared earlier that the church has got this common mainstream narrative, right? You know, families, traditional, here's the doctrine, et cetera. It kind of serves a particular group, you know, the majority of the individuals in the church. And of course, you've got people on the periphery, people with physical disabilities and people who are of color and people who are LGBTQ, um, again, on the sidelines there. And there's that wrestle between how does the church doctrinally, culturally, uh, reconcile that in a way that's inclusive and kind and loving and thoughtful. And for the true church of the— upon the face of the earth to have taken so long to get to where it is. And if you follow the current, or you plot the current trajectory of change and improvements in the context of the roadmap, it's concerning in regards to the rate of change. It's going in the right direction, I think. I can't speak specifically on how the church is improving in regards to helping people with disabilities, but I I hear good things, but as I listen to you both and I read the roadmap and we had that quote from R.B. Lee, I was thinking, where does that doctrine come from? Where does that thinking come from? And as I was asking myself that question, when I was listening to you both, I remember growing up and attending at times, um, Sunday school in the Church of England. Excuse me. And actually attending the Church of England sermons by the vicar or the, uh, the pastor or the minister. And many of them were very fire and brimstone, right? So this is Protestant Church of England, going to church as a kid, soon as school after in the afternoon. Um, and the, the vicar or the minister would actually bang his, his smash his fist down under the pulpit and it would be fire and brimstone. He'd raise his voice. Uh, Jim, you might have been to, uh, you might have been to one of these, um, sermons in other, some of these, um, other churches, but my experience has been it was very, very judgmental, very doctrinal, very black and white, and just extremely prescribed and very, very strict kind of upbringing. And if you look at the church, uh, the, you know, the, the Protestant, um, threads that run through all the doctrine and the policies and the thinking and the mindset of the church. A lot of the thinking of these earlier brethren, the apostles, that's where it comes from. England and UK history with slavery and racism is just awful, just grotesque. So these apostles don't wake up one morning and start to think and feel and believe these things. It comes from somewhere, and it comes from the doctrine. Now, the doctrine influences behavior, policies influences behavior. And from those two points, you get process, how we think, how we feel, how we behave, how we act, how we do things. And if you introduce rituals and if you tie those rituals to covenants and then tie them to the doctrine, that's the equation. You could put a mathematical equation of that. It leads a lot of people into this very prescriptive way of thinking in this narrative of the church, notwithstanding all these different other variations. 'Cause I was thinking, you know, where does that, why would Harold B. Lee, a prophet of God, say something like that? Is he not supposed to have this deep insight into, um, you know, what life was like before we were born? And, and you know, what about agency? Do we not have a choice about where we're born and what body we are born into? It raises a whole bunch of questions. So I think the roadmap raises critical questions for the leaders to review its culture, its behavior, its policies in respect to people with disabilities, uh, and in respect to these very harmful, offensive, outrageous, um, uh, hurtful, uh, quotes and doctrines and policies that they've had., in the past. And I'm going, I'm watching, some stuff on YouTube about the Nuremberg Trials, right? And you've got these individuals that were absolutely, complicit and individuals who were at the forefront of leading the wholesale destruction of up to 6 million people. 6 million Jews and others during the Second World War. The stories and the accounts and the evidence is absolutely devastating. It, it, it's extremely difficult to hear some of the accounts in the Nuremberg Trials. And the, this evidence was presented to these perpetrators that executed Hitler's plan and exterminated Jews and others, en masse, um, in a way that is indescribable, unimaginable, unspeakable. And many of the responses from these, um, German, senior German officers that were very close to Hitler, um, went to the graves with the smiles at times, uh, said very few words, uh, other than, uh, uh, Heil Hitler or, speaking, exclusively about the German people and the German race, et cetera. Um, and some of them are completely unrepentant and show no remorse or compassion whatsoever in regards to what they've done. And they go to, the graves, some of them, unrepentant and some of them actually literally grinning and smiling. I was just astounded at how how far human nature can go. I know that's an extreme example, but when I was serving as a bishop and I heard at times, not often, didn't happen too often, hurtful comments, very, just awful comments and judgments from certain people. Again, that judgment is shaped by doctrine, by policy, by quotes that people read. You know, the missionary that baptized me thought that way and thinks that way even now about Blacks and race, et cetera. For a reason. I don't think it's in his nature to be like that. It's probably become his nature right now. So the church has still got a long way to go to address these very hurtful, very harmful actions, behaviors, quotes, past policies, et cetera. And its silence is just extraordinary. I'm just reminded here from the essay about Race of the Priesthood, and I think it, it, I think they should do an essay on this, by the way. I think if, as the roadmap is evolving and developing, wouldn't it be great for the roadmap to find itself in the hands of the apostles and the First Presidency? That's where it belongs for a read, an honest read. And a humble read and a prayerful reflection of what's in the roadmap. And it wouldn't be great if the church produced an essay and a very different type of essay than it's done before, because in the race and the priesthood, it says here, today the church has avowed theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that blacks or others of any other race or lineage that were less valiant in the pre-mortal existent than others. And, and you could, you can replace that with people with disabilities based on what I was taught, uh, by, you know, senior leaders and gospel teachers, you know, growing, growing part of my life, growing up in the church and, and my experience in the church. So again, this is another, yet another example of so many where you have, uh, the church leaders, intelligent inspiration, insight, relationship with God, where they need to address this and get away from some of the judgments that I heard as a bishop that so-and-so is having this bad experience right now because they've sinned or they've been rebellious or lazy, that these bad things happen to them because they brought it upon themselves or they're not obedient, et cetera, et cetera. It's just a It's interesting with the church, you know, the members have this amazing, we know this, just incredibly Christlike side, just that are kind and loving, will do anything for anyone and help people and go to great lengths to serve and to love and to be kind. And that is the true form of Christianity. On the other side, with some, sadly, there's this very judgmental, narrow thinking about you know, why people suffer the way they do. And, you know, we, they put them into these boxes, you know, you're, you're in the disability box and, you know, I've kind of, you're in there for a reason. Okay. And we'll kind of deal with you in the way that we, we, we only know how, and then you're black or you're a person of color, we'll put you in there or you're LGBTQ, et cetera. Well, that's a, another special box that you put you into, but isn't the gospel of Christ all-inclusive, all-reaching, all-empowering? Isn't Christ's love universal? It seems that the church, again, on this issue, amongst so many issues in the roadmap and others not in the roadmap, is shifting away or has not brought itself back into that gospel, not the church, but the gospel of Christ, of being kind and loving and compassionate. And not judgmental. And for someone like me, who's not an apostle or prophet, who's now left the church, who's, you know, there are smarter people than I am in the church at that level, for sure. You know, how do I see this? You know, and how does Greg Bennett see this? And you see this, Jim Bennett? It's identifying the Roma. And why do they not see it? Or do they see it? And they just have gone quiet again. You know, this is another area of a real embarrassing area where We can't talk about that because it means so many stupid comments about, you know, people with disabilities, et cetera. We'll just kind of be quiet and we'll just go along as though, you know, uh, it's, you know, kind of a, people will forget about it. So yeah, it, it's, it, the roadmap gives me a very different, uh, perspective of the church. So I'm very grateful to Greg and for the privilege of being able to, um, have access to that document.

Well, we are conditioned by doctrine, by policy, but there is an element of this that is unfortunately eternal. It predates the church. It's the story of Jesus and the blind man. Who sinned that he was born this way? There wasn't even a church then. It was human nature that wants an answer, and if it doesn't get the one it wants, then it posits one that it thinks it wants. So we're up here not only against a culture that's been around for a couple of hundred years, but against a threat of human nature that is, seems to be inherent And that's where we're swimming upstream.

Well, as you talk about this, Greg, as you frame this, I mean, you talked about the idea that there's a good analogy here to LGBTQ people. I see analogies also to how we treat women in the church because we pedestalize women now. In a way to justify not giving them the kind of authority that men have in the church. And we try to say, okay, well, you are so righteous and so wonderful, you don't need the priesthood. You're already— and the priesthood is for men to help catch up. I mean, I've heard that so many times, and it drives my wife absolutely crazy to hear things like that. But that to me seems analogous to the same idea of patronizing people who say, well, gee, your disability is awful, but you're going straight to the celestial kingdom as a result. So it's all for the best. That isn't this wonderful. I mean, do you think that there's an appropriate analogy to be found in that as well?

Well, I think so. I think there's a tendency to want to differentiate self from other. And very often that means you want to elevate self and denigrate other. So you're going to come up with some rational thinking that, oh, this is why. So you as women don't get the voice that we as men do because. Yeah.

Well, and so it seems to all come back to the way you frame this in the idea that we want want everything to have an answer. Yeah, we want everything to have a nice tidy sort of moral to the story at the end of the book, and it just doesn't. And one of the interesting things that I'm seeing— I'm so— Greg, before we got on here, you said you asked me for sort of a report on President Oaks's, uh, first few how people in Utah are reacting to President Oaks's first few months in office. And one of the things that I'm very impressed by, actually, with regard to President Oaks is that he has very explicitly said, in particular in his one talk in conference, uh, that we don't have all the answers. Uh, and he said, I wish we had all the answers to all the difficult questions, but we do not. And that strikes me as an extraordinarily humble sort of position for him to take. Am I overstating his humility there, or?

No, I agree with you, and I see that as very encouraging. We've talked before about the allure of fundamentalism in religion of any flavor, not even just Christian. And part of that attractiveness is that it purports to give an answer for every question. Now, I look at the Book of Mormon as essentially a fundamentalist document. The more I've thought about it over the years, the theology within the Book of Mormon is very simplistic. And it doesn't ring true to me.

It's very black and white.

Yes, specifically, the righteous prosper, the wicked suffer. End of story. That's the Book of Mormon theology, but it doesn't work. It does not jibe with our experience. Job does. I don't know that there's anybody out there that cannot relate on personal level to Job because that's been their lived experience.

Well, and you look at early church history, uh, you look at Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, and the revelation he receives in Liberty Jail references Job. And he's there saying, oh God, where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place? I mean, so in terms of lived experience, the early church leaders understood the lessons of Job better than they understood sort of the black and white theology of the Book of Mormon.

Yes, yes. If institutionally we could take that step backwards and acknowledge it openly, as they brushed up against occasionally— President Oaks did that when Dieter Uchtdorf was in the First presidency, he had to do out and do— go out and do some damage control because of Boyd Packer. And he made a similar statement that, look, there is much we do not know about the next breath, so let's not be judgmental about it. That's good theology, and that theology needs to be preached loudly and repeatedly It's not that, hey, we got all the answers. It's, we may not even know all the questions, much less have all the answers, but we're in this together. And our hope, our faith is that somehow at some future time, a loving God will help us to make sense out of this and somehow make it work, but it sure doesn't work during this life for so many people, and we should not judge those people.

Yeah. As I listen to you, Greg, I'm, I'm, you remind me of my time with President Oaks when he set us apart as a stake presidency. He interviewed me, uh, personally, privately with Elder Cook. Elder, is it David Cook? Jayme?

I don't, I don't think, I just know it's not Quentin Cook.

Not Quintico, he's the younger one, just really nice fella, nice individual. And the meeting with President Oaks was just wonderful. And then we had met with our wives, then we met with the stake presidency together, et cetera, with President Oaks, Elder Oaks. And then afterwards we had, we spent afternoon with him and we had dinner and he sat, am I right? Him and I were chatting and it was a time of the Arab Spring. I think I mentioned this before. And as I was talking with him just as a, um, a man speaks to a man, a regular guy. And I'm not the kind of person that, um, I'm not bowled over by, you know, this celebrity thing, by the way. Um, you know, where people just follow the apostles or wanna shake the hand all the time. That never really was something I was interested in. And I was shocked. It's called a stake presidency, by the way. Um, how many people lined up like I was hardly known in the state, but I had 20, 25 people, 20, 50 people lining up. It was just, I felt quite uncomfortable with that. But anyway, I'm talking to President Oaks just on regular stuff, you know, about LGBTQ stuff. We should not, I've got, I'd like to get into more of that, Jim Bennett, on another podcast. But, and I was asking him, what is happening with the Arab Spring? What does the Lord think, you know, what's happening there? And his response was, surprising back then, not so much now, but it was that, well, we don't know, we don't know. And we talked about a few of the things in the church and challenges, and he said to me very humbly, in just a regular kind of way, there are a lot of things that we don't know, we just don't know, and the Lord will reveal it to us in time. I was both shocked and actually grateful for that. It was humble, it was a very personal comment to me, it was right next to me, Big Round Table. And it was just a realization that he doesn't know everything, right? And, you know, he's trying to figure it out just like the rest of us. And, you know, that will come to him in time. But here's the message, I think. Here's the advice, if there's any advice. Instead of making stuff up, instead of making shit up, right?

Okay, we use that word a bit Quite a bit.

This, we are, I'm on my favorite quote of all time podcast by Greg Prince is shit happens. I just love that. And so sorry, Greg, I can't forget that. I won't, I won't share that without your permission, but I just love that.

Well, I can't claim originality on that. Thanks.

But when it comes from Greg Prince, it's got a whole different level for me. So, uh, Yeah, maybe should find its way into the roadmap, who knows. But instead of making stuff up on stuff we don't know, because hey, we're looking for an answer on stuff and the members want an answer, why can't we do what President Elder Oaks said privately, do it publicly and say, look, we just don't know, we're trying to figure it out. Look at the temple, you know, with the, you know, Peter, James, and John and Adam and Eve. It was stuff that Adam and Eve didn't know. You know, why, why are you doing this? Why you worshipping it? And he said, well, you know, we don't know. We're waiting for further light and truth for the Lord to reveal to us line upon line, precept upon precept. That's the fundamental doctrine of the church. So instead of, like I said, making stuff up and guessing, especially on issues that are so important that people, members, take seriously. When you're an apostle and you open your mouth, you've got to know what you're doing. You've got to know what you're saying. Because people take that shit seriously. It's not all shit, some of it is, but not all of it. So why can't we translate those kind of conversations with President Oaks in a way that is kind of balanced at the pulpit and in the materials and in the lessons? And I think to your point, Jim Bennett, I think the thing is it's a bit of fear because if the leaders of the church come across like they don't know stuff, on key things. Well, why, why do we follow them? Why do we need them? To me, being out the church, that does something opposite to me. I have more respect for you if you tell me you don't know. In my line of work, very important technical engineering and environmental, I respect people who say they can't do certain things. There's a scope of work, we break it down in phases and tasks, etc. Here's the technical components, engineering, geotechnical, hydrotechnical, environmental, etc. Very specific. You've got this technical group, very senior people. And I respect people that say, Ian, I don't know that because I haven't done it. That's really important because when you're writing a proposal, you need to identify your strengths and weaknesses of your project team, uh, you know, as you're preparing your proposal, submitting to the client, right? These are million-dollar contracts. And so there are people out there who say they can do stuff, uh, or know stuff, and they just can't. They bullshit, right? We know that. It's on their resume. They present it in a conversation. They say they've got it. Turns out they haven't got it, right? Then there are people who say what they can't do or what they don't know. I and many others privately or publicly respect that because it's important to know what you know and what you don't know. And, you know, I made a mistake years ago in my professional life, many, many years ago as a kid. I said, I said, I, someone asked me a question and I tried to bullshit my way through the answer. And it was a client and he took me to the side privately and he kind of basically rebuked me, but did it professionally. And it taught me a valuable lesson not to talk bullshit because you'll get called out and to be honest. And if you don't know something, say it. And if you know something, fine. And so the church has not yet learned To an extent, it has in other areas, to be able to get up at the pulpit during conference and say, look, you know, it's to your relationship, Luafá, with infallibility, Jim, fallibility, right? To get up and say, look, we don't have all the answers. We're trying to figure it out. The Lord is speaking to us. You know, precept upon precept, line upon line, et cetera. We're doing our best. 'Um, we have many answers. There's some things that we're trying to figure out.' If they did that, I would have, and many others would have, so much respect for them. But instead, they either go silent, they don't talk about it, they let these things percolate. And you know, if you don't change something, if you allow something to continue, a doctrine or a policy that's been around for a long time, and it's changing the way people think, the way they behave, you know, like race, nutrition, disabilities, etc. And you don't address it, people come to their own conclusions. You've got the mainstream and they'll follow that, right? And think, oh, that's what they think and that's what I will interpret it and it's not changed, so it must be still in place. Must be able to still think like that. Must be okay to think and behave like that. There are others that try to crush it and challenge it and they say, well, no, you can't do that because there's been no official position of the church, so get back in line. Stop thinking, you know, outside the main mainstream narrative. So the church is failing to translate those private personal conversations like the ones I had with President Oaks into that pulpit public level discourse in that arena. If it did, my goodness, we'd have so much respect for them. Do you agree with that, Greg, Jim? Are you all saying, "Amen"?

Absolutely. That's when humanizing them makes such sense because it says we're in this together. We're on a horizontal level, not vertical.

I think that's essential. I think being on the same level with our leaders and recognizing that we're all in this together and recognizing that we don't have all the answers is really the only way forward because if we expect these leaders to have all of the answers, um, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. We are a faith crisis waiting to happen.

Totally, totally agree with that. Yeah.

And I think we need to think back on our prior conversations too, looking to the younger generations. They're not looking for that kind of answer. They're looking for morality. For moral authority, and that doesn't come through one-liners. It comes through making a difference, healing the world, helping people navigate that dangerous world, not giving them one-line answers.

Yeah. I, I have to say this, uh, I'm not a big fan of my current prime minister in Canada. It was, is a heck of a lot better than the last one, by the way., right? The last one, Trudeau, was a disaster. Mike Carney, better, kind of 50/50 on him. He gave, if you haven't heard it yet, go listen to his talk that he gave yesterday at Davos. It's pretty, it's pretty inspiring, right? It highlights a lot of issues here in Canada. To me, that is an example of somebody that is, uh, speaking the truth, being honest, addressing the issues. I mean, go read it. It's, it's, go listen to it. Importantly, it is, it will be remembered for decades in, in contrast with President Trump's remarks, who called Mark Carney out, by the way, during his remarks. So I think the church should, the prophet, President Oaks with, with his experience, his intelligence, and he's a very smart guy, can deliver that kind of power. You know, he's the prophet of the church. He can, he can speak honestly, constructively, um, in a way that Mark Carney did, uh, to address the real issues in a more honest way that I don't think we've heard in a long time from any politician, perhaps Mitt Romney, and there's a few others I can think of, but not many, frankly, who really was just calling a spade a spade. Being as blunt as a spoon, but delivering it in a very, very intelligent way. So why, you know, let the leaders of the church follow that kind of example, and not just get up and speak it, not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. And that is, that's the responsibility, the obligation, but also the opportunity for President Oaks to address these issues in his current role, while he's in that rented position for that period of time and address some of these issues. You know, if I was the prophet, I'd rather my legacy, you know, if I was the prophet, and thank goodness I'm not, but I would want my legacy to be, and I've just thought about it just now and I'll think about the roadmap. I'd want it to be someone that addressed the difficult issues, historical and policy issues and some of the awful, destructive, disgusting quotes that the past prophets have said. That would be my legacy. I would address it. I'd take the Mark Carney approach. I'd be bold. I wouldn't talk shit. I would be mature about it, professional, constructive. And my legacy would be that Ian at least tried and apologized for some of the things that I'd said and did when we were at those different times in the church. That would be my legacy if I was the prophet. I'm not the prophet. President Oaks is the prophet, and I think he has an obligation to show more leadership, and I think he will. I hope he will.

Well, Greg, do you have any final words of wisdom to sum up this conversation?

I think it's been a good conversation. And if we leave people knowing less than they thought they knew before, then we have succeeded.

Amen. Amen. That's the goal of Inside Out, to make sure you know less than you did before you listened.

That's right.

That's very good. Ian, any other questions? Very much appreciate your insights here. Do you have any other, uh, Anything else to add before we close?

I'm done.

Okay.

All right.

Me too.

All right. Well, with that, we will bring this episode to a close. It's been a wonderful discussion. I certainly have learned quite a bit, and I hopefully have gained a certain degree of empathy and understanding. I am very, you know, this idea, Greg, the two questions that people should ask How can I help? Was the first one a question or just a statement? I'm really—

statement. Don't be judgmental.

Don't be judgmental. And how can I help? Yep. If you take nothing else from this podcast, you could take that away and we would count ourselves winners. So thank you. Thank you both very much for your contributions. Thank you all to everyone listening, and we look forward to seeing seeing you next time on the next episode of Inside Out. Thanks.

Thank you.