Faith Crisis: What Can the Church Do?

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

I'm very well, Jim. Thank you.

And we once again welcome back our good friend Greg Prince. Greg, how are you?

I am well. It is a magnificent spring day in Washington, DC.

Lovely. It's actually a magnificent spring day in the Salt Lake City, Utah area.

So, uh, the same here in British Columbia. There's not a cloud in sight. It's blue sky. Uh, it's absolutely stunning here in British Columbia.

Lovely. So we all have lovely weather, which will, I think, lift our spirits as we talk about a very difficult issue. You know, as we've talked before, Greg's Roadmap for Improving Mormonism is now undergoing some revision and expansion, a Roadmap 2.0, and it begins with a section about faith crisis and the different reasons for faith crisis. But as we were thinking about what we wanted to talk about today, I my, uh, this article caught my eye. It's from Jana Reese. I'm a big Jana Reese fan, but she writes for the Religion News Service and she wrote an article with the headline, Former LDS Mission President Explains What We Get Wrong About People Leaving the Church. And this is such an important topic because one of the things that this article points out is that So few orthodox Latter-day Saint families know how to deal with faith crisis when it hits home. When a member of their family, uh, steps away, they don't know what to do. Uh, Jeff Strong, who I'd love to have on this podcast as well at some point, is the guy who wrote the book, and he says when everybody steps away members immediately put their brain into that space of, oh, this is the eternal end of my child or my friend. And the whole idea of sad heaven, that we're not going to be able to be with our families in the next life if we're not righteous, is something that haunts almost— I'd say pretty much every family in the church sort of wrestles with that.

Yeah, I think too, Jim, there's a second dimension of it, and that it really goes back to the book of Job when all this misfortune becomes him, his quote friends, um, point the finger at him and say, okay, what did you do wrong?

Right.

And we tend to make the assumption that if somebody drops out of church activity or formally resigns, oh, what did they do wrong? And that's a gross misunderstanding of what the process usually is.

Well, it's interesting because they actually polled— well, Jeff Strong, I don't know if it's a scientific poll, but he did a great deal of research and surveys, and he found out that 75% of devout respondents greatly underestimated how many people are actually leaving. With most choosing the 0 to 25% option when the correct answer is more likely in the 50 to 75% range. And devout members— yeah, go ahead. Oh, I thought you were trying to say something. Uh, devout members, uh, and this is exactly what you were saying, Greg, devout members also tended to attribute disaffiliation to personal inadequacies or religious failings. They chose answers like, 'They sinned and lost the Spirit,' or, 'They were led away by the things of the world,' Strong said. And so when he broke down why people are actually leaving, um, it, it doesn't break down along those lines at all. When You know, when I was growing up and when we were on missions, Ian, we were always taught that people leave only because they're offended or there is some kind of sin, some kind of terrible thing in their life. Whereas the actual statistics show that people are leaving because they have doctrinal problems, they have historical problems with the church, they have problems with social issues. And President Oaks, in his devotional, his first devotional as president of the church, acknowledged all of that. But the, the poll— this article goes through a poll that also talks about, uh, how helpful people who left found their conversations with certain kinds of people. For instance, 89% of people Well, I'm looking at this. It says 89% of people found conversations with spouses and friends to be helpful. Although you break that down, it's really only 53% said they were helpful and 41% said they were neutral. Talking to parents, only 14% said they were helpful, whereas 62% felt they were neutral. Um, And Bishop Stake President, only 5% said they were helpful, whereas 56% were neutral and 39% were not helpful. And this highlights a problem that I want to get both of your insights into, is that we recognize that faith crisis, and I like to frame it as a trust crisis. Almost more than a faith crisis. I think that a lot of this is you lose confidence in the institution to— you don't have enough confidence that they're going to tell you the truth about all the difficult issues, so you don't turn to them anymore, and you eventually walk away from them. Uh, my question, and Greg, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this because I know you thought about this probably more than almost anybody. What ought we be doing institutionally when faith crisis rears its head?

I think the issues that you just raised, Jim Bennett, are really important in that historical and doctrinal questions, problems, are a really big deal within the LDS Church. Bigger than other churches. But there's another issue that goes across the board of denominations, and that has really nothing to do with doctrine or history. It's simply, "This isn't working for me." And if that's the case, particularly for the younger folks, they're just not going to hang around. They are looking for something that will anchor them to the infinite. That desire hasn't gone away. What has diminished is viable options for doing that that are working. And so, on the one hand, within our LDS crowd, we need to be much more candid and much more in-depth in responding to the doctrinal and historical issues. But at the same time, we also need to be saying, Why isn't the church resonating with its members the way it used to? We've talked about this on prior podcasts here, where much of the church that 3 of us grew up with is gone. The programming has vanished, or it has been whittled down to the point where it, it almost doesn't matter anymore. And that has caused, I think, a lot of fallout. How do you reinvent the church so that it galvanizes its members again? It injects a spirit in them that we grew up with, but that has dissipated.

I mean, that's an excellent, excellent point. I mean, when you talk about why isn't the message resonating, it's because the message has been whittled down to almost nothing. To some degree, there's not as much— there's not nearly as much message to resonate as there was when we were all growing up.

No, we teach behavior now. We don't teach doctrine and don't teach history, and we're paying a price for that. If you look at prior lesson manuals— and Lester Bush and I years ago did this because I had all of them We just looked at them from beginning to end, and we saw how from the 1970s on, they got not only more and more watered down, but they became repetitious. Sometimes they would repeat lessons from the prior year and give them a different title. Eventually they just started reprinting them, and there was no difference in them. And that's, that's a road to boredom, and boredom is not what you want to hear from the members.

Nope. And but it seems to be all we have to offer. I mean, we've talked about this a number of times, but Ian, I'd love to get your thoughts on this. Um, you know, you, you are the one in this conversation that had a faith crisis that actually took you out of the church, and that was such a painful experience for you. Uh, would if the church Would, can you imagine any sort of a program or an approach from the church as an institution that might have been able to, to keep you in? Yes.

Uh, for me, my experience was a faith crisis. It was a trust crisis and a faith crisis because I started to see cracks, cracks, gaps between the relationship between God and his prophet, between God and the church. And I couldn't understand why God would allow some of these things to happen and wouldn't direct or counsel his prophets in respect to people struggling with faith crisis or trust crisis. Or that God perhaps was communicating to the leaders of the church or the prophet, providing solutions, at least giving some inspiration, and the leaders were not listening. That's the first point. So it was a faith and trust crisis for me for sure, and a confidence crisis all rolled into one. And then to your second part of your question, had the church— let me go back. When I was— I started my faith crisis while actively and faithfully serving on a stake presidency. When the first essay came out, which was a, uh, a catalyst for me in respect to the church confirming certain things that I actually already felt and had felt for quite some time about race in the priesthood, it gave me permission to investigate and explore and actually provided some legitimacy in respect to the issues and research I'd done up until that day, that the church here was acknowledging, you know, that there was an issue. And when I read that essay and spoke about it openly in a meeting that I was presiding at on behalf of the stake president, um, I was shut down, uh, almost immediately. Uh, and there was all kinds of comments and claims that this material was either, was either anti-Mormon or not legitimate or produced by some scholar, et cetera, et cetera. It wasn't seen, um, and still to this day by some members, the essays are not seen as legitimate, um, uh, documents. Had the, and then the third point, I think third response to that. Had the church, uh, okay, so when I stood up and, and kind of mentioned the essay and later that day got a very, uh, interesting, somewhat mixed reaction, and then had people, uh, the following weeks and months as the essays rolled out, I think that was the first essay, wasn't it? As the essays started to come out and I had people in the stake approach me and ask me questions that had been troubling them. I then put together a document that I still have. This is back in 2010, so I'm into my calling here by a few months. I've got concerns and issues. Um, sorry, that's not, that date's not correct. It's 2013. I apologize. Um, I think that's when the first essay came out in October 2013, and the subsequent months, you know, when the other essays came out. Uh, those essays generated questions, um, uh, that I had, and there are also lots of questions that some of the members had across the stake. And some of them who saw me as being more of a, a critical thinker, you know, science technologist, uh, but also at a level of spirituality, felt comfortable enough to at least talk to me privately with their doubts and concerns. I then put a paper together, which I'd love to get into at some point, Jim, on Inside Out. This paper was produced probably early 2014 that provided a proposal to the stake presidency to set up special workshops and classrooms and resources within the stake. You know, this is very early on into my, um, you know, faith through crisis back in early 2014. I think with a few essays in, maybe 3 or 4 essays in, probably spring. 2014, so very early on. And I proposed this, um, uh, this, these resources to be, uh, and we had them in the stake. People who were very smart historians and scholars and people who were very kind and very, um, intelligent people in the stake. No shortage of resources who could organize these workshops and classes and, and, um,, level of support to help people like me and many others. That was, never taken seriously by, at least one of the other, members of the state presidency who said that I think the focus was mainly, you know, mostly pray, have faith, fast. We're not gonna be opening conversations about these difficult issues. And I knew then that I was in trouble. Uh, not only was I in trouble, others who were struggling with the same issues had trouble as well. And to bring this back to you and hand some time back to you, the last thing I would say at this stage is there was a leadership meeting for state presidencies and the area authority seventies and the other general authorities in British Columbia. I think they came up from Washington, USA as well. And in that meeting, we were invited to ask questions on anything, and I asked a question and I was shut down. It wasn't answered. It was, it was an open question about how do we deal with difficult historical issues and doctrinal and people who've got doubt and et cetera. It wasn't welcomed, it wasn't addressed. And what I got from that was, you know, pray and fast more. So, you know, the, we've said often on the, on on Inside Out that the church commits and organizes incredible resources to proselyte, to convert, to befriend, and to encourage and invite people in the thousands where the church can reach them to come into the church. And they come into the church and they've got this incredible support. They come in, they're baptized, they're loved, they're given the Holy Ghost, et cetera. They've got this new family, this new community wrapping their arms around them. There is a commitment. The bishop has to extend a calling with them. This is measured, by the way. I don't know if you know that, but it's measured. The bishop has to extend a calling to these individuals pretty early on. And the bishop meets with these people, these new members, and they are called into an assignment and they're kept busy. And so the church is very good at that. But when it comes to the other end where you've got doubts and questions, uh, there's, there's absolutely nothing. So can the church do this? Yes, I proposed this in our stake. Did we have the resources? Absolutely. There weren't enough callings, uh, Jim Craig, in our stake to meet, you know, uh, the level of capacity that we had. But I, I saw this as a wonderful and timely opportunity, but it was because it was very unorthodox, right? This is, you know, President Wilson has never been done before. We don't do that. We don't help people who've got doubts or issues. We, you know, we have them pray and fast. It was heartbreaking. And you know what I said that my last comment was one final comment. I'll make this one the last one at this stage. Do you know what our mantra was for the stake, which I was part of creating through inspiration and prayer and healing and fasting? Because when when a new state presence is called, you get this new, um, statement, this new strapline, this new mission statement, right? And you know this, and I know this, and ours was finding the one, finding the one. And I was very much involved in initiating that and discussing and counseling that with the other two. And so when I fast forward now, I, this program I helped put together, excuse me, I'm excluded from that program. I'm not even part of the program that I put together. The whole point was to work together across the state with all the resources they had to help the one, to find that lost sheep that had gone astray. And we extended that and here I am, I'm lost, I guess astray. I'm not even good enough to be part of the program that helped put together. So, you know, there are a few thoughts, comments, Jim, in response to your questions.

Oh, I appreciate that. I'm interested, Greg, if you were king for a day and were given the task and assignment of structuring an official institutional response to faith crisis, what would you do? What would be your first step, at least?

First of all, Jim, why would I want to be king for a day when I can be prince for a lifetime?

Ah, that's good. I like it.

You opened that door and I had to walk through it.

Well done. Well done.

I go back to a banquet in Logan in September 2013, where I sat next to Steve Snow, who at that point was the church historian.

Yep.

And he said, you'll be interested to know that this week we are presenting to the Twelve for their approval the first essays that will go online, the ones that Ian was talking about. And I said, congratulations, now how are you going to deploy them? And he said, yeah, tell me about it. And therein is the problem. Because the same response that helps one crowd is likely to tip over another crowd. And that's something we have to keep in mind when we're discussing this dilemma. Let me step onto Ian's turf momentarily, sorry, Ian, and talk about physics. Uh, not everybody needs or wants a class in physics. They get along just fine going through life. Some of them will take it in high school because it's required for entrance into whatever college program they want. I took the high school physics. I got into college, and because I'd had a pretty good calculus course, I took the engineering physics course instead of the regular physics course for a year in college. Now, as a dentist, I didn't need engineering physics, but it was really, really helpful to me just in understanding the world. The point in walking through that is that not everybody in this church wants, or in fact can tolerate, the same amount of information. And I sympathize with those who are fearful that information might tip them over. If they can get through life putting the blinders on, in effect, and it works for them, I don't feel called to pull them out of that comfort zone. What I do feel called to do is to help those who are the questioners, who, unless we give them space to do that, are likely to just say, This isn't working. I'm gone. How do you do that? You don't do it with the normal curriculum because unless you want 2 or 3 gospel doctrine classes with different curricula, that just won't work. I think what you do is what we've talked about before on this program. You create a safe space for those who need that safe space to talk about the issues that are troubling them. And those who don't want to step into that safe space don't need to. I think that's got to be the answer. It's not going to be a one-size-fits-all. But for those who have these questions, you have to acknowledge these are legitimate questions And if we don't answer them, then we're going to see what Ian saw. That's enough to say, I'm out of here because you won't trust me with the truth. You won't give me a space where I can ask the questions without being put down. I don't expect that I will get all the answers in that space because for many of these questions, there's not going to be a discrete answer. But if I just have that space and I have peers within the church who will say, that's a legitimate question, I've had the same question, I don't have the answer either, but we'll plod along with the uncertainty there, that's what we need.

So what does a safe space like that look like? I mean, we've talked about trying to create something like that. In this podcast, and to some degree, particularly in the livestream when you have people who are engaging with us in real time, that's a bit of an opportunity to do something like that. But of course, it's woefully inadequate to satisfy the demand, to satisfy the need.

I would put that space inside a chapel.

So is this a meeting like in the middle of the week Yes.

Yes, because Sunday is already spoken for and there would be the implicit, gee, maybe I should go to this because it's a Sunday meeting, even though I'm uncomfortable there. I wouldn't want that. Make it a weeknight. I think it has to be done in person because these questions require more than just talking over a computer. You need to, I think, be in the room and have the body language as well as the verbal language. I don't think the written word is going to do it because our society cares less and less about the written word and more and more about the spoken word.

Yeah.

As you see at podcast, if you just have the transcript, What percentage of the people will read the transcript versus what will listen to the podcast?

Yeah.

Now the, the problem that would confront the church is who's gonna moderate those discussions?

Yeah. And I mean, that's the million-dollar question because the kinds of people I think who will be best equipped to moderate those discussions are probably the people that the institutional church would see as most suspect.

Yes.

Uh, they wouldn't have enough confidence to say, oh, let's let this guy who's already sort of hanging on by his own fingernails, let's give him the opportunity or her the opportunity to, um, drive other people out of the church really is, I think, how they would see it. We've talked about this before also. My Uncle Howard tried to do this to some degree for the gay members of his stake. For the Third Friday. The Third Friday meetings, and they were so popular that people out of state were coming, and Elder Ballard demanded they shut it down, and Howard said, well, yeah, okay, I'll shut it down if you can tell me that when I stand before the Lord and have to account for my stewardship as stake president, president, the Lord will say it's okay that I abandoned all of these members of my stake. And so rather than, uh, end it, Elder Ballard just made sure he was released within 3 months. Yeah. And, and it went away. It disappeared. But so there are little tiny blips of attempts to do this on a localized scale. And the internet makes it possible to sort of create, to self-select communities that represent our interests, represent our concerns. But again, that is not the same thing as being in the same room with the people. And there's also this sense of we're doing this surreptitiously, we're doing this in the underground because we can't do it out in the open or the church is going to be upset.

And I think the way to do it, if they would dare to go down that road, is to offer advanced education to people called within wards to bring them up to speed on these and to get honest about their own history. We still have a problem with our history on race. There are still some at high levels who are continuing to say, "We don't know why the ban on priesthood was instituted." Yeah, we know. We know what and why and when and by whom. But we're still in denial because they don't want to pin that on a prophet named Brigham Young.

Correct.

So before you can teach those who would be discussion leaders on this stuff, you gotta be willing to be totally honest about your own history and your own doctrine, and to acknowledge things like, okay, every significant doctrine has undergone change in the history of this church. So let's understand that, and then Maybe we can start to understand why it's changed rather than deny that there has been. Because in the age of the internet, you've got almost instantaneous fact-checking. And if you tell them A and they fact-check and say, no, it was B, you've lost credibility. And the young folks aren't going to give you a second chance.

No, that's absolutely true. But doctrine has never changed. It just means that when it changes, it never really was doctrine to begin with. And we spend all of this pretzel logic trying to rewrite reality so that doctrine never changes until it changes, and then it wasn't doctrine, it's something else.

Yeah, what we have to do is to acknowledge the reality of what it means to have continuing revelation. Yes, line upon line doesn't mean you keep repeating the same thing.

Right. You can either have continuing revelation or unchanging doctrine. You can't have both.

No, it— we got to get comfortable with the E word, evolve, because that's what has happened. It's happened doctrinally, it's happened organizationally. We used to have that flannel board presentation before you guys were missionaries where we had the structure of the church locked in And then eventually that went away because, gee, where does the Bible talk about regional representatives or stake presidents for that matter, or Relief Society?

Yep. Yep.

Well, even—

go ahead. Well, I, I was just going to say, um, you've talked about many times, and we've had on this podcast somebody who still believes all of the old stuff about race because the church refuses— when the church changes, the church tries to maintain the illusion that it hasn't changed, which allows people like our friend there to cling to ideas that are destructive and that the church has disavowed, but has disavowed in a way that allows plausible deniability to those who still want to cling to the old messages. I don't know if that's what you were about to talk about. But I, I'd love your thoughts either on that or if you've got something else you want to discuss there. Let's go into that.

Yeah.

Thank you. Partly respond to that. Two points, two thoughts. One is strategic. The other one is operational. First point, this conversation for me at least is unfolding to become one of the most important conversations we've ever had on Inside Out. For me. Uh, and I'm still on the strategic point here. Second point in that strategic level, uh, response. I have come to, as I have read, listened, understood, researched, pondered, and yes, prayed. Uh, this might surprise you. I prayed about the roadmap 2.0. That's the first time you're hearing this. I've contemplated it. It's given me enormous, um, insight, questions. It's helped me tremendously and allowed me to understand things in a way that I hadn't understood or appreciated before. And I, with, with all of that, as I'm learning, uh, about the Great Prince 2.0 roadmap, I've come to a profound realization. And that is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel meets all the criteria and requirements in the Greg Prince roadmap. The church does not. And where I'm going with that is that if you look at the gospel, this is how I see the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that it is an integrated, um, principles and philosophies and teachings and doctrines that are integrated, which encompasses and addresses every need and issue related to the human and the human experience. Everything. And I'm talking about the gospel, not the church. I'm distinguishing the two. Love, the psychology, the thinking, the mindset, intelligence, education, training, Skills, how to learn, how to teach, how to love, how to forgive, how to repent, how to not judge so much, how to judge, how to be with people, human behavior, work ethics. There's not, I cannot see right now in my albeit limited understanding of the gospel where the gospel of Christ does not address or connect with every aspect of the human experience. It does completely in my mind, at least, uh, the material in the scriptures which addresses it. And there's things that happen when what Christ taught that we don't know about, that I don't feel for sure that would address every aspect of the human life, the human experience. And the church does not do that. In, in part, the church goes completely opposite to what Christ has done. And you could argue, and I have, and you too might not, but you could argue that the church to some degree is apostatized from some of the fundamental principles that Christ taught. I can't think of anything right now where the gospel doesn't address some difficulty in someone's life at some point. It's practical, it's spiritual, it's psychological, it's intellectual. It's all there. I believe it's all there. And it is not, If I can't see it, it's probably because I can't see it, not that it's not there. That's my strategic level response. And again, the roadmap, the gospel meets all the criteria and hopes and expectations in the roadmap, and the church does not. So that's my strategic comment. The operational one, to add to what Greg has talked about in terms of weekly meetings, And again, having served as a bishop, drawing on that experience and drawing on the experiences on an estate presidency where we had to, we operated the stake, right? We had 12 units and you have to run and manage the stake. I had the south of the stake. That was my job. Uh, the other counselor had the north and, uh, the stake president had some of the key things. But again, looking at operationally, and this is dealing with the, the phenomenological and the positivistic elements of operations of a stake. One is the, the, the criteria for identifying and selecting the right candidate to fulfill these, what I think is extremely serious callings to help people deal with these issues. And, and where I'm going with that is that look at the effort the church puts in to calling a stake patriarch. Okay? A stake patriarch is a lifelong calling. We know that. There are certain callings require extensive prayer and fasting. The individual, the individual's background, their personal background. It's like the interview that President Oaks gave me. It was like, I wasn't interrogated, but it was President Oaks and Elder Cook when they asked us questions, and I've only covered just a few of the questions. There's an extensive interview process. To be called onto a stake presidency, as you would expect. Background, integrity, honesty, you know, you have to meet a certain criteria in order to be even considered. You know, the process before you even get the— you go meet with these apostles. There's an internal process in the stake where the outgoing stake presidency or the outgoing bishop is invited, or should be, to put names forward for replacement. And that is based on knowledge and insight of the individual. So the church process goes to great lengths to identify and call individuals, the right and best individuals with the qualities that Christ, you know, would have, um, in order to fulfill those callings successfully. Um, you know, there are other training examples. I want to talk operationally. The church has a manual called teacher training, and the church commits incredible resources to, and strategic resources to the content of the lessons because it's the content, it's the knowledge, it's the content, it's the information that the church teaches in order to influence the member at every level of the member's life. How it's, how the teacher is, how they teach, how people learn, and those materials and the training for teacher training is extensive and not everyone can become a teacher trainer. So this, uh, level of selection criteria at the, at the most detailed level, which the church deploys with certain callings, it should do the same for this calling, because this calling to help people struggling with issues is extremely serious. And so to Greg's point, meeting one night through the week makes absolute sense. Selecting an individual who's gone through— without sounding arrogant or boastful here, because I'm certainly no prince and I'm no king here, right? And I'm certainly no Jim Bennett. But I would be a pretty good candidate for that, right? If, if, if I'm not there and I'm not interested in that calling, but someone like me or, you know, similar who's gone through a similar experience and kind of found the way through this dark hole with, with faith intact and learning and who's committed, et cetera, et cetera, who's, you know, meeting the church criteria, but who's hopefully, you know, compassionate and, and open-minded. Somebody who's, uh, who's got the support from the leaders that they can be honest. And by the way, I would add another special, uh, level of resources above this statewide, um, teacher, uh, level calling where the church organizes a special group at the Salt Lake level to provide support and resources for these individuals at that level and to come in and actually support them, endorse them, and to set the criteria and the conditions for open, honest dialogue to what Greg was saying. You know, just, and being in the position where when a mistake has happened historically, that we can actually say it was a mistake, we got it wrong. And I'd love to see a chart, some examples where the church has been proactive. You've got these organizations in place now, and you've got these people called, who have been so carefully selected through fasting and prayer and actually beyond discernment. I don't think discernment's enough, but you know, somebody who's got really good qualities, who, uh, can teach in, in a very, uh, honest and a very constructive way. Um, but a checklist of common questions, frequently asked questions, and concerns that people have, and to take the initiative and not to be afraid of kind of listing the questions. You know, when you— and I'm almost done here— you know, when you meet with the general authorities on the videos and you see all these videos put together and they get asked questions from the youth audience or from the membership. And, you know, those questions, I think, this is my impression, it's more than an impression, but those questions are received beforehand, I believe, you know, before they're even, you know, they're often not live questions. The questions are vetted. And I've even seen, I think Elder Bednar, correct me if I'm wrong, change some of the questions. I can't remember the apostle actually, it was one of the leaders, Elder Cook it might have been. He took the question. I can't remember who it was. And he completely changed the question. It wasn't the question in the end. And so would it be great if the church had, uh, frequently asked questions across difficult issues and that that training was given and that that support at that Salt Lake level to provide support for the stake level to say, hey, look, these are the questions that we are getting, right? And, and, and here, how about this? How about a chart to say we used to think and teach this. Um, for these reasons, either we got it wrong or we weren't ready to talk about it, or there was still some research or whatever, right? But be honest about it. Or we didn't wanna talk about it because it, we, it, we, we think it might affect people's faith. And that's legitimate. I get that. And Greg's kind of, uh, mentioned that earlier. And then compare that with what's changed. You two talk about change, right? You know, I talk about change management in my organization. You know, we used to think this and believe this, et cetera. We now think this, and we can understand why people have questions about, like, the first vision. There's what, 7, 8, 9 different versions, 3 dominant versions, et cetera. And I think that's a good example where, you know, we taught this for these reasons based on, you know, that thinking. We've now, uh, think this and believe this, and here's the reasons why. And it's perfectly okay to have questions. And then, so I think if the church took that initiative to provide that level of transparency with those level of resources, uh, and actually, uh, read the roadmap and actually implemented the roadmap in the way that I'm trying to articulate and communicate in a very honest way, then I think it will go such a long way, including boredom, by the way. I think the gospel is not boring. You know, we're talking about being born in church, right? You know, church became so boring for me. It wasn't, it just wasn't interesting. And it was the same message just repackaged over and over again. For me, the gospel is not boring. The gospel, you can go anywhere. You could talk about anything, any subject. And I think the gospel addresses it where what we've done with the church, we've become so prescriptive, so programmed. So narrow thinking, so closed. And so, you know, to be a Mormon, you have to meet this criteria, you know, how you dress, go to the temple, tithing, doing these certain callings, behaving this way, thinking this way. Don't ask difficult questions because if you do, you're the one with the problem. If your kids go astray, what have you done wrong? You've done something wrong, right? So the answers are here. I'm not trying to be arrogant and be, you know, someone that said we have all the answers. We don't. But the roadmap, in my opinion, has many of the solutions that if it was read and taken seriously and done honestly, would address, I think, almost every aspect or many of the issues affecting members, including but not limited to people struggling with a faith crisis. Now, that was a long answer to your question, but I hope it, hope it helps.

Ian, you're generous. The roadmap gives the solutions. What a roadmap really does is to give you the direction to get to where you want to go. And I think that's important. It doesn't have all the answers. I'm sitting here looking at my computer screen at the COVID of Torn. The book to which Jim referred earlier, the very fact that we have books like this, that we have books like Jana Reiss has published and is publishing, says the church cannot just declare victory and go home. We do not have the ability to declare victory on this one. We are losing a lot of people, and to me it is inexcusable not to try to address that problem directly.

No, you're absolutely right. And one of the challenges, I mean, as you talk about a roadmap, okay, a roadmap shows you the direction, but it doesn't necessarily show you the process as to how you get from point A to point B. And one of the things that, that I think is part of the structural problem with the church, particularly on something like this, is, okay, uh, we determine that a weekly meeting, uh, where we can create a safe space for people who are doubting, where they can talk to each other, lift each other up, and somebody can lead that. Okay, the person who is ultimately in charge of that safe space is a priesthood leader who very likely doesn't even understand why such a thing is necessary. And so that priesthood leader who is completely divorced from the experience of the doubter, and if they have any kind of experience, I mean, you look at that, those surveys in the Jana Reese's article about TORN, only 5% of the conversations that doubters had with their bishops or stake presidents were helpful. The rest were not. 95% were either neutral or not helpful. And so these are the guys who are in charge of finding the people who they would trust enough to lead a discussion like that. I mean, how do you overcome that?

The same way that you do with the other instructional materials of the Church. You don't ask bishops and stake presidents to write lesson manuals. Do it as a central Church, but if you want to get a bit into the logistics, you would have a backup that if the question doesn't get resolved at the local level, that the Church has designated experts that you can tie into, maybe via a live link. So that they're getting the next level of understanding on it.

But that, I think that is a great idea. I'm just kind of mulling it over a little bit. I, I just, if I were tasked with finding people who I felt would be able to help people navigate a faith crisis. The, the people I would recommend to do that would be very, very different from the people my stake president would recommend, or the people I think that many of the apostles would recommend.

Yeah, and I think the way that you address that is you have a built-in feedback loop that's real, that the customers are able to evaluate the product and give you a numerical response of how well that worked and make that transparent. We, we tend to do in the church what the military sometimes does. They call it fire and forget weapons. You send the missile on its way and you just assume it's gonna hit its target. We've seen too many church programs over the decades that have done that same thing. And there's never the honest feedback to say, hey, did this really accomplish what it was intended to accomplish? You've got to be able to build that feedback loop in and make it a credible loop because that is going to tell them, oh gee, if we call this type of person, uh, it may put us into a safer stance, we think, but we're missing the mark and we're losing people because of it. It becomes an internal corrective.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, that's, that's true. And you've talked about— I don't remember who the General Authority was where you told them you need to be talking to people who are angry at you.

Yeah, that was Todd Christofferson.

That's Todd Christofferson.

Before he became an apostle.

Yeah. And, and that becomes a challenge in the church, uh, not only because leaders aren't willing to put themselves in a situation where they're going to be talking to people who are angry with them, but we as church members have been told it's wrong to criticize the leaders of the church, even if the criticism is true. Gotta get over that. We absolutely have to, but I can't, you know, I've been in focus groups a number of times, usually political focus groups. They can get very heated at times, but everybody is more than willing to say exactly what they think, no matter how hostile it may sound. I don't know how you reproduce that dynamic in a church setting where everybody has been told the boundaries for the amount of discontent that you are allowed to express are unbelievably tight. You probably violated them by agreeing to come to this meeting in the first place.

Yeah, we have to change that culture. That is not easy. In Ian's world, if you have someone down the food chain who spots a flaw in what you're doing, you don't wanna shut that person out. You wanna bring that person forward because if you don't listen to that input, you could have a catastrophe. You want to have an environment that welcomes them to come forward and say, you're not doing this right. And if you did it this way, you'd get a better outcome. We need to be able to go there. And we used to be there. We used to welcome the input from the grassroots. That's how most of the organizations got started. Then Correlation decided that they had all the answers and they shut it off. Yeah.

I, I, I, I just wanna go back and, and comment on the roadmap. So again, I, I, I shared my own thoughts and perspective of the roadmap. And of course, roadmap doesn't have all the answers. And if I, I'm like, that's what I said. But what I meant by that was the, the, the roadmap has the spirit. It is the pathway to finding, you know, to deal with a lot of these issues. It's the approach, if you like, you know, the map to help you and guide you to where you should go towards truth and fact. It does contain specifics as well, and many, for me at least, many of the, you know, ideas and solutions of a certain level in order to address the issues. What I was wanting to be clear about is that the gospel in its fullness, the gospel itself that Christ taught, I think contains everything, you know, to help the human experience. In regards to the last point there, I think that if the church was serious about this, and it is, it's in in panic mode because it's, it's not, it can't control the narrative. It's hemorrhaging, uh, youth and members. It's amalgamating stakes and wards. I, I just heard that two of the biggest stakes in the UK have been joined. Uh, Manchester, England and Ashton, which is two of the biggest stakes across the Pennines there, not far from where I live. They, they've joined, they were thriving. Independent stakes and now, um, they've now pulled them together and packaged that as, as growth. This problem's not going to go away. Uh, people are gonna have questions. There's, I, I don't know how you cannot address this in the way, at least in some of the ways that we're talking about here on the, on Inside Out. Um, this again, I think is another example of some ideas and solutions to address the situation. I think if I was on the risk management team, um, in the church, I would, I could see the risks in providing these resources and these approaches. Because if you do try to address them in the way that we are discussing, then yes, you run the risk of people that are perhaps not as informed on the issues that would become inevitably informed and learn about these classes and programs and, and issues. That they might not know about because the church has been very effective, frankly, many times at controlling and containing information. When the essays came out, uh, you could hardly find them. You know, they weren't, uh, upfront. They didn't kind of, you know, bring too much attention to them. So difficult issues, the church is reticent and reluctant to kind of bring those to the forefront. And, but it can't, I don't see how it can get around this problem without addressing it head on. And that includes at least some, if not many of the ideas that we're talking about, talking about here. And so I, I think the church knows what to do. I, and I think the risk management team is telling the church, if we do this, then this will happen. Your best strategy is containment and control what you can. And when there's rumors and comments and questions and doubts that people have got, well, kind of keep that on a local level, keep it quiet, meet with the bishop or the stake presidency. You know, if people are expressing their doubts and communications openly, well, we don't want that. We'll shut that down. That's where the church is right now. But if they have got questions, fine, bring them into an office, close the door, address it, contain it. And that's the current approach. It's like putting your head in the sand. It's ridiculous. And it's, it's just old fashioned and I, it's just unintelligent and you're kicking the can down the, down the road because unless you address these issues in the way that we're talking about, they're not going to go away. They're just not. And I've, I, you know, the church has got this saying, this quote, you know, truth will prevail. I know you both well enough to know that you are unafraid of the truth. Truth will surface at some point. You can't keep it down. It will find a way. It's like water through a crack above it, around it, underneath it. The truth will eventually prevail. I believe that. And you cannot stop it. And so this, this juggernaut of, um, issues that the church is facing, the solution is to address it head on, to have a plan, have a strategy, uh, because then you can get ahead of it. You can put a plan in place and you can manage it. And if you wanna control some of it, yeah, you can do that by having a plan, having a program, having a schedule. Invite people's input and feedback, encourage that, and then build that into the program and do it over time. And yes, you'll have some kind of control over that. But right now, the whole thing's out of control. And I know for a fact, since I've left the church, by the way, Jim, I've shared this with you, Greg Bennett, all this, I've had members in my stake, some of them very senior, who've been around for a long time, who've got doubts and questions that they've not been able to talk about. And they've called me because they trust me. I'm not in the church. I'm not, I'm not in the loop anymore. And they trust me. They've trusted me before. They trust me now. And, you know, their secrets will go with me to the grave. But these are people who have been around a long time in this stake and other stakes where I grew up in, who've got the same questions and doubts. That I had who were afraid to speak up. They don't have that safe place. There's no mechanism. There's no resources to be able to address the issues. The church can do this.

It should do this.

It will not do this because right now its strategy is containment. And again, if you've got some idea or some question for an answer to a question, or you've got these different ideas, etc., on race in the priesthood or the First Vision, instead of addressing it in a formal official way, it allows people to think what they want, because that's the, that's the best strategy, because if it does anything more than that, it runs the risk of people leaving. And that's the— there is a downside, people will leave. You know, more people know about these issues, people will leave, but at least the ones who are staying They're staying for all the right reasons and you're being honest with them. It's like financial, you know, we talk about science and technology and physics and engineering and I love that stuff. If you look at the financial services industry, if you missell a financial product, what's the penalty? There's a penalty. It's illegal to missell. There are rules for financial management and planning and you've got to be trained. You know, when you're taking people's money off them. And I think that is even more so with the gospel and the church. If you're saying something that's not honest or you're misdirecting or you're not giving the full answer. I mean, for goodness sake, this is in the lesson titled honesty in that '80s manual, which I've got up here somewhere. Of my, in my library. Do you remember that lesson about honesty? And it is that lesson about if you misdirect somebody or don't give a complete answer, or you miss something out, that's not being honest. It's in the lesson.

I've read it.

I've taught it. So, you know, there are sacred responsibilities on the part of the church that God has placed on the leaders of the church, um, where the church has a spiritual sacred obligation to provide full disclosure and have trust and confidence in the members that, you know, they're grown up and mature and they can deal with it and then provide the help and support to help them. You won't keep everybody.

I get it.

You're going to lose some people, but like I said, at least you'll have an organization that has integrity and is authentic and real. And that's that, that point, that's where people get the help. Because they think, yes, uh, I'm not alone. Other people have the same questions, and the church is doing something to help me, and thank goodness. And their faith will go up. And the thing is, the church can't see this, or it does and is afraid to deal with it.

Well, uh, just exactly 1 hour So we should probably get into some closing statements here. I think this has been a really helpful and productive discussion. Greg, do you have some final thoughts or summation here?

I think that one of our next episodes should drill down into one of these faith crisis topics and show people that you can do it. It may not be a comfortable journey, but it's a journey that has a better destination. I would say a First Vision is a good one to deal with because I've spent decades wrestling with that, and I think I've got a pretty good understanding of it.

Well, why don't we make the First Vision our next topic?

Sounds good to me.

We can commit to that here publicly. Uh, because I— it's interesting because I don't get into a lengthy discussion of the First Vision. It has never been an issue for me. I mean, I, I, I've— in my CES letter reply, I say there are a lot of things to be troubled about with regard to the church. The different accounts of the First Vision is not one of them.

For you it's not, and for a lot of people it is.

And that's a lot of people, it is. Yeah. But, but so I think that would be productive to be able to to be able to do that. Um, so, uh, Ian, uh, any, any final thoughts?

Yes. You will not be surprised when I say that when I read the roadmap, I'm reading it from where I am. Okay. Our positions are very different. Greg, you're in a different position than me. So are you, Jim Bennett. I read and understand the roadmap from from my perspective of where I am in my life and what I've gone through. And that's normal. That's completely, I think, understandable. For me, the Roadmap contains the spirit of the gospel. It's got some substance, a lot of substance in it. Of course, it doesn't have the entire answers at all, but it is a roadmap, a guide to help you at least communicate an approach, a guide, some coordinates, if you like, to help you navigate and kind of, um, position you for addressing some of the issues. That's what it does for me. That's my perspective.

Thank you.

And it's incredibly helpful. Uh, and it's through that personal lens that I, that I, as you could tell, place enormous value on it. I like to think that some of the leaders have read it or is interested in it. I would love for one of the leaders to come on here and have this conversation. Will they do that? Will they, will the church, uh, take a more proactive, pragmatic, um, kinder, a more authentic approach to this?

Boy.

Um, I still hold out. I still long for that. And, you know, I see that's such an important part of the whole church experience because it goes to the very heart of everything. And like I said, the gospel, if Christ was here, or his apostles here, um, we, they would be here with us right now. One of them having this conversation and having an honest, authentic conversation about the issues. I know that. I feel it in my heart. And I just hope and pray that the, uh, someone at some point in the church will actually accept that people are going through a lot of pain, a lot of difficulty, a lot of personal anguish. I, I, when I realized there was a major problem, I was driving through the Rocky Mountains from Calgary to Vancouver, and I was listening to some material and I read some material. And it was snowing and I stopped and it was late and you usually shouldn't stop your car in those very difficult conditions. It was, these Rocky Mountain roads are quite dangerous, but I pulled up and I just sobbed. I was in the car and I was just, there was no phone signal. I couldn't call my wife and I felt completely alone and I tried to speak to people and there was no one there. And when I needed help the most, uh, Jim Bennett, I was alone without family or certain close friends. The whole community just abandoned me, and all I had was questions. Just even back then, just a few. I've got more questions now, but I only had a few questions. I just needed help, and I needed to be loved. I needed to be someone to put their arms around me and to say I'm okay. And I'm not a bad person, and it's okay to ask questions, and it's normal, and I don't want anyone to go through what I did. So for me, the roadmap addresses, uh, fundamental— it is at the spiritual level, certainly addresses— and we've talked about mechanics and operations— addresses someone like me in terms of my question. So, so this is why this conversation for me is very very personal, very poignant, and very, very important to someone like me. And I'm not alone. There's other people like me, right, out there who are quiet, who go to church, who are struggling inside, inside struggling, and they can't even talk to their wives. Wives might leave them, or the kids might, Dad, why are you doubting? You've taught us all along that, you know, Why are you doubting? You can't doubt. Look what you've taught us. There's so much pressure and there's no release valve. And, and, and, and I, that's just, that's just cruel. Why can't we help people who need help? The gospel does. Why can't the, why can't Christchurch do the same? So that's my final comment there, Jim Bennett, final remark.

Well, I appreciate that very much. And there are people who need help and we want to be able to help them. Uh, and I know that this conversation and so many of our conversations have helped me a great deal. And I, so I'm grateful for the time that both of you have been able to spend with me here and grateful for this opportunity to be able to have these kinds of discussions and in some small way model the kinds of things that we would want to be able to do in the church at large. So with that, uh, thank you all for being here. Thank you all for listening. Those of you who are listening, uh, please join us for our live stream on Tuesday night. Um, we really enjoy those and just enjoy having these conversations with you. And we look forward to visiting with you again in our next episode of Inside Out. Thank you, Ian and Greg.

You're welcome.

Thank you.