Greg Prince and the Temple - Part III

Hello and welcome to the very latest episode of Inside Out. I'm here with my co-host and partner in crime, Jim Bennett. Welcome, Jim.

Thank you, Ian. Glad to be here.

It's wonderful to, uh, have you with us again and to be doing these podcasts. And no surprise, we have our hopefully permanent, uh, in-house resident, the incredible and wonderful Mr. Greg Prince. Hello, Greg.

Hello. I've not been invited yet to become a partner in crime. How do I apply?

Oh, I think you're too qualified. I think he's too qualified for the position, Jim. He's overqualified, isn't he?

Well overqualified and not criminal enough, I don't think.

Greg, you're too good for our podcast. But I just want to say professionally, we're just honored and privileged to have you back. You're a wonderful scholar, historian, and just an incredible wise voice in these conversations. And Our listeners and viewers find your comments and views incredibly helpful, as do Jim and I. So without further ado, let's get into this. For our listeners and viewers, Jim and Greg and I have been reviewing the Temple Recommend questions, which are very influential questions and shape and influence members' lives in extraordinary ways. And we've been reviewing what the questions were and reviewing the changes to the questions and the significance of those changes. And we finished off, uh, the last question that we, uh, were discussing was the questions around honesty. And the next question, uh, section is around chastity, which is going to be a very interesting conversation, which, uh, I'm sure you will, uh, see in a few moments. So the questions, The question around chastity used to be, do you live the law of chastity? As you know, these are, you know, yes or no questions. There's 15, and members are invited to be honest and accurate with their responses in order to qualify for a Templar recommend so they can go to the temple and renew their covenants. So the question used to be, do you live the law of chastity? And the revised wording is this: do you strive for moral cleanliness in your thoughts and behavior, do you obey the law of chastity? Uh, Greg, let's start off with you. Uh, this is a really important question. What do you think about that question and what do you think about the changes to the question?

It, it sounds to me like it has a bit of an escape clause to it. The S-word, strive. And I wonder if that's an acknowledgement of a reality that we have turned our heads away from for so long, and that is, look, particularly the kids, they don't go by the same rules that we were raised with. And if you applied a strict criterion of chastity, I'm not sure how many of them would qualify to go to the temple. Jim, what do you think? You're close to the Pulse of Salt Lake.

I am? Well, I guess I'm in a suburb anyway. This is one of the questions that had, I think, the clearest yes or no answer. In that when you go through the temple, they specifically tell you what the law of chastity is in no uncertain terms. When we— you talk about some of the other covenants and the charge to avoid light-mindedness and loud laughter, which no longer exists. We're supposed to avoid light-mindedness, but we can now laugh as loudly as we want, apparently. But all of those, all of that other language that you encounter in the temple is really open to interpretation, and very often there isn't a consensus as to what the interpretation is. With regard to loud laughter, for instance, I've asked a dozen people and gotten two dozen different answers as to what that means. And nobody's quite sure. Now, the law of chastity, they explicitly say, this is the law of chastity. It is that you are to have no sexual relations. The word prior to 1990 was intercourse. They changed it to relations. I don't think that that changes anything really. But you are to have no sexual relations except for your husband or wife to whom you are legally and lawfully wedded. And they've added some language since gay marriage became legal to say, by God's law, I think is the qualifier, which is supposed to exclude gay marriage, I think. But anyway, that seems to be a very straightforward, clear, and simple thing to answer yes or no to. And this new question, I think it, I mean, there's an escape clause to some degree, but I think it's kind of acknowledging, Greg, you said the S word. I think the word here, the M word, masturbation, is to some degree behind this change. In that the church— we've had long conversations about this, and I've talked about how Boyd Packer completely destroyed my adolescence with his lovely little pamphlet, To Young Men Only. The church used to be militant about making sure that young men particularly didn't masturbate. I think that was a failed effort. But the church has now quietly shifted on that, but shifted rather significantly, so much so that they have flushed Boyd Packer's pamphlet down the memory hole. And they're— the only reference to masturbation in the handbook is a is instruction to not use it as the basis for any discipline. And specifically, bishops and stake presidents now are being trained that you are not to deny people a temple recommend, you are not to keep people from going on missions, you are not to even deny them the sacrament, that there is no ecclesiastical consequence For masturbation. And they— I don't think they will ever go so far as to say they're fine with it, that it's good. But I think they have recognized that that's not something that they want to enforce going forward. And so I think this whole strive question is an acknowledgment that a lot of people would look at the original question, and if masturbation were a part of their life, might feel inclined to say, no, I am not living the law of chastity, despite the fact that the explicit language of what the law of chastity is Does not cover masturbation. I think I could prove that in a court of law if I were called upon to do it. I don't imagine that would ever happen. But I think that's what the change is. I think the change is an acknowledgment that the law of chastity specifically is a law against adultery, a law against fornication, that you can't have sex with somebody to whom you are not married. And then sort of the, you know, the radius, the penumbra of the law of chastity, I think we are acknowledging that we aren't enforcing that anymore. So does that take resonate with either of you?

Well, I'm sitting here thinking this is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.

Yes.

Uh, and it almost sounds like they're starting to throw in the towel. Let me give you 3 quick examples. Example number 1, Bill Clinton: I did not have sex with that woman.

Right.

What was the message that that sent? Number 2, the very creative BYU students who figured out They could take a weekend trip to Las Vegas, get married, have sex, have the marriage annulled, and be back in class on Monday. You gotta give them credit, creativity on that one.

I thought you were gonna talk about soaking.

Nope. And number 3, well, I'll leave some, some of the field open for you to comment. Number 3 is, uh, from one of my college classmates who was a mission president at the time they raised the bar. I said, what difference did it make? And he said, zero. He said, missionaries know how to lie. And so you put all those in the hopper and you just start to think, are there better things that we should be doing? Because I don't think this is a game the church can win. Particularly when you look at what they did once gay marriage became the law of the land. We honor, obey, and sustain the law, except if we don't like the law. And not only what's the message that sends, but how do you start enforcing things when you start to make all of those epicycles All of the variations from the general rule. And I've referred to this before. A friend of mine who spent an entire career on the BYU faculty said that the information given to her was that 80% of the freshman male students and 60% of the freshman female students had had sex before they got there. But 100% of them had ecclesiastical endorsements saying they were chaste. So who are we really fooling? I think if you start to ask the kids about this, you're likely to get a lot of either eyes rolled or a lot of giggles, if not overt laughter, because it's, it's just not a deal for them. Long gone are the days, thankfully, when Joseph Fielding Smith said, I'd rather have my son come home in a casket from a mission than to be morally impure.

Heber J. Grant said that too. I think a bunch of people have said that.

And I'm sure they were very sincere in saying that. The world has changed.

Yeah, the world has changed. I don't know. I mean, my generation, I think, really did take all of that seriously, or maybe I'm just naive because I took it seriously. But I can't imagine that 60% or whatever of people of my generation who went to BYU had had sex before they went to BYU. Maybe they had and I'm just being naive. Ian, am I just being naive?

No, I think our generation did take it seriously. I think, Greg, you nailed it when you said it's like, well, nailing Jell-O to the wall. That's certainly how I see it. You know, gentlemen, these conversations, including very much this one, is shaped and influenced by our experience. Greg, your experience, yours, Jim, right? And I don't know if you've ever interviewed, have you ever, have you ever interviewed or conducted temple recommend interviews, either of you?

Yes, but I, I've never done it as a bishop or a stake president. And I, I started, when I would do it, I would, I would say at the outset, I want you to realize that if you cannot answer the questions, uh, the way you would need to, to get a temple recommend, that I am not in a position to help you. That, that if you have something you need to confess or something you need to work through, you need to make an appointment with the bishop and not talk to me. So I have never had the experience of conducting a temple recommend interview and dealing with somebody saying, no, I'm not living the law of chastity and I need help to be able to repent so I can go to the temple. I haven't had that experience. I assume you have. I have.

And as I mentioned, you know, our personal experience shapes and influences these conversations. I've, as a bishop and a member of state presidency, I've conducted thousands of interviews. And as I listen to you both, it's impossible to manage and to regulate. And if you're comfortable, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable, I think we need to take this to a next level. but do so appropriately and respectfully. Um, you've covered some of the key issues, and there, of course, there are always drivers behind anything the church does. There's always a driver behind these things, right? And I agree with you, Jim. I think one of the drivers— these are the key drivers behind the changes to these questions— was the, um, you know, the church can't publicly say it's accommodating gay members without alienating its conservative base, right? So it rewrites the question, you know, who benefits from the specific reframing? If you think about that, uh, there's the missionaries, uh, you know, uh, going on missions. There's the masturbation. There's the— I don't know if you know this, but the, the church does capture— this might make this— you may or may not know this— the church does capture information on the temple recommends. I don't know if you know that. Are you aware of that?

Meaning what?

Well, in chastity, for example, and this is really important to have a conversation on because you may not be aware of this, right? So when you're meeting with someone in a private setting and you're the bishop and you're the only, you're the key holder, the councils can't have these types of questions. You've just mentioned that, Jim. You're absolutely right. And a stake presidency, uh, anyone within a stake presidency can't have these types of conversations, these types of venues. The counselors of the stake presidency represent the keys of the stake president, and the counselors, uh, conduct their, uh, uh, you know, uh, appropriate temple recommend questions. And when you get to chastity, you hear all kinds of things, right? For example, um, when a member says that they've been tempted to look at inappropriate things on the internet. Right. Uh, the training is, you know, follow the spirit, follow discernment. And sometimes those conversations lead to members who are, um, breaking the law. And so you have a responsibility to protect children and other individuals. And if someone is looking at things or doing things that they shouldn't be doing, then you have a legal and moral responsibility to address that. And I've had to deal with stuff like that. The responses to the questions are incredibly varied and wide-ranging from individuals who, to your point, Jim, do follow the law of chastity. And I think a lot of people do or try to do. Sure. I think our generation did it. Greg, you can speak about, I think we're almost in the same generation, maybe a little bit different generation, but you probably speak to your generation. Perhaps it was more conservative, but notwithstanding, you know, liberalism and the internet, et cetera, people were doing things back then and I've always been doing things in this area forever since the beginning. We just didn't talk about them or didn't know about them, right? So when, so just to give you just a, a quick, a very quick whistlestop tour of some of the questions and issues that I've seen, which I think we should get into, is members saying, for example, is oral sex breaking the law of chastity? Uh, is anal sex breaking the law of chastity? Should I be having sex in my garments? Uh, individuals who are not married, who are dating, Talk about dry sex or what they call dry humping, which I had no idea.

Levi lovin' was the phrase that— never mind.

And anyway, I'm not trying to embarrass you, but these are the specific issues that I've heard about, a lot of which I had, by the way, no knowledge or understanding of what they were talking about. Right. And only learned through just conversations with counselors who were a lot more experienced on this. But you can imagine when you're asking the question, the answer's incredibly ranging. I've had individuals who say, well, Bishop, I saw from a married individual, somebody who was on the stake presidency who was in the ward, right? say that they were attracted to a lady in a bikini and these thoughts entered the mind and they wondered if they'd broken the law of chastity. Keeping in mind that— what's that scripture, Jim Gregg, that if you— it's in the Doctrine and Covenants— that if you think it, you've committed adultery in your own heart. You know that one, right?

Well, that's in the Sermon on the Mount. You've heard it said in old times, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery. In his heart.

So, I mean, it, it, a lot of it is in, you know, in, uh, influ— informed by the scriptures and the doctrine and the policies. Another thing's that, uh, for example, uh, an individual who said that they'd had a wet dream and did they break the chastity oath because they dreamed about having sex with someone and they felt so guilty. They woke up and they'd had a wet dream and they felt terrible and they felt guilty and they feel they needed to repent. And so because it's such a, you know, chastity and sex is so powerful and it's part of our DNA, you know, to reproduce, to have sex. It's evolutionary. We won't go into that conversation right now, but it's part of the human design and it's the urge and the desire to have sex. which is as strong as hunger and to reproduce. And it's so basic and animalistic as that, very, very powerful and impossible to control and regulate. And the responses to this question is so varied and you get very little training and support, or I did back then. I can't speak to how much training and support right now, but this is such a delicate area. There's things like where, I mean, these questions, it goes into, the tentacles go into individuals who've sadly, tragically experienced sexual abuse when they were children. I mean, I've asked the question and it goes off in a completely unexpected direction. I think a lot of it points to what Greg has been teaching us about. in this roadmap for improving Mormonism, which we talked about on a podcast, which is so desperately needed in the church. And you know what I'm talking about, Greg. I'm showing you as well, Jim. It's the church's inability or unwillingness to have a space in the church to discuss what it means about healthy sex, teaching healthy sex education at church. Instead of teaching this law of chastity in all of its forms, from the strictness and '70s and '80s and '60s doctrine that if you have sex, then better that a millstone hung around your neck and you die. Maybe misquoting that, but you know, it's better to give your life up than to give up your virtue. And of course, we can't forget the infamous book by Spencer McKinley, Miracle of Forgiveness, and all the endless sins around sexual sin and all that that brings, all that guilt. And so I've, just to kind of circle back here, I've had to deal with all these issues without any training as a bishop. They're emotional, physical abuse, interpreting doctrines and policies of what is, what isn't, et cetera, et cetera. And we also get taught that these are private matters. to the individual and, you know, within their marriage or within their own personal relationship. It's just a minefield, gentlemen. I just, without that opportunity to teach and learn healthy sex in the church within the context of the gospel, it's impossible to navigate. You are Trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. So my experience shapes and informs my perspective on this question. And you then struggle, I'll finish here, but you then struggle, like if you ask the questions, they give an answer. Of course you have to go with that and you gotta follow the gift of discernment. Sometimes there's a reason not to. You have to sometimes explore a little bit more for reasons that I mentioned earlier. But it, it's so difficult, so challenging from a bishop-shaped presence perspective. And of course, even more difficult and challenging for the person who answered the question. So I've given you some examples there, and I would love to get your responses on that. I mean, and I appreciate you haven't got my experience or perspective on that, but you know, can you see how even more than what we said, how difficult and complex this is?

Yeah.

Greg, what do you think?

Jim raised sayings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Another of his sayings I think is appropriate for this discussion: is the temple made for the members, or are the members made for the temple? Is the temple experience a reward For those who have reached a certain level, or is it an aid for those who want to improve? And I think our tendency as a bureaucracy has been door number one. Oh, we're going to reward the faithful and keep anybody who we think does not reach that level Out of the temple. Well, was that proof? I would much rather have people go to the temple with everybody understanding we are all flawed. We're in this together, and let's not pass judgment on each other. Instead, let's hold out a helping hand to everyone. If somebody is. desirous of going to the temple, I wouldn't want to stop them. The fact that they have shown a desire to me, it's like the other episode in the life of Jesus. Help thou my unbelief.

I mean, isn't that the point? If we said before, if somebody is coming to church, they're serving, they're wonderful people, And they renew the covenants at the sacrament table, and they're just wanting to be like Christ. Why do we need these questions? We don't need these questions. They want to go to the temple, that is enough. If they want to renew the covenants in the temple, that's enough. Let them, you know, what's that scripture? It's not good that man is commanded in all things. It's not. If you start to regulate and control every aspect of someone's life, Jim, I came across some mission material. And on the Sunday nights you had to do the phone-ins, right? And you had to submit the, your letters and your reports as a zone leader, et cetera, or an AP and a district leader. And you had all these checkboxes, you know, did you get up on time? Companion inventory, personal companionship, personal prayer. There were like 10 things to do before you left the flat, the apartment, right? And then you had the day structure, then the night structure, and everything was so prescribed and regimental. And I think we've gone too far down the line here. And, you know, is it enough not to, as a missionary, to get out the door because you want to share the gospel, you can't wait, and you're motivated to read and study however you want because you just want that to be part of you? But, and then in the church, you just love Christ and you want to serve God and Christ, and, and you, it just, it's in your heart and soul, and you're motivated by the, by the experience and the Spirit. And when you go out and serve, you, you feel the Spirit and you're like, wow.

Yeah.

I want more of that. And then in that whole experience, you set your life right and you put your life right with God. You don't have to go through these questions. It's so regimental and so controlling and unnecessary. Jim, do you agree or do you think we need these questions in the first place?

I agree. And I think actually we're moving away from a lot of the proscription that That marked, I think, our experience. Um, I, I don't think we've moved away to the extent that we need to, but particularly, I mean, going back to the chastity question, uh, Greg, you would probably know the date on this, but the infamous oral sex letter. Do you recall that? Spencer Kimball's? Yes. I am.

I can give you the window because it was when I was a counselor in the Singles Ward Bishopric in DC, and that was 1981 to '84.

Okay.

It was probably right in the middle of that. So '82, '83.

Yeah. So, so, uh, that, that was when Spencer Kimball's First Presidency issued a statement that oral sex was against the law of chastity. And they walked that back fairly quickly, I think.

Yes.

I don't think it lasted a whole year.

No, no, no. It was months and not many months.

Yeah.

Please ignore this sign.

Right. And so I've got— I need to be circumspect here so that people are not identified. But I had a conversation with somebody who was aware of a conversation among the Quorum of the Twelve in their meeting about—I'm sorry that this is indelicate—but about anal sex and the question as to whether or not that is inherently immoral. I've had discussions—one of the first discussions I ever had with Jacob Hanson. He asked me, "Is gay sex inherently immoral?" And the idea that anything is inherently immoral is problematic to me. But that's that's a tangent. The point is that apparently this occupied the entirety of this one meeting, and the conclusion was no, it is not because we would never take any action against a married couple. that decided to engage in that practice, so that the practice itself is not inherently immoral. And my reaction to hearing about this was, isn't there something else we ought to be talking about? Is this really something that merits that level of attention from the Quorum of the Twelve? The obsession, I think, With proscribing what sexual behavior is acceptable and what sexual behavior is not has, I think, gotten us into a great deal of trouble over time and has been, in my mind, entirely unnecessary. And so I think that the brethren to a degree agree with that and are trying to sort of move past that. But aren't willing to go as far as they need to go. That that sounds like a sexual metaphor, and it's not intended to be. But I this idea that you know we we we have the idea from the Book of Mormon, which I think is a misinterpretation, that sexual sin is the sin. Next to murder in seriousness. That's, I think, the primary thesis of Spencer Kimball's book, The Miracle of Forgiveness, that sexual sin is just so egregious and so terrible that we fixate on it to a degree that I think is entirely unhealthy and entirely unjustified. I think in the Book of Mormon, The case, there's a much stronger case to be made that the reason why, I've forgotten the name of the son that's being excoriated for sexual sin. Corianton, is that right?

I think it is. It's one of them. Yeah, Corianton, I think. Yes.

So Corianton is the, he's being chastised not just because he's had sex, But because his behavior has caused people not to believe that his example, that he was so high up in the church, that his example was such that it drove people away from the church. And the idea of destroying faith through your behavior, I think, is is part of what that council was talking about. If not. The entirety of what that council was talking about, but we've taken that to mean. I I know of many teenagers who think that masturbation is. I mean, if if adultery is sin number two, murder sin number one, adultery sin number two, and then masturbation is sin number three, which is just ridiculous and absurd, and has I think destroyed. So many lives and created this very unhealthy relationship with sexuality because we have distorted its importance and distorted its— I mean, distorted so many things that aren't important that it, I think, has done tremendous damage.

Jim, In the hierarchy of sins, where does voting Democratic rank?

Well, when President Benson was in the Quorum of the Twelve, it ranked, I think, at least in the top 10, I would think. And that, of course, is strange.

With a nod to your heritage, you can correct me if I'm misquoting, I think I think it was Winston Churchill who said, just don't do anything that would frighten the horses. And I think there's a lot of wisdom to that. Don't get hung up on this stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what's interesting is, is I know we, this is worth the time that we're spending because it's such a big, big issue is, you know, this question of Lord Jassovey. We could probably round this off over the next few minutes and go to the next question. Perhaps we'll see. But of all the questions, you know, having interviewed so many people over many years, of all the questions in the 15 yes or no Tim Ferriss questions, the one that easily generates the most pressure, intensity, and guilt and shame is this one where people feel intense shame and guilt because they've had a bad thought or something's happened or, or they've made a mistake, or they, they, they're terrified that because they've masturbated, they're going to become gay, for example, because they've read something.

Yeah. And there was an article in last week's Salt Lake Tribune, Jim, you probably saw it. About a former Latter-day Saint who converted to Catholicism because he preferred grace to behavior.

I saw the headline. I haven't read it. I want to go and read it.

I think there's something to be said about where should the emphasis be.

Yeah. And, and, you know, over, uh, That's a good, good, great question. The, you know, over the years as we've read policies and doctrines on all kinds of things and things have changed, things have eased and relaxed. You can go on a mission now if you're, if you're, um, you know, if you're masturbating, the church wants you to control it obviously. But, um, I suspect, well, no, it's more than that actually, uh, 'cause I've interviewed young men before they've gone on missions. Um, many of them struggle with that, right? And so at what point do you allow them to go on a mission, right? So it, it, this is such a, a, a difficult, complex question.

Well, but, but it isn't in the sense that the church has now said, at what point do you let them go on a mission? At every point. That masturbation is not an impediment to going on a mission.

Does that mean that if they continue with the habit on the mission, they can stay on the mission? Because the missions I'm aware of have combined.

Well, yes, I'm aware of them too. That's, that is a quiet change that the church has made, but they have absolutely made that change.

Yeah.

Yeah. But yes, our generation, Ian, people got sent home for this. People weren't allowed to go out because of this.

They did. They did. And you and I were super strict on that and, you know, we, we, we, we followed it. But, you know, again, as a, um, a missionary, as a senior missionary, I had missionary, uh, individuals who I knew who struggled with this. Right. And so it, it goes back to, um, what Greg's been saying about having a, being able to have a conversation in the right, um, space, uh, to discuss these things, you know, as adults, uh, because it's so important. Parents need help and advice. Kids need help and advice.

Right.

Youth leaders need help and advice. Bishops and state presidents need all the help. And then to your point, Jim, the church changes things, relaxes things, doesn't have a conversation about it. Just say, hey, we're making this change. And this left—

They don't even say they're making the change. They just make the change.

As we always taught.

Right.

And it's just on such a powerful and emotive and sensitive and complex subject as this, which it perhaps shouldn't, doesn't have to be as complex. The church misses an opportunity to show maturity, spiritual maturity and leadership where we can have these conversations. We, I never had them in, in any of the training and, uh, you know, talking with parents, but all the issues came to the surface in those interviews. And they're talking about stuff that they don't wanna talk about. I mean, we've not even covered the, the work that Sam Young has done to change this where, you know, bishops in the past have been interviewing young girls behind closed doors.

Yeah.

in rooms with no windows by it, right? I've seen that. And so there's, this is such a, a complex and, and, and, and, um, broad and detailed topic.

And I wanted to mention, I have conducted interviews like that myself as a counselor. I was called upon to conduct youth interviews. I was always uncomfortable with it. Uh, I would leave the door open. Uh, and, and I think that that was probably something I wasn't supposed to do, but I was just not comfortable having these kind of interviews. And the interviews were always, I, I never asked anything that would get anywhere close to any, anything sexual. It was, hey, how you doing? How's school? Um, it, it was, it was a pep talk.

Right, right. Before we go to the next question, I just wanna, it's 'cause this is so important, uh, I think in all of the questions, uh, in the temple recommend questions and the changes to the recommend question. Could you both summarize your thoughts and what, if you can, what advice would you give to the church to address, um, the issues and to take what you think is the best approach to this. Jim, do you want to go first and just summarize this? Because halfway through the pod, the conversation here, and then what's your advice to the church to how they approach this subject?

And we'll listen to Greg. I don't think it's going to take a lot to summarize it. I think the law of chastity is very clear. It's one of the clearest things in the temple. Don't have sex with someone you're not married to, and and don't worry about the rest. Don't I mean don't pry, don't ask. Miss, I'm about to say don't ask, don't tell. But I one of the best advice I've ever heard about masturbation. There was a woman in our ward who said. Well, what I told my kids was, don't make it your full-time job. And, and I mean, if it's taking over your life, if you are obsessed, if it's compulsive, then yeah, you've got a problem and we'll see if we can help you with that. But if it's not your full-time job, then I'm not going to worry about it. But I, and I thought that that was very candid, but I think it's, That's good advice. I think the church, it's not just about sexual matters. We've talked about this with regard to the temple recommend questions. It's exactly what you're saying, Ian. It's the checkboxes that we are much more comfortable measuring measurable indications of righteousness than we are on focusing on the unmeasurable components of righteousness, which are really the ones that matter. How much do I love my neighbor? How much am I serving? How kind am I? How much am I following the Beatitudes? Those are very difficult to measure, and so we don't. We just ask, are you paying your tithing? Are you not having sex? Are you not drinking? We're asking all of the things that are easy to check the boxes off of. I think we just need to get away from checking boxes. And I don't think that's limited to just sexual questions. I think it's— I've said many times that the only temple recommend interview that I think is appropriate would be when you first go through the temple. The bishop would outline, here are all the covenants you're going to be asked to keep. Are you going to— are you willing to keep them? And then every other subsequent interview for the rest of your life is, are you keeping your covenants? That's it. One question. And it's up to you to determine the answer to that question. And I don't— the church doesn't want to give you that much autonomy in answering that question. Because the church wants to say, well, are you really keeping your covenants? And let me give you— ask all these follow-up questions to determine whether we think you're keeping your covenants. And at some point, the church kind of has to let go and give you the spiritual autonomy to determine whether or not you are keeping your covenants as you understand them. And you can turn to the church and say, you know, I have a question about this. I'm not quite sure how this works. And you can talk it through. But the reality is when you do that, the answers you get from whatever leader you're talking it through with are no more authoritative than your own. They don't—they're not speaking. They certainly are speaking from a position of authority, but their interpretation of the questions, their interpretation of the covenants, is not going to be identical to some other bishop's interpretation of the. Same covenants, and maybe not identical to the interpretation that an apostle might apply. And I would think that among the 12 apostles, you would find to some degree 12 different opinions about what all of these things mean. And so the only standard that works is the one where you take responsibility for your own spiritual autonomy. And you say, this is what these covenants mean to me. This is what living these covenants and honoring these covenants means to me. And I get to determine when I am talking to my ecclesiastical leaders whether I am living those covenants. And there are clearly some boundaries. I mean, if you're, if you're saying I'm living the covenants, but I'm also a serial killer, well, I think the church is well within its Bounds to say, well, no, you're not living your covenants. You're crossing some very, very clear lines, and we are justified in withholding a number of blessings from you as a result. But those kinds of clear lines, I think, are relatively few and far between. There are boundaries that the church sets, but there is much broader territory. Within those boundaries than I think most members realize. So that's my summation.

That's an excellent, uh, summation. And Greg, what do you think? What's your summation?

At one end of the spectrum is what Joseph Smith said, I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves. At the other end of the spectrum is we're going to micromanage your life. Uh, I know which ends of the, that spectrum I'm more comfortable with. I've had a half-century career in medical research, and you've heard the phrase repeatedly, evidence-based medicine. That means not that, oh, we do this because that's what we were taught to do. It means We do this because we have the numbers to show that it makes a difference in the right direction. Now, unfortunately, a lot that still is done in medicine as well as in somewhat related areas like nutrition, for instance, is not evidence-based. It's fad-based. It's somebody who wants to make a profit doing something, and so they put it forward. If we had evidence-based theology, I think we'd be a lot better off. For example, I've mentioned on a prior episode that the history department many years ago was asked to determine what percentage of excommunicated members were rebaptized, and the answer was 2%. And yet that was an era where we would hear the phrase, these are courts of love. Give me a break. So figure out what is the end result that you want to achieve and reverse engineer that and say, what's the evidence that what we are doing is getting us closer to that end goal? I haven't seen much of that, and I would love to see a lot of that.

Excellent. Before we move to the next question, Gregg, I must, if I may, ask you a scientific question on this as I listen to you. How do I frame this from a professional scientific perspective? And this has come up in responses. to this question that I— when I've asked this of certain members, I'll just get to the point here. Isn't masturbation good for you?

Um, I've not done a deep dive into the medical literature on it. What I'm aware of, I think, is agnostic. I don't know that there is a demonstrable Physiological benefit. There may be an emotional one. Uh, certainly if you are single, um, maybe that gives you an emotional outlet that you can't otherwise have because you're not married. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm just not aware in— of evidence-based research That says, oh, if you regularly masturbate as a man, then your possibility of having prostate cancer as a 70-year-old will drop by X percent. That would be interesting information to have. I'm not aware that anybody has ever done that. All right. Recruiting for a study like that would be an interesting thing too.

Sorry, I got that mic. The recruitment are what, 15 yes or no questions? But there are sexual health professionals Uh, you know, we all know this out there who are registered and professional, uh, who say that things like masturbation, uh, you know, in moderation, like drinking coffee or drinking, you know, it's like the word, we're gonna jump word of wisdom in a second. You know, all things in moderation is actually good for you and healthy for you mentally. Yeah. Physically.

And they excommunicated her for saying that.

Yes. I was just about to say that. Natasha Helfer is the name.

Yes.

Therapist who was a member of the church and was saying that explicitly and got excommunicated for that. So that's the indication when I say that there's no ecclesiastical consequence for masturbation. There still is an ecclesiastical consequence for taking that idea to its logical conclusion, which is publicly saying it's okay to masturbate and it's even good to masturbate. The church isn't willing to go that far, and the church is willing to kick you out of the church if you do go that far.

I wonder if there are some who sit in the red chairs who roll their eyes and say, how did we ever get into this discussion?

They got into it because they got too micromanaged, to your point, Greg, regulating it with fine detail. But Jim, to your point, your example, your example that if you push the church too far on this, like in anything, there is a red line. It just, you might not know where it is, but if you, if you push far enough, the red line will appear from the red chairs, right?

Okay.

Jammer, this is—

before we leave this, Ian, we are part of a rich tradition, and one of the earliest iterations of that tradition was called the Pharisees, who thought that they could micromanage you into heaven, whatever that was. And so they had rules upon rules upon rules. What we're seeing today is nothing new.

And, and in contrast, when I read about Christ and his, um, life and his teaching and how he taught people and how he was with people It taught the guiding principles, you know, love, service, kindness, repentance, forgiveness, you know, healing in the streets, in the homes, in the hills. So clear and simple. And I don't see Christ being so detailed and prescribed. You know, he said, you know, if you love me, keep my commandments, right? Love one another as I have loved you. Love God Uh, love him, love your fellow neighbor. And, and it's, it's the temple recommend questions. I just don't see the point in them anymore. And I've said that I won't go into the back end of that. So gentlemen, thank you for that. That was such an important conversation. Could we move to the next question? Because we, we go from, uh, the question of law of chastity, uh, which is a requirement for entering the temple and obtaining a temple recommend to the Word of Wisdom, drinking coffee, right? So the questions on the Word of Wisdom that they, the, the old question used to be, uh, again, a yes or no question. Do you keep the Word of Wisdom? And the revised question is, do you understand and obey the Word of Wisdom? So there are changes there. Well, do you think the question is important to keep? And if you do, why? And what do you think are the 2 changes there? You keep the Word of Wisdom, used to be, and now you understand and obey the Word of Wisdom. Jim, and then Greg.

The new question actually is more problematic than the other question because the Word of Wisdom, at least the way it is lived and taught in 2026, has little or nothing to do with Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which is the Word of Wisdom. All of the prohibitions in Section 89 against eating meat, all of the positive requirements about, you know, make sure you eat healthy grains and all these kinds of things, None of those figure into it at all. I have a friend actually who went into a temple recommend question and said, "I'm not living the word of wisdom. I'm eating nothing but meat," and da da da. And the bishop laughed at him, said, "That's not what we don't care about that stuff." Well, that's what's in Section Eighty Nine. So what is the word of wisdom? Well, the word of wisdom at this point. is a specific prohibition against drinking coffee, tea, alcohol, and using any kind of tobacco products, or using any kind of illegal drugs, despite the fact that the Word of Wisdom makes no comments about things like marijuana, or which is becoming legal all over the place.

Mushrooms.

Mushrooms. You know, cocaine. I mean, you reach a point where, where you're crossing legal laws where the legal consequences are severe. The legal consequences for marijuana seem to have disappeared, but the legal consequences for cocaine are still in full force. But point being, when you say, okay, do you understand the word of wisdom? That's a really complicated question because the more I understand the Word of Wisdom, particularly as it's recorded in Section 89, the more likely I am to be confused and the more likely I am to have a heterodox interpretation of what it is they're really asking me. Because I think what they're really asking me is, do you drink coffee? Do you drink tea? Do you drink alcohol? Do you use drugs? And do you smoke or chew tobacco? You know, nothing about are you using tobacco as an herb for sick cattle with all judgment and skill, which is the language of Section 89. Section 89 has been rendered to some degree a dead letter because the the first thing it says, the reason we call it the word of wisdom. Is that this is not by commandment or constraint. This is absolutely not a commandment. This is a word of wisdom. This is good advice, and it was good advice that all of the prophets up until Heber J. Grant didn't take. The the you know we we have the stories of Joseph Smith in Carthage jail drinking alcohol. Right before his death, we have pictures of the Salt Lake Temple's upper rooms from 100 years ago, when where there were in the upper rooms of the Salt Lake Temple where the the apostles could spit their tobacco. The word of wisdom was a good was good counsel was good advice. But it was not at all, it did not at all carry the kind of weight that it carries now. And now as more and more research comes out that says, for instance, that coffee is actually good for you and healthy, certainly healthier for you than the kinds of caffeine that most Latter-day Saints ingest on a daily basis. Much better to have a cup of coffee than to drink a Rockstar or an energy drink. And when I was, I told this story, but when I was in a bishopric, there was a family that had a bet, not whether or not Jim Bennett would fall asleep on the stand, but whether he would do it before or after the bottom of the hour. And I decided I'm going to stop that. So I would drink A Rockstar energy drink before every sacrament meeting, and I was wide awake. Well, and I was also entirely within the Word of Wisdom, despite the fact that had I drunk a cup of coffee, I would probably be just as awake and probably not have all the sugar and all the carbonation and all the other problems that come with these energy drinks. So the Word of Wisdom, it's— It's a guide. It was touted when I was growing up as this sort of health code. And we don't hear a lot about that anymore because it doesn't hold up. It doesn't hold up that this is a great health code. I mean, yeah, it's great, but not drinking alcohol, not using tobacco, that's wise, that's good. There's some literature that says maybe a glass of wine every once in a while is heart healthy. But I think some of that's gone by the wayside as well. Greg, you might know more of the medical literature than I do, certainly. But the world has figured that out too. Smoking has really gone out the window in terms of the world's acceptance of it. They've moved on to vaping for people who can't, you know, who are trying to do something that's a little less destructive to their bodies than than smoking is. But, you know, you look at, I was talking to my mother just the other day about the movie Casablanca. You both seen Casablanca? Casablanca? I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly. This is one of the great movies of all time. And you go back and watch it. And the only thing I can think of when I watch it is just how bad everybody must have smelled. Because everybody in that movie has a cigarette in their hand at all times. And that was kind of the way movies were. And now movies, they'll warn you actually that they include it in the rating system that there is tobacco use in movies. It's, it's considered egregious enough that it's a moral, uh, it's something that they take into When they are rating movies, so the world has figured out tobacco is bad. The world has figured out alcohol is bad. Although that one, I think there are other issues that that the stigma for alcohol isn't nearly as high as the stigma for tobacco use. But the point being, I don't understand the word of wisdom. I don't under the word of wisdom is not a health code. The word of wisdom is a loyalty performative. Requirement. I don't drink coffee, not because I think coffee is bad for me, or I think that coffee offends God. It's because the church has asked me not to do it, to demonstrate my loyalty to the church. And that's what the Word of Wisdom has become. And to me, it's a bit silly. And I would love to say, yeah, I fully understand the Word of Wisdom. Bishop, I understand that it's not by commandment or constraint, and that we have distorted the intent of that revelation beyond recognition, and we should stop doing that. But that wouldn't get me a temple recommend if I were to say that. So, so my answer is yes, I understand the Word of Wisdom in that I understand what it is the church requires of me now. And I also understand that the Word of Wisdom bears no resemblance to the revelation that— from which it takes its name.

Okay, excellent. Thank you, Jim. Greg, your thoughts?

The words I would love to hear from the red chairs would be, as we have always taught, the Word of Wisdom is good advice. Next question. If you look at it in its time and place, it was not a century ahead of its time. That's what I was taught coming up through Sunday school.

Yeah, me too.

Oh, this is proof that Joseph was a prophet because it wasn't even 10 minutes ahead of its time. It reflected the common wisdom of the person in the streets. There's not one detail in the Word of Wisdom that was novel. It reflected what had been published for years, and we should begin to look at it in that context. Now, it didn't really start to save lives until the 20th century. Because that's when the cigarette-making machine was invented. If you were rolling your own, you weren't smoking enough that it did long-term damage. And by the way, life expectancy was so short that cancer wasn't an issue. As life expectancy lengthened, cancer became more of an issue. Heart disease became more of an issue. What got you in those years was mostly infectious disease. So as Lester Bush told me, if God really wanted the Word of Wisdom to save people's lives, why didn't he just say boil your water? Now, one of the ironies is that the Word of Wisdom may have cost lives because you don't drink tea and coffee emanating from putting it in cold water. You boil it. And so those who were drinking tea and coffee were probably spared many of the infectious diseases that took other people out. Now, if you fast forward to today, you say, well, what about the positive aspects of the Word of Wisdom? Well, wheat for the man. Uh, yeah, unless you've got gluten insensitivity, then what are you gonna do? Well, we didn't think about that. So there are parts of it that may have made sense in 1833, and some of those still make sense, like abstaining from tobacco, as you mentioned. I think the jury's still out on alcohol in moderation. The more recent research has tended to negate what we heard 5, 10 years ago about red wine having a beneficial effect. The thinking now is that any amount of alcohol is going to have an incremental bad effect on you. Maybe it won't be a durable bad effect. That's gonna depend on how much you're taking in over how Big a period of time. But we've gotten hung up on the wrong things on the Word of Wisdom. And now, uh, Jolene just showed me a thing yesterday about some guy who got on Facebook and is walking through parts of the Word of Wisdom about tea and coffee. And the whole thing's a spoof, but he's spot on. Is it that it's hot or is it that it contains caffeine? And if it's that it contains caffeine, then what about hot chanh? And if it's that it's hot, all right, then iced coffee and iced tea would be just— you can go down a rabbit hole in a heartbeat on this and never get back out. I think what you need to do is just Cool off and say, folks, use wisdom. The body is the temple of the spirit, and don't do things that are going to be bad for the body, like overconsume sugar and abuse prescription or illegal drugs or become obese.

That's not honoring the tabernacle of the And the Word of Wisdom doesn't mention any of that?

No, no. I, I wouldn't mind some kind of health advice. The church, starting— oh gee, it was over 30 years ago— they started to put policies and procedures into the General Handbook of Instructions. And for the first time gave some guidance on medical issues. And I know that because with one hand the church was kind of whacking Lester Bush because it was pissed off that he wrote the article on blacks and priesthood, and on the other hand a different division within the church was seeking advice from him on writing the medical policies for the General Handbook of Instruction. There you go. And generally, the church has been progressive on those issues, issues like in vitro fertilization, um, like blood transfusion, issues that have crippled some other religious traditions like the Jehovah's Witnesses. We've generally been pretty good on those. I think we should try to get pretty good on the Word of Wisdom, but we're not there.

What's the— to those points, those scientific and medical points, Greg, and get your thoughts as well, Jim. What's the church's current position on medical marijuana?

I don't know that the church has a position. Jim, since you're a Utah resident, you probably followed several years ago when there was legislation proposed on medical marijuana in Utah, and I never followed the outcome on that.

No, that was a, a, um, that was a big deal, and I actually had conversations with the head of church's head of government relations, who's a former, former speaker of the Utah House.

Is that Marty?

Yeah, Marty Stevens. And the church was opposed to Proposition 2, which legalized medical marijuana and really recreational marijuana to a degree, in that In that it, it's medical. I'm using air quotes, but you can go to just about anybody and say, um, I, I, I'm a little depressed and I think marijuana would help me. And they'll give you a marijuana card and you can go get marijuana in Utah. It's not, it's, it's very, very easy to obtain, uh, the ability to do it anyway. The church came out against Proposition 2, and Marty Stevens said that it was based on the Word of Wisdom. Well, the church overwhelmingly— not the church, the Utah voters, so members of the church— overwhelmingly rejected that recommendation from the church and passed it. And my understanding is that the church has essentially accepted the will of the voters in that regard. I have not heard anything where the church has discouraged anyone from seeking medical marijuana for any reason. I remember there was a guy in our gospel doctrine class who got up and said the church has just endorsed medical marijuana. And I couldn't believe that, and I went back and he was vastly overstating it. But the church essentially, I think, is quietly accepting that it's kind of the reality. I don't know of anybody that is asking questions in a temple recommend, for instance, about medical marijuana or even recreational marijuana if it's being done under the auspices of of medical marijuana, which is, which it so often is, particularly in Utah. I do know that the church, if you have a doctor's prescription for anything, the church respects that and honors that. And that was even true, you know, Heber J. Grant, even after I think He had made the temple recommend requirement, the word of wisdom, a requirement for the temple recommend. According to my father, he still drank a beer every night for the rest of his life in order to regulate his weight because he was too thin. You know, the other Heber J. Grant story, and I'm sure I've told this on this podcast, and I can't find any. Specific confirmation of it. So this is simply a family story. This is anecdotal, but it's just a wonderful story, and I'm going to tell it again. Heber J. Grant records in his journal when he first was called as an apostle in his 20s, he was very nervous about looking out of place, that he just didn't feel like he measured up the rest of them. And one of the first discussions they had was to whether or not hot chocolate should be against the Word of Wisdom. And he didn't consider the issue on its merits at all. He just wanted to make sure that he was going to vote the way everybody else would vote, so he would look like he was one of the guys. But he was terrified that if he voted yes and everybody else voted no, he would look like a zealot. And if he voted no and everybody else voted yes, He would look faithless, but based on the discussion, he determined that everybody else was likely to vote yes. So he was the first person polled and he voted yes. And they went down and all 12 of the apostles voted yes. And this was near the end of Wilford Woodruff's life. And he was in the room and everybody thought he was asleep. And after the vote, Wilford Woodruff mumbled, uh, next time it'll be soup. And that was the end. That was the end of it. They all kind of laughed and they abandoned it. And hot chocolate was not against the Word of Wisdom. And Greg, I have told many times the stories that you put in the McKay biography. Uh, the one that I love is when President McKay is at some theater event where they have Coca-Cola on the cups. And they say, oh, President McKay, we'd love to get you a drink, but All of our cups say Coca-Cola on them, but we can get you root beer. We can get you orange soda. You can get whatever you want. And President McKay's response is, "I don't care what it says on the cup as long as there's Coca-Cola in the cup." Yep. And I have been taught all my life, and this is I think in your biography too. He's rum cake. President McKay is offered some rum cake, and he eats it, and they say, "Well, isn't that against the Word of Wisdom?" And he says, "Oh, the Word of Wisdom is about." drinking alcohol, not eating it. I have literally always been taught my whole life, if you can eat it with a fork, it's not against the Word of Wisdom. That's a Howard Andersonism. But, but that was very much the family lore. If you can eat it with a fork, it's not against the Word of Wisdom. So it doesn't matter how layered with alcohol it may be. Uh, President McKay thought that was fine. You know, so this just gets to the, to the issue that the Word of Wisdom just— talk about nailing Jell-O to a wall. You know, if you think determining the law of chastity is nailing Jell-O to a wall, there isn't— there's at least sort of one core idea that everybody agrees on is a central part of the law of chastity, and that's not committing adultery. Or fornication. But the Word of Wisdom, there's no there there. There's no core center to it that can't be waved away really easily if you consult the text and if you consult tradition. There's very— it's very hard to see any sort of core eternal principle at the heart of the Word of Wisdom. The other thing, and I'm ranting a little too long here, so, but the last thing I want to say is that I remember growing up and being taught about Jesus's first miracle, the wedding in Cana where he turns water into wine. And I can remember as a primary kid being very troubled by that. And of course the explanation was that was just great juice. That was not really wine, which everybody knows and knew then was not true. That's nonsense. Of course it was wine, and it was probably pretty good stuff. But, uh, so if that's the case, if Jesus is performing miracles to allow wine to flow at a wedding, It's very, very difficult to justify saying that there's some kind of core eternal principle at the heart of the Word of Wisdom, that the Word of Wisdom really is at this point a performative loyalty oath, and that's all that it is. And there may be some value in having some kind of performative loyalty oath. But let's say, let's label it for what it is. Let's stop pretending that we're, that we have a health code. Let's stop pretending that it's anything but performative. End of quote.

I would like to see a broad survey within the church stratified by age that looked at The actual observance of the various categories of the Word of Wisdom. I think—

Jana Reiss has done some of that.

She's done a little bit of that, more for the younger demographic. And her result—

Which is growing up ignoring the Word of Wisdom.

Yep. Yep. I'd like to see it by deciles all the way up. And I think what you'd see is that the observance to the Word of Wisdom, strictly speaking, tails off considerably as you go down the age demographic, period. And by the time you get down to the 20-somethings, uh, I think people would be very surprised to see what the actual level of observance is. You'd have to conduct The survey anonymously, or people would be looking over their shoulders as they would respond to the questions. What you need is a candid answer. What is it that you actually do in your own life? I think the whole thing needs to be put on the table and everybody look at it and say, is this something that we really want to be fretting over, or do we have better things to concentrate on?

This question, like so many other questions, is just another example where the church has, I mean, it's very clear in Section 89, you've made reference to it, Jim. It's given for the principle with promise adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, so are or can be called saints. And you're right, you said earlier, this is This is not a commandment. He said it to be sent greeting, not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom, allowing forth the order, will of God in the temple salvation of saints in the last days. I think this is an example of another question where the church has gone, tried to micromanage this and tried to regulate this. And the human desire to find ways around it is like water.

Yeah.

Passing over, through, around rock. You can't stop. There's ways around it. And then the church, how does it respond and how does it counter that? And it's got itself into hot water in respect to this, and it's so unnecessary. And it goes back to what we were saying that, you know, surely it's enough for someone to love Christ and to love God and to be motivated by that love. You know, the pure love of Christ. Surely that's a great motivator where people govern themselves and organize and structure their lives in a way that Christ, um, would be pleased with in, in a very simple, uh, faithful way instead of having to regulate and control and, you know, get into all these very specific rules and regulations. We are coming to the end here of of the, uh, the conversation today, which has been absolutely, uh, just insightful and, and, uh, interesting. Um, so if you look at these 2 questions that we've, you know, we've discussed and reviewed the changes, you know, law of chastity, very complex, um, area of conversation in the Temple Recommend Questions. Word of wisdom, another interesting one. Simple, I think. It doesn't have to be complex, but it is unnecessary. So, um, we've lost Jim there for a bit, but Greg, how do you, what, what do you get from this then? If you, um, summarize your thoughts for this conversation, um, keeping in mind this is a type of conversation that we will probably have with all of the questions, or maybe not all of them, many of the questions. You know, the first few questions are about God and Christ and, and, um, the, the church leaders and supporting them. And I can understand that. But do you think that these questions are necessary? If you were leading the church, would you do away with them? What would your approach be to helping and encouraging members to attend the temple? Would it be questions or would it be some other system that you would introduce?

I don't favor the status quo on this. I would favor taking an approach that's evidence-based that will help people rather than throw roadblocks up in front of them. I don't know what the specifics are on that because I think to do it right, you'd do some trial and error and gain your evidence and say, what is it that church leaders can do? What is it that the institutional church can do that will make the members better and That we can verify through the numbers that it's working. Right. Right.

You know, that's an excellent point. Uh, and Jim, if you can hear this, would you agree, Jim, and get your thoughts on this as well, Greg, that surely a member who wants to go to the temple for all the right reasons, surely all they need is those 3 questions, you know, do you love God? Do you love Christ, you support your leaders. Um, yes, have a meeting with the bishop, ask those 3 questions. I mean, that they're the ultimate questions, right? Love God, love Christ, follow him, follow the prophet, et cetera. Do you not think, Jim, that's enough to help people attend the temple and that the other questions are not necessary? What would your system be for helping and supporting, and to Greg's point, removing the roadblocks to helping people Go to the temple and have a wonderful experience.

No, I think not only is that enough, I think it's too much. I, again, I think one question for people who've been through the temple, are you keeping your covenants? The end. I think before you go to the temple, there should be temple prep that genuinely prepares you for the temple. Temple prep as it stands now. I think it's gotten a little better since our day, but temple prep back in the day didn't prepare you for anything. It's amazing. I, I remember reading the book, The Holy Temple by Boyd K. Packer, which doesn't say a damn thing. There's nothing. It's a long book and it doesn't say anything that prepares you for anything that happens in the temple. It does not mention the covenants. It does not mention the ritual. It does not mention, you know, everybody who went through the temple in our day was blindsided because nothing in temple prep told them what they were getting into.

And Jim, I have a faith-promoting story about that book.

Please.

I had a dear friend, the first person I ever knew who died of AIDS, a gay gentleman. And as we were talking one day, he was well into the disease. He was talking about spiritual things in such a way that I thought, you know, I'll give him this book. He loved that book. He found it very comforting. He was not LDS. And so I sent a letter to Boyd Packer saying, you know, I gave this to a gay friend who's dying of AIDS and he found it very comforting. Thank you very much. Would you believe I never got a response?

Oh, I was hoping you did, because I could imagine what his response might have been. Oh, but well, it's— I mean, I can understand why he would see it as a lovely book, because I mean, it talks about the importance of temples and sort of how God's plan has always included these holy spaces.

Yes. Exactly, which is why I gave it to him.

Which is lovely, which is great, and it also doesn't prepare you at all for what happens.

No.

When you get your endowment. So, so yeah, Ian, so very short answer to your question. I, I think a one-question interview, are you keeping your covenants, is all that is necessary. If that. Yeah, I think, do you want to go to the temple?

Yeah.

Is, I mean, if you're going to the temple unworthily, that's probably bad. And that's also between you and the Lord. And I think, I think I just, the more autonomy individuals have, the better and the more threatening that is to the institution.

I am so on board with that. Before we give Greg the final time, I've got a quick faith-promoting temple experience story all the way from Scotland, Jim.

Nice.

So, you know Elder Roper, uh, Greg, you'll like this story. So Elder Roper, Elder Clark, and I, we set up and created the Stranraer branch. I was the first branch president of Stranraer, Greg. This little town in the—

You're not released.

I've never been released. I'm still the branch president. I, I, that was a tough calling. Anyway, we baptized a small branch. We had a few baptisms and formed this branch. And I was there for quite some time, 6, 7 months, the longest period of, uh, in my entire mission. And it was the whole experience of Stranraer, um, just had a profound, uh, mostly positive experience for me. And I got so close to these, uh, members. I think 15 people joined the temple, Jim, while I was there, but shortly afterwards, maybe within a few months. Anyway, I went to Inverness after Stranraer. And I got a letter from the new branch president of Stranraer and said, hello, Ilks, how are you? The branch is growing really well. We've got a really exciting story to share with you. He said, some of the members went to the temple and they did. It was a wonderful experience. And they said that we had our own created their own temple preparation lesson. And in the letter, this branch president described that when they were going to the temple, they had hired a bus, booked a bus, right? And there was about 10 of them going to the temple for the first time. And on the way down to the London Temple, They, uh, opened up the 2 skylights. So those 2 windows at the top of the bus there on the ceiling of the bus, and they, uh, hung 2 towels. There were 2 skylights and they hung 2 long towels down from the skylights and shut the skylight so the towel would hang in the aisle of the bus. And this is what they're telling me in the letter. And they cut slits in the towels. Because they'd heard that there was a veil at the temple and they cut slits in the towels and they, and somebody had dressed up in the temple clothing who'd been to the temple before and then showed them what to do at the veil. And they thought this was wonderful and they were prepared to go to the temple. And I read this and I just could not believe, I still got the letter, so I could not believe that I was reading this. And they practiced the temple ceremony on the way down to the London Temple. And they said, boy, were they prepared when they got there. They knew what to do. Hey Greg, this is a very, you know, these are non-members, just joined the church, been in the church for a year. The stake wasn't organized as well as it could have been. There's no offering of temple recommend— sorry, of temple preparation classes. They'd heard what stuff goes into the temple. The members there, Jim, you know what they talk about is they talk about the temple quite openly in Scotland at places and times, as you know. And it was no secret, but they thought it was wonderful and they had spiritual experiences in the bus on the way down to the Temple. Anyway, fascinating. Fascinating. Anyway, Greg, do you want to wrap us up? What are your thoughts generally or specific? What do you think about what we're talking about?

Does this complete the Apple recommend questions?

Oh no, sorry, it doesn't. No, we've got a couple more. Yeah, we've got a couple more that we need to get into. So we're plowing right through. Yeah, we're going right through, but I mean, the time we're giving them, I think, is important, valuable. So yeah, we've covered, uh, chastity and word of wisdom today.

I think the overriding principle that resonates with me is spirit versus letter, and I come down in favor of spirit.

Amen. Amen.

Okay. Well, that's an excellent finish. So we will close, gentlemen. That was just extraordinary. Our listeners and viewers will certainly benefit from this conversation. I know I have. Jim, thank you so much for your wisdom, your insights, and your thoughts and your anecdotes. Just wonderful to listen to you and learn from you. And Greg, thank you again for being part of this conversation and providing your insights and your wisdom as well. To all our listeners and viewers who follow us live and through the audio streams, thank you for being with us. Hope this is helpful. Share this information with those who need it. And again, Jim, thank you. And Greg, thank you for these wonderful conversations.

Thank you.