Heavenly Mothers

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

I am doing great. Thank you for that fine compliment.

Well, you know, you watch The Simpsons, handsome means he always looks at himself, but if rugged means everyone's looking at you because that's how good looking you are.

Well, again, I will take that. Thank you.

Anyway, so we've got a very interesting topic here and I want to begin with something a little unusual here. Tell me if you've ever heard this before.

Mormon Jesus. Mormon Jesus. Mormon Jesus. Long, long Mormon Jesus. Yeah, I've seen that. I've heard that and I've heard that song before.

Yeah. Do you know where that comes from?

Is that from the Godmakers?

It is from The Godmakers. That's the probably the best thing that has come out of The Godmakers. For those who are not familiar with The Godmakers, The Godmakers was a book and a movie. It was more prominent as a movie, I think. But I read the book when I was 18 years old and I was somewhat startled by it and it triggered something of a faith crisis for me. And I've talked about that before and we're not going to get into the specifics of that. But if you go online to YouTube, there is a section of the Godmakers movie that is online and has been sort of passed around as— they call it the cartoon that the Mormon Church doesn't want you to see.

I remember receiving specific instruction and direction from President Dunn when I just came out on my mission and warned us about being trapped or, or getting into a situation where someone in the home in Scotland would show, uh, missionaries the Godmakers. And I remember talking to a minister who invited us in in Stranraer and said he had this video called Godmakers and would we be interested in seeing it? And we kind of panicked and said no. It was like completely off limits. This was anti-Mormon, uh, literature designed by Satan to lead people astray. And we were told, uh, explicitly to avoid any situation where that program or that video, uh, would be shown. And we, we were told to avoid that in all circumstances.

Well, you know, it was, it was very effective. It was a very powerful sort of thing. It was a little different from a lot of the stuff that's been passed around now. Because the focus wasn't so much on the church is a fraud as the church is a satanic cult. But this is the section I've got it here that I think leads into what we're going to talk about here.

And that he lives with his many goddess wives on a planet near a mysterious star called Kolob. Here, the god of Mormonism and his wives, through endless celestial sex, produced billions of spirit children.

Endless celestial sex. Endless celestial sex. Doesn't that sound fun?

Uh, sounds exhausting.

It sounds— well, do you ever watch Futurama? No. Oh, Futurama. The, the characters are captured by a race of beautiful alien Amazonian type women.

Okay.

They call sex snoo snoo. And they say, we sentence you to death. And I go, uh, by snoo snoo.

Yay.

Apparently.

Well, what a crazy, crazy, uh, you know, I did see that video, uh, after our mission. Um, and I thought it was extraordinary, but that's what we were taught. We were taught that. You know, we come from heavenly mothers, a heavenly mother. We, you know, there is endless mothers out there. There is a God. And the focus of the priority is to procreate and create billions of spirits. And that's where we came from. That's the environment that we came from. And when we die and achieve godhead status, where our wives are goddesses, which get taught that in the temple, you know, gods and goddesses, you know, kings and queens under the most high.

Did they ever use the term goddesses though?

Did they not in the temple? The pre-1990, I think, uh, maybe I'm wrong. Um, but my, my, what I was taught is that a, your wife would become a goddess. You would become a god. You'd become a king. They would become a queen. And there was polygamy. In the next life. We didn't practice it anymore in this life because of, you know, the, uh, you know, the change there, the revelation, which is not official or formal, uh, but there was some revelation to disband, uh, and discontinue that practice. However, it was taught, and I was taught that there is polygamy in the afterlife. I was told that specifically in the church by my leaders. Growing up, you know, part of growing up in the church when I was a teenager, I was taught it on mission. I heard it all the time. We have more than one wife in the next life. And one of the priorities is to procreate. You get your own world, you become a god. You've got your earthly wife that you're sealed to, but also you get sealed to many, many other wives. And then you have corner of the video there, you have endless sex and then you create billions of spirits for your own planet. You get to create other planets and you get to, and this is what I was taught, you get to become God, literally, like God is right now, and you get your own area of the universe, create your own planets, and maybe you might need to send down your own savior. So you go through exactly the same experience that God has gone through. I know that might sound— some of that might sound a little bit, um, um, stuff that you haven't heard, but that's what I was taught and I was told consistently right up to and beyond my time on a mission.

Well, I was taught— I, I'm— well, I'm trying to figure out the, the best way to frame this because I wasn't taught that in the way that we're taught things in church. In other words, there weren't gospel doctrine classes where they would discuss endless celestial sex, multiple heavenly mothers, um, polygamy in the next life. None of that was ever touched on in formal church settings, but the discussions that took place between formal church settings or took place in informal church settings, all sort of framed it in that same way. What I was never really explicitly taught formally or informally was this idea of multiple Heavenly Mothers. It had never really even occurred to me, and it should have because I was taught there will be polygamy in the next life, and the logical conclusion from that is that there are multiple heavenly mothers, that God has multiple wives. And so therefore there are multiple heavenly mothers. And I just remember, I can remember the instant when I was on splits with the zone leaders in Livingston, Scotland, and Elder Minor, while we were eating lunch, we were eating a little biscuit filled with, you know, cold cuts, which was kind of the standard lunch fare for the missionaries back in the day, and he just said casually, "Do you think you and I have different Heavenly Mothers?" And I just looked at him like, "Are you crazy? What are you talking about?" And then it all sort of hit me right there in the moment. Well, of course that makes sense based on everything that we teach about polygamy and the idea that plural marriage will continue in the next life, on and on and on and on and on. It's just, you know, it just kind of hit me like a ton of bricks, and I sort of have tried to ignore it over the years. But one of the things that has been fairly clear to me as a result of all of this is that our reticence to talk about Heavenly Mother does not come from what people tell us it comes from. You know, you had this talk by Elder Renlund. It wasn't— I don't think it was this last conference, it was the conference before. There was a talk that essentially said, stop talking about Heavenly Mother. We don't know anything about her. We don't know why. I wish I knew more is one of the things Elder Renlund says, but we don't know anything about her, so just don't talk about her. And the excuses that I've heard about that are, okay, well, she's so sacred, she's so sacred that we just can't talk about her. My mother once said, um, that Heavenly Father doesn't want Heavenly Mother's name used in vain. He has to suffer through all these people using his name in vain, and so he doesn't want her name used in vain, and so he has kept her sacred. And that was like, uh, that doesn't necessarily make any sense. I don't get it. You know, we're told we can't pray to Heavenly Mother. We're told we just don't know anything about Heavenly Mother. Uh, any reference to Heavenly Mother is always— any official reference is always couched in terms of Heavenly Parents. They talk about Heavenly Parents, and they don't want us to get specific. So these kinds of excuses that it's just too sacred to talk about, I mean, that's the main one. Uh, that, that's a cop-out. The reason we don't talk about Heavenly Mother is because doctrinally we teach that there are multiple, if not infinite, Heavenly Mothers. That polygamy is so massive. I mean, the Godmakers got that right. They, you know, this is, this is the implication of our doctrine. Now, it's the implication of our doctrine, but it isn't officially taught as our doctrine. I mean, there's a difference there. There is not a scripture that says there are multiple Heavenly Mothers. There's not a scripture that references Heavenly Mothers. Joseph Smith, during his lifetime, refused to publicly acknowledge polygamy.. And the only thing we have with regard to any reference to Heavenly Mother is in Section 132, which was not published until after Joseph Smith's death. And we've talked to people who insist that Section 132 is a forgery, and I don't want to get into all of that. Assuming Section 132 is in fact accurate, and I take it as accurate, uh, it does not reference Heavenly Mother, but it does reference polygamy as being an eternal principle that will endure into the next life. So why are we talking about all of this? We're talking about all of this because President Dallin H. Oaks said the quiet part out loud. President Oaks has a history of talking about this and touching on this in ways that have made people uncomfortable. In conference, for instance, This was about 4 or 5 years ago, I think right after the pandemic. President Oaks began his talk by telling a joke, and the joke was, you know, I was talking to a woman who was married to a man whose first wife had died, and she was sealed to this man, and she said to her husband, "Am I going to have to share a house with your first wife in the next life? And President Oaks' response was, I think that's not something you should be worried about, and you should just trust in the Lord. And the way he framed it, it was— it got a laugh. It was like, hahaha, this silly woman thinking, worried about what house she's going to live in in the next life. And a lot of people were really bent out of shape by that. That because he was talking about this so lightly. And there are so many people who are troubled by the idea of eternal polygamy. Again, I'm going to recommend the book The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy by Carolyn Pearson, where she goes through all of the trauma that women in the church particularly, but even some men as well— I mean, I'm not eager to be a polygamist in the next life. As much as I like Snoo Snoo, uh, the idea of, of, uh, you know, dividing up my family with all these different other women. And, you know, I, I love my, I love my wife. I love my family as a cohesive unit. My wife is certainly my equal, and I don't, I, I don't think it's possible to be an equal if you're in a polygamous relationship. The wife is always secondary because it's the man who is the focal point. And so the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy talks about the trauma women have when they— women that are terrified that if they die that their husbands will marry polygamously and they're going to have to accept a polygamous relationship in the next life. I mean, just on and on and on. This was really something that I think was not a wise thing for President Oaks to have done. But over the last week, and this is what has catalyzed this conversation today, over the last week President Oaks was in Belgium and was speaking through a translator, and he made just sort of an offhand comment, and I'm going to play that here for us. We are children of heavenly parents.

And we are waiting to see the angels.

So we know that we have a heavenly mother or mothers.

And we are waiting to see the angels.

But for reasons the Lord has not revealed, we do not know much about our heavenly mother. Okay, so there it is. He says the quiet part out loud. We know we have a heavenly mother or mothers. And just says it very casually, but it's clear that in President Oaks's mind, that this is in fact the structure of heaven beyond, that there are multiple heavenly mothers. I mean, the way he just, that just sort of rolls off, it's like, well, of course we have heavenly mothers because of course President Oaks is married and sealed to two women and fully expects to be a polygamist in the next life. The same is true of President Nelson. And so here you have, uh, the, the first counselor in the First Presidency, the next president of the church, just openly saying, yes, essentially polygamy will continue in the next life. We do have multiple heavenly mothers. What's your reaction to this?

Listening to Elder Oaks there, that doesn't surprise me at all. I, in fact, I find his comments perfectly consistent with what I've heard and been told and taught in the past. And references by General Authorities, which I've got a few, which I'll share in a moment, uh, is consistent with what Elder Oaks have said. There's that, um, is that hymn, Jim, that we sing in the church, that notable hymn, which is from the poem by Eliza R. Snow entitled My Father in Heaven, and now known as the hymn Oh My Father. The text declares, in the heavens our parents single, no the thought makes reason stare, truth is reason, truth eternal, tells me I've a mother there. So Elder Oaks's comments there are consistent with what I've heard and have been told in the past. When I joined the church, um, and as I got into the church programs, I did seminary and was involved in gospel learning pre-mission. I learned about polygamy for the first time. It was a weird strange, uncomfortable topic. It never felt right. It never sat right with me. And so when I inquired about polygamy from members who I got to know really well and trust like family, the consistent messages I got, not just from members but from leaders, and I would add that during my pre-mission preparation where I went to the London Temple to take out the pre-1990 endowment, which was some experience I could tell you. I remember having a conversation in the celestial room with the temple president on a whole range of questions I had about the next life. And I remember a conversation with him about polygamy. And I said to the temple president at that time, and I had this conversation with the MTC Uh, mission president as well, who was there with us in the, in one of the sessions. This is, so I'd, I'd gone to the temple before the mission and had a conversation with the temple president. And then when I went back to London at the MTC a few months after to, um, go to the MTC, had this conversation and other conversations like this with the, uh, mission president of the MTC. But the temple president said very clearly that when we die, we will be in a polygamous relationship. And that we didn't discuss Heavenly Mothers at the time, but I would be in a polygamous relationship. And I said, well, I don't want to be in the polygamous relationship. So well, you will have to be in the polygamous relationship, because that's what the law— that's the eternal commandment. And I said, what about free agency? Do I not get a choice? He said, you will feel differently and think differently in the next life than what you do right now. Right now you're seeing it through your human eyes or man-made eyes or mortal eyes in this life. When you are a god, you will see things quite differently and this will all seem quite comfortable to you. So I thought that was odd. That, uh, message, that information was consistent with information and conversations that I had on this topic with members of my own ward and stake, including some of the leaders, including my bishop. And so this raises, you highlight, and this conversation highlights an extremely serious fundamental problem that weaves itself into almost every topic in the church, and I came across this issue again while I was preparing for this conversation. So in, on the church's website, which they have a page titled Mother in Heaven, Mother in Heaven, which we can all, you know, we can all find quite easily. It talks about the church's position about Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. In fact, it's interesting because it goes to the nature of God. You know, one of the core tenets of the church is we claim to have a definitive and clear understanding, more than any other church on the earth, about the nature of God. You know, God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and I've even heard that the Holy Ghost is Heavenly Mother, and that's, I've heard that from a few sources. I'm not sure if you've heard that before.

No, there are a bunch of people that have speculated that.

Speculated. And I just, I'm okay with that being speculation because that is not consistent with what I've heard from leaders and members in the past where, you know, God has a, God has wives, multiple wives, and that you and I probably come from different heavenly mothers, which is consistent with what we've talked about earlier. And I found the whole thing, you know, extremely odd and strange and Anyway, let me get to my point here. So in the section on the church website where they make this formal statement about Heavenly Mother, they say this: while there is no record of a formal revelation to Joseph Smith on the doctrine, some early Latter-day Saint women recall that he personally taught them about a Mother in Heaven. And then, and so remember, the keyword is formal revelation. And this is the problem I'm talking about. Where you have Elder Oaks and you have other General Authorities talking in some capacity, in an official capacity. And I was taught by, I think, Elder Oaks or Elder Cook when they set us apart, that you're always, when you're speaking about the church, when you're having conversations with members, whether you're at the pulpit or not, or in the gospel class or not as a stake presidency, you're always on the stage. You're in a formal capacity. So you guard your words, you be careful what you say, you watch your actions. And an apostle is always an apostle, always an apostle. You're always on call 24/7. And so maybe when you're home, you can have these own personal thoughts, but when you're talking to a congregation, you are on call, the official flag is flying, and you are an apostle, especially you do this when you're an apostle, certainly when you're bishops or stake presidents, but more especially when you're a prophet or an apostle. And so if you, if we jump to LDS Living, we find an interesting quote and conversation between Joseph Smith and Zina D. Young. So the Prophet Joseph Smith spoke about Heavenly Mother to the third Relief Society president of the church, Zina D. Young. After losing her mother to the most trying of circumstances, Zina was speaking to the Prophet about her intense grief and asked the question, will I know my mother when I get over to the other side? And Joseph Smith said this, certainly you will. More than that, you will meet and become acquainted with your eternal mother, the wife of your Father in Heaven. This is from the History of Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, November 1869 to June 1910. So Joseph Smith, at least we know, at least had one conversation. It's easy to accept, I think, that he had many or some, and that his knowledge, um, of Heavenly Mother is, uh, probably developed. It wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of material, Jim, in the vaults, in the archives, of Joseph Smith and maybe Brigham Young and some of the early prophets who have spoken definitively about Heavenly Mother. I believe that's the case. That's my own, not trying to be, um, conspiratorial, but that's my view that there's still a lot of material that the church has not released on a whole range of topics, including this one that are still in the vaults because it's just, we're not ready to receive it or it's too problematic. And so the point I'm trying to get to is that At what point is revelation formal? And this is, it just doesn't tie to Heavenly Mother's endless polygamous relationships. This affects every aspect of the church. What is revelation and what isn't? Is Elder Oaks's comments not formal revelation? He spoke about it just now. He just played it. As an apostle, a congregation, to me, it is official, it is formal. And so when the prophets say something, whether it's at the General Conference or not, we seem, we may think that it's only official if it's a General Conference. I don't, I don't buy that. I think when you speak as a leader of the church to a congregation, you say stuff, then that's formal. Does that mean it has to be canonized or written down in a formal statement?

No.

The general authorities and the prophets claim revelation all the time. Revelation is not unique to them. We know that. It's not exclusive rather to them. But they speak on behalf of the church. And Elder Oaks was speaking on behalf of the church, surely, when he was speaking there. So, they talk about here, no record of formal revelation. But you read all the quotes on this, and there are many. If you go to LDS Living, there are at least 10, maybe 15 quotes from General Authorities right up to Spencer W. Kimball. It's John A. Widstoe, Melvin J. Ballard, Harold B. Lee, all talking about— and Spencer Kimball talking about, um, Heavenly Mother. And Brit Godby Hinckley and Oaks and Elder Holland's on there as well. So, you know, clearly we know a bit more than what probably Elder Oaks is saying. I suspect because more information in the vaults that, um, we've yet to release. I think there's a lot of confusion, a lot of concern about, um, uh, you know, this doctrine. I don't, I don't buy it for a second that we don't know much about her, how much is revealed. I think a lot of that stuff is kept back, and I think it's because the church has probably got information from historical records from different leaders in the past, um, where maybe that information is inconsistent with each other. You know, we talk about the correlation of doctrine, and perhaps they're not releasing it because there are inconsistencies. It's not clear. And perhaps it's, we're not ready to, um, receive the meat until we've had the milk, so to speak. It's an area, you know, Heavenly Mother's, uh, and, and endless, you know, uh, polygamous relationships is, it's bizarre and it's confusing, uh, to me. And to your other point as well, I also was taught that we don't talk about Heavenly Mother because we want to protect her good name and it's a sign of respect. And that's why Heavenly Father has decided not to reveal too much about Heavenly Mother to protect her. And speaking in, it sounds like that's a singular., uh, point, but we're talking about multiple Heavenly Mothers here, aren't we? One God, I don't know how many wives he has. I don't know which Heavenly Mother I come from, but I would love to know, you know, what about sharing this information with members who will respect Heavenly Mother? I know that would get out on the internet, but I just don't understand I think it is an excuse. I just don't understand why the church says we don't talk about her to protect her name. Um, we can do a pretty good job at protecting a name. A name will, like Joseph Smith said, a name would be had for good or evil. Joseph Smith said that about himself. God's name is had for good or evil. But I would say there's more value, uh, to knowing a bit more about her or knowing about her role. And bringing that equality into conversations around the nature of God. How can you fully understand the true nature of God without understanding the role and the significance of Heavenly Mother? You just can't. You know, we teach in the proclamation as well. We talk about we come from Heavenly Parents. That is an official a formal revelation, you could argue. And it references, you know, heavenly, you know, we come from, I think it's Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, Heavenly Parents, I think it says. I've not got it in front of me here right now. And so we know about her. We know she's an essential element of the Godhead. I don't know why we can't learn more about her. I think there is information about her. We're just not ready to release for all kinds of, problems or issues that the church has got. And I think it would shine a light and add a bit more clarity on the Godhead, on our role. You know, if you are, you know, let me go back when I, um, growing up, and I don't think I've shared this on the podcast, but there was no father figure when I was growing up. And I, um, years later, I inquired about my father. And what drove me was that I wanted to know him and know a bit about him. I had this natural instinct to learn about him and to know who I came from, you know, from my earthly father. It was, I think that's common. I think when you grow up without a mother or a father or this, they're absent for many years and you've got the opportunity to meet them, meet with them. I think that's a really important moment in one's life. And certainly was for me. And I think a lot of people, maybe not everybody, want to know their earthly parents. It's instinctive. It's built into us, right? We know, where do we come from? So I think the church would do well to explore this a bit further and to release more information, tell us a bit more about Heavenly Mother. Perhaps they don't do that because it brings the point that you were saying that we've got these millions of wives issue going on. And, you know, the church is trying desperately to get away from polygamy. It can't escape. It's chained to polygamy. It's trying to—

what can it do?

It must have all these meetings and frustration. Look, we're still dealing with polygamy.

It will—

we just can't escape it. What do we do to change the narrative and move away from that, to show the world that we've No, we've moved on beyond that. Um, and so it probably, that's the reason why it's not releasing any information because it brings up the question of, you know, the godmakers there. We've got this god and you've got these millions of wives. I mean, it is cultish. It is. I look back now, even in the church, I thought it was weird. And like, I felt at the time I've joined a cult here. This is just kind of weird. My natural, Jim Bennett, you know, being a new convert. My natural private conversation was, I've joined a cult that was going on in my brain. But I couldn't talk about that because the people around me I loved and cherished and I trusted. And I thought, well, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the one who's kind of stunted in my spiritual vision. And it's because of me I don't see this great position of the Lord. And because I just don't see it, I'm not spiritual enough. I put it all back on me and I pushed my natural feelings and my, you know, the warning flags, which I now recognize them to what they were, that there were real flags for me, at least not just on polygamy, many of the topics as well. And I buried that and I put that I didn't put it on a shelf. You know, shelf is like it's there in the room. I actually buried it deep and tried to not talk about it, but underneath it just didn't feel right. And that was one of so many things. And I just kind of squashed it up into a ball and just kind of buried it, you know, somewhere deep, somewhere in the backyard or even, you know, miles away. But it was always there and it always troubled it. So yeah, I, I, there are my thoughts, but I did just to conclude this, this part of my thoughts. I would love to learn more about Heavenly Mother. I believe that we come from Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father and that we come from this eternal offspring and to learn a bit about her and to give her the light and the credit and the equality that we talk about at this side of the veil. I think would be completely appropriate. And why can't we have a really good talk from General Conference on this in a very respectful and a very thoughtful way? So yeah, there are my, there are my opening thoughts.

Well, so there's a lot to unpack there. And one of the things, one of the places I want to start is this idea that there are revelations or that there are documents that that talk about this that are hidden away that would sort of blow the lid off of this. Uh, one of the reasons I don't think that's the case is that the church's Joseph Smith Papers project has been really good about— essentially, the goal of the Joseph Smith Papers project, Joseph Smith Papers project, is to release every document that is contemporaneous with Joseph Smith, from Joseph Smith's lifetime. Anything Joseph Smith wrote, anything that was written about him by members of the church, by his scribes. And this has to some degree gotten the church in hot water, most notably with regard to the volume that addresses the Book of Abraham, because Brian Hoggled, who was a BYU professor at the time, was the editor and essentially left BYU. And I, I don't know that he goes to church anymore, but the BYU— everybody was up in arms because the Joseph Smith Paper Project essentially said, um, the Book of Abraham is not a translation of these documents. And the Book of Abraham essay offers all these different possibilities, finally ending with the idea of, well, maybe these papers were just a catalyst for revelation. And the Joseph Smith Papers Project and the volume that was released about the Book of Abraham says that is the only avenue available to anyone who wants to accept the Book of Abraham as inspired scripture or as some kind of an ancient document, because We do have the papyrus. We do know that this is not an accurate translation of that papyrus. And so this idea of a missing scroll or, you know, whatever other kind of apologetic excuse can be made, that just doesn't stand anymore. And it was the Joseph Smith Papers that did that. So if they were extensive or even any— if there were some kind of cryptic or hidden document. You know, these documents, it's impossible really over time to hide these kinds of documents. It's— if they had been destroyed long ago, then you could hide them. But the idea that they've just been sitting there and nobody's noticed and it's never leaked, I just don't— I don't put a lot of stock in that. I just don't think I think the church has gotten so much better at being transparent that the idea that there is some kind of hidden bombshell out there, à la Donald Trump being mentioned in the Epstein files kind of thing, I just don't see that. I don't see that as likely. I also don't think that the idea of trying to say, well, what is official revelation and what isn't? Is a particularly useful exercise. We talked about this with regard to the John Taylor revelation, because I don't see, again, the text that records the revelation as being the revelation. I see the text as an attempt to capture the revelation in language, because I don't think the revelations are issued, uh, verbally or textually. Are issued with this mass of pure intelligence that we try to capture and frame in words. So, so the idea of saying, well, is this a revelatory statement? Is this not a revelatory statement? That's not an exercise that I think is particularly fruitful. I don't think it's useful for me to understand how prophets commune with God or how I commune with God. So with all of that said, there are two things that I pull from this that I think merit much further discussion. One is we don't know a damn thing about how spirit children are created. We don't know a damn thing about that process. We don't have any recorded revelation. We don't have any canonized revelation. I have never even heard any kind of discussion about this, uh, of any sort of significance. The assumption is that spirit children are created the same way as physical children, except that assumption falls apart when you start to examine our theology and our doctrine about what our resurrected lives are going to be like, because we insist we're going to be resurrected physically with physical bodies. And we also talk about the idea— and this gets us into trouble— we talk about the idea of Jesus physically being the Son of God. And there are statements that talk about Mary having a sexual relationship with our Heavenly Father. And that's always driven me crazy because here on Earth, we— it's possible to have children without, having that kind of a physical relationship. And so the idea that that was necessary, that, that we couldn't have some sort of spiritual IVF— I mean, this gets kind of ridiculous when you try to reduce it, because just these last few days, uh, there has been a baby born that has genetic material from 3 different people. We have found a way to combine the DNA of 3 people to create a child that has 3 physical parents. So, you know, the, the, we as mortals are able to deal with these kinds of issues in ways that, uh, that suggests that limiting immortals from, you know, different kinds of ways to produce children. That just strikes me as so silly and short-sighted. But okay, let's be silly and short-sighted for a moment. Okay, so are you telling me, Brigham Young, when you start talking about the essential nature of a man and a woman to produce a spirit child, are you telling me that a physical Heavenly Father and a physically Heavenly Mother have sexual relations and that produces a non-physical being? How does that work? Wouldn't they produce a physical being and not a non-physical being? So our understanding of how spirit children are produced is also complicated by our understanding of Abraham chapter 3 and this idea of intelligences. This, this idea that there is an element of intelligence that is co-eternal with God, that is not created, and that God somehow fashioned that intelligence into a spirit, uh, you know, we don't have any clue how that works. And the idea that the only way that can work is if a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother have endless celestial sex. It's just kind of silly. It's just kind of ridiculous. The amount of knowledge and understanding we have as to how spirits are created is precisely zero. We— it's not that we don't know very much, it's that we know nothing. We know nothing about what intelligence is before it is a spirit. And there are some people who have taught that, well, spirits and intelligence are the same thing. Other people teach that, no, there's just this sort of fundamental building block that Heavenly Father fashioned into a spirit. We don't know. We don't know. We don't have any revelation about it. We don't understand it. We don't know. So this is also, I think, The issue that is thrown in the face of LGBTQ people to be told, hey, you have to have a heterosexual relationship, you can't be sealed together in a same-sex relationship because you won't be able to produce spirit children. Well, how the heck do we know that? We don't know that. We don't understand that. Okay, so The second thing that, that comes out of this is the thing that you were taught, that, okay, yeah, none of this makes sense. All of this is troubling, but when you get to the next life, you will be thinking differently. You will feel differently, and you will all of a sudden be a huge fan of polygamy. You don't understand it now, and it seems awful to you now. But in the next life, something is going to happen, and suddenly you're going to have this whole new perspective that in my mind would turn me into somebody I wouldn't recognize. Because the reasons I find polygamy repugnant are rooted in the kinds of moral principles that have been taught to me by the church. Throughout my entire life. So suddenly, if I die and all of a sudden this thing that seems so immoral and so repugnant to me, all of a sudden, just no, no, it's not. It's great. It's somehow wonderful. Uh, I would have to be divorced from all of these principles that teach me about the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of my relationship with my wife. And the sacred nature of cleaving unto her and no one else, uh, that I, I just wouldn't be able to understand that. That's also what we have told, um, homosexual members forever is, well, yeah, this is only a trial for this life. In the next life, you suddenly will become attracted to the opposite sex or the opposite gender. And to me, that's like, well, then they're going to be transformed into a person that they don't recognize. Because it's not, uh, uh, your sexuality informs so much more than just the physical act of sexual intercourse. Your sexuality informs how you interact with human beings. You know, the fact I interact differently with women than I do with men. It's not that I'm having sex with anyone other than my wife, but the fact that there is, there's a dynamic there that is different and it informs, it informs our lives in ways that just in countless ways that we just don't even think about and that we don't even fully understand. And for that to just sort of, sort of be flipped 180 degrees. The moment you die, it doesn't make any sense to me, and it's not convincing to me. And the idea that then we have to sort of punt to that, the idea that, okay, yes, this is reprehensible. Yes, this is really disturbing on so many levels, and we have no answers for it. And so what we're going to do is say, well, those answers will come when you die and just sit down, shut up, and accept it. Okay, that doesn't work anymore. It just doesn't work anymore. I'm not sure if it ever did. It was never really convincing to me. But as with the rising generation, it does not work. You can't just say to them, well, you know, Magic. It's just magic. You just wave the wand. You know, there's a Simpsons episode where Lucy Lawless, who played Xena Warrior Princess, is at a convention and all her fans are asking her questions about inconsistencies in the show. And they're saying, well, why did this happen? Because this was inconsistent with that. And her answer is, a wizard did it. And then later on, somebody else answers. He says, wizard, you know, I'm— that's just wizard. A wizard did it. It just happened magically. And don't, don't ask. I mean, that's funny when you're talking about a TV show. It's traumatizing when you're talking about your eternal salvation and something is— looks— you look at it and go, this is not something I want. This is not an eternal life I want. That is not heaven to me. I mean, you have people who say, okay, the role of a woman in this church is that they will be eternally pregnant in the heavens. They will share their husband with countless other wives, millions, billions, nobody knows. But why would they stop at 3, 4, 50? Why would they stop at any number? If it doesn't matter how many wives you have and you can have limitless wives and we love this and it's great, then why would our Heavenly Father stop after any number of marriages? My guess is that he has an infinite number of wives or will continue to take wives, or I mean, it's just, it's just ludicrous. And also when you start to think, okay, well, on this planet, 50% of the people are male and 50% of the people are female. Where are all these wives coming from? How, how is one male— the math doesn't add up. It just does not work. So, so, I mean, I, I look at this and I fully understand why President Oaks would say this. I fully understand that there are people who arrive at this conclusion, that there are multiple Heavenly Mothers, that there are infinite Heavenly Mothers, and and they're okay with it. I understand that there are people who are okay with it. I find it a little disturbing that they're okay with it, but I'm not going to judge them. But I'm going to say I'm not okay with it, and I'm not going to be okay with it. And furthermore, I do not accept the idea that I will be transformed into an entirely different person when I die, who suddenly thinks up is down and black is white. I don't think that's going to happen. That is not where my faith is. So how do I stay in the church? How do I reconcile all of this? And the answer is I lean into the reality that we don't know. And if we don't know, if I don't know, I think Dallin Oaks doesn't know, either. I think Dallin Oaks is going along the lines of what he's been taught his whole life and what he's been brought up with, and I think he has confidence in that, uh, beyond what it is that we— has actually been revealed and that we, that we actually know. And so I think being a member of this church, and I think having a sustainable faith requires embracing the idea that we don't know these things. And so I am no longer willing to cede my sort— my moral, um, my moral compass to people who tell me that I have to accept that my moral compass will be turned 180 degrees when I die, because my moral compass and my conscience, the light of Christ Tells me that polygamy is exploitative, that polygamy hurts women, that polygamy hurts children, that polygamy is, is not something that I will be called upon to embrace in the next life. And so that's how I am going forward. And as people like President Oaks, when President Oaks says mother or mothers, I can sit there and go, well, you're, you're more than welcome to think that, President Oaks. Uh, until you can point me to any sort of actual revelation that talks about that, I'm going to take that as you believing what you want to believe, and I'm going to continue to believe what I want to believe. So that's my response to this. What does that do to you?

Oh, I've got a response for sure. For me, this is easily one of the most fascinating conversations I think we've ever done on a podcast. It's a topic I've really wanted to explore. And again, I've been making notes of you as you've been speaking, and I want to kind of go through some of the key points and provide a response. First, when is a revelation a revelation? When is it a formal revelation? When is a revelation not a formal revelation? The church would do well to define that, to clarify that, and to show leadership and again, provide some definition on that. That's really important because that transcends beyond this topic to every other topic. When is it official? When is it formal? And to that point, the church allows these doctrines, these theories, some of which they've disavowed in the past, of course, like blacks, you know, race in the priesthood. It allows these thoughts and ideas and concepts to percolate and to permeate across the church. You know, I heard stuff, you know, growing up, part of my life growing up in the church and you know, before the mission, during the mission, you heard similar, a lot of it identical stuff as I did, right, on this topic and many other topics. But the church lacks clarity around what is a revelation, you know, what is a formal revelation. I'm quoting the church website here now. And, um, again, formal revelation, it says right there. And when is a revelation not a formal revelation? We don't know.

I don't know.

If you know or others know, please tell us. The other thing which is fascinating, and I appreciate being able to, with you, apply some logic and some critical thinking to this, because there is a part of these spiritual parts of the conversation, there is, and it's important to try to understand what these things are and what they mean. You raised another item there, point there about Heavenly Father and Mary and Jesus. And I remember having some interesting, actually probably some controversial conversations on this on my mission and since the mission. And this part of the conversation might get a little bit controversial, but again, applying logic and some critical thinking. In the scriptures, there are several references to Mary being prepared to give birth to Jesus even before Jesus was born. In Matthew, it talks about angels visiting Joseph explaining Mary's pregnancy as coming or being from the Holy Ghost, which is interesting. In Luke, it talks about Gabriel visiting Mary to announce that she would conceive and bear a son. In Alma, Pasha talks about Jesus will be born of Mary a virgin conceived by the Holy Ghost. That's in Alma 7:10. And so here's my thoughts, and this is probably a little bit controversial, and this is what I was taught, and it speaks to this very topic about Heavenly Mother and the divine nature of womanhood and godhood. And again, I repeat what I said earlier, it's impossible to know the true nature of God without understanding and knowing the true nature of woman and of Heavenly Mother. Okay, you just, how can it be so, how can you know God without knowing Heavenly Mother? That's my point. And so going to that experience where God seemingly from the scriptures had a physical relationship with Mary, who was taken away in the spirit, by the way, Okay, so Mary, who was informed, prepared, advised by angels before Jesus came to earth, was foreordained, okay, to bear the Son of God, the Savior of the world. It's quite a responsibility, but Mary was prepared and supported by earthly and angelic, um, ministry. I think that's the word. And that experience, which speaks to the other point that you may have mentioned, which I've thought about from time to time, about the process of bearing spiritual children that I agree we know nothing about. I mean, that's, that's pretty deep stuff. And I don't know how that— I have no idea how that works. But my understanding, as I was taught, and per my conversations and my theories that were never checked by leaders of the church, uh, you know, any senior leaders of the church, was that God physically came down and had a physical sexual relationship, had sexual intercourse with Mary, that Mary was taken away by the spirit. I don't know what that means. I, I, I hope and I suspect that she gave consent. Uh, that's the controversial part that I've had conversations on, or people have asked me questions on. But I, but I, I, my understanding—

14 years old.

Sorry?

She was 14 years old.

Oh my goodness. Right. Okay. So, so Mary was 14, correct?

Yes. Right.

So I'm just trying to look at the logic here and I'm trying to understand it through my earthly eyes, cuz I've been told so many times, Ian, You're looking at this through your earthly eyes. You don't know, you don't understand. When you're dead and you achieve Godhead, you'll think differently and you'll feel differently and you'll see things differently. For now, just accept it. In the next life, all will be revealed or whatever. And so here's what I understand.

God came down. Sorry, point of order. I just Googled that. I thought she was 14 years old and I'm not sure where I got that. Uh, it is, it is, it is speculation. We don't know how old she was, but the, it is the scholars believe Mary would've been somewhere between 12 to 16 years old when she had Jesus.

Okay. But we don't know.

We don't, we don't.

And I'm, I'm, I'm glad you mentioned that cuz that's a serious point. You know, the age is really, really, and we know that because of Joseph and is it Fanny Alger who was 14, I think, or near 14.

Fanny Alger was older than that, but, um, Okay. Helen Mar Kimball was 14, although it's very unlikely they had a sexual relationship, but they were sealed to each other.

But the point of, the point of age, uh, item of age is a crucial, uh, point to, to get right. So, and I appreciate you, you bringing that up, um, and, and clarifying and qualifying that for our, our listeners. But going back to what I was saying, uh, God, Heavenly Father, the Heavenly Father, of this earth, many others, but for this earth, came down, had physical sexual relationship with Mary. Mary was taken away by the Spirit, and, uh, in some scriptures it says the Holy Ghost, but we're taught in the church, or at least understand in the church, that it was Heavenly Father. And it has to be Heavenly Father because we've said repeatedly that we are children of a Heavenly Father. And if you're child of the Father, you come from the Father. It's really that simple. So God is a Father,, and in the case of, uh, Jesus, uh, Mary was the mother. Joseph had no part in this, but apart from supporting this, this idea that God would have sex with his wife, um, and presume he was okay with that. And so, and then you had a, uh, a Jesus who was born of a mortal mother and an immortal father, allowing him to take upon himself the sins of the world. And because of that distinct, uh, relationship between Heavenly Father, his Father, and, and, and Mary, he was the only one physically as well spiritually to be able to, uh, take upon him, you know, to atone for the sins of the world and to perform all the tasks and miracles that he did. Um, and so that is something that, you know, I was, uh, you know, I was taught. And again, it goes back to the, the point, you know, was I taught stuff from official stuff or unofficial stuff? And that's so confusing in the church, you know, you get taught stuff and then, but it's not official. And it's just, for me, it's just a cop-out. I just want to go back to another point that you, you mentioned earlier, and I appreciate your position on, um, any confidence in the Joseph Smith Papers Project. And, and I have some, um, some confidence in that, but not entirely. And the reason why I say that is the church— and I think this is pretty fair to say and not unreasonable— it produced the essays because it had to. It conducted the Joseph's Papers Project because it had to. This is my opinion. I think it was— there was some pressure there. Would it have come to the table and said, hey, We're gonna produce the essays and all this, release all this other stuff without the pressure from the internet and the people. I, I don't, I don't buy that. Uh, I think that it's trying to be more transparent because it has to. And I'm trying not to be, I'm trying to give the church some credit on this and, and I do to an extent, but I don't buy the idea that the church has released all the things that it could I just don't buy it. And it's because it, it didn't, it wasn't forthcoming. It didn't make the first move in the past about disclosing the information. And you have to, there is a, uh, at least some degree of, um, understanding that people like me would be skeptical, even a little bit skeptical allowed surely to think that perhaps other materials haven't been disclosed., and including on this topic on, you know, Heavenly Mothers and, um, and plural marriage, et cetera. And so I think the truth is somewhere in between. The church has released a lot of stuff yet, which is good. Well done, church. Uh, but there's probably other things, not just on this topic, that the church is yet to, um, to reveal. And, and, and, and, and that's my position. That's my thoughts. And I'm okay with that. And hopefully more stuff will come to light. But just kind of circling around to, you know, my, the point here, polygamy was a terrible mistake. It's a mistake in this life, and it's a mistake in the next life. And if it was wrong, you know, the prophets and the apostles speak and act on behalf of God, right? So this disavowal of the polygamy, We don't practice polygamy anymore. We don't teach it. We don't practice it. We know that the church believes it in the next life, but for, for, for the sake of the audience on this planet, we'll just say we don't believe it or practice it. And, and therefore we discontinue those ordinances in the temple there to be, you know, to be, um, or at least rather reference, uh, openly, explicitly that we, we actually teach this. But in reality, in the temple, as you said, you know, a man who's, you know, worthy priesthood elder who's lost his wife can meet someone else in the church and get sealed to a second and presumably a third wife. Elder Oaks, you know, being an example of being married to two women. So there are so many questions, and I think the church would do well to publish an essay, I don't think it will do this because it raises so many questions, but wouldn't it be great if the church did produce an essay to address questions, concerns, reassure people, but more importantly, to tell us a bit about Heavenly Mother. I would like to know about her, you know, like my natural instincts to learn about the father that was absent in my life. I think many people, Jim Bennett, in the church would, um, and, and, and, and, and with good intent, with respect and love and kindness, would want to know a bit more about Heavenly Mother. Why can't we learn a bit about her? And by learning about her, we get a very important— there's a gap that's filled in respect to understanding the nature of, of God. How can we understand God without understanding Heavenly Mother? So I, I, it'd be fantastic if the church could, um, produce a quote, formal essay, revelation, whatever you wanna call it, uh, on this topic. And I think it would be highly, uh, beneficial. Yes, it would raise questions for sure. Will it do this? I, I, I don't think so. I think it wants to, is desperate to get away from the conversation of polygamy. It's sick and tired of it. Um, the thing is, it's the church, Patrick said, it's never gonna go away.

How?

There'll never be a time where the church is not, um, understood or discussed, uh, broadly and definitively without raising the topic of polygamy. It's part of the history. You can't escape it. Let's deal with it. Let's be open about it., if it's wrong, let's say so. If it's in the next life, let's say so. Let's share what we know and understand about Heavenly Mother. And let's have that conversation about her with love and kindness, like we do with Heavenly Father. I don't know why we can't have respectful dialogue about, um, Heavenly Mother. So there are my thoughts on the back of your thoughts.

Well, let's, uh, yeah, we, we're, we're over an hour here and I think we've I think this has been a fascinating discussion. I think we have covered a whole lot of this, uh, and I think you're absolutely right, for instance, that the church isn't doing the Joseph Smith Papers because they suddenly just kind of woke up one morning and said, hey, let's be transparent. Uh, there, there's been a whole lot of pressure on the church, um, to be transparent, and there, this certainly is a response to that. That does not diminish, I think, the value of it or the integrity of it, because I really do think the Joseph Smith Papers is just a phenomenal achievement, and it is not being pushed out to the general membership in a way that I would like to see, because I— you, you still have to go and look for all of this stuff. But it's there if you want to go look for it, and it used to be not there. It used to be sort of hidden on this. I keep coming back to counsel that President Henry B. Eyring gives on a regular basis. He quotes his own father as telling him, in this church, you never have to believe anything that isn't true. And so I've taken that to heart. I mean, the whole thing about sex between Mary and Heavenly Father— Joseph Fielding McConkie, my mission president after your mission president, he talked about that in his own conference. He talked about how the New Testament is in error. Because the New Testament essentially says that Jesus is the child of the Holy Ghost, because it says the Holy Ghost shall overshadow thee, and, and then you will have this baby. And he quotes Nephi's vision in 2 Nephi about how he was carried away in the spirit, and he said, yes, she was carried away in the spirit to the presence of Heavenly Father where they had sex. And then I don't believe that. I don't believe it. I don't— I mean, I think that is a really tortured way to interpret that scripture in the Book of Mormon. I think, you know, if we can have— I'm going with this kind of the Holy Ghost was somehow the vehicle by which Uh, the DNA from our Heavenly Father was combined with the DNA of Mary. We have ways to do that without sexual intercourse here in mortality. Uh, the idea that there's no other possible way to do that— the scriptures emphasize the fact that Mary was a virgin. Mary would not have been a virgin if she had had sex with Heavenly Father. And she was so young. And I mean, it's, it's just, I just don't, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. And I don't, I don't feel like I have to believe it because it, I don't think it's true. I don't think that the, the, the evidence being cited for it being true is persuasive. And so I don't believe it. It's not that I'm putting it on a shelf. It's that I'm saying, nope, it's not true. I don't believe it. When I first got married and my wife and I backpacked through Europe for our honeymoon, and so we spent an awful lot of time on, um, uh, we bought a Eurail pass and we spent an awful lot of time on trains having conversations about this, that, and the other. And it was then that she said to me, I don't believe in polygamy. I think polygamy is nonsense, and I don't think there's going to be polygamy in the next life. I mean, she, she didn't say it argumentatively. She just kind of said, I don't, I just don't believe it. And at the time, I was 26 years old and, uh, not too far removed from sort of my mission mind frame. And I just panicked. What have I done? I've married an apostate woman. Who doesn't believe in the doctrine and she has to believe. And she just— I mean, no amount of any of my squawking like that made any dent with her. It was just, no, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. And as time has gone on, I don't know that I am fully there because it's very hard for me to just kind of say, well, Section 132 For me, the line— you talk about when do we know when something's official— the line that's very difficult, the line that's crossed that's very difficult for me to ignore is the line of canonization. If the church as a whole says this is canonical scripture and we put it in our scripture, it's very difficult for me to just kind of say, oh no, no, that doesn't count. But it's not difficult for me to say that even scripture can have error in it. You know, the Book of Mormon talks about at the beginning, "If there be mistakes, they are the mistakes of men." We don't believe in infallibility. That includes we don't believe in infallible scriptures. But it's very difficult for me to take Section 132 and just dismiss it altogether and say the whole thing— there's nothing here that is the product of inspiration. Because there is a big section of Section 132 that is very core to what we teach openly, not about polygamy, and that's this idea of theosis or deification, the idea that we can become like God. The only place where that is explicitly explicitly stated is in Section 132 at the beginning, and it's very explicit. It talks about how Abraham, uh, is— has already gone on to godhood, and that that's, that's where we're all going. And that's when we sing, I am a child of God, we are singing essentially Section 132. So for me to say, okay, well, all of Section 132 is just garbage and I just dismiss it because I don't believe in polygamy. So where I have landed— and again, this is, you know, Jeremy Runnels who wrote the CES Letter complains that my response to him is not real Mormonism, it's Jim Bennett Mormonism. And I fully own that. I fully own that my interpretation of scripture, my interpretation of how I live my faith, is unique to me. I also argue that that's the case with everybody, by the way. Everybody lives their own version of this faith. There is no sort of Platonic ideal of Mormonism that exists independent of the lived experience of church members. Everybody who's listening to this has their own version of how they live or don't live this faith. And so, so I make no apologies for that, or no excuses for that, but this is where I have landed with regard to polygamy. Uh, I believe the revelation, the, the core truth at the heart of polygamy, is a very beautiful thing. This idea that we all need to be sealed together as one grand, beautiful human family, that salvation is not individual, but it's collective, and it's not confined to your immediate family. It's generations before, generations to come. I mean, this whole idea of the grand sealing, the fulfillment, Malachi's promise that we're going to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children. I think there is a revelation at the heart of that that is true, that is beautiful, that is glorious. I think Joseph Smith received that revelation and then interpreted it in a way where he thought, okay, well, how do I seal everyone to everyone? How do people get sealed all over the place. And Joseph Smith decided, well, that's a marriage. Uh, the way to do that is that everybody needs to get married, and the only way to do that is polygamy. So I think it's Joseph Smith's distortion of that beautiful principle, and I think you can attribute some of that distortion to, uh, positive motives. But I think I think you can also attribute some of that distortion to Joseph Smith's libido. I, I mean, I, I think he— my faith incorporates the idea that prophets are capable of making errors and making mistakes. And I think with polygamy, this is probably the greatest error that Joseph ever made. I think the greatest error the Brigham Young made, uh, was the whole kind of racism. Because Brigham Young's perpetuation of polygamy came from Brigham Young following the lead and sustaining Joseph. And so I, I, I, I, I put that all squarely on Joseph's shoulders, on Joseph Smith's shoulders. But I am not willing to just say, okay, well then I'm going to throw all of the baby out with the bathwater. Because I think there is a principle there. There is a truth at the core of it that has tremendous value, and I want to be able to sort— and as time has gone on, we have gotten closer and closer to that idea because initially the sealing power and polygamy, it wasn't just polygamy. It was this idea that we all need to be sealed into the families of prominent church leaders. My great-great-grandfather Jedediah M. Smith stood proxy for Joseph Smith when he was married to his wife, and he was married to her for mortality, but she, she was sealed to Joseph Smith for eternity. Joseph Smith had already been dead for decades when this happened, but this was the practice. This was something that we believe that this sealing involved this sort of law of adoption, is what it was called, and that we're all sealed into all of these families. Um, goes back to Abraham, you know, through thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. So we're all sealed into this family of Abraham, we're adopted into the family of Abraham. And for years and years we thought, okay, well, we also have to be adopted into the family of Joseph Smith, or the family of Brigham Young, or the family of these prophets, these great church leaders. That's what matters. And as time has gone on, we have changed that drastically. And not only have we said, okay, we're not going to do— perform polygamous marriages, at least in this life, but we're now only going to seal people to their own families rather than to the families of prominent church leaders. That was a mistake. We don't do that anymore. We have changed. We have shifted. Because we're trying to get to the heart of what it is that matters. You, you, you, you— and so all of the extraneous stuff and all of the speculation and all of the cultural stuff, I'm down at the core of it. What matters is that we are all children of one Heavenly Father. At least I believe we are also all children of one Heavenly Mother, but again, that's Jim Bennett Mormonism. We are all children of Heavenly Parents, and therefore we are all one human family. And part of the Church's mission, or one of the greatest parts of the Church's mission, is sealing us all together as a single family. And I think we can do that, and I think we will do that without polygamy. And so that's where I am, and, uh, I know that I may be in a very lonely place, but I'm okay with that too, 'cause this is my faith, this is my life, and this is how I'm living it. So there you go. Any final words of wisdom or rebuttal?

I have some very quick, I know we're out of time here, but some quick thoughts. You raise a really important point that we should talk about in the future where, you know, we talk about if there are mistakes, there are mistakes of men. In the Book of Mormon, in the scriptures, in doctrine, et cetera. And so a conversation around, does God allow us to, are we compensated for God allowing his prophets to make mistakes? And we follow a certain line and direction because the prophet told us to do so, notwithstanding that it was a mistake. That's an interesting point, that. And then the other highlights, just to check and clarify what I was saying earlier, we're taught that we are literal sons of God, right? You know, we are, we, we, we, we, Heavenly Father is our literal Heavenly Father. He's not our mortal father, but our literal Father in Heaven. And that Heavenly Father is the literal Father of Jesus Christ. And just some real quick thoughts here. The church is very clear on this, that in the Bible, in the Book of Mormon, the church emphasized that Mary was a virgin when she was conceived by Jesus. According to the church.

Holy Ghost role.

The conception is attributed to the power of the Holy Ghost overshadowing Mary. It's the official church doctrine and position. Jesus, yes, was the literal Son of God. LDS doctrine teaches that Jesus is the literal Son of God, both in spirit and in flesh. God the Father is his actual literal parent, and I presume that's physical parent as well. LDS teaches, reaffirms that there was no No physical sexual relationship between God and Mary in the conception of Jesus. And the conception is presented as a miraculous act of divine power, not as a result of natural physical procreation, which is—

Where is that from?

Yeah, this is on the, um, uh, just website on the church websites.

Yeah.

And it's from, yeah, if you look this up and you do like an AI search and you do a Google search. And you click on the links, it's on the church website. So that's the church's official position. It's, you know, that's inconsistent with what I was taught in the temple with the temple president, with the MTC, you know, mission president. But, you know, I think it would be great if the church produced an essay on this. It'd be fantastic conversation. I think it's been fascinating, certainly for me, and I've just thoroughly enjoyed exploring a very interesting and relatively unknown topic. So, so many questions. So with that, I'll hand it over to, to you.

Well, thank you very much. And for those of you listening, regardless of how many heavenly mothers you may have, we are grateful that you have joined us for this episode of Inside Out. And we look forward to speaking with you again next week on our next episode of Inside Out. So thank you all very much, and thank you, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.