Ian's Story: The Perils of Leadership

Welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett. Ian Wilkes is traveling right now. He's back in the United Kingdom in his old stomping grounds. We're actually going to record a couple of podcasts while he's over there, but we had anticipated giving you more of Ian's story. But what's interesting is, as I've listened to this episode, which is a continuation of his story, we cut off essentially at the end of Ian's mission, and he quickly returns home and goes and becomes a bishop in Scotland. And what's interesting to me is that when we talked about this, because we recorded Ian's story before we recorded any other podcast episodes, we just sort of— I sat down with him and said, just tell me your whole story. And I think we've got hours and hours of this. But listening to this, it's amazing to me how many of these stories we've touched on in our subsequent podcasts. We felt they were important enough that we revisited them. So, if you listen to these, for instance, I tell a story about my interaction with Hyrum Smith. Ian talks about the idea that the Church doesn't forgive, or at least the Lord forgives, but the Church computer doesn't. We did a whole episode on that. So these are actually telling some of the same stories, but from a slightly different perspective. And I think in the context of Ian's own story. So I just wanted to give you that heads up as we go forward here and we will dive right in and Ian will continue and pick up his story where he left off.

So I think the church, I think the culture, the— and then just going back just quick memory here. I remember the stake I went from onto my mission in England, where I went from to Scotland, and there was one missionary that came home early, and his bishop made him stand up in front of the ward and admit or reveal to the ward that he'd been sent home early and he'd made a mistake. He didn't go into detail, and he needed to repent and go back out. I mean, I wasn't there, but I know people that were. It was in my stake, and I found that extraordinary. It is extremely damaging and affects people for the rest of their lives. So I think that the church culture, you know, this thing that if you come on early, you're a failure, or, you know, and also the thing that really angers me and frustrates me with the church, and again, having been a leader in the church, I've seen this firsthand, And there's a ridiculous comment that I heard at times by leaders even more senior than me at that time and different leaders where jokes made, like pathetic jokes, like God will forgive, but the church computer remembers, right? So when there's a disciplinary meeting or a missionary comes back and there's been an issue or comes back early, the church policy, you know, having been involved in this and, and been familiar with this quite intimately, there is a process of annotating someone's records, right? And so there's good— there's actually some value if you annotate someone's records that's been a perpetrator or an aggressor in the church towards children or individuals or domestic violence. I think it's important to annotate those records. I think it's important that the church leadership are aware that there are people in the stake or the ward that are, that do pose a risk or a threat to people, you know, wives, domestic abuse, and being on the stake presidency. Absolutely. And acting on behalf of the stake president and the general authorities. And I remember having a conversation with Elder Oaks, who set me apart from the stake presidency, about, you know, things like this, annotating records, what we can, what we can't do, etc. Uh, but unfortunately, I've seen, um, too often, uh, examples where missions have come home and, and that's been mentioned or referenced in the records. And that never forgets, that system never forgets. And so mission gets released, person's been in the war doing extremely well, you know, um, came home early or whatever. 5 years later, this record is still on the computer, um,, and the new bishop or new leaders that weren't aware of it and became aware of it, and that affects, uh, influences those discussions. I've been in those discussions where as a bishop, uh, I was called as a bishop, and, and, um, the new counselors who had been in the ward a very long time went through, uh, what seemed like the entire ward of why I couldn't call, uh, certain people, uh, because of this and because of that. The members were extraordinary. It was written down diligently on the computing. They said, Bishop, if you want to know about so-and-so, you know, go on to the church computer, the MLS there, and all the details are on there about this person and what sins they've committed and, you know, extraordinary detail, too much detail.

So if I go in and I confess any sin, is there a permanent record of that?

It depends what it is. If it's a transgression, if it's criminal related, Likely, yes. And I think it's important. There's some value. I think I've said this earlier. There's some important value to identify aggressors and perpetrators of serious crimes, etc., and people who, you know, abusers. I think it's important that church leaders know who those people are for sure. If he's a—

if I'm a teenager and I go in and I tell my bishop that I've masturbated, does he make a record of that?

He should not make a record of that. No, there's no policy that I'm aware of where the bishop is advised or instructed to make a record of that. However, that said, bishops do that. They do that and they sometimes input or maintain information on people which is incredibly personal and confidential and unnecessary. You know, if it's criminal related, you know, if there's a you know, domestic abuse or a child abuse, uh, situation. And we have laws now, like in Scotland, they— I think Scotland was the first region across the world, or one of them, to introduce a new law called Disclosure Scotland. And you had to do a police background check, all, all charities, businesses, faiths in Scotland, going back to— I think it's back in 2000, I think it was, or 1999, when I was called bishop or thereabouts, you had to do a background check on people who were going to work with children. This is zero right in, in that country up to the age of 16, um, uh, which is when they're an adult. So up to 16, if an individual had a history of criminality towards children and that had been identified and was on the records, uh, church leaders had to do a background check on the individual before they call them to a position to work with children. I think that, that practice, that law now is being expanded across the world in certain places. I don't think it's everywhere, but I think it's, it's important. I'm not sure if it's in the US. Uh, it is here in Canada. You have to do a, a police background check, um, if you're a faith or a church, etc. And I think that's really important to, to, to know, understand, and capture that information for sure. But the stuff that you're talking about You know, someone's looking at pornography or, you know, the masturbating, or, or, uh, you know, they've, they've, um, done some minor, uh, transgression. Absolutely no. But, but some leaders do, and, and that stays on the, uh, on the computer. And so when you've got a missionary coming home early, um, and I, I repeat, it's part of the culture, this, this judgment, this, this, um, you have to be perfect, you have to get everything right, you've got to You've got to live with exactness, as President Dunham reminded us all the time. You can't deviate. There's no room for slippage. You can't slip. If you do, you must get back on track. You've got to read Miracle Forgiveness, like we were told to back in Scotland. I read that and it was brutal, a very difficult book to read and understand. And so you have to live with perfection. We're told and commanded to be perfect. The scriptures are replete with references to living with perfection. We're reminded, I've lost count how many talks from General Authorities that, be therefore perfect, et cetera. We're told that even if you're not, we have unconditional love. And then we're told that, well, God's love is absolutely conditional, depends on your obedience, et cetera. Who is perfect? No one is perfect, right? Who hasn't fallen and who hasn't transgressed, et cetera? Why should we retain all that personal private information on a computer that never forgets? You know, this ridiculous joke that I would shoot down very quickly and very bluntly when people would joke, oh, the computer never forgets. I remind them quietly, privately to the side there that that is a terrible thing to think and to say and to joke about. You know, where's the second chance? You know, where's the forgiveness? Where's the love and the kindness and compassion?

There was a public figure. So, so, I mean, I'm comfortable using his name to tell the story. His name was Hyrum Smith. He was a descendant of Hyrum Smith, and he was a— he was my father's employer at Franklin Covey. He was a wealthy benefactor who built the Tuacán Amphitheater in southern Utah. And he, he was— he would give firesides all over the place. He was very, very prominent. He first cousin of Elder Ballard, and he served his mission. He was a missionary companion of Jeff Holland. And Jeff Holland at one point gave a talk about adultery and about in conference. And at the time, Hyrum Smith was in the midst of an 8-year affair with a woman who is not his wife. And he said that that talk by Elder Holland hit him like a ton of bricks. And he went and confessed to his bishop this affair. His bishop was also his son-in-law. And they, they got the ball rolling and he was excommunicated. And the excommunication was made public. It was actually in the newspaper. They talked about Hyrum Smith being excommunicated, which I think is probably wildly inappropriate. But, and he, he would speak about it publicly very often and talk about the difficulties that that had caused him and all that kind of thing. But I remember having a conversation with him and he said that Elder Ballard at one point was telling him to prepare his life to be able to get ready for the call to go to Salt Lake City and be a General Authority. And then obviously that wasn't going to happen. And in fact, at Jaron Hinckley's wedding, a mutual friend of ours who was a— President Banks came to me and he said, "How's Hyrum Smith doing?" And I spoke in very general terms and he said, "No, you don't understand." Hiram Smith was the subject of our Thursday meeting last week for the entire meeting. By this point, President Banks was a general authority, and he said, so I know very well what's going on. Hiram Smith had to be removed from the board at BYU, and I mean, it was just a huge, huge scandal. Anyway, so in my conversation with Hiram later on after he had been rebaptized, and he was rebaptized, He said that Elder Ballard had said to him, "Now you have to prepare your life to figure out how you are going to serve the Lord because you will never hold another leadership calling ever again." And Hiram said, "I don't understand. If I've repented and I've been forgiven, why does the punishment continue?" And Elder Ballard said to him, and this is a direct quote, No, no, no. He says, if I— if the Lord has forgiven me, why does the punishment continue? And Elder Ballard said, oh, the Lord forgives. It's the church that doesn't forgive. And I— he's— I mean, that wasn't a joke. You know, your joke is the computer always remembers. Elder Ballard said specifically, no, the church does not forgive. No, if you made this kind of an error, You will never hold another leadership calling ever again. You're— you are completely derailed from, from any kind of participation, significant participation in the church. And, and I don't understand how that jibes with anything that we're taught by the Savior about the process of repentance and the scriptures to talk about, I, the Lord, will remember your sins no more. So if the Lord forgets it, but the church remembers it, how is this the Lord's church? I mean, that disconnect is just far too glaring to not be called out.

I've wrestled over this, and just two points briefly on this. I've seen and had to deal with situations where this personal information that is captured, retained on the computer comes into ward council. So this is personal, private information. The bishopric or the stake presidency or local leadership is reviewing somebody for a calling, and information on that is known about this individual, certainly captured on the computer, comes into that conversation. And at times, the decision not to pursue this person for a particular calling is made to the detriment of the individual who repented and grown and received forgiveness from the Lord. But the ward council or the bishopric, based on this past information, which is not updated, by the way, they just put in what happened and why it happened. And sometimes they put a recommendation in not to review this person for a calling for so many years, which is extraordinary. Often they don't know all the facts. And so people's lives are impacted directly and are overlooked for callings. The second point I would make is, I listen to what you're saying as to why Elder Ballard would say something like that. It reminds me of the interview that I had with Elder Oaks when I was called onto the stake presidency. This is going back a few years now. And I shared this with you earlier, but the— you get interviewed privately. Elder Cook was in the room, uh, he was his junior companion at the time. There's me, Elder Oaks, Elder Cook. Elder Oaks was leading the interview, and the very first question was, aside from, you know, introducing myself— and I'd met Elder Oaks before in Scotland, so we weren't strangers, but, um, and we remembered— he remembered me from Scotland. But the first question he asked for me is, is there anything in my past? You know, I've been considered for a calling either as the stake president or stake presidency, member of the stake presidency. And it was that anything in my past that could be interpreted as being or having a negative impact on the church's good name, or could it hurt or harm— I think that was his words— could anything I've done in the past come to light that would cause hurt or harm to the church's name? I think that was the question. That was the very first question, you know, I was asked, and I think that is a very important and a very significant question because the church, for lots of reasons that we could think of now, and certainly, you know, with the way things have gone with the church, and a lot of the narrative hasn't gone in the favor of the church, you know, with online discussions and, you know, thousands of podcasts and all the issues that we see now with seemingly most aspects of the church, the concern for, uh, self-preservation, um, protect the institute, protect the name, protect the brand. If you look at how these corporations, what they do, you know, these large corporations who have got significant financial muscle, media marketing power, um, thinking of some of the large conglomerates who are pretty successful often at protecting their brand. You know, the church has a brand, it's got a name, it's got a brand, and it's trying to mitigate the challenges and the risks that are impacting the brand. I don't think it's doing a very good job. I think often it actually does more harm to itself, frankly, than often the outside world does. I think some of the decisions and direction the leaders take do more harm than some of the so-called anti-Mormon do to the church, frankly. But this question was significant in that it speaks to the church's desperation to protect its name, protect its brand, and to distance itself from any activity or behavior that could be, you know, harmful or hurt the name of the church. The difference, I think, with a corporation and being a member of the church is that you see these statements on these websites of these companies that the employee opinion does not reflect the opinion of the company. We see that in contracts, in documents, and this— I understand that, and I think most people understand if an employee gives an opinion on something, either personal or private or whatever, that the company doesn't share that opinion, and I think people accept that. I think the difference with the church is that because we're dealing with people's personal lives and their lives are completely and entirely interwoven with church, which behaves like a corporation often, but in other aspects isn't. It's a way of life. It's a cause. It's an organization that impacts every aspect and influences every aspect of the member's life, etc. You know, those members' lives, those people, they make mistakes and they do things and they commit crimes and they do all kinds of terrible things. And when they come to light, because it's a very personal religion, a very personal life, and it's a very way of life, that behavior, those actions, when they're very serious, of course, they have an effect on the name of the church. And so the church just tries to have it both ways. If someone makes a mistake, they distance itself from the church member's activity and behavior and say they're no longer in the church and you'll never have another calling again. And I've lost count how many times that's happened when I— when it's coming to the conversation. And I was a second chance kind of bishop. I kind of shut those things down as a bishop and as a stake president, where it was appropriate, I gave people a chance. But the church will not and can't afford to do that. Because it's developed a brand. And so it has to protect the brand at all times, protect the leadership, protect the brand, protect the financial value of the church. A lot of it's financially driven, in my opinion. And it wants the best of both worlds. And if you make a mistake, it will distance itself from you and throw you out. And it's done with me and basically ostracize people, have nothing to do with them, they'll never get a chance again. And I see that too often. I mean, it didn't throw me out. I left on my own accord. But it certainly has distanced itself from me since I've, you know, left the church. But back to you.

Well, this, this actually raises a contemporaneous issue with what's happening right now with regard to the shooting in Colorado. Is that made its way to Canada?

Yes, it has.

Yes. So, so it's been confirmed and the church has confirmed that the shooter was on the records of the church, was on the rolls. The church made it very clear he hasn't attended church in quite some time, which is really kind of a wild thing to say because the church likes to tout its membership numbers and it includes everybody whose name is still on the records, whether or not they've set foot in a, in a chapel in 50 years. They'll still count you as long as it gives them sort of credibility in terms of sheer numbers. But when you do something terrible like this, the church is very, very quick to say, oh no, no, no, no, no, he didn't. He hasn't been to church in so long that this really doesn't count. But your talk about the brand and tarnishing the brand, the thing that everybody is talking about, and rightly so, is the fact that, okay, this guy is targeting LGBTQ people. And he's doing so in the aftermath of a very high-profile speech that Elder Holland gave at BYU, where he talked about the idea of BYU launching musket fire against those who would tear down the church's position on marriage only being between a man and a woman. And that analogy of musket fire is one that Elder Holland used, but he also was quoting Elder Oaks, now President Oaks, who had used it previously. He said, I'd like to hear a little more musket fire from these temples of learning in defense of this doctrine. Well, here you have somebody that took up arms and murdered people, and now you have defenders of the church who look at that and say, Oh, he was clearly talking metaphorically. How dare you make any kind of linkage? And how dare— and the reality is the poisonous nature of, of what is taught about LGBTQ people. You know, you talked about reading The Miracle of Forgiveness. The church no longer publishes The Miracle of Forgiveness. The church is quietly trying to get rid of a lot of those things because the stuff that's in there is horrific. Elder Kimball, then Elder Kimball, when he wrote the book, who became President Kimball, when he talks about gay people, when he talks about, you know, he says this is— he calls gay people perverts. That's the word he uses. And they're perverts with a curable condition. That is also a word he uses. And then he says there are those who say that they can't change and, you know, the door won't open to change. Well, how can you know that unless you pounded on the door until your muscles are sore and your arms are bloody? And I think how many people in the church have looked at that and taken that counsel and pounded on that door and are left with bloody stumps and also left with the fact that they continue to have the sexuality they had since the day they were born. And that doesn't change. It's not a disease. It's not a curable condition. I mean, the things that we teach create an environment where I'm surprised something like this hasn't happened before this. And to defend— okay, yeah, using musket fire as an analogy, that's entirely appropriate. And that has nothing to do with somebody who takes up arms and murders LGBTQ people. I think this needs to be a wake-up call rather than— the idea that the church continually tries to sort of brandish its reputation. We're doing a terrible job because we're not confronting the extremism and the hatred and And the violent rhetoric that you see church members use, you see it online all the time. There is a huge contingent of people on social media, on Twitter, who use hashtags like #DesNat, which means Deseret Nationalism, that there needs to be a— the church needs to be a theocracy and take over the government. And it's tied in with racism and all these kinds of things. We need to confront them. We need to address them. We need to be held accountable for them, and we need to repent of them. And we can't do that if we're not willing to acknowledge them. You know, President Oaks has said it is not the Church's policy to accept apologies or to give them. And, you know, we're taught that repentance requires us to make restitution, requires us to admit when we've been wrong. That same principle has to apply to the church, and the church refuses to accept it. The church refuses to accept the idea that an apology is ever appropriate, let alone necessary. Anyway, that's my rant. But, but no, we're talking about this in the shadow of a horrific murderous event, uh, that the church It needs to be a wake-up call for the church as a whole.

You're right. As you know, I served with Matt Holland, um, in Scotland. We, uh, worked together, uh, in Edinburgh. Um, great guy. Um, met Elder Holland afterwards, um, several times here in Canada, in the UK. Uh, don't know him super well, heard his talks, had some conversations with him, quite fiery. And I don't know why church leaders don't understand or unable to see the relationship between what they say and the type of language, often militant language, with some individuals who on certain very emotive issues and topics that that the certain use of language is extremely dangerous and destructive and actually influences directly people's thinking and behavior. We're told to, you know, from these speakers to follow the prophet, follow the speakers, follow the advice. You know, the talks are screened, they're vetted. They didn't used to be, but they're vetted now. And we're instructed to follow the, you know, the direction. And when we use militant language like that, it shouldn't be a surprise to some that that results in this kind of terrible actions that take people's lives, innocent lives. There's so much of the church doctrine and culture and policies which I and others see extremely destructive. And the church leadership seems to fail to understand the relationship between the doctrines, the policies, and behavior, you know, especially on things like, you know, LGBTQ and, you know, gay rights, which I think has now become a civil rights movement. The church is changing its position, I believe, on that. But I think when you've got leaders that traditional, conventional, old-school thinking type leaders like Elder Oaks, Elder Holland, to some extent. These policies and principles are not going to change while these individuals are still in leadership. They won't change. They can't change. I spent a weekend with Elder Oaks. We had dinner together as a stake presidency. We spent some time together being trained on the stake presidency. His views on these things are entrenched and immovable. And I don't believe that he will change. I don't think that will happen. I think you need a whole new period of different leadership, a different approach, you know, going away from that old-fashioned, archaic, antiquated leadership approach and style to implementing and executing these policies and principles. And so I don't think things are going to change in the near future, but I think going forward, you know, depending on the prophet and the leaders, I do see certainly an opportunity to change. I think with the right leadership, inclusion and more understanding, more compassion, I see an opportunity for the church to, if you like, rebrand itself to be more accepting and more loving.

Well, no, you are seeing— see, this is the thing that's so paradoxical about this is because when we talk particularly about LGBTQ issues, the thing that people who are defending the church do so often is dig their heels in and insist the proclamation on the family makes it very, very clear where we stand. And this is eternal doctrine and it will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever change. And when you start saying something will never change with that kind of vociferous repetition and vigor, I get suspicious because if something is never, ever going to change, it doesn't require us to continually reiterate that it's never going to change. The church, for instance, is never, ever going to give up baptism by immersion. I am very, very confident that that is the case. We are never going to change in that regard. You never hear a conference talk by a leader of the church saying, oh, we're never going to give up baptism by immersion, because everybody recognizes that this is immovable, that this is something that is a core doctrine of the church and it's never going to change. The repeated insistence that our doctrine about LGBTQ people and about marriage is never, ever going to change rings very hollow with me every time it is repeated. And it ignores the fact that our doctrine and our teaching on that subject has changed radically. And in just the last few years, uh, just a few days ago of this recording, the church came out in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies same-sex marriage legally throughout the United States. You're telling me that's not a change from 2008 when the church was backing Proposition 8? In California. Of course it's a change. But you go through all of these gyrations and say, well, no, it's not really a change, and the doctrine hasn't changed. We're just doing this. And it's like, okay, everything that I was taught about homosexuality when I was a teenager has changed. Every single thing. I was taught that homosexuality is a choice, that just being homosexual Being gay is, is evil. Whether or not you act on it, if you are gay, you shouldn't go to BYU, you shouldn't go on a mission, you shouldn't do anything because you're going to infect people. There's just something evil and wrong about your very nature. The Miracle of Forgiveness gets into that quite a bit. I was taught that it, it absolutely can and must change, that you can— you should go ahead and marry a woman. If you are gay, I mean, all of those things are things the church now actively repudiates. You know, I was aware of people that had gone through conversion therapy at the instruction of the church. The church now actively repudiates conversion therapy. The church has changed drastically on this issue, and it has done so without ever admitting that it has changed and insisting that it will never change. And so when people tell me, okay, well, this is never going to change, I'm saying, so, so all those changes don't count. All of those aren't really changes. Yes, they really are. So what you're telling me is that a church that is built on the principle of continuing revelation is never going to change. So what is the point of continuing revelation? What, the Lord isn't allowed to say anything that changes anything that's happened before? Then we don't need continuing revelation. Why don't we just become Protestants and be done with it and just say the canon is closed? We've got everything we need. A Bible. A Bible. There can be no more Bible. There can be no more revelation. We're done. It's, it's just, it's, it's infuriating and frustrating to me. And that the, the musket fire talk particularly was frustrating for me because I have always adored Elder Holland. I didn't know Matt Holland as well as you did, probably. He was the AP when I got out on my mission and I didn't have a lot of interaction with him on my mission. I saw him years after my mission and the first thing he said to me was, wow, Jim, you've, you've really filled out. In other words, I was really fat. That's the— oh, but in a good way is what he said, because he realized that was probably not an appropriate thing to say. But I've interacted with him a little bit. Since my mission, but I've interacted with Elder Holland Sr., with Jeff Holland, a few times one-on-one. He, he's from Enterprise, Utah, which was near Tooecon, where I worked in southern Utah. And he came to a few events we had there. And I've talked to him on a few occasions. But the compassion I always felt from Elder Holland in his conference talks was always striking to me and always powerful to me. And I had reached a point where I thought, okay, all of these LGBTQ issues, we're going to find more inclusive answers to them when Jeff Holland becomes president of the church. And I'm sort of treading water and waiting for Jeff Holland to become president of the church. And then I hear his musket fire talk and it broke my heart. It just broke my heart because it wasn't just that we're never going to change, but that talk was, was so deliberately cruel in ways that were completely unnecessary. There was a BYU valedictorian named Matt Easton who in a, in his talk came out as a gay child of God. And the talk had been submitted to leadership beforehand. He didn't surprise anybody. That was the entirety of the mention of being LGBTQ. He just, he just proudly proclaimed that he was a gay child of God. And Elder Holland, in his musket fire talk, just went and punched down on this guy as hard as he could and that he commandeered a graduation ceremony and how terrible it was, and we shouldn't— he shouldn't have mentioned that. And, you know, all of this kind of stuff. And it's like, that's unnecessary. You didn't need to do that. Even if you want to reiterate the doctrine of marriage between a man and a woman, you don't need to be cruel to Matt Easton as an apostle. You're punching down. We don't need to punch down in this church. And so, yeah, that talk just broke my heart because I thought, okay, Matt Holland isn't the guy. And maybe there isn't a guy, at least in current church leaders. You know, Elder Gong, who— I don't know if you know Elder Gong. When he was a Seventy, when my father was on his deathbed, Elder Gong was the area president in the area where my father lived in the eastern United States. And he came and spent a great deal of time with our family as we sort of stood vigil with my father as he was dying. And he, you know, from my personal experience, he is a kind and gentle, pastoral sort of man. And he has a gay son. And at one point, he went to dinner with his son and his partner, and they took a picture at the dinner table. His son Matthew posted on social media that after they took the picture, his father said to him, now don't post this anywhere. You're not going to post this anywhere. You don't want— I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. And his son said, what wrong idea? That you had dinner with your son? And Matt Gong said in that post, when he posted the picture, he said, those of you who are waiting for my father to be that guy, he is not that guy. And, you know, so, so certain— so church leadership right now, there is a groupthink and there is an unwillingness to even consider the possibility of greater inclusion. And yet we continually get backed into positions that the church clearly doesn't want to take. The church would never, ever take this position about codifying the legality of same-sex marriage civilly. In the United States if we hadn't been backed into it, if we hadn't been forced into it. And I find us continuing to defend a shrinking piece of ground on this particular issue. We continue to give up ground because we have to. And I would like to see us, you know, embrace positive and constructive change rather than just grudgingly accept it, which is where— which is how we seem to be going. Anyway, I've derailed all this and we're supposed to be talking about—

No, not at all. Not at all. I think these are really important. We said when we were doing this, having this conversation, looking at this podcast, that we would, you know, share our stories, our experiences, and inevitably, and very early on, very quickly, we would get into all kinds of topics and issues that have impacted and affected our lives in all kinds of ways, right? And this is a really good example of how this is, you know, these issues and the problems with the church and the ability to change. I mean, just to put this in context, these changes that have occurred, which the church deny that they're real changes, and they are real changes, there's no question about that, you know, come from the fact that it's painted itself into a corner. I mean, the church history is replete with leaders that have, said, you know, it's this or this, or black or white. His ultimatums, with this or we not this, is, you know, the thinking back then was black and white, and there's no degree of variance in between. We either this or with this. If you go back, and you know church history more than I do, uh, you know, I've seen church history, uh, studied it and, uh, and lived part of it, you know, working with senior leaders and heard the talks and, and talking about that God never changes and they take it literally and we never change, we're all the same today, tomorrow, and forever, always gonna be the same, et cetera. But God does change, you know, there are changes, there are all kinds of changes taking place and some are very, very significant. But the church's ability to understand and recognize and be honest and open that things have changed, I think is a missed opportunity. I think change, good change is good, and I think good change should be embraced. And I think I don't share your view about Elder Holland strictly or entirely. I believe Holland could be the person that's going to facilitate change. And that talk, by the way, I don't think that is his opinion. There's a reason why I say that. I think that talk about the musket fire came from Elder Oaks. I've had a conversation with Elder Oaks privately about LGBTQ issues and where the Church's position is years ago. You know, his position on that is entrenched and very, you know, we're going to defend and protect the church and we're not going to let this derail the church, etc., etc. I honestly believe, Jim, that that talk was heavily influenced by Elder Oaks, who was incredibly influenced by Elder Packer. You know, relationship with Elder Packer and Elder Oaks goes back, is very deep, very intense. And Elder Oaks is the child of Elder Packer. I know this because—

well, except for Elder Oaks also at one point said you can't stage manage a grizzly bear in reference to Elder Packer. There was actually some tension between the two of them.

I don't know about that. Sure.

Well, but just quickly, I've heard a lot of people with regard to the musket fire talk say similar things. He was assigned to give the talk. He didn't want to give the talk. This was Elder Oaks forcing him to give the talk. I am not persuaded that that lets Elder Holland off the hook because I don't think Elder Oaks forced him to punch down on Matt Easton. There were ways he could have given the talk and still been kind and still framed it in ways that were not nearly as belligerent and What would have happened if he had said no? Elder Oaks had forced him to give the talk. So what, are they going to kick him out of the Quorum of the Twelve? That he didn't feel strongly enough to say, this talk is so belligerent that I'm not going to give it. I'm sorry, Dallin, my friend, I'm not comfortable giving this talk. You're going to have to find somebody else to do that. Why couldn't he have done that behind closed doors? How the Twelve interact with each other. My understanding of how that works is that when the door is closed, the Twelve can get quite heated in terms of their disagreements. They have determined that unity, public unity is critical. And so they never, ever express any more. I mean, earlier in church history they did that. You would see disagreements among the Twelve. But today, the Twelve refuse to admit or express any kind of disagreement publicly. But behind closed doors, they battle it out as hard as they possibly can. And in fact, my brother-in-law works— he was the PR director for the church on the East Coast and reported directly to Elder Holland and has had lengthy discussions with Elder Holland about this particular issue. Where Elder Holland has told him, yes, the, you know, we've gone up, down, and sideways. We've had entire meetings where we discuss whether or not the act of anal sexual intercourse is inherently wicked. Because if a married couple engages in that, a man and a woman, there would be no church disciplinary counsel on that. So the act itself isn't necessarily inherently wicked. So, I mean, so, I mean, they are talking about these things. They are talking about things that would probably turn our hair white. They are aware of the suicides. They are aware of all of these kinds of things. And they have these heated discussions behind closed doors. But publicly, they have determined that the position is Elder Oaks's position, and they aren't allowed to deviate from that. So, so my feeling is, okay, yeah, this is probably not reflective entirely of how Jeff Holland feels, and he's being deferential to, to a senior apostle. But so what? At some point you have to do something. You have to do what's right. And punching down on Matt Easton was not the right thing to do. It was not a kind thing to do. It was not It was entirely inappropriate. And I think you're seeing the outcry now where you have a Mormon shooter murdering LGBTQ people. And over and over again, people are referencing that musket fire talk. And I think they are justified in doing so. I think Elder Holland ought to revise and extend his remarks if he's not willing to apologize. At least clarify. But I'd like to see him apologize. I'd like to see the church apologize. I think it would be so much healthier for everybody if the church would be willing to do that.

Yeah, anyway, no, this is just some thoughts in response to your feelings and thoughts there, Jim. Elder Oaks is the paka style alpha male in the church at the highest level. He vets the talks of the apostles. He vets, I know this from conversations with Elder Cook, he vets the, when we were setting, reorganizing the stake, Elder Oaks, Elder Cook vetted our talking points and we were instructed to to communicate certain things when we were introducing ourselves as a stake presidency to the 6,000 people in stake who were there at the time. And so he's the alpha male. He influences the talks. He influences certain topics on LGBTQ, et cetera, and is directly involved in shaping the messaging that goes into those talks in a very significant way. And for, he would say, for lots of good reason. Um, it doesn't let Elder Holland off the hook. Absolutely. I think he could have stood up and, uh, and, uh, pushed back for sure. He didn't. Um, and, uh, I, I think, uh, I think that was a mistake. However, uh, knowing what little I do know about Elder Holland, I believe he's— it's a little bit like, uh, are you a Star Wars fan? You know, uh, Darth Vader. So Darth Vader, we reminded in the movie there that Darth Vader has some good in him, right? He's a villain, but there's some good in him. And Luke knows this. He can feel the force. And I see Alder Holland like that. I see good in him. I see he's a great orator. He's an extraordinary orator, but it's not good enough to be a great orator. You have to have substance. You have to have you're practicing the principles of kindness and love that Christ taught. And you have to be able to understand that how the sphere of influence that a great speaker like that has on so many people in and outside the church and how that influences behavior.

And, really, really have been wonderful. I mean, I know. Yes, absolutely wonderful, uplifting, compassionate, kind. He gave a talk about mental health that I think was a huge breakthrough and first time acknowledging really publicly from a general conference level the difficulties that missionaries and others have suffering from depression and mental health, removing some of that stigma. I adore Elder Holland, which is why I was so disappointed in it. I mean, this is not coming from a place of hostility towards Elder Holland. It broke my heart because I had such high expectations of Elder Holland, because I thought he, he had distinguished himself in so many ways of being the kind of church leader, being the kind of pastoral person that you would want an apostle to be.

Yeah, he is an extraordinary individual. He's got lots of qualities. Some of his talks are amazing, but he's not off the hook. He carries responsibility for the Muskie Fire talk. He has to understand that, especially someone like that who is an extraordinary speaker, who's very interesting as a speaker. You get different kinds of speakers. You get Bednar, I find Bednar difficult to listen to. If I'm struggling to sleep, I'll put on one of his talks and I'm gone within 2 minutes. But then you listen to Elder Holland.

I'll tell a Bednar story at some point. Remind me to tell a Bednar story because it has to do with President Banks and Sue Banks.

Right. I'd be interested. Yeah, I've got a few thoughts, opinions on Elder Bednar, but Elder Holland, great speaker, extraordinary orator, great influencer. And knows this and knows the influence that he has and should be more responsible. Not off the hook by any means. You mentioned, and I wrote it down, by the way, a very important point, which I've studied quite a bit actually, or somewhat studied, a term called groupthink. You mentioned that 5, 10 minutes ago. That is incredibly powerful. We see that in the corporate world. We see that across every culture. We see that here in Canada and in the indigenous communities, et cetera. We see that in government. We see that across all kinds of organizations, across human nature of every culture of every age. And the church is no different. So you have this culture, this groupthink that you have to think a certain way, behave a certain way. It's led by the alpha male wolf, if you like, Elder Oaks, very much a packistyle approach, very entrenched and fixed on in certain thoughts and thought processes, et cetera. And the apostles, you have 6 leading apostles, 6 junior apostles, as you know. And the 6 junior follow pretty much everything the other 6 do, et cetera. And the top 3 in terms of seniority, and in particular, the alpha male, the Oaks, really set the tone, set the mindset. And again, that doesn't let the people let these individuals off the hook by any means. And they go out into the world and put on a unified face, unified front, etc. But privately, and I do know this directly, where one or two general authorities have possibly shared their personal thoughts, have said to me they don't agree with certain positions and certain concepts, but they're instructed and directed to follow the, you know, to toe the line. So the groupthink, we shouldn't underestimate that, Jim. It's very very powerful, it's very real, it's part of human nature, it's not unique to the church. Um, but when they tie this to specific doctrines of eternal life, obedience, um, eternal promises that you have to live with exactness and pull the line strictly, at the end of the day, the fact that senior apostle makes a final decision, whether you like it or not, you have to toe the line, that is still very much, um, alive and well. And we see that We see that in things like in our stake and some of the stakes I've served in. There's still an element, for example, of white supremacy, this race and priesthood issue still alive and well. And I know people that even now think Blacks should never receive the priesthood. And I'm like, where does that come from? And it's from talks that past leaders came who said, look, this will never change. 'You know, the blacks will never get the priesthood, and if they do, they're doing it just to keep favor with the law, with public opinion.' That's said privately. But you've got members even now that are still entrenched in that thinking. And we must understand that the influence of the traditional convention, conventional rank-and-file member, the senior tithe payer, the senior regular conventional member that subscribes to you know, the old Protestant thinking and mindset and groupthink in the church that's still very much the bedrock of the church, still is old-fashioned and traditional in terms of thinking and beliefs, etc., etc. Still, it goes back to the, you know, almost every principle that Brigham Young and Joseph Smith taught. You know, that polygamy is still correct. Yeah, we don't teach it. We kind of disavow, I think is the new word, you know, from this book. In actual fact, we we still practice it. I think I had a chat with Elder Oaks about his second wife and whether he was— he was sat next to me at dinner and we chatted about eternal marriage and he's going to have two wives in the next life. And he kind of smiled and he said, yeah, that's— I think he said something like, that's what's going to happen. So we still believe in polygamy. We still believe in that.

Conference. When somebody said, yeah, yeah, there, there was a— so somebody at the beginning of the conference talk, somebody said, look, uh, she, I think, was the second wife who had been sealed to a husband, and she says, am I going to have to live with this other woman in, in the future? Uh, and are we going to have separate houses? Or something like that, and it got a laugh in conference, and it was designed to get a laugh, like, "Hahaha, isn't this woman silly for even worrying about something like that?" Yeah, yeah. And I think it just minimizes the abject terror, I think, that a lot of people have that we're going to have to live polygamy in the next life. I don't know of anybody that wants to live as a polygamist. I don't want to live as a— if my wife were to die, I don't know that I'd want to be sealed to another woman. I might get remarried, but I'd say, hey, you know what, I've already got my eternal companion, and let's just enjoy our time here. And what do you say? I don't know. But I mean, I don't want to be a polygamist. I don't want to be forced to live polygamy. And for the church to say, oh yeah, we disavow polygamy, but not really, I think is Very, very problematic.

I agree. And I think that's the problem with the church and has been the problem with the church from the, from, you know, for many, many decades, you know, well over a century where we privately, secretly hold on to these doctrines because we, you know, these original teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young because that's the authentic original version of the church. We say we're not changing, we're not going to water down or dilute any of the doctrines, we don't do that. Yeah, there's some incremental changes over time, but they're not real changes. Yes, we've abandoned the practice of polygamy, we've accepted the fact that Blacks are equal and deserve the priesthood, but secretly, privately, we know that's not the case. And so when you have these private conversations, away from the public eye or away from the rank-and-file members, and they open up and they share over a dinner or over a weekend when reorganizing a stake, you get an insight into what they really think and how they really feel. And it's frightening and it's dangerous, and it's often far removed from what is expressed across the pulpit. I do believe, however, that there is not only the potential, but there are figures in leadership and certainly in the rank and file of the senior general authorities with the right individual who are not positioned right now in the leadership right now. But I believe in the future, not in the immediate future, but that these new leaders will emerge and that positive change and openness and transparency that just being adult and grown up about it, which is what you are saying about, look, we made some mistakes, we got some things wrong, we delivered the wrong message, our language wasn't appropriate, it was very emotive, it was destructive, it caused problems. And to actually, when you do something wrong, when you make a mistake, I think we teach that we're supposed to apologize. If you remember the Gospel Principles book, There's a lesson in there on honesty. It covers all the general topics. I think that was produced in the '70s or '80s, and I think the church still uses that material. But when you make a mistake, acknowledge that you've made a mistake, apologize to the person in the situation, make amends, make restitution, put it right. And then the other thing that was learned from it, right? There's a very clear lesson, very simple, using very simple language about forgiveness. I think it's in the forgiveness lesson in there about how to seek forgiveness. And I just wish the church would follow its own principles, its own rhetoric, and actually live some of the stuff. And I think if it did, it would redefine itself and find a whole new meaning and purpose to to an existing audience and members and a whole new acceptance of other individuals who are progressive and are looking for the church to change and looking for the church to make improvements. But it won't happen under Elder Oaks. It's not going to happen while Oaks is with us. I still have hope with Elder Holland. Bednar, I had hope with him, but he worries me. Uchtdorf, gives me some hope. But you've got others in the leadership there who were very much, you know, old-school, you know, packer, traditional, conventional thinkers. And while you've got a sizable percentage of members that are, you know, traditional, conventional, orthodox, tithe-paying members, which they don't want to interrupt the tithing— don't forget that financial, those revenue streams are absolutely critical to the church, especially with tithing dropping and donations and and the war chest that the church has now built over the years of $100+ billion. And from a corporation point of view, great move, purely from a corporation perspective, to be able to offset the declining donations and tithing. From a charitable perspective, that's more than a conversation.

That's another story indeed, and one we will get to in a future episode.

Until then, we will see you next time. Next time on Inside Out.