Jim Bennett in X-ile

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with Ian Wilkes, but you probably won't hear from him for a few minutes because we record this— we record these episodes in different countries. Ian's in Canada, I'm in Utah, and for whatever reason, the recording software we use glitched out at the beginning. So the first few minutes were lost. So I'm going to try to reproduce those first few minutes and I will try to digitally seamlessly segue into the bulk of the material that is still recorded. And you'll hear Ian jump in at that point. But here at the outset, it's me re-recording some of the stuff that I had said earlier, and we'll get into the rest of the episode as we go. The episode is titled Jim Bennett in Exile, and that's a very clever pun because I'm talking about my departure from the social media platform known as X, and it was previously known as Twitter. I'll probably call it Twitter until the day I die, but right now everybody likes to call it X. Elon Musk has bought it, renamed it, and we sort of have to live with that. And I think it was Sunday night that I deactivated my account. And my reason for deactivating the account is that I had been swarmed by a series of digital bullies, most of whom I don't know. But who decided that they wanted to do everything they can to make my life miserable. And I decided I really don't have time for that anymore. I had a teacher who once said, I don't need to do this. I'm too old, too proud, and too rich. And I'm probably too old, too proud. I'm not particularly rich, but, uh, I've been startled by just how much more pleasant my life has been without jumping into that digital cesspool for the last few days. But to give you some background as to what led to that decision, you know, I deactivated the account. I ended up reactivating it in the middle of the night and writing a lengthy thread that I'm gonna sort of paraphrase here. And I beg— I began by talking about my childhood, talking about growing up in Southern California A lot of people assume I grew up in Utah. I did not. I grew up in Southern California. I was a weird, skinny kid who was bad at sports, and I had a big mouth, and I shot it off every chance I got. And I also was incapable of getting a suntan, and growing up in Southern California, that, all of that makes you a target for bullies. And I don't tell you this to to garner sympathy per se. I actually had a delightful childhood overall. I had a delightful adolescence, but it was marked by bullies, many of whom were not afraid to get violent every once in a while and try to ambush me as I walked home from school. I found myself trying to find many different routes to get home from school, and that was successful some of the time, but not all of the time. There were only so many ways to get from school to home. But that whole experience made me very sensitive to the experience of bullying. I have no patience for it. I have no tolerance for it. And I sort of refer to this whole phenomenon as something like the Korihor template. Korihor, as you may recall, is a character in the Book of Alma who comes and he's, he's described as an antichrist. He comes and preaches that there will be no Christ, and then finally admits that the devil appeared to him as an angel, and he always knew that there was a Christ and knew that there was a God, but had decided to preach against him anyway. And he's cursed, he's not allowed to speak, and he ends up getting trampled to death. And the moral of the story, kids, is you, uh, You leave the Church, you deny the Christ, and that's the kind of ending that you can expect to your life. Everybody secretly knows the Church is true, but they've somehow chosen to turn to the dark side of the Force anyway. And that's, that's kind of the way a lot of members— at least that's the way I thought. I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but that's kind of how I thought about it. And that experience going to, going to ex-Mormon Reddit was like, huh, maybe I ought to be talking to some of these people. Maybe I ought to be listening to some of these people. And that experience led to my going on Bill Reel's show. Bill Reel and I had 14 hours of conversations, and I'm still kind of frustrated that he saw that as a debate and I didn't. But then I went on John DeLynn's podcast and we did 14, 15, 16 hours. Was endless. And I have all these people that say, yeah, I listened to all of your podcasts with John Delenn. I'm like, you have? Why? I haven't listened to all of my podcasts with John Delenn. But what that did, after I wrote my CES letter reply, I got flooded with messages from members of the church who said they were grateful that they, that I'd helped them stay in the church. You know, they were kind of, this, my CES letter reply was sort of aimed at people, not people who have left, and trying to convince them to come back, but rather people who read all of this stuff and learn all the stuff about the church, have a faith crisis, and are trying to find some way desperately to stay. You know, it's— that was my experience when I read The Godmakers as an 18-year-old. It was, ugh, I still want to stay. How do I stay knowing all of this damaging information? And so that was who my CES Letter reply was geared to, and the response came overwhelmingly from members of the church. But when I started talking to John Delenn, started not talking to Bill Reel, started engaging with church critics, I started getting more responses from people who had left the church than people who were in the church. And the responses were along the lines of, hi Jim, I listened to everything you said. You didn't convince me to come back to church. You didn't convince me the church was true. What you convinced me of was that it's possible to stay in the church and be a person of integrity. And you've helped me better understand my family, my friends, my spouse, who are all still in. And, and I'm very grateful for that. I mean, and those messages were so much more kind of personal than, than the messages I would get from faithful members who thanked me for helping them stay in because, because that, that was more of a, oh yeah, I read it and I thought you won. You know, you went up against the Exmos and you won. Congratulations, Jim Bennett. But these personal messages from people who left have sort of led me into where we, I think we are with this podcast. I think this is a space that nobody else is exploring. You know, we, you have the people who've left the church who are angry and they've been shunned, they've been kicked aside and nobody's talking to them and they talk to themselves and create a sort of echo chamber. But it's not just an echo chamber, it's also sort of a support group. It's, oh yeah, I went through the church and I had this terrible trauma. And you go into these ex-Mormon spaces and that's, those are the discussions you find. And a lot of them are really heartbreaking. And they're not the kind of Korihor things that church members are out there. They're, um, they're just people dealing with pain, dealing with trauma. And, and in the church, you have these people that are, are demonizing the people who have left and aren't willing to talk to them, and sometimes are afraid to talk to them. I mean, they're afraid that, okay, if they left, what is it that— I think the reason no one's asked you, Ian, why you've left is they're afraid that they might agree with your answer. No, but nobody wants— nobody's willing to sort of put themselves out there and do that. Which is, you know, it's not massive, but it's not nothing either. And a lot of the people I interact with on Twitter are former members of the church, including some that I know in real life. I've reconnected with some people that I grew up with who have left the church, and I found them on Twitter, and it's kind of fun. But what has happened as a result of me doing that is that I have kicked up a great deal of venom and vitriol, and it is all coming from members of the church. None of it is coming from former members, former members who don't agree with me. And I've had some discussions, you know, about church things and church truth claims and stuff where I've been defending the church and the former members that engage with me that way. Usually do so very kindly. It's usually, well, no, I can't go with you with that, and I can't believe that. But it's— we end the discussion and we're both still friends. But members of the church come after me, and it's, you are a progmo, which is short for progressive Mormon. It's an epithet that gets— exmo and progmo are epithets that are used an awful lot. They're furious that I don't hate LGBTQ people. I have never on Twitter called for— I have never tried to call the church to repentance. I've never condemned the church for its stand. But I have said I hope for greater light and knowledge. I hope for greater inclusion. And even just saying that is beyond the pale for some of these people. And so I would just consistently get hate messages. People would just sort of jump into any discussion where I was and just, you're the worst and you're all going to hell and you're terrible and it's awful. And, and so I just started blocking all these people and it made my Twitter experience a whole lot more pleasant. All right. So I have talked about this account on this podcast, but I've never named it and I'm going to name it right now. There is an account on Twitter called Exmos and Progmos Posting Their Ls Online. L meaning losses, I guess. And, and they spend all day, every day combing Twitter trying to find things. And it used to be that they would post John DeLynn and Bill Reel and former members of the church And they don't really do that anymore. They post primarily things from— so their profile picture, you'll appreciate this, Ian. We've tried to get— how do you pronounce her name? Is it Jacinda Ardern?

Jacinda Ardern.

Ardern?

Ardern, yes. That's the right thing to pronounce, yeah. The former PM of New Zealand.

Former Prime Minister of New Zealand who's also a former member of the church. And I never heard her speak about the church. I know that she met with President Nelson when she was Prime Minister of New Zealand, and I think that was a positive meeting. I've never heard her say anything about the church. I don't, you know. But anyway, this account, uh, the shorthand for it is Exmo Cringe. This account's profile picture is Jacinda Ardern with a Hitler mustache. It's got this little Hitler mustache and also has a Nazi uniform. And that enough, I think, should be enough to get this account banned. I mean, it's a hate account. All it does is hate. And it combs the internet, combs for anything that a member of the church says that they consider to be heretical or apostate or awful. And for instance, give you an example. Every Sunday, Music and the Spoken Word with the Tabernacle Choir, we arrive at the Tabernacle at 7:25 in the morning. We rehearse until about 9:00, and then we take a half-hour break while the audience comes in., and then we do our broadcast at 9:30. So during that half-hour break in June, I walked out to West Temple, right outside of Temple Square, on a day when there was a Pride parade. And out in the middle of the street, they, they had shut down the street for the parade, and out in the middle of the street they were preparing a banner, and they had written on the banner the words, "Know that you are loved." And I thought that was lovely. And so I took a selfie of myself in front of the banner and the caption was, I can't think of a more lovely message for a Sabbath morning. And that was it. And this account, @exmo_cringe, took that picture and posted it and tagged the Tabernacle Choir. In the post and said, hey, Tab Choir, come get your apostate. Because I'm an apostate because I, I mean, I don't even understand how that's apostate. It's apostate because I'm not dumping on gay people. I didn't even reference gay people. I just referenced, I mean, it was just, it was just nuts. And so they've done that over and over and over again. They've also done things like, you know, I've run for office a number of times and I have not won. And they can— when they're out of material, they'll post the vote totals. Hey, remember when Jim Bennett lost this race? Haha, Jim Bennett, what a loser. And it's just like, why are you doing this? What good does this do? And the only purpose seems to be to bully me. To just— and so I kind of ignored it at one point. I tried to engage with the account. I would talk to them. I kind of cracked jokes, try to make it— make light of it. That didn't do any good. That didn't stop anything. So then I blocked the account and that kind of made it worse because then they just go around and they'd screenshot everything and, and they do all of these things. And it was— it's just exhausting. And people are like, well, just ignore it. Well, okay. But every time she does it, she gets all these people that are commenting on it. And it's just this horde of people telling me what a terrible person I am. And so I started blocking not just her because she says she's a woman. So I'm going to use the pronoun her. I have my doubts as to her gender identity. I know that. I mean, I don't know who she is. I know that she's tied to a family in Texas. Um, because there's a guy who admitted that he used to run the account, and, uh, his brother is a guy that— there's a guy named Dustin Turner, and he has a wife named Paola, or Paola Turner, and some people have said that she runs the account, although I've looked at her Twitter feed and she sometimes speaks in broken English. She's an immigrant, and so I don't— and, and this account never does. But I just remember last October, for instance, Dustin Turner There was a guy who, who had watched conference and saw the global participants. You know, we now have these international global participants that sing with us. And he mistakenly thought one of them had a nose ring. And he said, I'm not liking seeing a nose ring in the choir. And Dustin Turner's response was, well, it's not as bad as Jim Bennett's whole body in the choir. And like, who are you? I don't know you. Why are you doing this? Why do you care? So it's just kind of been low noise. But, but over and over again, I think she gets more engagement when she attacks me than she does with anybody else. And I don't know why. I don't know what it is, but she just kept stepping up the attacks. And then, then one morning, about 3, 3 months, it was in January. So one morning in January, I wake up and I have all these messages saying, you need to go look at Xmo Cringe's account. I'm like, really? Do I? And I go there and she's posted the Tabernacle Choir's phone number. And she said, everybody All my followers, you need to call the Tabernacle Choir and tell them they have an apostate in the choir and tell them to get rid of them. And to me, that was the last straw. That was just— it's targeted harassment. Twitter says they don't allow for targeted harassment. And I posted on my thing, please everybody report this account. I'm being targeted. I'm being harassed. This, this needs to stop. And the other thing I did was I called the Tabernacle Choir office and I said, hi, I know the woman who runs the office. She's a very pleasant— she actually used to be in the choir with me. And you can't be in the choir and work for the choir. So she had to step down and now she runs the office. And I called her and I said, hey, this has happened. Do you know, has anybody called you? And she goes, no, nobody's called about this. So let me look at this account. And she pulled it up and she just was reading through it. And it's just vile and it's nasty. And it's not just to me. And it uses slurs, uses profanity. And she just said, this is the most horrifying thing I've ever seen. She said, would you mind if I brought this to the attention of church security? And I said, no, please do. And she said, all right, will do. And, and within 2 hours, the account was suspended. The account was kicked off of Twitter, which is its most severe punishment. And this account had over 3,000 followers at the time, and they were kicked off of Twitter. And all of my friends and everybody who had been bullied by this person started to cheer. And we get— we just— and there were memes made where I was the conquering hero for getting her kicked off of Twitter. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if church security— I have to assume that somebody in church security has a little more sway than I do. But within an hour or two of that conversation with the choir office, she was gone. And then within about 3 hours, she was back with a new account. She registered a new account, changed her name from Xmo Cringe to The Xmo Cringe, and just started— picked up where she left off. And the fun thing was that she had had 3,000 followers and had dropped down to zero followers. It's now back up to about 700 followers, which is, you know, roughly a quarter of what it was. But But when she came back, haha, I'm back. And, and the first thing she did was repost a video of me making fun of me because right after Donald Trump lost in 2020, I may— I had COVID at the time. I looked totally disheveled, but I made this goofy video of myself playing We Are the Champions, singing Joe is the champion, and my hair is a mess and my dog's barking at me., and I just thought, I don't care, and I posted it. And, uh, she continually reposts that, takes really ugly screenshots of it. Look at Jim Bennett, look how ugly he is, look how ridiculous he is. And it's just, it's just exhausting. And that became her pinned post. And it was now, now that I had defeated her that once, uh, I was going to be her target from then on. And pretty much it's been nothing but Jim Bennett. All day, every day. And I can't tell you how exhausting it is to have somebody you don't even know, uh, uh, just stalking you. I mean, she would post things like— when I first got an Instagram account, I didn't really understand Instagram, and I said, what do you do with this? Do you just post pictures of your feet? And so the first— for my first, like, 8 to 10 Instagram posts, were pictures of my feet in different places. And she posted that like, what a pervert. I mean, she says, I mean, that's the caption. Look at this pervert. And I'm like, you realize these pictures are from 10 years ago. I opened my Instagram account in 2014, and I'm just like, she's combing through all these things. And, and, and it's even worse because there's, there's a sister missionary that I served with. You didn't serve with her because she was only there with McConkie. I met her, I, I met her actually at President McConkie's funeral years ago. And, uh, she is in a, a private Facebook group that is a support group for parents of LGBTQ members. And somehow Xmo Cringe kept getting screenshots of this private group and would repost them on Twitter and say, "Hahaha, look at these people," and would point out people who were saying things that were not for public consumption. But I mean, just an absolutely completely vicious, awful, vile account. And she stepped it up and stepped it up. And over conference, when we talked about in our last podcast, tension between universality. And I mean, she would post things like, you know, I would say, I'm looking forward to Elder Kearon speaking in conference. And, and after Elder Kearon spoke, uh, a lot of progressive Mormons said thank you. And she posted all of this, says, look at these idiots, they don't love the brethren, they only love what they like to hear. And, and I'm like, why are you trashing people for praising an apostle? It's, it's, it's just vicious and it's awful and it has to stop and I don't know how to make it stop. And, but for whatever reason, after conference, she just went full blast. And I, within a 24-hour period, there were over 2 dozen posts about me. And I finally unblocked her and sent her a message and I said, okay, you win. You win. What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone? And she messaged back and she said, uh, well, you have to unblock all of my, all of my followers, because I'd gone to all of her followers. I thought, if you follow this account, I don't want to listen to you, I don't want to have anything to do with you. And I blocked every— I mean, it was very easy to do. You just go to the account and if there was a new follower, you just hit block. And I blocked all these people. Says, unblock all of them. And then I'll leave you alone. And so I do. I unblocked all of them. I'm like, okay, fine. And people are like, Jim, don't do it. Don't do it. And they say, you'll just make it worse. And I said, how could it be any worse? I've ignored her. That hasn't worked. I've engaged with her. That hasn't worked. I blocked her. That hasn't worked. I want to do whatever I can to make it work. And And one of the things I told her was, hey, by the way, in these private messages, I said, I've had conversations with choir leadership, and they're aware of you, and they are horrified by you, and they are disgusted by you. And I don't think you have any idea how many people you have hurt and how much damage you are doing to the church. One of the things that she did, for instance, was led the charge against Aaron Sherinian. You know, Aaron Sherinian, the new PR director for the church, who was a friend of mine, who was the bishop in my father's ward when my father died. We've talked all at length about that. And we're going to talk on this podcast about the funeral I attended yesterday. But at the funeral I attended yesterday, it was presided over by Matt Holland, who was a General Authority. And you know Matt Holland better than I do. But Matt Holland, son of Jeffrey R. Holland, and was an AP in our mission. And Matt Holland came down from the stand after the funeral and sought me out. You know, I didn't know him that well, but he came— Jim, Jim Bennett— and came and shook my hand and we talked for a minute. And he said, I just wanted to thank you. And tell you how many people appreciate what you've done online to defend Aaron Sheridian. And I went, geez, could you, could you tell that to Xmo Cringe, please? Could you tell that to all of the people who are out there, uh, thinking they are defending the church as they bully relentlessly members of the church they don't agree with? I remember when President Nelson gave his Peacemaker talk, I thought, aha, finally, ex-Mill cringe and their ilk will stop. Clearly, they got to recognize that President Nelson is talking to them. And it didn't even make a dent. They didn't even do it, didn't change anything. And people would bring it to their attention and say, look, you realize that this is— the prophets told you not to do this. And they always find— you can always find a loophole. President Nelson in that talk said, I'm not saying there should be peace at any price. And so they say, yeah, well, yeah, but see, this is important because we're trashing, we're making sure that all these apostates are purged. We're separating the wheat from the tares. We're, you know, we're taking the whip and casting the money changers out of the temple. I mean, their version of Jesus spent absolutely all of his time with a whip in his hand. Casting people out. And so over and over and over again. So, so I finally say, okay, I'll do this. I will unblock your followers if you leave me alone. And she says, well, what I'm going to do is I won't screenshot you anymore, which is a very important distinction because when she was blocked, in order to repost me because she couldn't see my account, she had to use a different account go and take a screenshot of it and then post it. But if she's unblocked, all she can do is she can quote me and she can be just as vicious quoting me as she was with the screenshot. And I said, well, wait a minute, that's not leaving me alone. And she's like, well, if you're going to be heretical, I'm going to, I'm going to call you out. I'm going to continue to call you out. And I'm like, this, this was a complete mistake. This was a complete waste of time. And what happened in, in the aftermath is that all of her followers, once I'd unleashed them, just swarmed all over me every time I posted anything. I mean, I have one guy post— I mean, I'm talking about something completely different and I get, Jim Bennett, do you think homosexual— do you think homosexual sex Is a sin, yes or no? And I'm like, I'm not talking to you, and that's not what this conversation is. And why do you think I would want to engage with you on that? And then continues to put— and my response was, that's the worst pickup line I've ever heard. These guys really get thrown off when you— when I found one of the best ways to deal with trolls is you always take it as if they're coming on to you. 'Are you coming on to me? What are you talking about?' And that scares them off sometimes. But, but the swarm just descended on me, and I finally just went to Twitter and said, 'Enough,' and I deactivated my account. And so when you deactivate your Twitter account, um, if you try to see any posts or anything, it says, 'This, this account no longer exists.' And And I, I let it sit for an afternoon and for the rest of the day. And I woke up in the middle of the night and I said, I can't leave it that way because then she absolutely has won and she's absolutely bullied me off the platform. And I hate bullies and I, I just handed the bully a victory. She wins. And so I reactivated my account in the dead of night and wrote a lengthy thread where I recounted pretty much everything I've just said to you. And, um, that thread, I could pull it up right now. As of now, has— all right, so my account now says it's called Jim Bennett is doing fine offline, and my bio says I'm taking a break, I'll be back but not today, not interested in being a piñata. And, uh, the account has 88,000— or that thread at least has 88,000 views. And it's being talked about at length by people that I didn't even realize, and it's gone far and wide. And, uh, I'm, I'm hearing rumblings that there may even be some news stories about it. And, and people have responded very positively. I haven't read through because I'm deliberately trying to just set this aside, leave it alone, and walk away. But I've said I'll be back and I will be back. I mean, I, you know, these are— and the one thing I will be back for, for sure, is to post links to our podcast because the only way I We don't advertise this. We don't put any money into it. And I, so I, every time I edit a podcast and get it online, I post it to my Facebook account, which is only people I know, but I also post it to the Twitter account so that people like we don't know can get it. And that's the only advertising we do. I don't know if you've done any other advertising beyond that. I don't think so, but so, so I will continue to do that and, and eventually I'll, sort of dip my toe back in the water. But the, the thing that, that this highlights is— and, and I talked to Matt Holland about this, and Matt Holland agreed with it 100%— is that these people do more damage to the church, to the reputation of the church, to the mission of the church, than John Delenn or Bill Reel or any critic of the church could ever do, because the— it's friendly fire. You know, the, the— one of the things I posted was when Jesus said, blessed are you when people will hate you and persecute you, I didn't realize how much of that was going to come from inside the house. It's all coming from inside the house. It's all coming from people who think that not only are they not doing something wrong. They're the righteous ones. They're the ones— I mean, Exmo Cringe, every time somebody talks about having left the church, writes, hey, just wanted you to know how grateful I am you left. I'm like, how does that build the kingdom of God? How does that help the church when you're cheering on people leaving? It's just repugnant to me. And, and it's— I know it's repugnant, and I've had conversations I'm not going to share publicly, but I know it's repugnant to the people in Salt Lake. I know it's repugnant to the Brethren. I know it's repugnant to the Quorum of the Twelve and to the First Presidency, and I know that they don't know what to do about it. I mean, because I think the peacemaker talk was aimed at trying to at least stop it, and it hasn't slowed it down. And church members online, if you were not a member of the church, and you decided, okay, well, I'm kind of interested, I don't know anything about the Mormons, how would I find out? I'm going to go on Twitter and just see what the Mormons are saying. Your first point of contact would probably It's 90% more likely that you would find someone like Exmo Cringe than you would a decent, faithful member of the church. And you would have to conclude that all these Mormons are, are insular bigots who eat their own. And that's the only message that you would get. So, um, at the end of the of this experience. When I, when I wrote up my 88,000-viewed thread, um, I was thinking about the funeral that I was going to go to later that day. It was that morning, it was 2 o'clock in the morning, and I said, I'm thinking about where I'm going to be in 9 hours' time. I'm going to be at the funeral of Michael Maddox, who was a mission buddy of mine. He was the AP. He was He was Matt Holland's companion. Matt Holland was the AP along with Mike Maddox when I arrived in Scotland, and he was one of the most gregarious and friendly, warm, kind, outgoing people that you could ever want to meet. And he died by suicide. And I had no idea. And I know you had no idea. That he was suffering from this. And I ended and I said, look, when we bully people like this, I mean, I'm okay. I'm not about to jump off a cliff, but you have no idea. You have no idea what people are going through. You have no idea how people are struggling. You have no idea the battle they're fighting. And I imagine these bullies who were bullying people in the name of the Lord, And I wonder, you know, the people they're bullying tend to be LGBTQ. They tend to be people who are already on the margins and already struggle and are statistically far more likely to, to be victims of suicide. And, and I just think, who are we as a people that we can do this? And so I, you know, for those of you who are listening to this podcast to sort of get the inside scoop on all of this because you followed the drama on Twitter, please know that I'm fine. I'm not contemplating suicide. It was actually quite a relief to just sort of set it aside. I talked to my wife right afterwards and I said, well, I deactivated my Twitter account. And she's like, oh, She was so thrilled. And so I think my life will drastically improve as I step away from this. But I just— my heart breaks because I've spent the last couple of days not necessarily thinking about this Twitter debacle, but I've been thinking about Elder Maddox. I've been thinking about the funeral. I've been thinking about the messages at the funeral. And just how terrible we can be to the most vulnerable among us. So there you go. That's— I've taken up a great deal of time. That's the story. That's the scoop. And you haven't said a word except to correct me on Jacinda Ardern's name, which I probably just said wrong. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of that. And maybe if we want to talk about the funeral, because you watched the funeral, didn't you?

I did, yes. Jim Bennett, this conversation that we've had just now is really important. It's important to you and your family, to those who know you, love you, who know the kind of person that you are. It's important to get this information out so people can listen, feel through the conversation your sincerity and, uh, how genuine you are on this. And I know this, uh, Twitter feed and a lot of the criticism that has been directed at you, very often on a very personal level, has affected you, uh, in, in very different ways. We see people use social media to attack on a very personal level. The problem extends far beyond the church. We see this in talking about any subjects. I, I've even seen this on my own, um, Facebook feed where I've tried to bring up something on politics or similar issue, and, uh, it can be quite, um, personal. Um, and I've lost, unfortunately, a few personal friendships, um, sadly, on things that I posted. I thought I'd try to do respectfully, but it's sometimes difficult to have a civil dialogue, uh, on some of the key issues. A lot of these issues are very emotive. And so as I, as I listen to you, I've made a few notes, and I'll try to— I'll share my notes and thoughts here. I'll try to put them in some order, some context here. First, I'm sorry you had to experience those personal attacks. They, they are a form of bullying, and whether we admit it or not, they do affect us, they do impact us. I know when I left the church, just prior, certainly immediately after leaving the church, I received a message. And I was, as I was listening to you, I wrote this down, and the message was, and this, this broke my heart actually, 'Uh, the church is better off without you, and good riddance.' And that was devastating. Did—

was that an anonymous message?

No, no, it came through somebody that I, that I knew. And, uh, it was, uh, it was somebody that I thought we had a good relationship, and it was heartbreaking. And then to receive a letter from the I mean, I resigned the membership and I received a letter from church headquarters from the membership department, just one line saying, you are now no longer a member of the church. And that was it. It was over. There was no thank you for your service, come back. There was not even invitation to come back. I'm not saying that I would've come back at all, but, uh, if I'd have wrote that letter, I'd have put a little bit of kindness, a little bit of thought. I it was completely opposite to what anything I think Christ would've written. And it was just another, for me personally, just another confirmation, not that I needed one, that I was making the right choice. As I, as I listened to you, this, your experience with these comments and often very personal that you've experienced on the Twitter feed that you mentioned, um, I'm thinking Where does all that come from? And there are a number of sources where a lot of those comments and the motivations behind those comments come from. It comes from, if we try to look at where I try to look at the, the original source of, of what, uh, why people say things and what's driving them. And there's a relationship between the individuals who are writing those terrible things about you and they've written terrible things about other people as well. And it comes from, I believe, a doctrinal understanding of the church. I think people in the church, mostly, not entirely, those people that thrive in the church are right-wing, ring-wing, Republican, conservative thinking, sizable percentage of Trump voters perhaps, not liberal, Certainly not, you know, as, as the term used is, is a lot more liberal thinking. People who are anti-gay, who are probably more, let's say, more conservative in their thinking, more traditional orthodox thinking, which is where the church comes from. It comes from the, the very strict Presbyterian Church of England, extremely strict orthodox religious thinking way back in the 18th century where everything is very prescribed, it's very specific, it's very controlled, very regulated, and you have to think and fit and conform a certain way. And if you deviate from that, then you are not in the, in that core group of hard believers and those people that are in that group are still significant size in terms of the population of the church, I believe, and are still alive and well and trying to hang on and protect some of those original teachings. The church is going through extraordinary pressures. How does it reconcile this modern thinking, this more liberal open thinking that we're seeing in a lot of young people right now? And I will add this as well, the need to, and the importance of free speech Being able to speak freely, openly without criticism and, and to have an environment where you can feel safe and secure, speak openly, express an opinion even if it's different. You know, let's agree to disagree and, and the, the need to have, uh, free agency with the free speech that we're free to think and feel and to say things that, uh, we have an opinion on without being personally attacked, uh, or at least, um, be able to say what we think with some level of, of, uh, respect and kindness. I think sadly a lot of that has gone in the world. And then the church— how does the church reconcile the doctrine and its position on free speech, as Elder Oaks has spoken about several times, and the, the, the principle of free agency, think and feel and, and be ourselves be individuals. How does it reconcile that with the covenant path, the need to conform, to be strict, to be, you know, the church regulates so much of, uh, of the member's life. But if you think and say things outside of that orthodox thinking, that traditional thinking, like you, uh, keeping in mind you are in the church and I'm out of the church, you're on the inside, I'm on the out. And so those, so it's, it's a very different dynamic going on here because, and I've made some notes here, you, your legacy, your background is very different to mine. I'm a convert to the church. I've even had it said to me that what does he know? He's just a convert. Even though I was in the church for almost, you know, 35 years, I thought we were all converts, clearly not. Your legacy, your background is, it couldn't be more different than mine. It's very different. You come from royal Mormon blue blood. I mean, you're a direct descendant of David O. McKay, pronounced correctly, I think. McKay, you can correct me on yours, remember, it's family, Scottish. You know, your mother's got direct descent from General Authorities, Apostles, and your family legacy is extraordinary, very different, couldn't be more different than mine. And so there is expectation in the church, I believe, with people that you know and people you don't know, that Jim Bennett should toe the line, that you should have orthodox traditional thinking and you should think like them. And you're in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, you're an active member of the church, and you really should stay within that traditional orthodox thinking because of, because of your legacy. And to step outside of that is courting opposition and criticism and attacks from you. You've got this group of people online that see you as a threat. To the church. You, you're, as a person, you, I mean, you, you've, you've run for office, and the very principle, I think, of running for government is being able to, uh, in a democracy like America or UK or Canada, is to be able to express your policies and your opinions freely. And yes, people can disagree with it, but disagree with the policies. Let's have a conversation around the policies, and let's keep the personal attacks to the side. That's obviously Not always possible, certainly not in politics, and it can get very, very ugly. But I believe this group and perhaps other groups in the church see you as a direct threat. I've been described, or people describe me as a, under an official term, I'm told, as an enemy of the church. And an enemy of the church is one that, uh, doesn't toe the line, is not in the orthodox thinking, ask questions, ask the wrong questions. And, uh, by those questions and conversations, that weakens or dilutes the, uh, the church and, uh, loosens the grip that the church has on its members. Got lots of, uh, pretty awful comments that have been said about me, um, for speaking up and asking questions, that I'm a failed father, a failed husband, um, I've gone off the rails, my life is in turmoil, I'm lazy, disobedient. I've had talks about me, a church reference that, you know, President Wilkes has fallen from a great height, look what happened to him, his life is off the rails. And nothing could be further from the truth. So when people feel the church is under attack, that they see that as an attack on them, Jim Bennett. So, so if you speak in opposition, or as it's interpreted, in opposition to the church, or you're not thinking or speaking, operating within those covenant guidelines, those traditional orthodox lanes, if you like, not staying within your lane, and you operate outside of those lanes even though you are, you know, active member of the church, they see that as a threat. And I believe you've got these informal groups who are, organized themselves without any support from the church necessarily, any official support from the church. I believe, um, these groups form and they see someone like you as a threat and they, they're there to tear you down, to attack. And there's nothing you can do. You can't negotiate with them, you know, deleting them, blocking them, trying to come to some compromise. You are an enemy of the church. You always will be unless you bring yourself back in and disavow, church likes to use, from some of the comments that you've made and repent, I guess, and say sorry that you were wrong, you made a mistake, and you come back into the fold. Until you do that, you'll have this extreme, what sounds like an extreme right-wing group who are hell-bent on targeting you and your opinions. The cost of that is your freedom of speech and your free agency. Remember we said earlier that How does the church reconcile free agency and free speech that it advocates so strongly and often with all of the regulations that the church places on individuals to think, to feel, to do, to wear, what we wear, how you think, how you feel, certain questions, you can't ask certain questions in the church. And so this group, is either— and there's other groups out there that I'm not saying it's this group with you, but I believe the church privately actually endorses privately where there are groups out there or individuals out there where they're actually doing the, uh, the work of the leaders to identify threats to the church. Is that perfecting the Saints Committee policy? And I believe It's not just the, the committee members that are active looking for threats to the Church. I believe, for good reason, I, and I've met a couple of these people, where the leadership will actually engage with someone within the rank and file membership of the Church on a very private level, on a very informal level, and will ask that person if they see anything that is a potential threat to the Church in the stake or in the ward or in, in this region. Clearly inform the stake president. I don't think they go direct. But I know at least two people that have been approached in that, in that sense. And they go to the stake president and they report things that they see as a threat to the church. I believe those—

sorry to interrupt you. But when you were in the stake presidency, did you get any of those reports?

Yes. So people approach— yes, great question. Very timely in this conversation. So I was approached. 2 or 3 times, at least, with members who reported the behavior and the conduct of other people to me personally. And the context was that this person is thinking and asking questions that they shouldn't be asking, and really not being obedient, not living, not behaving within the lane, if you like that, not staying within their lane. And that they were behaving or asking questions and had a more liberal type of thinking. And these came from, in my experience, older members of the church who had grown up with all of those traditional orthodox teachings. And that's how they thought, that's how they think. I mean, if you believe a certain doctrine for so long and you live it, you become that. And I said at the very beginning that this thinking, this culture, this behavioral, these behaviors, that they're directly connected, associated with the doctrine of the church. They think and believe in this right-wing conservative traditional thinking. You know, you go to church, you wear certain You serve, you pay tithing, you have the priesthood. Women don't have the priesthood. You know, women know the place, the man's the leader, et cetera, et cetera. Anything to do with homosexuality is a sin, a transgression. In fact, it's further, it's a threat to the church, it's of Satan. You know, Black people are Black because they weren't violent before the world was. You know, these teachings and doctrines have not gone away. The church has tried to disavow itself, but they're still there, ever-present in the thinking behavior of the members. But what you've got here, you've got a right-wing group that may or may not have had some endorsement from a leader. I don't think they— probably haven't. I think sometimes, um, individuals do have personal endorsement from leaders, general authorities, and stake presidents to do certain things. In this case, maybe not. Or maybe because you are a political figure, you're a prominent figure in many ways, you, again, you're not thinking and behaving the way you should, and shame on you. And they are, uh, their strategy is to neutralize you. You're a threat. Um, and, and the question, you know, and I, and, and I think these are all the, the driving factors and the, the motivations behind, uh, this group. I think it's great that Matt Holland came here and thanked you for your comments about Eritrean. It's great. But wouldn't it be great if the leaders of the church at the conference stood up? Goodness me, do we need leadership on this? And stood up and talked about this and said, look, it's okay to have a different opinion. You know, we believe in free speech. What does that mean? We advocate free speech. We advocate free agency. Let's have a conversation about relationship between free speech and free agency. What's the position? What's the doctrine on that? Let's get a talk from one of the leaders on that. If you're listening, please talk about this in the conference. And how do we reconcile that with the need to stay on the covenant path? What does that mean? You know, if we have this agency and this freedom, but then we have to live a very prescribed lifestyle, how do we do that and have different opinions, different thoughts? Or are we supposed to think like robots and think exactly like a robot, a machine, and behave and think and ask questions like that. One question I had, Jim Bennett, about this group is who is behind it? Do you know them by name? Do you want to mention— I mean, they know your name, okay? You think you know them. You might not know them. You mentioned earlier you've got a name, but you don't know their identity. Do you know the identity? Is it appropriate to share their identity?

No, I don't. Other than the fact that I know the identity of people who know the identity, I don't know what good that does me. As you're talking, I thought of a couple of things, one being almost word for word what you said about I want somebody to come and say this at conference. That was almost a direct quote from what President Nelson said in conference a year ago. And, and it fell on completely deaf ears. The other thing you talk about, okay, well, I'm staying outside of my lane. And what's interesting to me is, I mean, you've talked about my blue blood royal background, which it's so funny to me, because I'll talk to people about that. And they'll say, well, you grew up with this. And it's like, I grew up in Southern California, totally away from the Mormon center of gravity. David O. McKay and Heber J. Grant, my great-grandfathers, were long dead. Well, Heber J. Grant was long dead. David O. McKay died when I was an infant. And, you know, I never grew up with that kind of an identity. That's not how I see myself. That may be how other people see me. But the one thing that I do know and understand is I know where the lines are. I know where the boundaries are. And I've talked about, for instance, the Family Proclamation. And one of the things I've said is that the Family Proclamation is very often referenced uh, and, and embraced for things that it doesn't actually say, but everybody sort of assumes it's saying. They assume that it's calling for bigotry against LGBTQ people. They assume— I mean, they, they finally had to issue one correction. It's even made its way into the handbook, you know, the sentence about gender, uh, Gender is an essential part of your identity, mortal identity and eternal identity and purpose. And transgender people were embracing that language and making it their own and saying, yeah, my eternal identity is part of my eternal purpose and this is great. And so President Oaks had to come out and say, no, we mean your biological gender at birth, your biological sex at birth. And now In the handbook, it says the Family Proclamation sentence about gender means biological sex at birth, because that's not what the proclamation itself says. So I get accused by this group, by these people, of being an apostate and advocating apostasy and speaking wildly. And I know where the line is. I don't do that. You know, I get accused, for instance, of of criticizing the church. I don't ever criticize the church. I, I, I, I, I— so just about one of the most recent events with Exmo Cringe was they said everybody knows how much Jim Bennett hates Dallin Oaks, or President Oaks. And I, and I said, uh, uh, could you please provide the receipts for this? Thank you very much. And they dutifully went and spent a day digging through my account to find everything I'd said about President Oaks and posted it and said, see, aha, here it is. And what they posted was me saying, what President Oaks has said here is very positive, his laudable call to do this. And it was all praise for President Oaks. And I went, where is the criticism? And everybody else that read through it went, yeah, he's right. Where's the criticism? I mean, the other thing he accused me of was, oh, he is wish— he's openly calling for harm on Elder Bednar. Because somebody had said— I said I'm very hopeful about the future of the church, and somebody had sort of insinuated, um, that that hope stops with Elder Bednar because Elder Bednar is positioned to lead the church for a very long time. He's, he's younger than these other apostles and and, uh, and could very well be the president of the church for a great deal of time. And, and all they said was— I mean, this is, this is— I'm trying to extrapolate this accusation because it's so ridiculous. Because all they said was, I can think of one reason not to be hopeful. And my response was, oh, I can see that, but a lot can happen between now and then. A lot can and will happen between now and then. And that was taken as a murder threat that I— that what can happen is that Jim Bennett will hunt down. I mean, it was, you know, so the point being, I know what the lane is. I know where the guardrails are. I know where the boundaries are. I know that if I cross those boundaries in any significant way, and it's, I think, reinforcing what you're saying. Because yeah, to a degree, if I want to stay in the church, I have to stay in that lane. I have to stay within those guardrails. And the minute I cross them, I'm putting myself in danger in terms of my membership in the church. There are people who cross them and, uh, and somehow survive to tell the tale. I think I've had enough feedback from, um, from the brethren about how positive my CES letter reply has been received, that I think I'm probably got a little more leeway than some other folks do. But I do know where the line is. I know where the guardrails are and I stay within them. And that's still not enough. I'm still not pure enough. I'm still not righteous enough. And I'm still seen as a threat to the church. And when you talk about the fact that, okay, that there are people who are endorsing this tacitly at church headquarters, uh, I am hearing precisely the opposite. Uh, I, I think that would have been true 30 years ago or more. When did President Benson die, right? That whole President Benson and his political right-wing, hard-right ideology was a big part of church leadership throughout his entire tenure. And I know that it was also hugely controversial during his huge— you know, my great-grandfather, President Benson, and President McKay just really butted heads up, down, and sideways, often on political issues. And, you know, President Benson, when he was an elder, he was kind of banished to Europe. They sent him to Europe to go after World War II to help rebuild, but he didn't speak in conference. And it was a deliberate attempt to just tamp down the extremism that he was pushing. So a lot of these people, they hark back to President Benson. They will quote President Benson. As if he were still the president of the church when he's been dead for over 30 years. And but the word I get when I have conversations, you know, I just— we just had this conversation with Matt Holland where he says, thank you for defending the church and defending, you know, Aaron Sherinian. The other word I get is they know that this is a huge strain in the church, that there is— there are huge groups of the church, this solid right vicious bully, terrible, whatever it is. And they don't know what to do about it because attempts— and here's where I'll get a little cynical. I think COVID exposed just how cafeteria Mormon that those extremists are. The extremists see themselves as, we are the true members of the church. We need to purge the church of all of these terrible people, separate the wheat from the tares, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then COVID comes along and the church responds responsibly and calls for masks at sacrament meeting, calls for vaccinations, has a picture of President Nelson getting the vaccine with a mask on his face. And that hard-right group, what do they do? They completely ignore him. And they say, you know, it's like, nope, nope, nope. You know, I'm not going to get the jab. Remember, we were talking with Graham Stokes. He talks about the people who got the jab. I mean, that's language that anti-vaxxers use. They call it the jab. I call it a vaccination. But there are people that refuse to do that despite the fact that the prophet that they insist I'm not loyal to asked them to do it, urged them to do it. And they leaned into the word urge. He didn't command us to do it, he urged us to do it. Well, guys, are you following the Prophet or not? Because you don't get it. You don't get to turn around to me and say, when I— what, what all I say is I want to see more inclusion for LGBTQ people, you're not following the Prophet. Uh, yes, I am. I'm, I'm not performing gay weddings in the temple. I'm not petitioning the church to perform gay weddings in the temple. I am just saying I have a personal hope that there will be more inclusion, and I haven't even defined what that is. But that's not enough. That's evil. But here the prophet has asked you to do something. You are refusing to do it. And how come you get to pretend that you're the faithful one? And I'm the terrible apostate. So that's kind of the thing we're dealing with. I think if there is a criticism to be had here, it is not that the brethren are encouraging this. It's that the brethren don't seem to know how to stop it, how to confront it. And I hope some of them are listening to this. I mean, I will have as many conversations offline as well as online But this is a serious problem. It's not a serious problem because Jim Bennett's in trouble and I've been bullied. It's a serious problem because it does tremendous damage to the reputation of the church. People who don't know us think of us as a hard-right organization, think of us as a Republican. You know what? I worked for a Democrat when my father lost his Senate race. And then I went to work for the Democrat that was running in that race. Elder Steven Snow said, I'm— he came and said, I'm going to be your unofficial advisor. And he said point blank, the church would like to see more Democrats elected because internationally we are seen as a Republican church and we don't want to be seen. We want credible Democrats to be elected. So behind, I mean, I think behind the scenes the brethren are just beside themselves that they don't know what to do about this. And I, anyway, so any of that make any sense?

Yeah, no, it did. It did make sense. I've got some thoughts here and we're probably coming to the end of this podcast, but there's some thoughts here. Um, I wanna be clear, I don't believe, um, there is any official church endorsement of these groups who are attacking you. I wanna be clear about that. Secondly, I do believe that there are personal endorsements between general authorities and certain stake presidents and members of the church who, for perhaps good reason that the church sees under the Perfection of the Saints Committee policies and procedures and et cetera, that there are individuals in the church that the church sees as a threat. That's not new. That's not new. You know, the church has had threats since the very beginning, since its inception, right through. The church is facing threats right now, and it needs to be aware of what those— if you put yourself in the shoes of the General Authority of the Apostles, you know, what are those threats? And these are rhetorical questions. What are those threats? Where they're coming from. How do we rank those threats? How do we scorecard them? How frequent are they? How serious are they? Where do they come from? That's risk management. The church has a risk management division, for goodness' sake. And it, it's, again, if it's, if it's like a corporation, if you look at it like a corporation, it's important that a corporation, a business, has a risk management division. You know, I deal with risk management in my, in the workplace in terms of the projects I get involved in, project risk management, right? You know, what are the threats? What are the risks? The church, very intelligent, has to understandably identify risks to the church, right? And I, that makes sense. You look at, if you put yourself in that position, that makes sense. Secondly, I firmly believe that a lot of the things that are said at the pulpit General Conference, some of it, some of it, maybe a lot's too far, but some of it does not translate to rank and file members. For some reason it just doesn't translate or get to that or change that thinking. You've got this old-fashioned traditional orthodox thinking that's never going away with the members. It'll only go away when they die off, that old archaic antiquated thinking from the old prophets that comes from that traditional orthodox thinking, which is now being challenged by modern, it might be more advanced thinking, that will only go when people die. People die in the church, the prophets will die.

Careful, you're threatening, you're openly threatening the General Authorities.

I'm not trying to threaten. At the same time, I think people's opinions, sometimes people don't change. They just won't change their thinking. And they quote back to some ancient, you know, ancient, some quote from Wilford Woodruff or Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or Bruce R. McConkie, Joseph Fielding Smith, et cetera. And, you know, even Elder Ballard who talks about suicide in one of his talks quotes Bruce R. McConkie in some very strong, in my opinion, inappropriate doctrine and positions on suicide. That's not going away until, you know, people pass away. Some people just, their opinions disappear when they disappear, and that's just a reality. Also, I think we have a different, very different relationship at the stake level. I've said at least twice on previous podcasts, the real activity and decisions and influence on the membership happens at the stake level, not the bishops. Uh, it's the stake president. That's it. The key holder. The stake president controls a huge portion of the church. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. So this direct line between stake presidents and general authorities, you know, the stake presidents have to follow the line, right? Any threat, uh, that, you know, that's coming from anyone in a particular stake will be reported and dealt with Yeah, there's influence and doctrine and there'll be those conversations privately with general authorities. The state president's got the keys to deal with it. He can excommunicate him, 'cause he preached over it. A bishop can't, right? So it happens at the stake level. I wanna emphasize that, right? The other thing as well is the, he talked about, we talked about living or behaving within the lanes and used the word guardrails. I believe that you are on the inside, just on the inside of those guardrails on many of your thoughts. I think you've got in some ways traditional, perhaps a little bit orthodox thinking on certain topics, perhaps, but on others you are closer to the edge. You're on the inside of the edge. You called it a guardrail, and I think that's a good thing. And I'll tell you who else I think that's, thinks it's a good thing as well. I believe those general authorities, Matt Holland and other general authorities that know you directly, directly need and want you, people like you, to be on the inside of the edge. So why do I say that? I say that because the church is trying to reposition itself in this new world thinking, this new liberal world thinking. It knows it has to.. It has to, you know, respond and deal with LGBTQ rights. It's still dealing with blacks in the priesthood, trying to move away from, trying to modernize itself. I believe, I, I believe there are modernizers in the leadership, Jim, at the apostle level and the general authority level. I, I think I would go as far as to say I know that. I, I know some of them, not as many as perhaps yourself, uh, but I, believe and got good reason to believe that there are modernizers in the church and there's a battle going on. Sometimes it's civil, sometimes it's arguments and fallout, just like with Hidat and President Benson that can get probably quite heated. I think Elder Bednar said it can get quite heated, but when we, you know, when the conversation's over and we've discussed it in council, they all line up and follow the prophet. I think Elder Bednar has talked about that. Those conversations continue. I think they're very strong. I think you've got a number of different camps. You've got the liberal camp, you've got the conservative camp in there. And slowly but surely that is like a, it's like a, um, um, that competition where, uh, what, what is it called? You, you, you've got two teams. It's the toe rope.

War.

Yes. I've just been I couldn't remember what it was called for a moment there. Lost my thought. Tug of war. And you've got a few more liberals, modernizers on one side than the other side. I think this is an appropriate analogy. There is a battle going on right now with the tug of war and the liberals and the modernizers are winning. But boy, hell, what a tough battle it is. And the conservative side are digging in. You've got some of the heavyweights that are on the other side, who have got more power and they're digging in, but they are moving slowly but surely. I think there is this battle, this tussle, this wrestle in the tug of war analogy where the modernizers, liberals are actually winning just a few inch here and there on different things. And I think the church, for the most part, the leaders there need and want you to be on the inside of the edge because that helps them, that helps the modernizers. Someone like you, your background, you know, the CES letter response, which has been used by mission presidents and been described as a very positive response to the CES letter, which has caused a lot of problems for the church. Again, CES letter is a threat to the church that they'll have talked about that. They'll say, guys, this CSS is a problem. Jim Bennett has responded. And so they need and want people like you. There are people in the church that I think want to see you gone. Just like with me, right? These are these people on the other side of the tug of war, the old-fashioned entrenched dug-in conservative thinking that CU is completely outside of that lane. And that lane, by the way, I think is widening to incorporate or to bring in some of that more liberal thinking. So the lane itself is changing, but the church is over, the leaders will, I think they'll have come to the conclusion that it's better off to have the Jim Bennetts in the church on the inside of the edge, helping them in that tug of war to reposition them and move the church into a more modern way of thinking. It's going to take a long time, but I think you're part of the solution generally compared to part of the problem. So the problem on the other side, that's where these groups come from, these Twitter groups. They attack you, they're of that old-fashioned thinking, they're not going to change their opinion, they're not endorsed by the church leaders, I don't believe. But on the other side, I think you've got a lot of people, more people at different levels in the church who actually see you as an instrument, actually, and a help to help the church move in the direction that it's trying to do. Notwithstanding how difficult that tug of war is going on. So yeah, these are my thoughts, uh, in, you know, when you— in regards to how this whole, this Twitter feed was going on. And I think these are the forces at play, these are the motivations. I don't think, as long as you stay on the inside of the edge, you're not at risk of being thrown out. At any point where you might step out but remain most of the time in, at the percentage that you're out but 90% you're in, I think as long as that percentage that you're in is, is, is higher, um, that you're safe. As soon as you start spending more time, I, in my opinion, outside of the inside of the edge, you know, where I am, you know, I, I go on the, uh I'm on the outside of that membership edge and my outside ranges quite considerably depending on the topic. But if you are spending more time outside of that, those guardrails, then I believe the church leadership will see you as a threat. Your name will come up. It's probably come up already. But if you stay on the inside of the edge there, I think you're fine. And And I think that's where you want to be. I think if you saw it like that, and you probably do, you're a strong advocate for modernization of the church. And that's great that we need more Jim Bennetts. Me, I'm according to feedback I got, the church is better off without me. I'm a lost soul, but I'm not a member. They don't see me as a threat because in some ways because I'm not a member of the church. And so what I say is my own opinion because I'm not a member. I think the membership, that their opinion is attached to membership because we said that when people leave the church, um, the people that you're leaving take it personally. It's like a golf club where you don't agree with the golf policies or the etiquette on the golf course, or you're part of a club or something, or a gym club, and you You have a question about something, you don't quite agree with it, and so you leave and go join the club. The rest of the members are not offended, uh, because you didn't agree with the policy or a particular rule of the golf club or whatever, right? They're not, hey, you know, we're taking it personally because you're not part of a club, and good riddance, you're not part of the golf club anymore, and, uh, you, you never belonged here, and you shouldn't be questioning the golf club policies, right? But in the church, that's the culture. If you leave or you question or you place any doubts, you ask the wrong question, they take it personally. And where does that come from? That comes from the doctrine, it comes from the culture. And because it, you know, that our souls, our personalities, our character is deeply entrenched into the doctrine. So my advice is that if you're staying in the church and actually be an instrument in the hands of the Lord, You stay in on just on the inside of the edge there enough for you to keep your membership.

But I can step out every once in a while, maybe go deal drugs, something like that.

Not quite, not quite. I think it depends on—

That's tough to smoke, people.

I know, I know it was. I know. And people that know you, I know you for a long time. You are a good man. You're a good husband, a good father. You're a decent guy. Uh, you're not perfect. Your opinions are always correct.

Um, no, no, I'm going to push back on that one. The opinions are always correct. The other stuff, fine.

But I know, and that, and that's okay, right? That's okay to have a different opinion. You just be freely and think, think and feel and, and say what we think and have, uh, you know, civil, uh, accord and, and be agree to disagree, and, and it's okay. That's what makes the world rich. We have different opinions, right? And, and it depends on what topic you're going outside the guardrails on. I want to add that. And it depends how long you're staying out there for as well. So there's certain conditions, uh, been applied to the Jim Bennett membership that if he does this for too long on this particular topic, then we could perhaps see that as a problem. Uh, I, I think you're a threat to the church right now, but—

I don't believe the church sees me as a threat. I have reason to believe they see me as an asset. I think that— so I remember I had a conversation, we're way over time here, but I had a conversation with John DeLant. After I had all of— after we talked, you know, for 15 hours in his podcast, and we talked about my CES Letter reply. And I've said on here, you know, it was the secretary of the Quorum of the Twelve presented research to Book of Mormon Central, and that's now Scripture Plus, they call themselves. They used to be Book of Mormon Central. And they said, we have research that shows how much damage the CES letter has done to the church. And we have research that says there is only one thing that mitigates that, and that's Jim Bennett's CES letter reply. And so I thought, okay, you've paid attention to me. You've noticed that I've been helpful. So I don't think they see me as a threat. But I was, as I was talking, to, um, to John DeLinn offline about that. I said, you know, I, I said, I don't really understand that. I don't really understand why the church, uh, hasn't done something like what I've done, uh, officially, because I think that if the church did that, they'd be in a better, stronger position. And John pushed back and said No, I think the church very much appreciates that you did it so that their fingerprints can't be on it. Because the central message of my reply is an admission that church leaders can be wrong. And I frame that as a feature and not a bug. You know, the whole idea of mortality is we were going to come here to the this earth and we were going to make mistakes and we were going to screw up. And that's why we came. We came to learn. We came to be able to, you know, prove them thereherewith. Uh, the mistakes are the reason for mortality. They're the— we learn from them and we should anticipate that the church is going to make them too. And John Gallin said the church can't make that argument or isn't in a place yet where they can make that argument. And so they're glad that you are doing that from a faithful perspective. So I think that's probably true. And I think they kind of appreciate that I'm on that edge, but for the reasons you've talked about too. So anyway, we'll see. But I think the church would be— I think the church is better off with you even with where you are on the other side of the edge. I think that you're doing a tremendous service. And I think the fact I have a lot of people listen and go, you know, Ian sometimes sounds like he's a bigger believer than you are. I'm like, well, Ian is a good man and Ian is a man of faith and a man of decency and integrity. And so I very much enjoy doing this and very much appreciate you giving me the opportunity to vent.

So this, this, as I said at the earlier, this is a very important, uh, conversation for you, for us, for our podcast, for your family, friends, etc., the people that know you and love you and trust you, know the person that you are, etc. And, um, you know, it's another reminder, I think, to our listeners that the, you know, our podcast, you know, our central premise of the podcast is to discuss the wonderful, extraordinary things that the church does. It does extraordinary amount of good and blesses lives in so many ways, and the members are extraordinary, and there's some great leaders. We have some wonderful leaders, uh, in the church, and the church is a force for good. On the other side, the church has challenges, problems. It knows that. It's struggling with that. It's trying to reconcile that. It's, it's makes mistakes in trying to figure that out. It makes a lot of mistakes in trying to address things, and then it fumbles over itself, and it, it, it often does more harm to itself than anyone ever could in terms of its threat to its own existence. But it has to be open and transparent about these issues. It has to allow people, members, to, to think and feel freely, uh, to express themselves without feeling threatened, to ask questions. That's why I couldn't go anymore. I couldn't, I couldn't ask questions anymore, and I felt unsafe, and it was affecting my mental health. It was driving me crazy. And the church has got to figure this out, and I, I believe it will. I really do. Even though I've gone through my own, um, that, uh, night of the soul experience and being felt rejected and cut off, I still see the goodness in the church. And, and I love the balance with the podcast. You know, when things— you know, you're on the inside and you kind of, uh, for good reason criticize the church, I, I sometimes see, um, a silver lining sometimes in some of the things that it does. I think it's a good balance. And, and so we look at We address the issues and talk about the problems. We want the church to get better, Jim Bennett, don't we? We want it to improve. We want it to be a good experience for everyone. We want it to be inclusive. And I believe that if it builds, rebuilds, and repositions itself around those universal fundamental principles of Christlike love and kindness, forgiveness, not judgment, different thoughts and opinions, you know, more respect freedoms, respect freedom of speech, et cetera, freedom of opinion, teaches, as I say, those universal principles of kindness and generosity and inclusiveness, it will be, and I believe that will happen, it will become a better church. And it will take time for reasons that we're talking about, but I'm hopeful that the church will be a very different, more inclusive experience for people 10, 20 years from now. It's that tug-of-war analogy. I think the, um, the, the group of people that want to improve the church, I think they're winning, but it's a, it's a, a really difficult battle, and it's one, uh, digging step at a time. And they've got another maybe 30 or 20 feet to get over to get that ribbon on the rope over the line. And there's people cheering on both sides. We didn't talk about the, in that analogy, the, the, the audience there. They got people cheering from the hardliners and the people that, Takiu, I think, at least include some of those people. And then you got the other group, who are cheering for the modernizers, right? It's a battle, but I think in the end, I think the church will improve and will get better.

We'll let that be the last word. So we appreciate all of you listening to this, and thank you for taking the time to spend with us, and we'll see you next time on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim.