Livestream Audio: Greg Prince on Abuse, Discernment, and the Church’s Responsibility

I proclaim with all the power that is in me that the Inside Out Podcast is the only true and living podcast on the face of the whole earth, with which I, Bruce Reginald McConkie, am well pleased, speaking unto the podcast collectively as well as individually.

Inside Out livestream. How are you, Ian?

I'm doing really well. I'm trying not to laugh at the last conversation we had, the almost really falling off my chair here.

Just so funny. You can put that on Greg, but here's Greg Prince.

Hello again.

Uh, we have one comment already that says, I hope everyone finds their own newbie Kipps. Thanks, Ian. I'm still reflecting on your experience.

Thank you. Thanks.

So that's a reference to our last episode, but we are thrilled to have Greg Prince here again with us. Yeah, we were telling, for those of you who don't know, we were telling Greg Prince that the Relief Society has released a statement talking about how you can do hard with Jesus. And that just strikes me and has struck, I think, many people as a rather unfortunate turn of phrase.

So may I say it's probably something we don't even want to touch.

Let's not touch it anyway. Okay. Uh, it says inside out. Ward Bishoprick, which one is presiding in the live stream? I don't know who's presiding, but I am conducting today. Um, Bruce Butcher comes in and says, sending love to Ian, Jim, and Greg. Thank you so much for your service. Greg Prince, the best Mormon critic alive. Love it. Well, Jim may be a bit better. I don't know that either one of us would describe ourselves as a Mormon critic, would we, Greg?

You know, the dean of the dental school at the University of Utah, on whose council I sit, he is not LDS, and he referred to me as a loving critic of the church. I can live with that.

A loving critic. I said, well, we had a discussion behind the scenes where, Ian, you were asking, well, geez, the church doesn't like criticism. And I loved what you— how you phrased it, Greg. You said something along the lines of, this is an offering. How did you put it? This is something lovely.

It gets, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

We wrote it down.

Yes. To help this thing along.

Yeah, so it's something, it's just encouragement, I think you said, offered lovingly on the altar.

Is that what you said? Encouraging them is not opposing them. So I like that. I like how you frame that, Greg. So yeah.

All right. And Connor Christensen says, good evening. Good evening, Connor. So we're going to dive right in. We are going through Greg's roadmap for improving Mormonism. Which is encouragement, not criticism. Uh, this one is a really sort of difficult topic, but I think it's one that needs to be discussed, particularly in light of the Wade Christofferson situation. President Christofferson of the First Presidency has a brother who has been arrested for child sexual abuse, and there have been a lot of questions about how much Elder President Christofferson knew about this. The church has issued a statement, and President Christofferson has denied having any knowledge of, of, of, of any of this.

Jim, let's, let's clarify one thing right up front. It was not— it's not his gay brother.

No, this is not Tom Christofferson. Um, Tom Christofferson is, uh, a President Christofferson's gay brother, who is also an active member of the church and has not been accused of any sort of wrongdoing. But this is a different brother. This is sexual abuse that has gone on for decades. He had been excommunicated at one point. And I'm just trying to pull up the actual statement. I've got it here.

I've got it here, Jim.

Go ahead.

So this is the official release, uh, from, uh, the church. It says here, the church strongly condemns and does not tolerate abuse and honors the courage and respects the rights of survivors. Regarding the history of Wade Christofferson, President D. Todd Christofferson was never in a position to know about and in fact did not know about or influence the ecclesiastical decisions regarding his brother's membership. The article goes on to say, while he and other family members were told of Wade's excommunication, he was not informed of the specific reasons and had no reason to suspect it was for abuse. It was not until around 2020 that President Kristofferson first learned through family disclosure some of his brother's history of abuse from 30 years earlier. He respected the adult victim's wishes not to involve law enforcement at that time, However, he goes on to say, however, upon learning of a recent allegation involving a minor, President Kristofferson immediately reported it to legal authorities. Wade Kristofferson was readmitted to the church in 1997 following established disciplinary and confession processes, and we are aware of no abuse involving his church service at that time. We remain committed to protecting the vulnerable and ensuring our reporting processes Prioritize victim safety above all else.

All right. Well, so, so he's known, uh, since 2020, at least he admits in that statement. Uh, what do you think of the statement, Greg?

I think it's trying to do a delicate dance around a really nasty issue. That is not at all unique to Mormonism. I think we need to put that right out in front. In the past week, I think in the state of Rhode Island, there was yet another major scandal with the Roman Catholic Church of priestly abuse that went back decades. And other churches have a similar problem. The problem is when you combine somebody who has I will call it an illness. I hope, uh, people can understand what I'm saying there, that give them the proclivity to abuse minors of the same or opposite sex, and you put that person in a position of ecclesiastical authority, you're sitting on a powder keg.

Yeah.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the priestly class likely is less than 1% of the total membership, and yet look at the problems that they have had. In the LDS Church, the priestly class is essentially 50% of the adult membership. So just look at the numbers, and you're setting yourself up for a high likelihood that this kind of thing is going to happen. And if we look at the other side of the coin and look at what has happened, it's ugly and it's major and it's ongoing. And for the most part, it's swept under the rug. That Curtin McConkie, which is the quasi-church law firm, uh, has people apparently working full-time tracking down these reported cases of sexual abuse and trying to come to cash settlements with strong nondisclosure agreements to keep them out of court and out of the public eye. That's where we are.

Hmm. Well, I'm looking at your roadmap and you title this section Spotlight 2.0. You say in here that you've watched the movie Spotlight 3 times. My wife was so impressed with that movie. She made all of our children watch it. She's watched it at least a dozen times, and I'm not exaggerating. I mean, she just thinks it's such a powerful, powerful, and perfect kind of discussion of a very difficult topic. But I'm gonna read from your roadmap. You say, I have a friend whose ex-wife is an attorney for Curtin McConkie. He said her full-time job is negotiating out-of-court cash settlements with binding non-disclosure agreements for church members who allege sexual abuse by local church leaders. On average, he said, there is one such new claim each day. 30 years ago, Bob Wright, your co-author on the McKay biography, applied for the job of general counsel for the church. In a meeting with President Hinckley, who he had known for many years, the president said, "Bob, we have paid millions and millions of dollars to keep these sexual abuse cases out of court." This is not a new phenomenon, and it appears to be getting worse. Over the years, I've watched the movie Spotlight 3 times. It tells the gripping story of Roman Catholic Catholic sexual abuse by priests in the Boston area and the extensive cover-up by the hierarchy. A recurring thought is whether Spotlight 2.0 is just beneath the surface, this time involving LDS lay priesthood leaders, an extensive cover-up by the hierarchy. And this, this whole idea of Spotlight 2.0 is being discussed widely as there have been a number of sexual, high-profile sexual abuse cases that have been brought against the Church that have come up. And, and one of the biggest complaints— and Greg, I'd very much like to hear your perspective on this— one of the biggest complaints is that bishops and stake presidents, or any ecclesiastical leader that hears a confession of child sexual abuse, is counseled to call a hotline that leads directly to Curtin McConkie, and they are given legal advice that protects the church from liability. But the focus seems to be— particularly the way most critics are viewing this— the focus seems to be more on protecting the church protecting the church's legal liability than it is on safeguarding and protecting victims. Have you heard that, Greg, and what's your response to that?

I have heard an earful of that from my daughter as well as from other sources. My daughter used to be a producer for Vice News. Now she's been working several years at the Washington Post. But she produced a story with Vice News about a case in West Virginia that got to the courthouse steps. It almost blew up, and then they finally reached a settlement. But it was LDS sexual abuse. And as she was doing her research, she saw that very thing, Jim, that the telephone number in the General Handbook of Instructions went straight to Curtin McConkie, and it was all about protecting the church, and it said nothing about what do you do for the victim. Yeah, that's got to get fixed.

Well, and sometimes the bishops that call are told don't report, and the church's defense has been, well, we only say that in states where, uh, mandatory reporting is not required, but I would think we would wanna hold ourselves to a higher standard, Ian, wouldn't you?

I, I totally agree. Uh, there are a number of, in this area, amongst so many of the areas in the church, some really important cogs that are not functioning in the way that you would expect with a modern, organized, sophisticated religion, an intelligent religion like the Mormon faith, like the Mormon Church. Those cogs are, and they don't mesh. They should mesh. They should mesh legally. They should mesh ecclesiastically. They should mesh strategically and in terms of process, but they don't. For example, the bishops are not trained to deal with these issues, not professionally. They're dealing with issues that they have either little or no experience on. Secondly, the process of referring them to an LDS counselor for addiction or dealing with these issues and not automatically going to law enforcement or reporting it to the law is unclear, inconsistent. Again, the cogs don't mesh, they don't connect. The other piece, uh, as well, which is really important, is the, uh, clergy penitent privilege. So in the US law, eh, to some extent in Canada, UK, certainly, which I think where this originally came from. When you give a confession, just like you're dealing with a, a, a lawyer to some extent, some of the information, perhaps a lot of it, is protected under this clergy penitent laws, which have been around for quite some time. When you go to a, a professional like a doctor, that conversation is very confidential. However, there is a couple of areas where the doctor, if you're dealing with psychological issues and they ask you, are you feeling suicidal or a threat to yourself or a threat to others, they are legally duty-bound to disclose that to the authorities, of course, because they don't want you to harm yourself or to harm others. And I think this is another area where the church, the cogs don't work well, as well as they should, and there's not enough cohesiveness in the process and standardization across the, this entire confession process where a bishop would automatically refer someone or refer a situation or a case to law enforcement, which they should do automatically in cases of child abuse. I don't think that happens across the board. I think that is partly discretionary. I think there is also that layer of ecclesiastical oversight where you, your first, uh, uh, port of call is to contact a church hotline number, uh, legal number for legal counsel, and they will advise you on what to do and how to do it first and foremost before you even contact, uh, law enforcement. And I think there's a lot of disconnects in, in the ecclesiastical process on that as well. Um, And then the, the other thing is the, the, the church has a risk management committee. We've talked about this on the podcast. It's an official organized structure committee comprised of, uh, very intelligent individuals that assess risks towards the church. If you recall that question that I've shared often on the podcast about the first question that President Oaks asked me when he was calling me to the stake presidency here in British Columbia, first question was, is there anything in my history that could harm the church? I think I, I can understand that question, uh, I was shocked that that was the first question, but my impression of the church is that its first position, or one of the first positions, is to protect, protect the institution, protect its reputation, protect the institution, and to do what it can to manage the risk, limit the risk, and mitigate the risk towards the church. So, by following the internal processes within the church, it's able to control and regulate some of those activities. But when it comes to a point where a crime has been committed, I think the church is duty-bound, legally bound, to report that to the authorities. But I don't see that, Jim Bennett, Greg, I don't see that as being a standard that the church is doing enough on, frankly, and it's not consistent across the board. And I think one bishop in the same situation might do something quite different to another because of, for whatever reasons, risk, reputational risk, legal risk, financial risk. And the fact that in the roadmap, Greg, you've, you've mentioned very clearly that there's a group of people working on this full-time gives you some idea of how serious and the scale of the problem, notwithstanding the Catholic Church is a much larger organization, therefore more people, but the fact that the church is still not doing enough, in my opinion, to standardize processes which are legally compliant, and again, bringing in professionals. I would, my recommendation, the thing I would like to see in the, maybe the next version of the roadmap, is for the church to outsource this to an independent trusted, reliable committee of non-member professionals, they can actually, you know, process that if it doesn't have to go to a, you know, a law enforcement officer, which a lot of the time I think it does. So they're my initial thoughts on this. I think the church is improved, but I think it could do a lot better, Jim, in terms of training and standardization and and putting the victims first, which is what the statement said here. It said, it says here, quote, reporting processes prioritize victim safety above all else. I don't believe that yet. The church has improved, but I don't think the church is there yet.

Well, I think our commenters here are in agreement with you to some degree. Clayton Settle says, I see myself as brutally honest and fiercely loyal. That's in reference to critics, I think. I said that earlier. Guy McDude, great follow-up episode on the impact of sexual shame and the tire hits the road experience that many of us share with Chris Robinson. Robison is actually the name. His experience is largely parallel with mine. That was our last episode. Hello, beautiful humans. Hello, Deanne Sanchez. Uh, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but that seems very hard to believe. That has reference to the Wade Christofferson. Situation. What is unique to Mormonism is the truth claim surrounding authority and access to prophetic and leadership discernment. Yeah, that is a problem. And people think, okay, well, you're supposed to have this discernment and magically know when somebody's abusive, and that falls down all the time. Bruce Butcher says, it takes— took me some time to digest the part of my tithing that goes for settling lawsuits. I prefer to think of my tithing going to feed the hungry. Guy McDude says, The cost of maintaining the prophetic delusion of discernment is out of public view. Private victim dollar, dollar, dollar settlements.

Okay, I want to make 3 quick comments, Jim. Sorry, just really important things. Again, speaking from a position of a bishop, discernment does not work. That last comment is absolutely— it just doesn't work. You can't rely on discernment. Secondly, in America, they don't have the disclosure system like they've got in Scotland, UK, and Canada. We have to do these background checks and and do some disclosure. Third, the bishop, the state president's got the keys. I've got the authority to annotate records. And so, you know, if something's happened, and I've been involved in this personally, where a record has to be annotated or checked, that information, this type of information dealing with sexual abuse, domestic abuse, et cetera, where individuals are, have got predatory behavior, I'm quoting, one of the general authorities that trained us. That information is vital to know, understand, and capture, and to annotate the person's records, because if they move to another ward or branch, then that bishop needs to know, you know, what the, you know, what the background, uh, history is on that. So, um, that's really important to processes that exist, which I don't think all the bishops really follow or even understand, frankly.

Go ahead.

All right, we're almost through the comments, and then I, I want to particularly— Greg, I want you to weigh in on the whole idea of discernment. Uh, but it says, I advocate that all people— this is Clayton— should demand that their state pass mandatory reporting of abuse by clergy. These state laws allow abuse to be covered up due to clergy penitent privilege. Texas is a mandatory reporting state, and Utah obviously should be. With Utah's history of polygamy, they might take this issue seriously, and that is disgusting. Disturbing, but not— I don't know, they might not take this issue seriously. Yeah. Jim Bennett, are you in the attic? I responded, yep, that's exactly where I am. And then Deanne Sanchez says, glad you guys are addressing this issue. It's telling the institution values the claim to discernment over not only money, but which they obviously value quite highly, but also over the desired culture of victims come first. The church has admitted that a child abuser don't need a brother who is an apostle to be given access to children. It's normal course of action for the church. So, Greg, all that background, uh, can you weigh in a little bit on this whole issue of discernment? I mean, are we supposed to magically be—

on the whole issue, one, we've got a patchwork quilt of state laws that vary across the country. If the church really wanted to show some moral authority I would love to see them get out in front and lobby state by state to change the law so that there would be mandatory reporting of abuse. That's one. Second is that in the Catholic Church, because the priesthood is celibate, you don't have a problem that we have within Mormonism. Where the abuse is within the family. It can be spousal abuse that can be sexual or verbal or physical or all of the above. It can be children with all of the above as well. And so that's an added dimension that we need to be aware of in the church because that's much more common than anybody wants to with knowledge. And then finally, I recall the powerful talk that President Hinckley gave 20 years ago in the general priesthood meeting condemning racism. It was spot on, but it was one-off. And as soon as the echo died, people went on their way and assumed it applied to somebody else. This is an issue that's a dirty secret and not a dirty little secret that ought to be brought into the sunlight early and often. It needs to be discussed at the highest level, meaning at General Conferences, and repeatedly so, and candidly so. We don't need Little Factory Speeches 2.0.

Right.

We, we need to address this one head on, call it what it is, call it out, and do everything we can to minimize it. Given human nature, we're never gonna get rid of it completely, but we can certainly do better than we're doing now. That's a mouthful, but there's my response, Jim.

Well, Clayton Settle passionately agrees with you. I passionately agree with Greg. With the Epstein files out now, I don't trust any powerful people or organizations, including the church. This hits home for me. And the whole idea of discernment, I think, can cause real, real problems with people who think that they're exercising it when they don't necessarily have it. I have a family experience with that. One of my daughters, went to her— her BYU bishop called her into his office, and he said, you know, when you first came here, there was a light in your eyes. And she said, oh, well, thank you. And he said, well, and that light has gone out now, and the only way that that light can go out is through sexual immorality. And so I need to know who you're dating and who you've been sleeping with. With. Uh, completely spurious accusation, no merit to it whatsoever. I mean, she was a young freshman. This was entirely inappropriate. We called the stake president and said this was entirely inappropriate, and he said, oh, it doesn't matter, he's going to be released in a couple weeks anyway, so don't worry about it. But that has— I mean, that— those kinds of experiences are not rare. There are bishops who think that they have the spirit of discernment when they don't, and they do damage by making those kinds of accusations. And the flip side is somebody can walk in and be an absolutely terrible person, and the bishop doesn't get some kind of red bat signal that this— I mean, Ted Bundy was a member of the church. And nobody seemed to notice that he was a serial killer until the police did.

Yeah, you asked about discernment. I'll have to take a bye firsthand on that because I've not been a bishop. But I recall vividly 40-plus years ago with the Hoffman bombings that Hoffman had been fooling the church leaders for years about these forgeries. And there were highly publicized photographs showing him standing behind Spencer Kimball with other members of the higher—

magnifying glass.

Yes.

And more than a few people said, wait a minute, this is the prophet of the church. How come he was not able to discern that this was forgery? And it's a good question. It was an appropriate question to ask, and there were no good answers.

Clayton also brings up Huntsman's discernment screwed you up, Jim. He said that he knew you were getting the little factory going. Yes, I've told that story. I don't know if you know that story, Greg, but I don't want to divert into that. But, you know, that's an excellent point. The Hoffman stuff may be worth discussing, but I, it's interesting to me going back and looking at it afterwards. I, I had to respond to that when I wrote my CES letter reply. And I said, okay, well, what would have happened if Dallin Oaks had come out of the church office building and said, Moroni has appeared to me and told me that Mark Hoffman is a forger, and therefore we're going to excommunicate him and we're going to throw all this stuff away. I don't know that the world would have responded positively to that. And Mark Hoffman would have played the victim. And I mean, I mean, I just don't think it's that easy to say, okay, the prophet should have this magical power and he isn't a prophet if he doesn't. I think instead we should own up to the reality and the limits of what discernment is and isn't. And we should rely on, you know, particularly in cases of sexual abuse, we should rely on the same sorts of principles that govern legal sorts of problems in this regard. We shouldn't think we're above that.

Yeah, you just dug a hole. Too often we dig in the church that you created a dichotomy that doesn't work. I know you were speaking hypothetically on that, but the dichotomy is that, well, the prophet didn't discern this, therefore he can't be a prophet, right? And that's not a road you want to go down. What you have to do is look at the data and say, all right, whatever we think a prophet is, that definition needs to account for what we know about the real world. And what we know is that in fact, even though there is the potential for discernment, it's uneven. And it doesn't disqualify a person for any office if they don't always show that discernment. It's part of being human and error-prone.

The church, yeah, the church has painted itself into a very difficult corner on this issue of discernment. In my patriarchal blessing, which I won't read to you 'cause you might fall asleep, but it talks about me having the gift of discernment. And I was told repeatedly, especially when I was set apart as a bishop and also a stake president, that the gift of discernment I should rely on. And it would be a gift. It's a gift. You know, we talk about spiritual gifts and discernment is a, is a so-called gift. And I relied on that, um, often too much, but I would say a lot of the time, frankly, as a bishop or a stake presidency, and in the stake presidency, we didn't have a clue. We just didn't, didn't know. We, we could guess, we could surmise, uh, but we didn't have a clue. And I think sometimes leaders in the church rely— well, I know for a fact they do— they rely too much on discernment and not enough on old-fashioned background checks and research, you know, the, the, the, the, the ground stuff, the basic stuff. And I think that's, uh, that's unfortunate. I'll give you a quick example. We, as a new stake presidency, we received some training from a general authority who I didn't like at all. He was a real arrogant, uh, individual. I've got a few words I, I won't share here, but a very arrogant individual, I thought, and very, um, anyway. And so, and, and we talked about this and talked about some kind types of questions that we should be asking members, uh, and in particular how to conduct a priesthood interview. And I was advised, uh, we were advised, I think we were there as a presidency, um, instead of asking somebody if they're viewing pornography, you ask them 'When was the last time you viewed pornography?' And I was taken aback by that. And I said, I'm, I said, 'What?' Uh, he said, 'Yeah, that's the question that you should be asking.' I said, 'I'm not gonna ask that question.' I said, you know, we're assuming that people are watching pornography or looking at it, et cetera, and I'm not gonna make that assumption. And so that, that was a, uh, an attempt by the channel authority to try to generate some kind of reaction from the individual to confess because his assumption was that a lot of guys are looking at pornography, but I felt completely uncomfortable with that approach and that was right up there with, do you still beat your wife?

Right, right. When did you stop beating your wife?

When did you stop beating your wife? I mean, it's just crazy. The other thing I want to say as well is that, which concerns me as well with the, the, the public, uh, the public or press statement from the church is that, um, if somebody has been found guilty in the church or legally or through law enforcement of committing a serious crime or sexual abuse, et cetera, especially if it's dealing with sexual abuse, why on earth are they re— are they readmitted to the church? I'm not a judge.

I don't judge.

I try, we have to, we make judgments all the time, but I'm not the final judge in people's lives. But I would imagine it would be difficult, almost impossible, for, let me reframe that. I think it's wrong in many cases, if not all cases, and this is my personal opinion, you can disagree with it. For anyone who's committed a crime against children or sexual abuse to frankly to be readmitted into the church. Now you can argue that, you know, they get health, mental health treatment and support, et cetera, gonna be rehabilitated. And we have our own views on whether that's possible or not. You know, Greg, you refer it to as an illness and I don't know enough about it to comment on this, but you know, if someone is going to be readmitted into the church, my goodness, you've got to do your due diligence, right? We're talking about children. We're talking about vulnerable individuals in the church. And I just want to just finish this, this part of this comment off from what Greg was saying, because I think it needs to be highlighted and underlined 3 times in bold. As the true Church of Jesus Christ on the earth, the church can and should be doing so much more to changing laws, updating laws, putting in other processes and regulations, going above and beyond way more than it is right now to protect children and vulnerable people in the church. And why is it not doing that? If you look at the, look at the, what Jesus said, and it's, I tie this what Christ said right to the roadmap that Greg's put together. What did Jesus say about anyone hurting children? Well, he said this in Matthew 18:6, King James Version. Whosoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it will be better for him if a milestone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea. We're taught that Christ saves his worst wrath for those who offend and abuse children. The church has a legal, moral, spiritual heavenly sacred obligation to do far, far more than it has with all the resources that it's got to be doing exactly what Greg Prince has told, has advised to do this evening and changing laws and putting in every measure possible to protect innocent vulnerable children, people who are in these vulnerable groups and it's not doing that. And so shame on the church for not doing enough. Is it, is it, is it doing something? Sure. And where it's making progress, good. But it's not doing enough and it could do better and it could do more. So beyond the rhetoric, it needs to put all these things in action and lead the conversation and lead the way forward because that's what Christ would want his church to do, right?

Yeah, we've, we've been painted into a bit of a corner by the statement that the church never apologizes. All right, if it doesn't want to apologize, it should at least acknowledge that it's got a problem and acknowledge it openly and often and in very candid terms.

Well, do you think they're going to do that, or what's going to make them do that?

Um, I think what could make them do that is if this blows up into Spotlight 2.0. So far they've been quite successful in sweeping it under the rug, but at some point somebody's going to say, you're not going to buy me off. I'm going to go public with this and I'm going to blow the lid on it. And if it goes public like that, then look out. I don't know what will happen, but it will not be a happy ending.

Well, so comments. Sorry that happened to your daughter. LDS ecclesiastical abuse at its worst. Thank you, Ted's 5133. I said it before and it bears repetition. Discernment is just thinly veiled ecclesiastical manipulation and abuse. Anyone who invokes discernment is putting up a red flag. For all to see. Thank you, Guy McDude. Clayton says, when there is a bad priesthood leader, your son's mission president, your daughter bishop, daughter's Bishop John Huntsman, etc., bad priesthood leaders can really screw up your life. Better to keep them at a distance. So apparently I've provided— I've had some wonderful priesthood leaders, and so have my family, but there have been some bad ones. Discernment. Stake patriarchs had to be reeled in by the church for the very specific prophetic discernment about everything. More specific, you'll live to see the second coming of our Savior. There's a guy in my ward whose patriarchal blessing tells him he will be dead before the Second Coming. So I'm always like, as long as my neighbor is still alive, Jesus isn't coming back. Um, let's see. Um, Ian shared another example of ecclesiastical abuse. When is the last time you viewed pornography? Assuming people do is inappropriate. You're right, Tedz. Uh, Malek Sosh says it violates the principle of burden of proof. Person making the accusation must provide evidence. Amen, Ian, says Deanne. And large settlements, add a few dollar dollar zero zero zero zeros. Yeah. Uh, you know, so I mean, Greg, Wade Christofferson, this has gone public. Uh, we interviewed Chelsea Goodrich who talked about her $300,000. They offered her what, $300,000, Ian?

Yeah, yeah, she also has been on 3 times, and if you go back into the podcast, uh, catalog, uh, she's— it's extraordinary what she went through, you know, with the church.

So, so, I mean, there have been highly publicized sorts of things. Spotlight— from the movie Spotlight, it, it makes— the Catholic Church is somewhat different in that, again, you have just such a small percentage of people who have that ecclesiastical authority, and you had a deliberate attempt by church leaders to move them around. They knew who they were, but they were moving them around. With the sort of lay clergy that you have in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, uh, you don't have the ability to do that.

You just release them quiet.

You just release them quietly and hope they don't bother anybody. Yeah, but, uh, so, so that makes it— I think it makes it a lot harder both to pin it on any sort of specific church leader, but at the same time also make it harder for church leaders even who want to deal with it and fix it. Uh, it makes it harder for them to find any kind of large-scale solution to it. Do you have any sort of a large-scale solution to it, Greg, or is this something that we just have to deal with, uh, eat one case at a time?

The best way to sanitize it is to shine the sunlight on it. Acknowledge it openly and repeatedly. Otherwise, it's going to keep in the shadows and continue to grumble, and then occasionally it'll blow up. That's not the way to handle it. And I think it's, it, it's under a large umbrella of priesthood abuse. Section 121 nails it, except it gets one thing a little bit wrong. It says it's the nature of nearly all men. I think nearly shouldn't be in that statement. It's the nature of all of us, when we get authority, when we get power, the temptation is always there to abuse it. It may be a bishop over a ward. It may be a quorum leader over a quorum. It may be a father over his family. I don't see that there's much distinction in those three, because in each case, abuse can cause permanent harm, and that simply cannot be tolerated.

Well, and not just sexual abuse.

I mean, oh, no, I would say sexual, physical, emotional, verbal. It's all part of the same category of abuse. And verbal abuse can be every bit as damaging as sexual or physical abuse.

Well, and when you're talking about ecclesiastical leaders and verbal abuse, you're not just talking about somebody that is screaming at you or calling you a jerk or telling you you're awful. You're talking about somebody who says, well, since I am your ecclesiastical leader— I mean, they cited the example of my son who served his mission. There was a scandal in the MTC around people, both— I had twin boys that both went to two different missions in Argentina. One went to a mission and the mission president said, oh, you had nothing to do with this scandal. Neither one of them did. But he said, you had nothing to do with this scandal, so just go to work and you're going to be fine. And the other one was told, oh gee, uh, you may have had something to do with this. And so you're going to have to report to me every week, uh, after you study these, these scriptures on repentance. And we're going to decide whether or not we're going to send you home. Both of them came home 7 months into their mission for COVID, and the one that had the mission president that was judging him was covered from head to toe in cystic acne, uh, which was a physical manifestation of the kind of guilt and shame that he felt. And he was diagnosed with scrupulosity as a medical condition and is still being treated for it today, 5 years after his mission. That did tremendous damage, and it wasn't a mission president who was sexually abusing him, uh, or even, uh, insulting him, but the judgment and the, the bad judgment and the bad sense of discernment, uh, did him lasting harm. How do you fix that, especially in a, in a lay church?

Uh, it's, it's a really good question. Back in the, I think it was the early '90s, Lavina Anderson wrote a lengthy, well-documented article in Dialogue about ecclesiastical abuse, and it cost her her church membership.

She won't— they can't even— they won't rebaptize her posthumously.

No, no. So that tells you how deeply entrenched that culture is. I don't know how close we are to being able to have full disclosure, to admit that we have this problem, and to call it out and continually try to fix it. It, it's not going to be an endpoint. It's going to be a continual journey. Because of human nature, this is always in the room. You don't— it's like chronic disease. You don't cure it, but you manage it. Right, right.

If there's any evidence that the church is not led by Christ, or that Christ is not leading this church, or is not head of this church, it's this issue. I can't think of a more serious subject than this that Christ would be, you know, most interested in. This is number one, in my opinion, in his mind. I think the, the scriptures make— to me at least, that's my interpretation. And the fact that the church isn't doing enough, isn't doing what Christ would do— if Christ was here, you know, and he was aware of this, he would go above and beyond to the losing of his own life, no matter what it would take to protect, you know, vulnerable individuals in the church. The other thing that we haven't talked about, which is another cog that's not joined up or not connected, a serious issue. Who's the friendliest church on the planet, would you say? Who's in the top 3 friendliest churches?

The friendliest church?

Yeah. Who's the church who really wants people to join the church? And bring them in and befriend them. They'd be really nice and be all over them. Us, look what we do. We do whatever it takes to meet people, to befriend them, to welcome them, and they come into our congregations and we don't know the background. If you say hi to the missionaries, what do they do? If someone said hello to you, Jim Bennett, on your mission, um, what, you know, hi, uh, You know, what are you? What do you do? What would you do? You in Scotland, because it happened very rarely, if ever, you and I would be all over these people because they were interested in the church in Scotland, right? You know what that mission was like. It was tough, right? It was hell, right? The missionaries are trained, conditioned to respond friendly in the most friendliest way to befriend people. To welcome them, to come on in. The church doors are open, they're coming in. So that leads to a quick example. So back in '99, I was a young bishop, just been called, feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, uh, the first few months, first few weeks, first few days actually. And an individual comes into the building and walks along the corridor and comes through the second door and sits at the back. No big deal. I don't know, we don't know these people. I don't know this individual rather. I don't recognize them. And as a ward, we were incredibly friendly. The whole ward was the friendliest ward on the planet. Um, these are just wonderful, wonderful saints and any new face would be greeted with love and welcome and warmth. Anyway, halfway through the, uh, the sacrament service,, a member passed me a note, and in the note it said that this person that had walked in had a history of child sex, sexual abuse. And, uh, that was it. That was the message that I got. So before the, uh, um, uh, meeting ended, I'd passed another note to two priesthood leaders just to, um, have them, on standby as, as, as, uh, as ushers, a quick note. So the meeting finished. I, I could keep an eye on this individual. Meeting ended. And then at the end, myself and these two other, uh, individuals approached this person in a very, um, respectful way and started to, uh, ask questions and ask them who they are and, and, uh, get their name. And while they were in the building,, we didn't leave them. They remained in sight. Meanwhile, immediately after sacrament, within minutes of finishing the conversation to learn a bit more about this individual, I contacted the local police station, which is fortunately right next door to the building. They used to use our building to do all, to do the, the, um, young driver's challenge. So we knew the police authorities really well. I called a person that I knew really well in at police station, explain the situation, and within minutes, 5, 10 minutes, uh, 2 officers showed up and escorted— I'd given the name of this person to the police authorities. The police showed up and escorted this individual out of the building. And when you came into the building, by the way, Greg, Jim, on the left, what did we have? I had youth class where they were placed, and then we had the primary. Just as you came through into that part of the building. So this shocked me so much, it unhinged me so much, and I was so concerned that this individual had walked into our congregation, and without that knowledge of who this individual was, without that information that the member had, that person could have stayed in that building and wandered wherever unchecked, not followed. I mean, why would we follow people? We're not, We're not like that. But thank goodness a member had the foresight to, uh, well, we had the, the, the knowledge of this individual. They were removed. And what did I do the next week? Within a week, I moved youth class and primary right to the back of the building, right next to my office, to a door that was an emergency exit, but you couldn't get into the, into that door. That was an exit door. You could leave. You couldn't get into the building. So I purposely moved the entire youth classes and the primary right next to me, right next to the Relief Society, right at the back near the exit, couldn't get in. And I brought the priesthood right to the, to the front. It unhinged me so much. I couldn't bear the thought of anyone coming into the building and, you know, harming or, you know, injuring, uh, any, anyone., and of course including the specialist children. I reported this to, some of the leaders, and frankly, it, it was, it was serious for a, the time I was on the phone, but after that it was, you know, it, it just didn't go anywhere. So yeah, that was my experience, but the church is not doing enough, and I think this is the, the single most important issue in the mind of Christ, in my opinion.

Well, we have some solutions from the comments. Malak Sash says, solution number 1, professionalize the clergy.

Um, that's not necessarily an answer because if you look at all the traditions that have professional clergies, they got this problem too.

That's correct. I, that's exactly what I was thinking there. Polygamy was priesthood abuse. That's another discussion altogether. Solution number 2, organize the church under episcopate led by a patriarch of the church. I don't know what that means. Does anybody else know what that means? Okay, anyway. So Greg and Jim, you all know a lot of powerful apostles and GAs. Do you feel like the road— oh, but Ian, apparently you don't. But you do. Do you feel like the roadmap or this podcast is actually influencing any major decisions or discussions among the brethren?

Great question.

Uh, I'd be surprised if it were, to be honest. I don't know how high-profile we are enough.

I, I have no knowledge of it. Uh, I sit beyond my 2,000-mile buffer zone. Well, don't regret it.

Well, Greg, you have written some very influential books, I think. Uh, do you get a sense that David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism or Gay Rights in the Mormon Church have sparked any conversations among the brethren?

I know in the case of the McKay biography, because one of the '70s who was over the history department told me this repeatedly, he said when new General Authorities were called, they frequently would come to him and ask for reading lists because they were not steeped in church history.

Dot.

And he said your McKay book was always on the list near the top.

Uh, I'm glad to hear that.

But, uh, I was also told that Elder Holland, who I knew well for over 50 years, loved the McKay book, and President Packer hated the McKay book.

So there you go. That is not a surprise either.

Uh, but, uh, I, I don't know if or how any of my books have been discussed in any council meetings. Maybe in the conversation in the hallway, but I don't know. They have not discussed them with me. That's what I know.

Just a quick comment to that. When we were preparing for this, uh, program this evening, um, three of us, we exchanged some ideas about the opportunity inside our office as a, I think, a very safe platform, a very safe, balanced perspective, uh, of the church. People disagree with that, that's fine. Um, for, uh, for an op, for, for a general authority to come onto Inside Out. And have a respectful, constructive, thoughtful, kind conversation about an issue that they wanted to talk about, even faith-promoting. In our exchange back and forward, I even suggested I step back and, uh, back out of that and that you two, uh, have run the podcast for that particular program, have the conversation with the General Authority., in order for this person to feel safe and secure and to come on to the podcast and have the conversation. I think that is a powerful opportunity for the leaders to meet and engage with people and to come out into the open in public and to talk about things and try to answer questions. And if they can't and they don't have the answers, that's fine. But what a great opportunity, especially right now with what's going on in the world. And dealing with these issues to come on to Inside Out or another podcast that they feel safe on and to at least let's see them. Let's be, let's have a conversation, just a normal, regular adult conversation and don't be afraid. And the invitation still stands. Come on Inside Out. If you want me not to be on the podcast, I'm fine with that. You know, Greg and Jim Bennett, you know, can lead that, et cetera. But what a, what a wonderful opportunity to be able to come on and to be able to, don't have to do it live, you can even do an audio, right? Keep it safe.

Yeah, about a decade or so ago, and I keep bringing up my association with Wesley Seminary because it is an important association, we organized a 2-day symposium at the seminary on retention of youth. Which is a really important issue for all religious traditions, including the Latter-day Saints. I thought it was important enough that I wanted to get somebody from Salt Lake out to it. So I reached out to one of the Seventies I knew and made the request. He took it up the chain and they sent back the head of one of the auxiliary organizations, the General President. Who in 2 days was a bump on the log, sat there and did not say one word. The problem that I saw then, I sense still exists, and that is that their comfort zone is very small, and they are very reluctant to move outside it,, and to put them in a situation where they do not control the agenda or the discussion is not likely to lead to a very productive outcome. So that's from my own experience. I was deeply disappointed. I was embarrassed because I had made the pitch to the president of the seminary that this was going to be a really important thing to have somebody at that level come to that symposium.

Well, fine. Let them, let them, let them. That's fine. Let them come on. We can discuss their agenda, talk about what they want to talk about. They can control it. They, you know, they can have some control. We'll ask questions, but at least come on and have a conversation, just a normal conversation. Right.

Well, so, so I have had conversations with people, not General Authorities, but people who work particularly for the Church Communications Department. And one of them, I was told, just so you know, we love your podcast. And I said, really? Even though we're sometimes critical? And he said, you are having conversations that we are not allowed to have. Yeah. And this particular guy said, and this is again, not a name anybody would recognize. And this is not Aaron Sherinian, if anybody's thinking it's Aaron Sherinian. There in Syrinium. But this particular guy said, um, I proposed that we love bomb John Dehlin, that we get a General Authority to go on John Dehlin, and that we— I mean, there are people in the church bureaucracy, in the church office building, that, Ian, I think agree with you 100%. Uh, the reluctance comes, I think, from the general authorities who would be the ones who would have to be out on the front lines on that. I still think that the John Sweeney, Jeff Holland interview just lingers as just an absolute disaster. And since then, and that was over 10 years ago, since then there has not been a significant conversation between a high-ranking church official and the media, other than like Peggy Fletcher Stack interviewing the new apostles and asking them the same questions every time about, you know, what do you— I mean, there are certain things they're willing to do because they see them as safe. But the kind of, even in, you know, even if we agreed, okay, you could talk about what you want, I think, Greg, your point that they're not going to go someplace they can't control. And I really miss President Hinckley in that regard because he stepped into the lion's den a number of times, and he was good at it, and he made the Church look good. He went on Larry King and was asked difficult questions, and he went— Mike Wallace grilled him about, uh, the priesthood ban, and his answer was, "That's behind us," which I think was a little too dismissive. But at the same time, he stood there and listened to the question and didn't dodge the question. Uh, and, you know, and didn't lose his cool the way Geoff Holland did. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you want to read Clayton's question there? Because we have an answer, Clayton, to your question. That's a great question. You kind of beat me to it. Go ahead, Jim Bennett, read that. There's a few questions there.

Which one? There's a new one? Uh, well, if you ask me— I thought you were going to get that BBC guy on here. Did he chicken out?

Should we tell Clayton where we are with that?

Sure.

So, uh, Greg, this will be interesting for you. Do you remember that train wreck of an interview that happened between, uh, a, I think, award-winning, uh, very high-figure journalist with the BBC? You've probably seen that video. It was an interesting, uh, interview. We talked about that. Anyway, I'm in touch with John Sweeney, and John Sweeney has agreed to come on Inside Out after May 1st, when he has completed his book. He and I are gonna be talking by phone in the next week or two to kind of put some kind of agenda together. But right now, John Sweeney, who interviewed, uh, President Holland, uh, will be at the moment, uh, will be coming on to Inside Out probably around May probably middle or end of May sometime. So Clayton, that's your question.

I have, uh, I guess a little bit of a naughty suggestion for you. See if he'll come on twice and say, John, the first episode we want to interview you. Second episode, you can interview us.

Oh, I think that would be so much fun.

I think that's genius. Absolutely genius.

Yeah.

I think that's great. Um, he's very responsive. He's very busy writing his book. Uh, I gave him a bit of a background, you know, in terms of who we are and what we do. But Clayton, great question. You kind of stole my win there, which is fine. And I think Greg's idea, how we structure that, Jim, is— I think, I think, uh, Sweeney would be up for that for sure, doing, doing two like that. So great idea, Greg. Thank you.

Jim, I'm looking at the bottom comment there by Deanne Sanchez. I want to jump in on that. Um, go ahead and read it.

It says, I'm so glad you're having these discussions. The church doesn't provide a safe space for members to have discussions. Okay.

I spoke a week or so ago with one of the vice presidents at Wesley. She has overseen a portfolio of substantial, meaning multimillion dollar grants from the Lilly Endowment. To study the dilemma of engagement in churches by the youth and young adults. And everybody has that problem. Mormonism is no exception to it. The work has not been finished, but I said, what's your bottom line so far? And she said, the one thing that really stands out is if there is a congregation that is welcoming, that has integrity, and that provides a safe space for the youth to ask the questions they want to ask, they want to ask. That's what correlates with youth engagement in organized religion. So spot on in that suggestion there. We have not provided a safe space. In fact, we have gone the opposite direction, that if you try independently to provide that space, as in study groups, it's very likely that somebody at some point will try to shut it down.

Well, it's, it's interesting you would say that because our state conference is coming up, and, um, we got an email from the state.

I saw that, and I know Mark He's a good guy, so it'll be interesting to see.

It will be interesting, but—

He used to be the Bishop of Westwood Ward, and my brother was his counselor.

Oh, really? Yeah. Was he the same guy that made the, um, New York Doll movie? I don't know. What's his last name?

Mark Bragg.

Mark Bragg. Oh, I'm thinking of Mark Whiteley.

No, Mark Bragg was the Bishop in Westwood Ward, and then he was President of the LA Stake. A really, really fine guy.

Well, it will be interesting because when we saw that, I went, oh, are they going to just sift through it and find questions that say, how can I study my scriptures better? Or, you know, I mean, the kinds of questions that they're happy to answer because nobody really is looking for an answer to them.

Yeah. When I was spending a lot of time with Paul Dunn, he said that for a while until they shut it down, he would occasionally call ahead to a stake president and say, I'm going to be there for stake conference. I want a special session Saturday afternoon that will have you, the stake president, me, the visiting authority, and the women of the stake, period. Hmm. And he said we would have an opening song and an opening prayer, and I would get up at the podium and say, 'Your questions, please.' Hmm. And he said it was predictable. The first couple of questions would be, 'Oh, Elder Dunn, what's it like to be a General Authority?' And then somebody would timidly raise a hand and say, 'Elder Dunn, is it abuse if your husband demands sex of you?' Or in another case, Uh, Elder Dunn, what do you do if you know of sexual abuse of a man abusing his grandchild? And oh, by the way, he's the stake patriarch. And he said you could just feel the air go out of the room, and then it was nonstop questions that were substantive questions. That's what can't happen, but I think It freaked out some of his colleagues and they told him not to do it anymore. But that's the type of safe space that needs to be created.

And there isn't anything like that. There isn't anything like that.

Like that. Uh, I, uh, I may have mentioned this before on this podcast, but, uh, my wife and I were at a lunch at a Mormon History Association meeting with a member of the Seventy. And I asked if they ever took a pulse of the leadership, or of the church. And he said, yeah, we'll do focus groups. Well, who are your focus groups? Bishops of Salt Lake Valley. And my response is what was, what it still is, and that is, you need to hear from the people who are angry you and who will even yell at you, because if you don't hear that, you're never going to fix what the problem really is.

Uh, Jim, I think Craig's nailed it again. Um, the church is failing to create this safe space, place for people to ask their questions. This is the reason why I left One of the reasons that I had questions, I had questions about the essays. I mean, the essays were written by and approved by the First Presidency and approved individuals. So when they came out in 2013 and I, on the Stake Presidency, mentioned, you know, the first essay that came out, I was shut down by almost every individual even talking about these things and even suggested that someone had uploaded the Race and the Priesthood document to the church's website, and it wasn't official. So the church, again, isn't doing enough to create this safe space. If you remember, back in 2020, there was a face-to-face event with Elder Ronald Rasband. He was the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, still is, and he addressed a young adult named Harry who was considering leaving the church. Due to concerns with its truth claims. There's a video on this, by the way. You can go online and you can watch this face-to-face meeting and how Elder Rasband responds. Instead of responding directly to the question, Elder Rasband reframed the question. Just think about that for a moment. So again, it says here, instead of directly answering the query about why one should stay, Elder Rasband encouraged reframing the question, focusing instead on why I choose to stay. And then he went ahead and gave a whole bunch of reasons why one should choose to stay in the church. So if you're going to have a face-to-face and you're going to get questions, don't be disrespectful.

And just—

that's just light of bad manners, in my view. By changing the person's question and changing the whole narrative and the whole framing of the question. We need to have what I would say is the ugly truth conversation, the ugly truth questions, the anger that Greg's talking about, the frustration, you know, that I felt and still feel and many others, you know, let's have some, you know, I use the word intestinal fortitude, have the grit have the courage, just like former apostles and prophets, to come out into the public. I mean, what a novel idea, right? To be able to put yourself, like we are, look at us, three gentlemen, right? Claim to have some insights on these issues and some of the answers, at least, opening ourselves up publicly right here, live on this episode. Sure, we've not got people calling in, Maybe we could do that in the future, Jim Bennett. But people can post and write and ask us all kinds of questions. I don't think we've stepped away from any of the questions. I think we've tried to answer every question, Jim Bennett, either the audio or at least live. I don't think we've shirked any of the questions or dodged any questions. We don't know the answer. I think we've said so. And so if we're going to have these, if we're going to create a safe space, let's do it in a very genuine, in a very real way. And let's not reframe someone's question. And let's— and if we don't know, that's okay. And if we made a mistake, that's okay too. We made a mistake, we got it wrong. We'll have respect for you if you can do that. So again, it's a missed opportunity when the church goes completely different direction opposite. And we're talking about right now, can't they see that the damage it does? This experience with Elder Rasband reaffirms that the Church is not ready to have these conversations, is not ready to listen genuinely to these questions and address them. It's not ready. Christ is ready, but his church is not ready, seemingly.

Well, speaking of questions— oh, go ahead. Does somebody have a comment? No? We're at an hour and 11 minutes, and we So we should be wrapping it up. I just want to breeze through a few of these questions and comments. We had talked about Gustavo, our friend Gustavo says, when I have talked about this with church friends and asked them what they think about the silence, they repeat the famous quote, some things that are true are not very useful. It's going to take something catastrophic to wake up church leadership, says Deanne Sanchez.

I agree with that. I agree. Yeah.

Malek Sosh talks about the Latin Rite. This is the Latinate that he mentioned before. Gustavo said, it reminds me of the movie Silence by Martin Scorsese. What do you do when you're a religious leader, you're facing a crisis and God remains silent? I sometimes think that's kind of where Dallin Oaks is at the moment, is that he's just overwhelmed with the fact that he's now the guy in the big chair and the answers aren't pouring down from heaven. He made that clear in his devotional, and that's got to be kind of terrifying to some degree. Anglican Communion, as Malak Sosh clarifies. Salvation Army. Okay, these are all different models that Malak Sosh is recommending. Such a change erodes the prophetic claim of direct revelation from God, the main value proposition of revelatory discerning prophets. Nothing is more valuable to those at the top of the power hierarchy To be a prophet is to be God. Okay, that's, uh, well, that, that's a whole discussion in and of itself. Church leaders purposely ignore people with ideas and suggestions. Suggestions are not welcome. Boyd Packer was a poor leader. Ted, that's a nice way to put it. Uh, you are absolutely right, Ted, says Deanne Sanchez. An episcopate is a church organized as diocese led by bishops and the patriarch being the highest ranking bishop. Professional blue sample on spiritual work requires a civil service focused on mundane— oops— uh, work like managing buildings. Arm's length plausible deniability. No stronger endorsement exists for a book's quality and veracity than Packer hating it. Congrats, Greg. There's a good review for you. Why apologists exist in a religion that claims a direct connection to God. Another tell. Did you have a comment? No. Uh, hey Ian, I thought you were going to get that. Oh, we already talked about one. When I hear apologists go on and on about church claims, I think one thing: the lady doth protest too much, methinks. Jim Bennett, so glad. Yes, we talked about that one. Curious if the children of God seeking divine communion during the Great Apostasy sought so-called prophets to discuss contemporary revelations from God to no avail too. The quacks like a duck. Deanne Sanchez gave you an amen, Greg. Pick me, I am angry and yelling. Let's have a Sunday school class today in the Gospel Topics Essays. Who's down? You know, they have proposed those, and I've heard that there have been some of those. I don't know that they have been particularly successful, or they may have been in isolation. I know before I left on my mission, my father was my Sunday school teacher, and he said, we're just going to talk about what anybody wants to talk about. And we had some really great discussions, but he just didn't have a manual. We didn't do anything, and that's just not okay anymore, if it ever was. But that's a rare thing. I just met the church and initiated, but inside out could do it. Haha. I respect all three of you because I don't think your answers are authoritative. I see your answers as fallible opinions from personal experience and inspiration, not revelatory. Oh, well, we need to up our game. We need to be revelatory.

We had three revelations last week. Week live, live in front of the entire world, and one of them we reversed.

Do you remember that? Yeah, you walked one of them back. Uh, that's all right. This podcast is amazing, and I hope people will be led here to listen and learn. That is the last of our comments. So brethren, do you have any parting words before we finish?

It would be interesting if the church had a class to discuss these questions, gave guidelines to the instructors, and then asked for feedback that included, did this address the issues to the satisfaction of the members? We never have that feedback loop. It's a fire and forget. You launch the missile, you assume it reaches its target. Let's get the feedback so that we know that we are reaching the members on the level where they really have the concerns.

That would be excellent. I would love that. Clayton is calling you out, Ian. Ian is pulling a Nelson. Rescinding a revelation is also a revelation. Very convenient, eh? Anyway, Ian, your parting thoughts here.

My parting thoughts is the The one thing that stood out for me the most on in this conversation is what Greg Prince said, and that is that the church can and should be doing way more than it is to protect, uh, children and vulnerable people in the church, that it should be out there leading the charge, changing regulations, improving them, changing laws. Going from state to state, place to place, and being, being the most strongest advocate of improving and changing these laws across the land and across the world in order to protect these individuals. And if they did that, I believe they would be in line and alignment with Christ. If Christ was here, I believe that's what he would be doing. I think this is the number one, the most serious, the most important issue impacting not just the Mormon Church, but other churches and organizations in the world today. I can't think of anything more serious and more important than the thing that we've talked about today. And following the advice of Greg Prince, leading, taking the initiative, as the true Church of Christ, and that having that, fulfilling that sacred obligation to protect those individuals is the most important responsibility that the church has based on its claims of authority and, you know, prophetic vision and authority.

Amen. So Uh, just, uh, and Guy McDude says, forgive me, I am fallible too. I forgot about Ian's revelations. Curious, would either of you accept if called as a church apostle? Sure. I can say that because I know it's not going to happen. Uh, you three guys are the best. Also, our friends Bruce Butcher went on Richard Osler's podcast. I saw that. Just trying to publicize my brother Bruce. Richard Osler has invited us on a podcast and has given me dates, and I haven't gotten back to him, Ian. We're, we're, uh, Richard Osler is a wonderful guy and we very much want to go on his podcast and, and he has invited us. So that's out there, but we have not accepted a specific date anyway. Uh, thank you both. This has been wonderful. Thank you all for your comments. Uh, I, I, this is just so much fun. I just look forward to this every week. Uh, and, uh, we look forward to speaking with you again. Next time on Inside Out. So thank you everybody, and we'll sign off here.