Nemo the Mormon Returns!

Hello and welcome to the very latest episode of Inside Out, the program in which we talk to extraordinary people about the Mormon Church and faith. I'm your co-host, Ian Wilkes, and the other guy, of course, is Mr. Jim Bennett. Hello, Jim, how are you?

I am doing well. Very excited to have this guest back. This is a delightful human being we're going to have on here.

He is, he is, and we're honored, truly honored to have this wonderful individual with us today. At the beginning, I said that we talk to extraordinary people, and there is no one more extraordinary than Nemo the Mormon. Welcome, Nemo.

Hi, I mean, I'm gonna have to push back straight away. There are plenty of people more extraordinary than me, definitely, but I appreciate it nonetheless. Thank you for having me.

Well, it's an honor to have you with us, of course, and you bring extraordinary insights into these conversations. We're looking forward to having some interesting dialogue with you and making a little bit of fun. And you're joining us all the way from the motherland in the UK, in England.

Indeed.

Yeah, it's great to hear another Brit accent. I miss that.

I'm outnumbered. What did you say about Greg Prince?

No, I said you're outnumbered by redcoats.

Oh, by redcoats.

Absolutely.

Yeah, keep an eye out. We're gonna, we're taking over, Jim. So we have, uh, we have an exciting and somewhat different approach for today's conversation for our trusty listeners. So over the weekend, I was inspired by 1 Nephi 16:10, um, and created a Liahona type instrument, indeed a device of curious workings. And we've called it the Infallibility Meter. So inspiration aside, it's basically a spinner in the shape of an arrow on a circular piece of cardboard, similar to the ones that you get on the Twister games. The circular cutout piece of cardboard reveals 14 articles or topics. We tried to do 13, but we had an extra space, and for extra measure, Jim Bennett, you and I talked about adding a 14th article of faith or article of fun. And so the idea is to spin the arrow and discuss the topic the arrow stops at and review the topic from the perspective of fallibility versus infallibility. You know, where the church made a good decision or perhaps a poor decision, where there's a human component into the policies or principles or practices or behaviors of the church. Sometimes it's a mixture. Where you have heavenly-inspired principles combined, combined with human decisions and behaviors. So the topics are quite broad with some specific topics to allow for detail, and I'll go through them with you right now in brief. Starting off, we've got here the Book of Mormon topic. We've got Articles of Faith. We have church finances and church financial management. We have family. Missionary program, Christianity, living prophets, local members, Relief Society and women, the Tabernacle Choir, one that's near and dear to Jim Bennett's heart, polygamy, race in the priesthood, humanitarian work, major global issues of the day, and we're back to Book of Mormon. That's 14, uh, articles or 14 topics. So, uh, and then unlike the real Leona, which operates exclusively on faith, this one operates on fun with a sprinkling of faith and yes, some critical thinking. So Nemo, Jim, uh, was that clear? Or was, did I, was I not clear on that? Are we clear as mud?

It's clear.

It's clear on this end.

We're on that. Okay. So, uh, without further ado, I'm going to spin the infallibility meter and we'll see what topic it lands on. Thank you for that sound, Nemo. We did need that sound. It's just over the line, but it's on family.

Family.

So Jim, do you want to kick us off? And keeping in mind, of course, we had an interesting talk from Elder Oaks, President Oaks now., who talked about, and Elder Rasband talked about the proclamation, and there was a bit of a focus, a refocusing on the family. I know, you know, I know you know that, but do you want to kick us off on, you know, on that topic?

Sure. I, you know, so I'm trying to figure out the right way to be framing this, because if we're talking about this in terms of fallibility versus infallibility, I mean, obviously I don't believe anything in the church is infallible. And I wouldn't think either you or Nemo would think that either. But with regard to family, so I guess it becomes a question of how much is the church getting right in our opinion and how much is the church getting wrong. And with regard to family, I think that in terms of the broader principles of family, this is one of the things that the church really gets right when we embrace sort of the positive aspects of it. All too often when you start talking about the church and you start talking about family, it becomes a negative conversation. It becomes a conversation about excluding LGBTQ people. It becomes a conversation about families we don't like. And that has sort of become the centerpiece of the faith of so many people online, that the most important principle of the gospel is making sure that LGBTQ people are always second class or below. And so that is a problem that I find very frustrating. But one of the reasons why I really, really loved President Oaks's talk in this last conference is that for the first time in memory, at least for me, President Oaks was citing the family proclamation in a way that was entirely positive. That was, you know, the, the whole idea that the main, um, structure of eternity is familial and that family is really the most important component of the mortal experience. And he talked about his own family and the challenges that he had being raised by a single mother and how his father having passed away that his grandfather sort of stepped into that role. It was a very It was a very humanizing talk from him. But, but to me, you know, in terms of my life, in terms of my relationship with the church, one of the things that I credit the church with is the strong sense of family that I was raised with and that hopefully I raised my own children with. They're all out of the house now, but that family bond is still strong and the most important thing in my life. And certainly people outside of the Church are capable of having strong families and united families. This is not in any way unique to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But in terms of the impact in my life, this is a teaching that I think the Church has largely gotten right. And I would like to see the Church focus more on the positives and spend less time trying to take down the kinds of families that the church doesn't like. So that's my opening salvo.

Okay. I would respond with some agreement that I think focusing on the positive when it comes to family relationships is good and it's what we want to see more of from the church. I think there's a couple of things that sprung to mind listening to what you had to say. The first is, and it will kind of come to sort of current events perhaps as we talk about that later, but there are nations in the world that are dealing with declining birth rate. And some of what Dan Leitner spoke to was the idea of, okay, no, people need to be having children. Now, however you view the declining birth rate. Situation, whether you view it positively, negatively, he is at least speaking and offering a solution from his perspective, which we don't see them do a ton, offering an actual solution to a problem that they see generally. Um, we don't see that as much as, as other things. Uh, certainly not that sort of specifically. The other thing that comes to mind is the church, of course, has every right to set up whatever ideals it wants over what it wants a family to look like within its faith structure. And the tension will always come when people don't fit that ideal in a number of ways. And I think to speak to a positive, one of the things Oakes did was he showed an example of where his grandfather stepped into the father role and without saying as much, he showed that, okay, his family wasn't that ideal in the sense of, right, his father was then absent. And here's a way in which it was then still successful and still worked. And I would like to see more of that rather than, like you said, focusing on the types of families we don't like, looking at families that don't fit the traditional mold and then talking about how they can still be made to work and how they can still fit within the ideal that the church holds. Um, that more inclusive narrative would be, would be good, I think.

That's excellent. From my perspective, I, my perspective changed in the context of what we were saying earlier about, you know, this focus of this conversation and the infallibility meter, you know, meaning the, you know, what the church gets right that Jim Bennett said and where it can, where it can do better. I think overall the church has done generally well in respect to supporting families, family home evening, encouraging family time, teaching family principles, etc., but it's done that in the traditional conventional model. Families have changed now. The definition of a family is different. I was raised in a single-parent family. My father was nowhere to be seen. My mum raised 5 boys and that was our family. And it doesn't fit the family tradition. When you go to church, you're reminded on every talk, every lesson that the typical family is a mom and a dad and the kids. Well, that's just even just within the periphery of traditional families, that's difficult for people who are divorced, for example. They're reminded constantly that they're not, you know, are they a real family because they're divorced? And I've met individuals as a bishop who've expressed that concern, who've attended sacrament, attended church, and they felt sad, unhappy, excluded, and not accepted because they're not part of that traditional model. The other piece as well, which I thought was interesting, and this is an illustration of how I've shifted my thinking. When we were serving as missionaries, Jim Bennett and I, in Scotland, I was— the first area I went to was Dumfries. And the first few days I met a couple in Dumfries and they were a loving couple. They just had a baby and we gave them the first discussion and we talked about families being together forever. And we taught that to achieve that you need to join the church, essentially become baptized, and eventually after a period of time that you could go to the temple. We discussed briefly what the temple was, and you could be sealed for time and all eternity. And they thought this was wonderful. Uh, they in the end decided that they didn't want to join the church when it came to tithing and some other, uh, practices of the church that they couldn't accept. Tea or coffee was one of them. But, um, I was, I remember feeling quite sad and disappointed that this wonderful couple were not going to be together forever because they were not going to join the Mormon Church. And if you don't join the Mormon Church and go to the temple, then you can't be with your family forever. That was the, that was what we, that's what we believe. We didn't teach it as blunt as like that. That was my thinking. That was always been my thinking until I left the church in 2017. Now the idea that families can't be together forever without going to the temple is absurd. It's just, uh, I think it's awful. The fact that you have to go to the temple, you got to pay tithing to get there. You got to go to the temple and to be together, you got to be Mormon. You got to be sealed in the temple because it's the only place with the authority. I no longer believe that. And so there are people there, for example, who can't, who are even active in the church, who can't go to the temple and be sealed because they're not worthy or they haven't paid the tithing or they're less active or they're not even a member. And essentially they're not part of that eternal family. And it just, my whole perspective on it has completely changed. And I think the church is behind the times when it comes to, you know, what that traditional family is. I thought all of us were God's children. We're all part of the human family. And if you love someone, you know, your mom and your dad and your sisters or your partner, your spouse, whatever, and you love them unconditionally and you want to be with them forever, why not? Why do you need a piece of paper or a, you know, um, something that you have to, you know, rules that you have to follow so strict to go to the temple. So I think for the most part the church has got it right. Um, but I, I think it's completely, uh, out of touch in terms of the modern family. And the other thing I want to add as well, I wonder without being sounding too skeptical of President Oaks, whether, uh, because the church is struggling to identify areas where it could demonstrate growth and measure and report growth. It wants, it sees a growth opportunity within the church by reminding the sacred eternal, uh, the members of the sacred eternal obligations of having families, having children, and therefore through the, you know, uh, child of record process, the church grows and can report growth in membership through that method. So a few things come to mind when I think about, you know, founders and risk managers. So overall good, but the church needs to update its thinking, I think.

Yeah, fair enough.

Are we going to spin the wheel again then?

Spin that wheel.

Spin that wheel. Nemo, are you ready with the sound?

You ready?

Because I have no sound. You do the sound effect. Ready? It, it, it stopped about halfway through your sound.

Okay, cool. Okay.

All right. And it's landed on Living Prophets. So, uh, Jim's point is context. What did the church get right, do right in the structure and organization of Living Prophets? And did it make mistakes? Has it got things wrong? And it's interesting because, you know, living prophets, hey, they're human. So Nemo, you kick us off.

Yeah, I mean, they're living prophets until they're not, and then they're dead prophets, and then you can disregard everything they have to say. And I think that's fundamentally problematic in terms of the church's approach to prophets. The idea that, you know, Elder Hainey said the key is to follow the living prophet because their words do not, they do not increase with value over time. They're not like vintage cars or comic books. And you think, okay, fair enough, then what are scriptures other than the words of lots and lots of dead prophets written down over time? Are we just— do they not have value? Does their value not increase? Um, because I thought we were meant to strengthen and deepen our relationships with scripture, and so that value should increase over time, not diminish, just because they're not alive anymore. But the church needs to unfortunately do this. Because prophets have been fallible in the past. They have made mistakes. And the only way to move past that is to say, well, you just gotta listen to the guys in charge now. If you exist in a paradigm in which you won't apologize for things of the past and you won't admit mistakes, if you're not going to admit mistakes, if you have to uphold fallibility, then all you can do is say, well, we just listen to the living one now and kind of just brush the other stuff to one side. And that relationship to prophets is problematic because it creates a tension that a lot of people can't overcome. And also it makes prophets— if you would, if you were to draw a line in terms of the amount of revelation and the amount of inspiration, the amount of direction the prophets have given on a graph, it starts with Joseph Smith at 130-odd sections of Doctrine and Covenants, and then it goes very sharply down all the way to a couple of little blips with the family proclamation or with the manifesto, uh, with, with the removal of the priesthood and temple ban for black members of the church. It makes prophets scared to do anything. It makes them scared to be bold. It makes them scared to, to lead the church meaningfully because they don't know when that's gonna get overturned by the next guy or whether that's gonna turn out to be a mistake or not. And that's a, that's a rod they made for their own back by refusing to admit. Fallibility and apologize.

Okay, excellent. Jim Bennett?

No, I think there's a lot to that. It's really interesting because so many people who leave the church cite the reality of living prophets making mistakes as one of the primary reasons for doing that. And I just had a Twitter discussion a couple days ago. Somebody said, well, if they're fallible, then what's the point? What do I need them for? And my response to that was, uh, cribbed from Joseph Fielding McConkie, where he says, look, there is absolutely no circumstance in your life where you are taking advice from an infallible person. And so why should prophets be any different? And that's a little bit of a glib response because the answer is prophets should be different because As Russell M. Nelson said in 2020 when he was speaking to a bunch of children, he says prophets speak for God. And if a guy who speaks for God can speak for God and still make mistakes as prophets have done, and some of them are very egregious mistakes. It was Brigham Young who said that the law of the, the, the was the law of the God, the law of God that will always be so is that if you mix your seed with the seed of Cain, the punishment should be death on the spot. And he framed that as coming from God. Now, we have— if you're going to say a prophet is infallible and everything he says is correct, you got a whole lot of problems that like that to deal with. You have to contort yourself in ways that you don't have to do if you can say, okay, well, a prophet can be wrong. And it's, it's interesting to me also from a familial perspective. My great-grandfather Heber J. Grant did not consider himself a prophet. He didn't enjoy hearing the Saints sing "We thank thee, O God, for a prophet" because he considered Joseph Smith to be the prophet. And that all of the presidents since then have essentially been presidents and managerial in nature and not pastoral or revelatory. And that changed with my other great-grandfather. David O. McKay decided that the president of the church needs to be referred to as a prophet again. And so it, it, you know, and you go back and forth with these leaders as to how prophetic they see themselves. I mean, I look at Gordon B. Hinckley, and Gordon B. Hinckley was really uncomfortable with that kind of label. He was asked, aren't you a prophet, by Larry King, and he says, well, I am sustained as such. And I had a conversation with what was, what's his name, new name, Noah Nemo. Do you know him?

Mike Norton. Yeah.

Mike Norton. Yeah. And he says that was the moment that his shelf broke. It's like a prophet just says, well, I'm sustained as such. He's not really embracing that prophetic call. You know, from my perspective, I see once— I mean, the reason why I keep coming back to fallibility, infallibility, etc., is that I see the only way forward in the church is not just to acknowledge fallibility, acknowledge that mistakes are possible. It's to embrace it, to say fallibility and error, uh, are the reasons we came to Earth. We have a theology that embraces fallibility as the sole purpose of mortality. When we were in the presence of God, we didn't have to make moral decisions, and we were never wrong because we had the perfect exemplar of morality constantly before us. And so we chose to separate ourselves from God, partake of the fruit, if you will, and come to a fallen world because we were going to make mistakes and learn from them and learn the good from the evil. I mean, that's the central nature of mortality. It's the reason we're here. And so once you do that, then I can have a whole lot more grace for fallible prophets and fallible leaders, uh, because they're going through that experience along with us. And part of the challenge of discipleship is sustaining leaders, not because they're perfect— they wouldn't need us to sustain them if they were perfect— we sustain them precisely because they are not. So you— I see fallibility baked into the mix, and I see prophets as part of the house of order that God has established. I don't believe anybody else holds the keys to administer the priesthood on the earth. And that, you know, these are the guys— I don't see anybody else as president of the church other than Dallin H. Oaks. But I don't think that Dallin H. Oaks is any more— I mean, Dallin Oaks is a very bright man. He's a very capable man. He's a very spiritual man, I believe. I don't— I think there are as many righteous, capable, spiritual people, male and female, in my own ward as Dallin H. Oaks. I don't think these prophets should be held up as objects of worship. I think that they are fulfilling a calling that they have been called to, and, but They are just like everybody else. And, you know, so I don't know if that satisfies anything, but I just— my expectations for what a prophet is have changed radically over the course of my life. And I think that in order to stay in the church, I don't see any other way to do that without just— without altering your expectations.

Just before Ian comes in, what that requires you to do is swim against the prevailing narrative.

Yes.

Or the prevailing undercurrent of the church, which is, okay, yeah, we'll say they're infallible. But if you ask most members of the church to offer up an example of their fallibility, we'll say they're fallible, offer up an example of their fallibility, they can't, and they feel as though they shouldn't. And at that point, you're functionally acting as though they're infallible.

I agree 100%, no notes. I think that's the actually the biggest problem in the church.

Mm-hmm.

Every problem problem in the church comes back to that. Because you're not able to say, oops, we made a mistake. You're not able to say— and when you correct a mistake, you're not— I mean, the sleeveless garments issue is a great example of this. So many women— I mean, I went out just because I wanted to be part of the moment, and I went out and stood in line, and I didn't need any new garments. My wife was like, why? You got plenty of garments. What do you do, buy more garments? But I wanted to be part of the moment. And I was one of a handful of men that were there. There was one other guy from the Tab Choir, and he's like, "What's with the lines?" I'm like, "Do you not know what's happening today?" "No, I'm getting garments for my son on his mission. What are we doing here?" And I told him the sleeveless garments had come out. But I had conversations in line, and I've had conversations online with people that The women who have been told their entire lives that their shoulders are pornography and that they are responsible for the, the wicked thoughts of the men who look at them with their bare shoulders now are being told that was based on essentially nothing.

And it's the greatest irony of that is that it's happening under the premiership of the man who said explicitly that they become pornography to the men that see them.

Right.

The irony.

There is some irony in that. But, but, but the problem here now is, so when I start talking about this, they go, well, garments are— garments can change and garments change. They used to be ankle to wrist. So what's the problem? And it's like, that isn't the problem. The problem is we have changed. We're trying to pretend that we haven't really changed. And we don't take accountability for the damage we did before we changed. We don't take any accountability for the fact that we told all of these women that they had to cover their shoulders or they were sinning, and now, oh, never mind, that didn't count. And a lot of women are really upset about that, and we don't have any mechanism in the church to deal with that. And that's, I think, at the root of just about every problem we have.

Yep. I think you've, both of you have explained, described that really well. Almost everything on the infallibility meter and more that's not on there points to the fallibility of living and dead prophets. You know, when the church purports to speak for God, the only true living church upon the face of the earth, the only church with authority, the only church that anyone should join in order to get back with God. That's a pretty bold claim. And the position that the prophet speaks the words of God, and when the prophet speaks, the debate is over. We shouldn't question that too much and accept that in complete faith. That is a very high benchmark to set, and inevitably it's going to fail because we are human. God made us human. And the teaching is that you strive for perfection. I don't know if that's possible, but we're human. And the fact that we can't be adult and mature and grown up and say, hey, we made a mistake. I think the closest we came to it officially, I think privately, they'll tell you that, look, we made a mistake. And I had this, um, some of these conversations with President Oaks when he set me apart all of us as a presidency apart here in British Columbia, Canada, when he reorganized our stake. And we spent the weekend with him and talking about all kinds of stuff. It was clear that he didn't have all the answers to stuff, and I was okay with that. I would have enormous respect for the church leaders if they publicly said, look, we don't know everything, we make mistakes. And I think the closest we've got to that, that was a big moment in my life that actually triggered quite a lot in terms of my, um, uh, investigation. Excuse me. And that was, uh, Elder Uchtdorf's talk, Come Join Us, that came out in 2013. And I've got it here. It's just quite an extraordinary talk. And I think the intent, for me at least, it probably wasn't intended for me to investigate the church, which it did. It was a catalyst for that. And I left and No regrets on that at all. But in his talk, he says this, he says, and to be perfectly— he talks about the imperfection and people who made mistakes and none of us are perfect and we have nearly 200 years, we openly acknowledge that in nearly 200 years of church history, along with an uninterrupted line of inspired, honorable, and divine events, there's been something said and done that could cause people to question. So I appreciate those comments. And then he says, and to be perfectly frank, there have been times when members or leaders in the church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things that, things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles, and doctrine. And I think that was extraordinary when I heard that. So, you know, fast forward, it's what, 12 years since then? Why can't, as a church, we can be grown up, mature, admit that what Elder Uchtdorf is saying here, that we make mistakes, we're human, we get things wrong, We try to put it right. When we make mistakes, we apologize. Bear with us. And together, let's work it through. Yeah, we get inspiration from God. We interpret it this way, et cetera. But let's say instead of being a perfect church, or perhaps the only true church, let's say we're a good church or even a great church. And let's strive for improvement. And let's reset that benchmark. And in so doing, we'll address a lot of the issues. And we'll say, hey, we're doing our best, but we, you know, we don't have all the answers. Um, it's like the— go ahead, sorry.

You, you run into the First Vision then, headfirst straight into the First Vision, because the entire idea of the church is it's a restoration of Christ's New Testament church because all of the churches were wrong. It's, it's right at the beginning of the church is that everyone else is wrong and we're right, and that pushes the church into a corner out of which they just can't step by saying, okay, right, well, we're not the one true church, but we are a good church, and that's why you should listen to us. They, they are stuck with this unique selling point that actually is their greatest weakness, is that we hold all the cards, we hold all the answers, we hold all the authority, but also we get stuff wrong.

Yeah, I mean, that's how I balance that. That's a conflict right there. You're absolutely right. And it's in, again, Section 130 of the Doctrine and Covenants, that we're the only true living church upon the face of the earth, right, with all the fullness of the gospel. We've got it all. We've got all the answers, yet we don't have all the answers. And somehow, to Jim's point, we've got to figure that out. And you know what, these conversations, I know they're happening privately, having these debates all the time. And, you know, we want to do this and how do we present it and without looking, coming, you know, coming off as imperfect or coming off like we don't know what we're doing. If they could reframe it like what Jim, well, you both are saying, then we can have a sensible conversation. And it would mean so much more and I'd have so much respect for them. It's like this ridiculous shift in not using the word Mormon, right? So, you know, you've got the Book of Mormon right there, you know, not the Book of Churches, Grounds, Light, and Saints. You've got Mormon and, you know, President Hinckley, President Monson, and Mormon's a good thing. And it's now a brand synonymous with all these wonderful things that the church does. And then President Nelson comes along. With his long multi-decade fetish or whatever you want to call it and wants to change it and even says that, you know, using the word Mormon is a victory for Satan, which is quite extraordinary. It's just odd, bizarre, it's just strange. And so, you know, egos aside and personal agendas aside and in the spirit of Elder Uchtdorf, who I hope, I believe that when it's his turn, will give us, give the church and its members and the world a very different experience in terms of leadership, a more modern, inclusive, spiritual even, and a more intelligent, insightful leadership experience, you know, for all the world to see. And I, you know, I'm so grateful for his talk. I'm surprised, by the way, they didn't Um, uh, usher him back in to redo the talk, you know, for the, um, and put a cough machine in the background, redo the talk because I think it's all there in its integrity and good on President Uchtdorf for doing that. But hey, let's just admit we're not perfect. We make mistakes and then we can have a, um, you know, we can have a sensible conversation. And the other thing I want to highlight as well, in the Book of Mormon, there's a disclaimer, isn't there? And the disclaimer says that if these are any mistakes, then they're mistakes of men. I think it's a wonderful disclaimer. Well, just let's just live that, you know, if the mistakes that we make, let's admit them. Let's say, hey, we made a mistake. Let's apologize. Let's acknowledge the mistake. Let's follow the church doctrine and the principles, acknowledge that we made a mistake, apologize because some of the mistakes are hurtful. You know, people can be hurt. Some of them are quite dangerous. Um, so we admit the mistake, we apologize, we address it, we put it right, we learn from it, we seek forgiveness, and we improve and, and, and go on from there from strength to strength. That's the path. That's the path that the church has outlined in terms of improving and repenting and, and, and, and strengthening and enhancing, um, our life. Uh, and so, you know, the church needs to follow its own, uh, practice what it preaches.

Well, can I take just a second to square the circle that Nemo has outlined here? Because he's correct that the First Vision, it talks about the fact that all the other churches are wrong. And there have been different attempts to sort of wiggle out of that. I remember reading one, I don't remember by who, says, oh, no, no, no, no, he said that all their creeds were wrong. He didn't say all the churches were wrong. I'm like, okay, this is— I mean, it's very clear, uh, if you evaluate the entirety of Joseph Smith's ministry, that that was the message. But there was another message, um, and that's the message that comes in temple work, which is the idea that we are going to save the entire human family and give everybody the opportunity to have all of these saving ordinances performed for them, and that everybody will have an opportunity, an equal opportunity, to accept or reject the gospel. And the way I square that circle, I mean, I've sometimes flippantly said, everybody gets saved, but it's the Mormons that do the paperwork. And that's kind of I mean, that we have a responsibility, that we don't have— if we can look at that as a greater responsibility rather than a sense of entitlement, I think that there is room for more sort of ecumenical expansion and acceptance of people. If we recognize— and I don't see the church doing this. I don't see the church sort of giving up the kind of exclusivity that President Nelson particularly really, really embraced. I mean, the whole idea of sad heaven, quote unquote, and he gave that talk, I think it was 2019, which was very much salvation's a family affair and time is running out was the last line of the talk. If you don't get your family saved, you're not going to see them in the next life. And that, I mean, that vision, I've Sorry, it doesn't do anything for me. I don't see that being a positive vision for anyone, including the people who are the most righteous covenant pathkeeping, whatever they are. Nobody wants a heaven where the people who aren't, you know, the sliver of humanity that fully embrace the restored gospel of Jesus Christ Everybody has family, friends, loved ones that heaven wouldn't be heaven without them. And so, so, so, I mean, that is how I personally square the circle. And I don't know that everybody else does, and I certainly know that the church really isn't willing to lean into that, but I, I really lean into the universalist aspect of the temple. If we don't believe everybody's going to be saved, then what the heck are we doing all this temple work for? What's the point? So anyway, yeah.

When, when you resort, not you, but when the leaders resort to using fear to encourage, motivate behavior and change and obedience, then it's lost, lost the conversation. I think it's lost part of the film.

I think you're right. And I think it doesn't work anymore. I mean, I think that so many young people are told, well, you don't do this, you know, you're gonna, this, that, and the other thing. And they go, ah, I'm good.

Well, what's the quote from, was it Amr al-Sabaa? It's like, where will you go? What will you do? And the youth are kind of like, well, I am where I will go. I'm here already. I'm doing what I want to do. So that threat kind of means nothing.

Totally. That was such a trigger. Talk from me. Unbelievable. We met with Elder Ballard in Scotland as a missionary, reorganized the entire mission and spent some time with him in the mission home there before you came out, Jim. And that's the time where I asked him a question about geography of the Book of Mormon. And he said, we don't want to talk about the geography of the Book of Mormon. I remember that. And so that talk was a trigger talk. And I thought, how— I just thought, arrogant, obnoxious talk, you know, why, how dare you say something like that. And the church is, you know, when you start resorting to fear and teaching fear, well, that's completely opposite to what Christ did. You look at what Christ did in the New Testament, it was on love. And yeah, there was some fear elements, but he focused mostly on the love and unity. And that's the Christ that I understand. So I think it's unfortunate that the church has to use fear as a tactic to motivate obedience. And one last thing before we do the infallibility meter spinner is going back to your point, Nemo, which we talk about quite a bit on our podcast, where in the past there is this lots of experience in the Book of Mormon and Bible and in the early restored time of the church, where the leaders seem to be unafraid to stand up and speak up. And they said crazy stuff. Some things were great. Other things was like, you know, batshit crazy, et cetera, like Brigham Young, et cetera. But nevertheless, they were fearless seemingly. Fast forward to your earlier point, the church now, leaders seem afraid, scared to get the message wrong. They don't come on podcasts. You can't get them on a podcast. I mean, here we are, 3 gentlemen talking about the church, right? 2 of us are out. I'm out by choice. Nemo, you were booted out, I think.

Yes.

Jim Bennett, you're still in, right? So we have 3 different lives here talking sensibly and we're saying stuff and we can be criticized for that. And I think that's great. You know, we can be, you know, applauded or not. And we, you know, we don't have all the answers. I think there's strength in vulnerability. There is strength in vulnerability. I don't know about you guys, but when someone's vulnerable, sincerely and genuinely, you know, our heart melts, our mind expands, we lean towards them, and we give them all the benefit that they deserve because they're vulnerable and they're trying to do right and they're trying the best and they're human. And we respect and love people like that. Why can't the church deploy those kind of qualities in their lives and behave like that. We'd have so much more respect for them.

I think it's because they view it as weakness, just to answer the rhetorical question there. I think they see it as a weak position to be vulnerable.

You're totally right.

You're right. I think they think it undermines their sense of authority or their position of being able to say what's what. And I will say they have appeared on a podcast. They will go on the Church News podcast. And famously, Quentin L. Cook went on the Church News podcast and said, we didn't have a revelation that there was going to be a pandemic. So all those people that were saying, yeah, they saw it coming, they prepared a church, sent a home center church, all that sort of stuff— Cook admitted they didn't get revelation that it was going to happen.

So interesting. Yeah, but get out. Yeah, thank you for that. Leaders, get out there as leaders, because your job as leaders, the job is to— is to what? Is to spread the earth with the gospel, spread it with the Book of Mormon, teach all nations, every kind of tongue of people. Get onto these platforms, have these conversations, get it out. Don't be afraid of making a mistake or misspeaking. You know, I respect people like that and they haven't got all the answers, but come on, let's show a little bit of bravery, a bit of courage, just like your predecessors. Okay, are we good to go to the infallibility meter spinner? Time check, maybe another 15, 20 minutes. So this will be fun. Okay, so Nemo, do the sound for us.

Okay. Ooh. Is that too short this time?

Okay, this is interesting.

Okay, what we got?

Church finances and church financial management. Yeah, this is an interesting one. Do you want me to kick off?

You can kick off on that, please, Ian. Yeah.

Okay. So I'm going to be, I'm going to kick off positively because the church has got, I think someone said, Jim Bennett, the church has got more money than God. I'm not misquoting there, right? And the church has got vast resources, what, in the region of $300-400 billion, uh, which is, I just can't imagine that amount of money in my account. And, um, it's extraordinary and it does a lot of good. We've talked about all the work it does on the humanitarian program. It supports the missionary, uh, uh, initiative effort program. The missionaries do a lot of good work. Yeah, I know they're about proselyting and, um, convert baptisms, a lot of pressure on missionaries to get people into the church and keep them in the church, and I get that, but the church does extraordinary great things in the world to help people, and of course the money goes towards that as well. So you've got all this money. As a bishop, member of the Stake Presidency, I've been involved firsthand at the ward level and the stake level at helping families and individuals who are struggling financially on the church welfare program. And before— and it's extraordinary, the program is extraordinary. And before I served a mission, I had a great job. Told my boss that I was going on a mission. He thought I was completely weird and actually fired me on the spot. He was so angry because he'd trained me and he thought I was just— it was just so odd for him to hear that I was going off on this mission. He knew about the church, but it had heard I was going on a mission, but it just reacted pretty badly. I was fired and I had about 3 months before I went on a mission. And so the bishop at the time in the Wakefield ward in the Huddersfield stake got me involved with a Relief Society president and a counselor going down to Sheffield Bishop's Storehouse, going around that little mini market under the basement of that Sheffield one or two building, collecting all the food and packaging it in, into boxes and then delivering it to, uh, the members in the ward who were struggling. And it was amazing. I did that before, you know, for about 3 months before the mission, because I'd lost my job a bit sooner than I expected. So the church does extraordinary, wonderful things, uh, with the money that it receives. And the tithe, it comes from tithing, comes from donations, it makes profit on its investments. It makes interest on the profit. We can get into that right now if you want to. I'm sure you want to. But I wanna say that the church, um, does a lot of great things with the money that it's got. I, there's a big part of me that has got another side to it, which we'll get into, I'm sure. But I've seen firsthand the wonderful, um, uh, blessings that the church programs bring to people's lives. And of course that costs money. And I get that it costs money to operate buildings and temples, et cetera. And the church obviously believes to save the world, it needs to build more temples until very recently, Oaks put a moratorium on that. But you got all these temples built now, you gotta man them. But the idea is to save mankind through the temples. And I get that. I can understand that. So for me, opening comment is, yeah, there are many positive things that the church does. That the church does with its finances. Jim Bennett, do you want to come in, and then Nemo, do you want to come in after Jim?

Well, clearly this is one where the church has come under fire, and rightfully so, because they were found to have broken the law and have paid $5 million in fines for having done so. And this has been a real source of disillusionment and self-breaking, I guess, for a vast number of people. So I remember my father telling me about when J. Reuben Clark was called into the First Presidency with David O. McKay. The two men were not great friends. J. Reuben Clark, I think, was demoted. He was the First Counselor prior to David O. and then became the Second Counselor. Hugh D. Brown was the first counselor. Hebe Brown later was completely booted out of the First Presidency, and Greg Prince talks about how devastating that was. But J. Reuben Clark gave counsel to President McKay and said, okay, we— in order for this church to be sustainable and viable, what you need to do is make sure that you hold one-third of the church's assets in reserve and use one-third for operating costs and then use another third for capital improvements for temples, etc. And President McKay said, well, thank you very much, and then just leveraged the church to the hilt and borrowed all kinds of money and started building temples abroad for the first time and all over the place. And put the church on really shaky financial ground. The church was in serious trouble for most of its life, serious financial trouble. My father also tells the story of Heber J. Grant going to New York to try to find investors for bonds that the church was putting up and having something like 3 weeks before the church would end up in default and collapse financially. I mean, the church has been in a very precarious position for a very long time. And so I think that sort of institutional caution has led us astray to some degree, because after that, N. Eldon Tanner probably is the architect of the church's solid financial policies near the end of the 20th century and beyond. The church started to get its finances under control. Growth covered a lot of sins, and we started collecting a whole lot more tithing, and the church started investing it prudently and wisely, and as a result had, as you say, Ian, more money than God. And the church, the whole SEC problem is such an unforced error because the reason they did this, the reason they hid all of this money was because they were, I think, rightly concerned that members of the church are going, well, wait, we keep asking impoverished people in Africa to give us their widow's mites. When we have $100 billion just sitting there not doing anything? Why are we doing that? And Nemo, I think I've watched the video of you talking about Joseph F. Smith making the prophecy that the day will come when we won't need any more donations except what people want to give freely of their own will, and that there'll be sufficient tithes in the storehouse. Clearly that day has arrived, and yet the Church is not willing to sort of live up to that prophecy from Joseph F. Smith. So, I mean, this is clearly someplace where the church, I can see why they've fallen down and made a mistake here, but I don't think there's any putting lipstick on this pig.

I think if we look to a few things here, first, what is the current estimate of the church's wealth? What have we would you say?

So it depends on what assets you use.

Yeah.

Because I mean, if you include land, it's unbelievably high.

Yeah. But what, 250 to 300 billion it's sitting at, right? So I was sorry. Yeah. So not only do they have more money than God, they have more money than the nation state of New Zealand. The church is wealthier than 130 or so nation states around the world. It would be in the top 50 if it's, if it was a nation state and that was its GDP, it would be in the top 50. Mental. So, so they have an incredible amount of wealth. Um, and yet when Gordon B. Hinckley was asked, why don't they, if the church published their finances by a German reporter, he told him, we believe that information belongs to the members of the church. And yet the last time we saw the church's financial information was 1958. It was 1959, 1958 figures. That's right. That they shared with us. And that's because Henry Moyle went, we might need to stop showing people stuff because I've kind of bankrupted the church a little bit by building a load of buildings and meeting houses and then not kind of— the base for baptisms didn't really work out. But I wanted to, to Jim Bennett's point, because whenever I hear someone say, you know, the church used to be on really shaky financial ground, I get it. And I always wanted to make it clear that the church's early poverty doesn't justify its current behavior. But it does explain it to an extent.

That's, and that's exactly what I was trying to do. I'm trying to explain, not to excuse.

Exactly. I, yeah. And I, and I got that from you. And I think it shows where this scarcity mindset has come from. They are too big to fail now. The church could just keep running off the interest of its reserves without needing to add more. And yet they don't see that they're too big to fail. They don't see that they've become this thing, I don't think, in some ways. And yet in others, certainly the members don't see that. The members, I think, have still absorbed this idea that at any moment the US government are gonna come along like they did in the late 1800s and try and take all that stuff because we're doing something they don't like. I think that's ingrained somewhere, particularly in the, the Utah psyche. But there is some arrogance that has seeped in. If you look at the way that Chris Waddell spoke to 60 Minutes, If you look at the way that L. Todd Budge in some of their forms wrote a million and then over a million, and when he was asked to explain it, he said, oh, it's not an accurate answer. It wasn't meant to be an accurate answer. It was simply meant to indicate that we did not feel we had to fill in that box. The church is stating openly, we just don't feel like we have to comply with these forms. We don't feel as though that, that is what we have to do. And so there is an arrogance building that I think is gonna cause a lot of trouble for the church, not just in terms of fallibility and infallibility, 'cause when they make mistakes, as we saw with the 13 shell companies and the fine that they received, they fall hard. People say it was only $5 million, and yes, it's only $5 million. The church made that money back within hours. But in terms of size of a fine, it's pretty significant for the SEC to dish out a fine of that size.

Well, in terms of embarrassment, it's huge. Yeah.

Particularly when you're running around saying, oh, we're just not doing this stuff because we don't feel like we have to. Then the SEC comes in and goes, no, actually, I do think you ought to, and we're going to fine you for not doing it. Not only that, the institution that claims to speak for God and claims to be God's one true church not only did something it wasn't meant to do, but got caught doing something it wasn't meant to do and got told off by a secular institution.

And it's hard to accept that. These mistakes that they made with the finances was anything but deliberate.

Oh, it's absolutely deliberate. I, I, I spoke to my stake president about this and I laid it out really plainly. The church's standard for honesty, if you go to the chapter of Gospel Principles that explains honesty, I believe it's chapter 31, to lead someone to believe something that isn't true is dishonest. And what the church was trying to do very clearly was trying to lead the public to believe something about the state of their finances that wasn't true. So they weren't being honest. They were lying. They were being dishonest. And that was done deliberately because lawyers don't come to leaders of— lawyers don't come to the people that are paying them and say, here's what you should do. What happens with lawyers is someone goes to their lawyers, here's what we'd like to do, is it possible? And lawyers go, yes or no. Legally, can we do this? Yes or no. People seem to think the lawyer-church relationship is the other way around, and they don't think the leaders of the church are going to Curt McConkie and saying, can we do this? That they're going to Enzyme Peak and saying, can we do this?

Yeah, the, the, the, you're referring to a lesson in the old Gospel Principles manual that I used to teach, and, and we've, we've made reference to that lesson on honesty, specific quote from that, which I think is where you come from, uh, quite frequently. Uh, Jim, before you jump in here, just want to just, uh, looking at the, um, decision from the SEC, and, uh, these are, this is what it says here right now, because it's kind of a, a big deal. The LDS Church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and its nonprofit investment management entity, Ensign Peak Advisors, EPA, allegedly, according to this information I've got here, were fined by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, for disclosure failures and misstated filings. The core of the SEC's charges were settled was that one, failure to disclose disclose from 1997 to 2019. That's a long time. Ensign Peak, which managed the church's equity investments, a portfolio that grew to approximately $32 billion by 2018, failed to file the required quarterly forms 13F in its own name. These forms are mandatory for large investment managers and publicly disclose the value of certain securities they manage. Two, the use of shell companies with the church's knowledge and approval. Deliberate. Ensign Peake created 13 separate shell limited liability corporations, or LLCs. Instead of filing one aggregated report in Ensign Peake's name, Forms 13-F were filed in the names of these shell LLCs. And number 3, reasons for concealment section alleged. This is alleged. According to the SEC, the church was concerned that the disclosure of the portfolio's large size would lead to negative consequences. So it's interesting, isn't it? So you have this deliberate, uh, act of, uh, covering up, hiding, etc., with the intent of avoiding any negative consequences, close quotes. Yet by failing to follow the rules and the procedures that we all have to follow, you know, in our different countries, the church has been found guilty and fined, what was it, Jim? $5 million, was it?

$5 million.

$5 million.

That's extraordinary. And I wonder, you know, what do the church members think about this? I've heard people say, well, you know, it was a mistake that the they've cleared it up now. It was, it was an accounting error. Well, this ran from, um, uh, when was it? It ran from, uh, was it— what was the years? Uh, I'll come back to that. I've lost it.

1997 to 2019.

Yeah, thank you, Nemo. It ran for so long. I don't think you make those mistakes over that period of time for that length of time unless it's deliberate. You know, I mean, somebody, if they did, they need to be fired, right? That's extraordinary thing. So again, this is another example of, notwithstanding the great things that the church does with its money, and it does, this is a huge own goal, which could have been avoided just by if the church had followed that lesson that you've made reference to, Nemo, in the Gospel Principle. If it had followed that strictly, then we wouldn't be in this mess. And so this impacts church members to some extent. Some people try to write it off and say, hey, it was an accounting error, whatever. But it's either way, it's very bad for the church. And the lack of transparencies in 1959, surely an organization, the True Church of the Earth, which talks about transparency and accountability and honesty, why can't it open up its book and books and let's see the numbers? You, you don't do that, um, unless you want to hide something. I can't come to any other conclusion. If you want to hide something, well, you, you don't, um, you don't, uh, open it up. It's like the Epstein files, right? Uh, there's so many people that don't want anyone to know what's in them. So you hide them, you cover them up and get someone to look at them, say there's nothing in them. Everything's good. Nothing to see here, but let's open the books. Let's look at the numbers and then we'll make our own decision.

And the church sends out people like, uh, Jorgensen at conference to say, nothing to see here. We've checked and we find that the church is playing by the rules that it has set for itself. So don't worry about it. That's kind of what the language of the church's financial auditing, uh, statement is. I'm looking at the church's FAQ real, real quick here for the SEC fine. And the thing that always gets me is the church's inability to answer their own questions. The question in their own FAQ that they put out on the website, which this is what most members are reading when it comes to this if they've heard of the SEC problem at all. It says, did Enzyme Peak fail to comply with SEC regulations? That's the question. The church's answer to the question that it posed to itself is, we reached resolution with the SEC. We confirm our commitment to comply with the law, regret mistakes made, and now consider this matter closed. They didn't answer their own question. All they're saying is, oh yeah, no, we, we, we are committed to complying with the law. We regret any mistakes that were made. They weren't mistakes. And now consider the matter closed. Done. Fine. No more questions. And so many members will just accept that rather than reading the SEC statement that shows not only, not only was this deliberate, but the church's own auditors, people like Jorgensen, were expressing concern to the First Presidency about the legality of the strategy that they were employing. And then we're also going out and saying to the membership of the church, but it's all fine because the church is playing by the rules. Set for itself.

It's absolutely, it's disgraceful. And, and, you know, the moral component of this, just think about this for a moment, right? You've got people at, at, uh, General Conference standing up telling families, you know, if you can't pay your bill, pay tithing. If you can't afford to go buy groceries, pay tithing. Can't afford your rent or your mortgage, doesn't matter, pay tithing, God will, will help you, right? You've got that, um, instruction, that, uh, commandment to pay tithing. It's a commandment, right? Um, and you have to pay tithing to get into the temple. Don't forget, otherwise you screw, you screwed, right? All that pressure to pay tithing, which I felt over the years and pressure that I regrettably as a bishop sadly put on people, hopefully did it in a respectful way, but nevertheless put pressure on people who couldn't afford it, frankly. And yet you have the church taking money from people that can't afford it, people that can't afford to eat or heat the home in economies that are struggling. And then doing this, hiding all of this, is absolutely disgraceful. So it's just tragic. And it's just another example of, you know, the the man-made aspect of the church. You know, we want the church to be different than any other organization. We don't want it to be like any company or any other organization. We want it and expect it to be better. We want it to be run by Christ. You know, we're inundated by scandals and organizations that don't have honesty or integrity. And dishonesty and corruption is widespread across the world in so many different areas. Surely the only true church upon the face of the earth can be different to every other organization, especially on its finances. And sadly, it is not. It's like any other, frankly, not entirely, but at least partially corrupt organizations out there. And so. 'What do the members think?' What does Christ think about what's going on with the money that is tithing people? It's a moral thing as well as a legal thing as well. Jim Bennett, any closing comments, thoughts on this before we— we probably should close because we're up to over an hour here.

Well, that's fine. I'm happy to close, but I'm hoping that Nemo can come back and help us spin the wheel again.

I mean, I've got more time if you want to split this into a two-parter, that's fine by me.

Oh, I'm going to get in trouble if I go too much longer because I, I will then get back to Home Improvement.

We will respect your commitments there. I'm just, you know, floating around here doing naff all. So, okay. Yeah, Jim, your, your closing comments and I will come back and spin the wheel again. That's fine.

Yeah.

We've got, we've got another, sorry, Jim. We've got another, we've only covered 3. We've got some other wonderful topics that we're talking about and we would be honor to have Niro back on and go through it again. Jim Bennett, over to you. Any, any thoughts on that last?

Oh, well, no, I mean, I've already talked about the finances. And again, what I had said was by way of explanation, not excuse.

Yeah.

Again, I mean, when we keep talking about this organization is going to be different from any other organization, the reality is that this is an organization that is run by people with agency., and people with agency can use that agency in ways that are awful as well as ways that are great. And so, I mean, I think we should expect the church to be like other organizations. I think we should expect the church to try to live up to higher principles. I mean, there are a number of organizations that don't even pretend to be based on any kind of Christlike principles, and I think that if you match the church up against those, the church looks really, really good. But if you're looking at the church as— if you're trying— one of the things that came out, um, after the Michigan shooting, uh, as all of these other Christian churches made it very clear that they do not consider The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be among their number, in terms of churches that worship Jesus Christ. And it was kind of a wake-up call, I think, to a lot of church members who didn't realize that we're spending an awful lot of time sucking up to groups that, that don't like us or that don't accept us as Christians. But one of the things somebody said was something I've heard a lot in my life, which is, well, The church is perfect, but the people aren't. And it makes me want to tear my hair out, because what is the church if it isn't the people? There is no church independent of the lived experience of the members of the church. You know, there's no church out there that has no people. That's not a church. That's nothing. That's an idea. That's something. But maybe the idea of the church could be perfect. But the reality is that whenever you have people who have come to a fallen world in order to learn from their mistakes, you're going to have mistakes. And they're not just mistakes of, I'm going to forget your birthday. And incidentally, it's your birthday, Ian. Happy birthday.

Happy birthday, Ian.

Thank you very much.

Maybe I should take that out because this won't be your birthday when this is public. But nobody will know that. Nobody will know when your birthday is. So who knows? But, you know, it's— the reality is when you come to a fallen world, you choose to be here. These are the kinds of things that are going to happen. And you have to figure out— but my biggest problem with it is what Nemo points out is that The church won't take accountability for it. I mean, for me to walk into a bishop and say, well, I've committed this grievous sin, I regret mistakes that were made, and I consider the matter closed. Now, it wouldn't go over well. The bishop wouldn't take that for an answer. So the idea that the church still thinks it has a choice as to whether it can be accountable for its mistakes, accountable for its history, accountable for the wrong turns that we have taken. Uh, we just don't have that choice anymore. I don't think we ever really did, but the age of the internet has made it impossible for the church to escape the consequences of some of its bad decisions. So it would be so much more faith-building and trust-building if the church were to lean into it and say, yeah, we made this mistake. Here's why. Here's why we're not going to do it again. We are very sorry. You know, if they did all of the things that they expect its members to do when its members make those kinds of mistakes, I think we'd be in a much stronger position and it would be much easier to move forward. So those are my final words.

Thank you. And excellent words. And two things there real quick before we close. They can't say that, Jim, because the SEC, to Nemo's point, was not a mistake. It was deliberate, right? So there's two things he said, and I will—

by mistake, I put intentional and unintentional. I mean, if I were to go out and murder somebody today, that would be a mistake. That would be the wrong thing for me to do, but it doesn't mean it wasn't intentional, right?

Okay, thank you for that. So the church makes mistakes unintentionally, but it also makes it does things illegally, allegedly, deliberately as well. That's just a fact. And the other point as well, if I could push back a little bit, is, well, I can speak for me. I can't— you've got your own thoughts, but I do expect, even though I'm outside the church, I expect the church to be different. I expect that— I'm not alone. The members expect the church to be different. I expect the church to do better, to be better, to have more integrity, more transparency, more accountability. And I'm okay to expect that. I've still got the hope that the church will eventually become the organization that we all, you know, want it to be. This has been an absolutely fantastic conversation. Three different perspectives, multiple perspectives from our own experience. It's been absolutely wonderful. Loved doing the infallibility meter, which we'd love to do, continue doing again. Together and also include Nemo in that as well. And Nemo, if you have any other topics you want to add to the other side of the, the fallibility meeting, we can do that for sure. Um, any closing remarks from you, Nemo, before we close?

Yeah, I do have a real quick final thought, and it would be something interesting to hear what people have to say, you know, sort of in the comments. Um, I wonder whether it is as simple as the church saying, okay, our leaders are fallible, we do get things wrong, In fact, it was wrong of earlier leaders to claim levels of infallibility that simply don't exist amongst flawed, imperfect individuals. Let me remind you of the Plan of Salvation. Let me remind you of what we all signed up for here on Earth, that we would all be using our agency, we would all be making mistakes. So it was wrong of them to say that. And so, and that's how you then set the record of, right, okay, we're getting things wrong. Because at the moment, the church has got this Sisyphus and task. They're constantly pushing this thing uphill that is, we don't make mistakes, we don't apologize, it is wrong to criticize the leaders of the church, and they're constantly pushing it uphill, constantly pushing it uphill. The way to just get off that treadmill is to just own being fallible, deal with the consequences of it, and then everyone knows what to expect moving forward, and you're not having to constantly fight something that you can't win because they're never gonna win the we are We are infallible argument because there's too many examples to the contrary.

Nailed it. Thank you.

Absolutely nailed it.

Absolutely. So, uh, on behalf of our listeners, uh, thank you to you, Jim, and you, Nemo, for joining us all the way from the UK. I've absolutely, uh, loved this conversation and we look forward to having you back, Nemo. So, Jim, a big thank you and Nemo Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you both.