October 2024 Conference Recap

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with the magnificent Ian Wilkes. And I know I've used the word magnificent before, Ian Wilkes,, but it just applies. And I figure we need to recycle the things that work. So how are you today, sir?

I'm doing really well. I'm doing really well. And when we run out of, uh, words to describe each other, we'll just use them again. I'm all right with that.

This is good. Yeah, this is good. I, I, I just, the world needs to know how magnificent you are.

Don't know why, but, well, thank you. You're very, you're very generous. You're very kind. I'm not sure I am magnificent, but, uh, But thank you all the same.

Well, we decided that this would be a good opportunity to discuss the most recent General Conference. We've done this with every General Conference while we've been running this podcast. We do sort of a recap because I think this is certainly the most momentous moment in the church every year. What happens at conference sets the tone for what's going to happen in the church for at least another 6 months. And as I understand it, you were glued to your television set watching every second of every session of conference. Is that correct?

Not really. Not at all correct. But however, it was in my mind. I watched conference through my spiritual eyes.

Through your spiritual eyes?

Yes. I can imagine what it would be like. And as I imagined it, I was there.

Well, that's lovely. But my understanding is that you were using your spiritual eyes while you were riding your new electronic bicycles.

That is correct. So as I was riding, we were spending all that time on our bikes and scooters, just having fun. My mind, just for a moment at least, just glimpsed a thought about conference in a split second, and I was able to absorb all of the knowledge and experience of the entire conference just in that one moment.

Well, that's, that's lovely because I had to actually sit through all of the sessions. I was at 3 of them in person. The Tabernacle Choir sings in the Saturday morning session and it sings in both of the Sunday sessions. So I attended 3 of the sessions in person. I came home on Saturday and fell asleep and missed the entire Saturday afternoon session.

Okay.

Which I'm— I've gone back and read the talks. I was specifically unhappy that I missed Patrick Kieran's talk because he is— I've made no secret of the fact that he's essentially my favorite.

Okay.

That comes from the fact that we know him and his family, that he was award for a number of years, but he also gives just wonderful uplifting talks. And this last talk was no exception. He talked about the Church of Joy and the idea that the church should be a joyful experience and that taking the sacrament should be a joyful experience. And I thought that was kind of interesting. He said we should flip on its head the idea that when we take the sacrament, We shouldn't just sit there and recount all of the sins that we've committed during the week. We should instead be thinking about all the times we experience the grace of Christ during the week, that it should be a positive and not a negative experience. Anything that focuses on the grace of Christ— we are so afraid of the word grace. At least we have been for most of my life. And I see that changing now. And every time Elder Kieran speaks, he emphasizes grace and emphasizes the importance of grace. And I think it's very— it's a very promising development that the hymn Amazing Grace is now— has now been added to the new hymnbook. And so this, I see sort of a renewal of this idea that we were scared of for so long because I think it made us sound like Protestants or made us sound like evangelicals. Because every time we talk about grace, there's a certain contingent that is worried that it's a license for anything goes. Well, if we're only saved by the grace of Christ, then what, what about all the brownie points I'm piling up by doing all these good things and by, you know, going to the temple all these many times and all the emphasis on works in the church has been substantial throughout most of my lifetime. And a lot of people that emphasize works are threatened by talks of grace. But Elder Gerrit does not seem to be threatened by them. And continues to emphasize them, and I see that as a positive. And so I would almost say that Elder Kearon's talk was my favorite talk in conference, but it wasn't. My favorite talk this conference came from President Oaks, and that may be surprising to some people because we've taken issue with some of the things that President Oaks has said and taught, but there is no doubt that Dallin H. Oaks is a man who approaches his faith and approaches his calling and his stewardship with a great sense of responsibility and with tremendous seriousness. You get a lot of conference talks. I mean, there are so many of them that you're not going to remember, uh, the minute after they're finished. And you get a lot of them that are— that just sort of feel like filler, that just— there's not a lot of substance to them. That's never the case with President Oaks. President Oaks, whether you agree with him or not, always brings it. He always comes with a substantial message, and this was no exception. He, he talked And I, and I think we should talk about this after we recap conference. I think that this idea that I'm going to talk about here is one that we need to revisit. He talked about the idea of permanent commandments and temporary commandments, which I had never heard before. I'd never heard anybody talk about the idea that some commandments are temporary. And the commandments he talked about being temporary were commandments like the commandment to gather in Salt Lake City after Nauvoo. I think that was one of them. I need to have it in front of them. But he talked about that there are certain commandments that are in place for a time, but they are only temporary, and then they are lifted. And then he talked about permanent commandments. And I thought, that's an interesting framing that we don't usually discuss and ought to give pause to people who insist that the Church can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever change on whatever it is their pet issue is. Because President Oaks points out the Church can change and some commandments are temporary. The, the majority of President Oaks' talk was focused on the idea of being a peacemaker and avoiding contention. Which, as I've said many times before, is the message President Nelson gave in 2023 that I believe was certainly the best message President Nelson has ever given and may well be the best message I have ever heard from a conference pulpit. And President Oaks reinforced that message and reiterated it. It was very interesting that as he did so, he pulled up a stock photo. He talked about contention. And in the stock photo, there were two men who were very clearly yelling at each other or fighting with each other. They were in a contentious moment. And I thought, is it intentional that both of these men look exactly like Donald Trump's running mate, JD Vance? I thought, am I reading too much into this? Because I had anticipated that there would be some sort of veiled criticism of Donald Trump. The church obviously is politically neutral. They have just released their statement again emphasizing political neutrality. But I have felt, particularly from President Oaks, messages where he has said things like, uh, it is never appropriate to say that a Latter-day Saint can't vote for a particular person or a particular party, which is an emphasis that would be aimed at Republicans because that's something you hear from Republicans. You can't be a good Mormon and vote for a Democrat. I've heard that more times than I can count. And so President Oaks' message that it's not appropriate to say you can't vote for a particular party, I thought was an oblique message in that direction. And his emphasis on avoiding contention talked about the idea that we are contentious in our civic life, in our public life. And so I sort of took that as oblique criticism of Donald Trump, who was easily the most contentious candidate the United States has ever seen. But of course, this is a worldwide church, and it's not appropriate for the church to emphasize political candidates or political platforms. Uh, so that was the only kind of political subtext that I saw throughout the conference. But that emphasis on peacemaking, the importance of avoiding contention, it's a message the church sorely needs, particularly when you wade into online discussions about the church and you see what self-appointed ambassadors for the church do as they, quote unquote, defend the church by attacking not just people outside the church, but people inside the church who they consider insufficiently pure, insufficiently ideologically orthodox. So, so that was my favorite talk in conference that came in the Saturday morning session. I really enjoyed the music this conference, and that's sort of selfish to say. Because of course I'm participating in providing that music. But what was interesting about the music this time is that usually the music that we do in conference isn't particularly challenging. There are arrangements of hymns or even Primary songs. They're very simple. They have this sort of feeling to me of kind of being the least lowest common denominator. And, and, but this time, in order to emphasize President Nelson's final talk, which if you listen to it and you didn't listen to anything else in conference, you would assume that Jesus would be coming back next Thursday. It was very much the Second Coming is just around the corner. That's why we're building all these temples, and this is just about to happen. We sang "And the Glory of the Lord" from Handel's Messiah, which is a very challenging piece, and it's a much more sophisticated piece than we usually do in conference. And it was a lot of fun to sing and a lot of fun to prepare. So that was a highlight for me. I always feel a connection to the divine in conference., but primarily through the music of conference. So those were the highlights. Uh, general overarching overview for the themes. This conference was not as thematically consistent as last conference. The last conference was covenant, covenant, covenant, covenant, temple, temple, temple, temple, covenant, temple, covenant, temple, temple, temple. Covenant Temple. That was, that was, I had never seen a conference that was just so focused on a single idea. The phrase covenant path was used several times in this conference, but not nearly to the extent that it had been used in previous conferences, which I thought was kind of interesting. And the other thing that I, that I also appreciated is worth mentioning is that there was no overt LGBTQ bashing, as we've seen in previous conferences. Some people have pointed out that you can interpret some of the talks as being kind of implicit chastise— chastisements of LGBTQ people, but I didn't catch that, and that was not a theme of the conference, and it was nice to take a breather from that particular theme. So what were the thematic elements? Well, there were a few that I thought were kind of interesting. Uh, the Second Coming was very much emphasized here. Elder Stevenson gave a talk where he talked about the next 10 years of the church, which was very explicit as to what the next 10 years of the church are going to be, ending with the 2034 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, where he said the eyes of the world will be on Salt Lake and will be on the church as a result, just as they were back in 2002 when the Olympics were here. And so somebody else pointed out, well, geez, if you listen to President Nelson, you would assume that the Second Coming is just around the corner, but we got to wait till at least 2034 when the Olympics get here. So, uh, the Second Coming can't come before then. So there was this kind of There was this emphasis on the Second Coming. There was emphasis on the future of the church in that regard. There was an acknowledgement of the fact that people are leaving, which I thought was interesting. There was more of an acknowledgement of that than I had ever heard before. And maybe I'm just, I don't know if I'm imagining that or exaggerating it, but President Eyring talked about that. Elder Cook talked about that. Brad Wilcox talked about that. A few other people have talked about that, but it was sprinkled throughout. And I thought that's a positive step because it's a reality. That members on the ground are dealing with on a day-to-day basis, that bishop stake presidents, they're seeing people leave. And even though we're seeing growth in Africa, we're seeing growth in South America, as we've talked many times on this podcast about, we are not seeing similar growth in the United States. We're seeing shrinkage in Europe. The United States is just kind of treading water, but we're seeing people leave. And what frustrated me with those messages is that the acknowledgment was welcome because, okay, how do we deal with this? What do we do about it? But the reason people are leaving was either completely ignored or boiled down to the idea that they just can't cut it. They're just not righteous enough. They're just not— I mean, the old cliché, they just want to sin. And we've talked about this on this podcast many times. But if people are leaving just because they want to sin, that may be the case. There may be such people. I have yet to meet one. I have yet to meet somebody who said, well, jeesh, I was a member of the church, but I really wanted to go get drunk on a Saturday night, and I was really having a hard time being faithful to my wife and decided I wanted to start having affairs. I mean, nobody ever says that. Now, the assumption that you would get from listening to some of these conference talks is that they would never say that, but that's the only reason why they would leave. The only reason why they would leave is just because they all know it's true, but they just can't cut it. They just don't have the chops to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I found that message disappointing, and I particularly— in Elder Cook's talk, Elder Cook talked about this family where these guys were investigating the church, or were talking— I'm not— I have to go back and look at it. Either they were already in the church, or they were talking about whether or not they should leave the church, and they had a box in the center of the room that was filled with critical material against the church. What prior to President Nelson, we would have labeled as anti-Mormon material. And this box was just filled with all this material. And Elder Cook talked about the idea of talking to the Father about this, but rather than address anything that was in the material, Elder Cook said that he had gotten an impression that the Father already knew the church was true. And so he was able to say, I have an impression that you know that the church is true. Is that correct? And this guy had to say, yes, yes, it is correct. And so Elder Cook says, well, then we can just throw this box away. We don't even have to talk about any of this stuff. You already know it's true, so go ahead and live the gospel. And that's the happy ending to the story. But it was also a very easy way to dismiss anything that could have been brought up in this entire box full of material. And that was sort of the constant drumbeat was, okay, yeah, people are leaving, uh, but we're not going to address any of any possible reasons they could be leaving other than the fact they're just not righteous enough. And That is disappointing. That is discouraging. I think, however, that it is also— once you open the door to the idea that people are leaving, you're not going to be able to close that door in future conferences. Eventually, we're going to have to actually address the reasons why they are leaving, and the reasons they are leaving cannot be summed up in the fact that they're all just really wicked core whore types. So I choose to be hopeful in terms of how I interpret that theme that ran throughout conference. The one other talk I want to focus on, and then I want, I want to get your impressions because that will conclude my overview. Brad Wilcox spoke. And Brad Wilcox, he's not— I don't know that we can refer to him as Elder Wilcox because he is not actually a General Authority. He is a general officer, which is a distinction I don't fully understand. But he's the first counselor at the Young Men's Presidency, but he is not a fully ordained Seventy. So he is a general officer. So I'm not even sure why we have general officers speaking in conference, but we do. And Elder Brother Wilcox is a very energetic speaker. I can see why he has a certain following among the youth because there's a certain— he's a bit of an entertainer. You know, a lot of these speakers that get up and speak in conference, they're really kind of dull. They're just sort of reading. They don't really have the kind of presentation skills that Elder— I can't— Brother Wilcox has honed over the years. But his talk, he likened the church, or he likened mortality. He says, imagine we've all come to Earth. Imagine that mortality is like our Heavenly Father has sent us all on cruise, and we're all on this big cruise ship, uh, but the difference between members of the church and the people, other people on the ship, is that we're part of the crew. And I thought, okay, Brother Wilcox, have you ever heard of the Church of Scientology? Because the Church of Scientology was founded by a man named L. Ron Hubbard, who was on the run from tax authorities in a dozen different countries. And so in order to avoid taxation, set up a cruise ship where his entire church was on the ship, and the people who ran the ship were called the Sea Organization. And even today after L. Ron Hubbard's death, the Sea Org is the crew, are they are the people who run Scientology. And I thought comparing members of the church to the Sea Org is just not a good look to anybody who knows that. So maybe that's me just reading too much into it, but I thought that was an awkward analogy as a result. And I also was a little disconcerted at the beginning because he says, I go around the world and I speak to the youth of the church, and there's one question that can— that is all they always ask. They always ask the same question. So, Ian, I'm going to put you on the spot. What do you think that question would be if all the youth in the world were to ask Brad Wilcox one question, what would you assume that question would be?

Oh my goodness. How do I remain close to Christ?

Okay, that sounds like a good one.

Okay.

I would have thought something along the lines of, why is there so much suffering in the world? That's the question that, that we kept getting when we were missionaries.

Yeah.

Or a bunch of other questions. He said, why do Latter-day Saints have to live so differently from everybody else?

All right. Okay.

Well, and I thought, I have never ever heard anyone ask that question in any context. I, I never asked that question of anybody. And, and the way he talked about it was they're concerned that they have to live the law of chastity and they have to live the Word of Wisdom and they have to live so differently. And I thought, I just have never heard anybody ask that question. So I'm going to give grace to Brother Wilcox and assume he's not making that up. But as he talked about that, I thought, this just isn't the question that has ever bubbled up around me. So I'm curious as to why this is the only question that he hears when he goes out and talks to the youth. So That's a quibble. And I'm also, maybe I'm the only person that saw the Scientology comparison where none was intended. But overall, I, I, this con— this conference was less insular than the last conference. It was less of a retreat. It was less of a let's go hide in the temple and not participate in the world. It was more outward looking. There was more of a sense of We have a bright and glorious future. We need to look to the future. We need to look to all of these things that, uh, are in store for us as we prepare for the Second Coming. I would have wanted some kind of reference to what's going on in the world. There were references to wars in the prayers, but there weren't any in the talks. We didn't hear anything about Israel. We didn't hear anything about Ukraine, and we didn't hear anything about the election, which is probably a good thing. But I would— you know, you've talked about this many times, that it would be nice to have the Lord's church addressing what's going on in the world around us more than we do. So overall, I came away from conference uplifted. I came away, I feel more spiritually connected than I was before conference, even with the quibbles that I've offered up here. So that's my overview. And I— you were on your electric bike, but you've since had the opportunity to look into what was said at conference. And I'd very much like to hear your impressions of what happened this last weekend.

Yeah, that's a pretty awesome overview. Pleased for you and your family that you came away feeling uplifted. And I think that's a really important point because, you know, wherever you are in your faith, um, even if you're outside and you go to conference or you hear something, um, you know, wherever you are in that faith spectrum, I think if you can get inspired by something, because something that someone said or, or a part of a talk from conference or even sacrament. That's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. It's a really good thing. So, you know, we pore over these words, we look at them, we probably review them in a way maybe we haven't done before. I know when I hear a talk at church, I really think about what's been said, especially if it's been coming from a leader, probably more than I ever have done. It's not necessarily because I'm looking for anything negative, but I'm just looking through a different from a different position now through a spectrum of different angles in terms of, you know, what's being said and what does it mean. But the fact that you came away uplifted, that's a good thing. And many members, you know, I've got, like you, a lot of friends, family who are in the church, and I see their posts about conference and they're all positive. Actually, there's none of them negative. So I think that's a, that's a good thing to, to feel inspired. I didn't attend conference. I don't feel guilty over that. Of course, I'm, I'm not in the church anymore. A lot happier out the church, happier outside. I was in nature riding through the mountains on our bikes and it was just glorious. And I, my mind just cast hold upon conference and I felt grateful but I was in nature enjoying the wonderful spirit of nature. But I did review many of the talks. As you know, there's a, the church puts out a bit of an overview of each of the talk, bit of a synopsis, which I've gone through and read with real interest and great fascination. And the context is really important point you made earlier, of course, about this General Conference, the talks, the content, that— what's the strategy behind them? It was the tactics. You described the last conference being very much focused on temple, temple covenants. This was references to temple, but, but not as, not as many by, by any means. But the context, um, of the only true church upon the face of the earth and the prophet, the mouthpiece of the only true church, the only one on earth that speaks for God. I mean, just think about that for a moment. You know, God of the universe and Jesus Christ, and the only person that they speak to directly, first and foremost, is— again, according to the church— is President Nelson. And we look at the context of that in regards to what's happening in the world, you know, the Ukrainian war, with all its awfulness. And now the significant escalation with Israel being attacked on 7 different fronts. Syria, Yemen, I think it is, you know, with Hamas, Hezbollah terrorists, Iran being a key actor and enabler behind much of what's going on there with Israel. Iran, 8, 9 days ago fired a volley of missiles into Iraq, over 180 missiles, ballistic missiles of size and significance. That is huge escalation. You know, what, again, I wanna highlight, what's the church's position on this? What's the church's thoughts on this and direction? Or is the Church's response what, in regards to what President Nelson said in his talk, where he said that, he said, "My dear brothers and sisters, in a coming day, Jesus Christ will return to the earth as the millennial Messiah. So I call upon you to rededicate your lives to Jesus Christ." The best is yet to come as we fully turn our hearts and our lives to Jesus Christ. So are we using— do we use these, uh, events that are happening in the world? Do we— again, forgive me for being a cynic here, but are we, are we leveraging what's happening in the world to, um, remind people to keep the covenants? Perhaps even scare them, say, hey, look, you know, all these things are happening because it's the last days and Christ is, is coming. And he'll be here shortly. That's what I get from his talk because of all these events. Is that the only response that we can give, that Christ is coming and he's gonna be here real soon? The church has no date for that, of course, but that's not the first time, Jim, and feel free to jump in. That's not the first time where things have, you know, been happening or terrible things be happening and the church has defaulted to say, look, these are the last days and Christ will be, will be returning soon. He's been returning for quite some time. So I, I, I, I just don't know what to take from that. You know, that this is, there's no detailed or specific references to these events going on, which is bizarre for the only true church and the only mouthpiece of God on the earth, other than to say that Christ is, you know, will be will be with us, you know, in the— I get from that in the near future. And again, feel free to jump in on that if you want to. The church announced also a number of temples, 17 new temples, and I won't read them, but one of them was in Dublin, Ireland. And as far as I understand, there's about 1,000 or 1,200 active members living in Ireland. I think there's about 4,000 members on the books. Again, it's, it's okay to, uh, reference this because if anyone's out there that want to, wants to correct this, great, then we, then we can actually get the real numbers. So it's important to correct us if you're out there and you, you know something more than we do, or you want to correct us, that's great. But my, from my sources, is about 1,000, maybe 1,200 in, uh, in, in Ireland. I don't know why We're building a temple. Maybe it's a very small, tidy temple. I don't know. But why we're building a temple in Ireland, I have no idea. Scotland, I don't know what's happening with this temple in Scotland. As you know, the church continues to shrink quite significantly in Scotland. I was there over the summertime, and I heard there was a state conference when only maybe a few hundred people showed up. So I don't know what's happening in Scotland with the temple, where they're going to build it, or when they're going to build it. I think it's, you know, they made the announcement. So at some point they're going to build and be building these temples. But I don't understand the— from logistics and from a numbers perspective, I don't know why we're building a temple in, in Ireland. It just doesn't make sense. What's interesting is, again, there's been lots of references here to Covenants and Temple, not as much as the last conference. You're right. But there's definitely been references to You know, the covenant path and staying close to your covenants and, and, and attending the temple. Um, you know, to keep your covenants as much as you can. Um, and I'm also, um, connecting that with, and I'm trying to, uh, remember who said it here, but in one of the talks, this is a reference to Someone who, uh, one of the apostles, I think, attended the temple and had a revelation that the person they were doing the work for had received the gospel. And we've been talking about this on the podcast on and off for some time, saying that if the church is in decline in key areas across the world and it tries to, you know, it needs to show or demonstrate that it's making progress, and numerically, quantifiably, you know, in terms of number of convert baptisms, number of people join the church, uh, children of, on record joining the church, etc., etc., you know, this metric for showing growth and, and progress, um, and where it's, uh, not able to show growth, or at least the rate of growth, and reporting or the numbers show that the rate of growth for Jehovah's Witnesses is slowing. And how does that contrast with the gospel being spread into every kindred tongue of people, that no unhallowed hand will stop it? It will continue to grow, grow, and grow, and millions and millions of people. I think Elder Holland talked about tens of billions of people joining the church, you know, over, you know, over the last decade and over the next few decades. That's clearly not happening. The church is obviously reallocating resources to Philippines and Africa where it's seen some growth, which makes sense. But if it's struggling to demonstrate growth in— on this metric across parts of the world, what better way than to change the rules and to start talking about growth with temples, which you can control? It makes sense. They're very intelligent. You know, what can we control that we can improve and change and where we can actually show growth and progress numerically, quantifiably? Well, 17 new temples, that's a number that's quantifiable. The number— are they going to measure people who are accepting the gospel on the other side? Well, that makes sense to me. Why wouldn't they do that? I think, and again, you can't question that. You can't question that if somebody hasn't accepted the gospel, you decide. So that came through in, for me at least, in President Nelson's talk. The other things that were found quite interesting looking at this synopsis, the church puts out a a general conference overview of each of the talks. I've been relying on that. I confess I've not listened or read every single talk. I mean, so Elder, you know, Anderson, he talks about, you know, temple covenants and prayer. A lot of it's quite general. I found, Jim, a lot of the talks are like, you know, regurgitating stuff that we already know. A lot of obvious statements across most of the talks. For example, as we strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ, we see beyond our struggles to the blessings and promises of eternity. I mean, it's like, and then if I look at, um, you know, other comments, like in the same talk, even the Savior sends the Holy Ghost as a companion to faith, hope, bringing peace, uh, not as a world giver. Um, there are important messages, but it's the same, uh, regurgitation of the same message, which is good. I mean, it's, it's open faith and prayer. I'm not being, uh, trying not to be negative here, but it's the same, the same message, uh, I, I got from the talks all the time. Um, and so, and he makes reference to the temple covenants, keeping the commandments, et cetera, feasting on the scriptures, um, taking the sacraments, um, and fairly generic, uh, you know, language, uh, in, in his talk. Elder, I agree with what you said earlier about Elder Oaks, by the way. Uh, he is, as you know, Elder Oaks set me apart on a stake presidency. We were able to spend the weekend with him as a stake presidency. He sat right next to me having dinner. We had an interesting conversation about different things, and I found him incredibly intelligent, very engaging, very driven. Very structured. If you look at his talks, it talks about the way he does it, kind of tells you what he's gonna talk about, then talks about it and then kind of summarizes, which I think is a great structure for a talk. And you're right, he talks about these two different commandments, et cetera. And Love Your Enemies, there is a lot of toxic conversation going on and that might be a reference to the US politics. In fact, at the end of his talk, Um, he says here, as we, as we pursue our preferred policies in public actions, I presume he's referring to the imminent election coming up in November in the US. Um, but the, the overall message there was positive, you know, to be a peacemaker. And I think he, um, I think he knows he's lost the argument on, on some things, and he's now, he's set to be the, the next a prophet, uh, from President Nelson. Maybe it's his way of, of trying to kind of, um, mellow a little bit. Um, you know, perhaps he's mellowing as, as time goes on, and he's kind of laying the path to be a, you know, to be a peacemaker. Maybe the— his talk and other talks are strategic in terms of, uh, you know, it's changing its position on some things. In the future, like LGBTQ, etc. I think that's going to happen at some point where there's going to be specific references to that, addressing that issue along with the reason why people are leaving the church. And it's interesting that you highlight the, the term grace because that was referenced in another talk as well. And so, you know, if we are relying on grace, and in that reference, I don't have it with me, but in that talk, there's no reference to works. And so if we are moving our positioning a little bit towards we are saved by grace, I think that's a very significant and very interesting change if that happens. So, you know, I, I, I, for lots of reasons, I didn't pour, I didn't attend conference, I didn't pour over the details. There is a overall, as I've read the synopsis of each one, I found them quite generic. Elder Oaks just stands out quite a bit. The other one that stood out that you mentioned earlier, was Elder Stevenson, who was quite specific about, you know, the 2034 Olympics, etc. The eyes of the world is going to be on the church and etc. That was, that was interesting, the specifics. I like things that are specific, and he gets into specific stuff. Brad Wilcox, I'm not a fan of him, to be honest. I think he had to issue an apology over a serious remark he made about Blacks in the priesthood. I've got it here. He said, my dear friends, I made a serious mistake last night, and I'm truly sorry. The illustration I attempted to use about the timing of the revelation of the priesthood for Black members was wrong. I've reviewed what I've said, and I recognize that what I hoped to express about trusting God's timing did not come through as I intended. To those I offended, especially my dear Black friends, I offer my sincere apologies. And I'm committed to do better. So obviously did a bit of a gaffe there. And then his response to his talk, that talk that I think he gave at, I think it was at BYU, I think, wasn't it?

It was a fireside in Alpine, Utah.

Oh, it was a fireside. And someone commented in it actually, he said, I think you need to go back to Alpine, gather all the youth again and correct your entire talk and then resign. Follow the steps of repentance, the church leaders, and make reparations. Interesting response to that. So I, I am not a fan of Brad Wilcox. I find him, uh, completely church broke. He is, uh, enigmatic. He's, he's got some charisma, but, um, I, I just, I'm just not a fan of, of his whatsoever. There was notably a Black sister, Tracy Browning of the Primary General Presidency. So it's good to see a Black woman speaking. Looking at the synopsis here, Jim, I saw this Sister Emily Freeman spoke, one female speaker. Going through the list here, I can see Sister Kristin Yee. Of the Relief Society General Presidency spoke, and then we've got Sister Browning. So it's, you know, it's good to see people of color, it's good to see people of different cultures speak. And so, you know, we're seeing slowly but surely those changes coming. You know, are they happening as fast as we'd like? Well, the Church doesn't do things, you know, very, very quick. So yeah, I've just relied on the, you know, the synopsis of the talks here. But overall, it's very— a lot of it is very safe, quite general. I do— I did appreciate your comments about Elder Kearon, you know, about being the church should be a source of joy. By the way, when I, when I've attended, when we've attended Fast Testimony meetings in the past, certainly in the UK, I find it more prevalent than, than here in Canada. They're very solemn occasions, very solemn and subdued memories that I've got of Fast Testimony, where a lot of people get up and it's quite solemn and you know, sacrament talks are quite solemn and somber and sometimes a little bit depressing. And I and a few others that I knew in my life, they were never like that. We got up and we talked about the joy and the excitement and the eusasthenia of the gospel. And, you know, and actually, the spirit of Elder Kearns' talk has always been my approach to talks. You know, be positive, let's focus on the positive, let's be excited. We should be excited about the gospel and not, not spend too much time worrying about or thinking about our sins because we just will be there forever, right? And we get bogged down and we get depressed that we're not good enough or we can't make the grade. And so I appreciate— although I didn't listen to his talk, and I, I'm— that's one of the talks I'm going to go back and listen— sorry, I've got to go and listen to Elder Keara's talk and Elder Oaks' talk. They're the two talks that I really want to listen to. But I appreciate Elder Kearon talking about the joy that exists in the gospel, because I think sometimes we tend to be on the negative side. So that's my very high level— forgive the lack of detail because I didn't, you know, I didn't attend and I've not listened or read the talks. And I don't feel— I used to feel quite guilty when I missed a talk. I don't, I don't have that, but I'm gonna go back and listen to those two talks. So there's my take. I think they were very— talks were very strategic, tactical, safe. Um, you know, they talked about grace, decline of the church. I think that's a bit of precursor to other things. They talked about, um, people receiving the gospel on the other side of the veil. Um, you know, through the temple. I think we're gonna see more of that. Disappointed that the church didn't make reference to the major global events that are happening in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and, and probably what's going to be happening in, uh, in Taiwan. As you know, this, this big, um, there's a big naval exercise going on, I think, with, um, in that part of the world right now, and that's upsetting China. So we're seeing a lot of geopolitical issues, and we don't really— we seem like the church seems like to be in a bit of a in a bubble where it's just not interested or willing or able to talk about the events in the world, which is, I just, I just can't understand that. But anyway, that's my, um, perhaps less informed or less educated take on General Convent because I, I didn't attend. But I, you know, I, there's a, as I say, there's a couple of talks I wanna get into, so.

Oh, well, how does that think? So I think it's very helpful to get the perspective of people that, uh, that don't— like, you're, you're not necessarily the same as somebody who's never been a member of the church. I've seen reactions from people outside the church on Reddit and otherwise who say, yeah, I had my nevermo friend watched the conference, and they tuned out after about 20 minutes because they said, this is so boring, and why would anybody watch all of this? And I can understand that, particularly Sunday when you're singing in the choir on Sunday. Conference Sunday is a very, very long day. You get there at 7:00 AM, you rehearse, you do the music and the spoken word broadcast, you rehearse for conference, you have the first session of conference, you rehearse for the next session of conference, you have a quick lunch, and then you have the second session of conference. And you, you're sitting all day, and it's just, it's just long. And In the era of the internet, in the age of the internet, you know, one of the memes you see very often is, couldn't this just have been an email instead of a meeting? Couldn't this just have been an email?

Yeah.

Isn't there more, a more efficient way to share these kinds of messages than in the, what, you've got 5 sessions, so. 10 hours of sitting and watching people read essays that were written to be read rather than spoken. So I can understand that, and I appreciate the reaction of somebody that didn't watch conference, even if they— the fact that you were willing to take the time to go and review what was said at conference, uh, demonstrates that you're more engaged than I think a lot of even active members of the church. It's just an awful lot to ask of anyone to devote that much time to sit and watch, frankly, boring stuff. These are not charismatic— for, with some exceptions, these are not charismatic speech givers. As you've been talking, as you were talking, a couple of things came to mind. One, with regard to Brad Wilcox, I remember well his Alpine fireside. And I remember even at the time being frustrated with, okay, he's apologizing for this, but he gave exactly the same fireside multiple times over the course of years. So he would never have apologized for it had he not been recorded and had it not gone viral. And people had not— because I, I think he'd given that same fireside, but he'd given it in closed settings where It was only heard by a relative handful of people, by dozens or hundreds of people. And once it went viral and everybody could see what he was saying, he was called upon to apologize. However, I want to give him kudos for the fact that he did apologize because that is so rare, almost nonexistent. You know, we have that counsel from President Oaks where he said, It is the policy of the church not to seek apologies or to give them. Uh, apologies on an institutional level are essentially nonexistent. The only one that I found is there was a statement of regret about the Mountain Meadows Massacre that was given at the time when the site was dedicated. There's a memorial at the site that was dedicated, and it was President Eyring who expressed the church's profound regret, which is not even quite an apology. But the fact that Brad Wilcox gave an apology, and it seemed to be a sincere apology, and it was a recognition that he had done something wrong, I find that extraordinarily refreshing. So I want to give him credit for that. It's also interesting, Brad Wilcox arrives at conference in the conference center earlier than most of the other General Authorities, and he just stands there and stares at the choir while we rehearse with this huge grin on his face. Yeah. And so I just, I, I, I find that endearing, the fact that he seems to love the choir so much. So maybe I'm giving him a little more slack that way. Um, you mentioned this idea of— and we've talked about it again many times— the idea that the church is going to start measuring success on the other side of the veil. And why wouldn't they do that? Because it's getting harder and harder to measure success on this side of the veil, given the statistics that we're familiar with. Uh, the phrase You know, there are catchphrases that come out of conferences. And when they're used by the president of the church, for instance, when Russell Nelson said, "Think celestial," everybody kept saying, "Think celestial," for 6 months. That's petered out somewhat, but you can still find it out there, the idea of "think celestial." The catchphrase "covenant path," I think, will be with us for quite some time. Long after President Nelson is gone. Uh, the, the, the growing catchphrase that we heard in this conference was gathering Israel on both sides of the veil. Several speakers used that phrase, and that would reinforce what you're saying, is that the focus now, and the reason why President Nelson— President Nelson very explicitly in his talk. And I, and I want to note the fact that President Nelson, he showed up physically to conference twice. He's in a wheelchair both times, and he did not speak live at conference either time, but he was there. He was present. He was alert. He was engaged. And his talk— this is a 100-year-old man, obviously But his talk made it very clear, I think, that whatever his physical deterioration may be, mentally he is still all there. All of those who are saying, okay, well, President Oaks has taken over now and, and President Nelson is just a figurehead, I don't think that's true. I sort of suspected maybe that was true, uh, prior to the 100th birthday. But at the 100th birthday party, he got up out of his wheelchair and embraced people. He was clearly alert and engaged there, but his talk made it clear that he is still mentally sharp, as sharp or sharper than men who are decades younger than he is. And so I found that encouraging. And I also Looking at the frailty of the rest of the First Presidency, Oaks certainly looks better than Eyring does. Eyring just looks very, very frail at this point. President Holland came in a wheelchair and he looked really, really ill when he spoke. I, I found his talk to be somewhat disappointing. There is a harshness to Elder Holland now that, that was absent. And I'm not quite sure where that's coming from. When he spoke 6 months ago, and it was the first time he had spoken since he had had his near-death experience, and he described it as a near-death experience, and he didn't describe the details of it, but to say that the message that he got was that he had to be more I'm trying to remember what exactly the word was, but I interpreted it as I need to be more strident, more, um, I need to be harsher in my tone. I need to cry repentance with more vigor. And so there seems to be this sense from him that he's taking a harsher tone. He's taking a sharper tone than the kind of pastoral tone for which he is known, and for what I think has been sort of the hallmark of his legacy. So I was sort of disappointed to see that. And this is a bit of a tangent, but he— President Holland, I should call him President Holland since he's the president of the Quorum of the Twelve— President Holland recently, for the first time, has made public comments about his musket fire talk, which, uh, every report I've gotten from behind the scenes is that he was sort— he was devastated by the negative reaction to that talk because that talk really did fly in the face of the kind of pastoral image not just image, but the pastoral ministry that President Holland has engaged in throughout his life. And that talk was so combative and, and so divisive. And behind the scenes, people who knew Elder Holland were telling me he really regrets it. He really feels terrible about it. And he's spoken publicly about it. And unlike Brad Wilcox, he was not willing to apologize for it. But he was willing to say, if you were hurt, I was hurt. And I know many people were hurt. And if you wept, I wept. I have wept about that talk. And that echoes some language from the talk where he said, you know, we, we've all wept for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. You, you can't tell us that we haven't wept for them. And I, I find that to be really, really odd because it seems to be an attempt to apologize without actually apologizing. And I don't know how that helps anybody. I don't know how that helps Elder Holland. I mean, if he's hurt by how other people have been hurt, then Shouldn't he apologize for being an instrument of that kind of pain? Is he trying to say, I had no choice because God made me say this and I feel bad, I really wish I hadn't had to say that? That's just, that's a really strange place to land as far as I'm concerned. I just don't, I don't know how you give somebody credit for the fact that they've done something that has hurt somebody. They acknowledge that they've hurt somebody, but they're still not willing to apologize for hurting somebody. So anyway, I find— I found that problematic, and I found Elder Holland's talk to just be a little harsher than it ought to have been. I was also somewhat disappointed in Elder Uchtdorf's talk. You know, he's very frequently a highlight, and I thought his talk really wasn't up to his previous standards. He talked about truth. He talked about how some truths are more valuable than other truths. And it just, it didn't, it didn't sing in the way that a lot of Elder Uchtdorf's talks do. So anyway, in terms of all of that, um, you know, conference, we are led by, I believe, good and inspired men who are men. They are fallible. They have weaknesses. They have blind spots. They are encountering mortality the same way we are. And so I feel like we should give them as much grace as God gives us. We I do not expect my leaders to be perfect. I do not expect them not to make mistakes. And I do not— even when they don't measure up to the kinds of rhetorical standards that I would hope they would measure up to based on my expectations of conference, I can still recognize that the hand of the Lord is in this church and that he is working through these men. To, to help bring about the Lord's purposes. So, so, you know, all of those kinds of things are, are just kind of my, my thoughts. But I, I think what you would— the things that you have raised, particularly this idea of gathering Israel on both sides of the veil, I think you are being very perceptive there. And I think that very much is one of the messages. So, so that's my reaction to your reaction. And I think that kind of covers most of it. Is there something that we've missed?

Yeah. Well, I was listening to you. I thought it was great response to my comments. 3, you know, I said earlier, forgive me for not being as specific as I would like. I was listening to you, but I have found 3 things I want to highlight here from this synopsis. One is in Elder Andersen's talk where he said that, and this is important to to quote this. This is in respect to the, the teaching of grace. He says here in Elder Ulysses' talk, hope of eternal life is assured through the grace of Christ, Christ and individual choices, allowing individuals the remarkable blessing of returning to be with the Heavenly Father and his beloved Son. No reference to works. I want to highlight that, and I think that's A good direction.

Individual choices could be interpreted as a reference to works, couldn't it?

Uh, like you could interpret that any way you want, I guess. Uh, maybe, but no specific reference, hard reference to, to works, right? And then if I scroll through the synopsis again, um, that I'm relying on here is if you go to, uh, uh, Elder Brook P. Hales. He said, you know, when he was a home teacher to an older sister in his ward whose life hadn't been easy, but after she died, her son received a message from her while in the temple, telling him mortality works. So there's a hard reference to an experience that you can't verify, obviously, that someone on the other side of the veil has accepted the gospel. That's what I get from that, which is fine. And, and again, I think we're going to hear more of that. You know, temple, more temples. I mean, it just, it's just logical. It's intelligent. Build more temples, show that we're making progress through temples. It's the last days, Christ coming. Get everybody committed to the covenant path, including youth. Go to the temple. And let's start measuring all the activity in the temple. And yes, as a natural extension, let's measure how many people accept the gospel on the other side of the veil. And the third thing I want to highlight is from Elder Cook's talk, Quentin L. Cook, an apostle. He says something very interesting in his talk. He does some generic statements like, you know, the Book of Mormon helps individuals draw closer to God. That's what I'm talking about. Stuff like that. It's like getting up and saying, you know, um, God is God, or the Book of Mormon is God, or serving is a good thing. You know, I mean, it, it's just very generic. But he gets into some interesting things at the end. He said, hey, to know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, we need to read, ponder, pray, uh, ponder and pray about it. So, you know, getting people to read it again. And then he says, here's something interesting. Latter-day Saints need to be intentional about what they view. Do not entertain immoral, dishonest, or unrighteous material. Does that mean material that the church has published that is incorrect, or where prophets or apostles or leaders of the church have said things that are verifiably untrue or incorrect, or policies that in the past, um, like the 2015, uh, gay-related policy that the church did a big reversal on. Was that, was that unrighteous material? You know, does these rules apply to the church as well? He says it, you can be acted upon positively or negatively. I think Elder Bednar gave an interesting talk on that. Seek righteousness and avoid dark internet rabbit holes and doom scrolling.

Doomscrolling, yes.

Doomscrolling is what, looking for end-of-day negative stuff?

Doomscrolling, I'm surprised you use that term because it's not a term that is church-related. As you people talk about, it's just people who sit on their phones and they just scroll forever, forever, just to look it anything. It's been called doom scrolling, but it's not necessarily, right, that you're focused on like the end times. There's not a religious thing. Okay, I'm going to look up the definition while you talk here.

Yeah, but it's used in a religious meeting, right? Uh, you know, it's a religious meeting. It's not a general, you know, business meeting, nothing like that. Okay, or, you know, other kind of—

ChatGPT says that doom scrolling is the act of spending too much time reading or scrolling through negative news or content on social media or the web.

Okay, all right, fine, fine. That's a generic definition, right? A universal definition. Remember, Elder Cook is an apostle. This is a significant religious event in the church as fixtures, et cetera. And so, you know, I get from that through my spectrum of, you know, Mormon spectrum that, um, yeah, just, I mean, don't read all the negative stuff. Um, I'd also, you know, don't read too much of the end of the world stuff. President Nelson talks about the end of the world. Maybe I'm getting it, might, maybe I'm the only one getting that interpretation. But, um, and then he talks about, hey, finishes at the end there, he says, to those who have deviated from the covenant path, I guess that's me. Return to the sacred scriptures, prophetic guidance, religious observance in the home, and music of faith. He's talking about you, Jim Bennett, about being in the tabernacle. So, you know, I've no excuse to be, um, a resigned member or inactive. You know, I, I, I'm here with the great Jim Bennett and, uh, that alone should be enough for me to, uh, return to, uh, the music of faith. So I, you know, there's 3 specifics there. So again, I go back to the very first thing I said, if you go to conference, and you get uplifted, inspired, great. I think that's a wonderful thing. You know, people need help and support. And if you can get that from your, you know, your church meetings, sacraments, I would encourage the church to be more I really emphasize what Elder Cairns said about looking at the joyousness and the joy aspects of the church instead of being too subdued and too solemn, and I've seen too much of that. And I'd love to go to an evangelical church where they are singing, playing guitars. I've actually been to some of those over Christmas time. We go to some over Christmas time, and they another church near where we live. And they're amazing. They're playing the guitar, they're playing the drums, they're singing, they tell the story of Jesus. The number of people that turn out, Jim, and these are local churches that do them here locally. I mean, they're in the massive number of people that turn out. They don't last long, about an hour. They focus on, you know, the birth of Christ,. And the— I get a lot of spirituality from those, from a, you know, religious spirituality from those, far more than I got in the last few years before I, you know, left the church. I think the church would do well to change its— the atmosphere, if you like, in, in there, to be more positive, more joyous. Let's be excited about life. Let's be enthusiastic. And yes, let's bring some instruments in and let's kind of cheer people up instead of everybody walking around with big long faces because they spent too much time thinking about, you know, all these sins. You know, I don't think about my sins anymore. You know, I just focus on being the best I can, being a good father, you know, good husband, and a good person hopefully in the community trying to make a little bit of a difference. And getting spirituality from nature. I think there's a lot of wonderful— you know, God created this planet. This is wonderful. It's very beautiful. And you can get spirituality from nature, from places. And that's where my general conference is now, riding my mountain bike with my family and my friends through the mountains here in Canada. And I get a lot from that. But again, if you like, you go to church and you go to conference and you get a lot from it. Great, keep going. And we all need— we all get our inspiration in different ways from different sources, and that's a good thing. So I think overall conference looks, you know, from my perspective, resigned, quite critical of the church, the church where I think it's deserving, in my opinion at least. I think overall it was pretty safe and fairly general and a pretty pretty decent conference, it sounds like. So that's my final comments on that.

All right. Well, let's let that be the last word. And so very much appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me. We appreciate all of you who are listening to this, and we hope that you would subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you next time. Time on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.