Prophecies of a Future Church

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. I'm Jim Bennett, and I am here as always with Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I'm doing very well today, Jim. How are you?

I'm doing well. Looks like you got a haircut.

I did, yes. I, I, uh, I thought, uh, you know, I'd, uh, move away from the Grizzly Adams look, uh, Indian lumberjack Grizzly Adams. So yeah, I'm looking more, a little more, uh, refined today.

Yeah, well, that's good. I am always grateful when I realize this is not a video podcast. Why, why, why, dude? It's 10 o'clock. All right, I'm gonna put you outside. Putting you outside. Out, out, out. He always— I don't know, I think podcasting disturbs him.

I think he does it unless he's trying to say something and he's got, uh, something he wants to say on the podcast.

He may, he may, he may. No, I am always grateful that this is not a video podcast because my hair is always a nightmare when we record this. So, I'm grateful that you are the only one that can see that and everybody else can just assume that I am perfectly coiffed.

You look fine. And maybe our listeners, I think they probably appreciate that they can't see it as well. But no, I think today we look pretty okay. We got gray hair, But, uh, we've earned every single one. So I'm excited about this podcast because, you know, we're talking about growth and decline with the church, and it's a major, major topic. Of course, you know, growth, if you look at what the growth means, you know, and how the church measures growth and what that means in terms of members and standing in the world, you know, position with the members, um, you know, position with all the different relationships, political, geopolitical, et cetera. We know what's, what where's the church come from, where's it going, how's it getting there, all the challenges, tithing, you know, growth is an important, critical topic for the church and it, you know, it takes it extremely seriously. And so it's no surprise that we will be visiting this topic, I think, from time to time periodically as things, you know, change and various different developments occur within the church and how that impacts growth with the church. So this It's probably our second conversation on church growth and decline. And again, it probably won't be our last and probably come back to this at another point as things change and develop as time goes on.

Well, we decided to talk about this after we discovered the study. I was on Twitter and I have a Twitter— I follow a guy named Ennis Envy. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. But he posted a link to a recently released study that had some hard numbers that I think provoked this conversation. This is a study that is conducted— it's conducted every 10 years during election years, and it covers a whole range of stuff. It's not— it isn't a study about the church. It's a study about American electoral trends. And population trends and everything else. It's called the Cooperative Education Study, and it's released by, uh, Harvard University. So these guys are heavy hitters. It's formerly the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. It's a 50,000-person national stratified sample survey administered by YouGov. So anyway, there's a whole lot of data here. 50,000 people respond, and 800 of those people identified themselves— roughly 800, I think it was 804— identified as Latter-day Saints. And so that tells you— so, so one qualification here from the outset is that this may be too small of a survey sample to draw the kind of broad conclusions that I think we're going to draw as we talk about it. They have data from 2012 that they're comparing with data from 2022 that shows a startling drop-off in the number of members of the church. So, uh, I'm just looking at this graphic and it's titled LDS Membership in the United States versus United States adults identifying as Mormon. So you have the number that is provided by the church as the LDS membership, and then you have the number of people in this survey extrapolated out, uh, statistically to determine how many United States adults identify as Mormon. So in 2012, The Church said that in the United States there were 6,321,416 members, but according to the survey, only 5,196,287 people identify as Latter-day Saints, which is a discrepancy of— here's the math— 1,125,129. Now, that's not necessarily surprising, as we know that the church keeps records of people who, uh, until they're 110 years old. So if you stop going to church, you're still counted on the membership records of the church until you're 110. And, and also, I think that, that, that number, the church's number, includes children of record. And this is a survey of adults. So that discrepancy isn't all that surprising because I think it probably includes a number of children and also a number of dead people or more people who just stopped going to church. But what is startling is comparing those numbers to the numbers that this survey has for 2022. 2022, the church reports that it has 6,804,028 members, which is an increase over the 10 years of about 500,000 people. Yeah, which is lovely, except the number of people who identify, self-identify as Latter-day Saints dropped So only 3,921,685 people identify, self-identify as Mormons. So in calculating the actual drop-off, if you have the 5 million in 2012 and the 3.9 million in 2022, that is roughly a 25% drop-off. Which is a startling, startling drop-off. Uh, it— and the discrepancy between what the church is reporting and what the actual numbers are, uh, is, is even— is an even larger chasm. So, uh, the church is saying, well, we have 6.8 million members. The survey says, no, you only have 3.9 million members. That is a discrepancy of— yeah, that's the 57%. Yeah, that's actually the 3.9 million is 57% of the number, which means that the church's number is inflated by 43%. Does that make sense?

It just makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just going to be devil's advocate here and just kind of come out for the church because this is how I think they're going to— they're going to respond to this. This is, if I was the church, this is how I would respond. So if you look at, you know, remember that, that just to go back to what you're saying, you know, 800 of 50,000 in the sample is, is tiny, is small. The church will argue that for sure. 'Cause I, I would, right? Secondly, how is the church defined membership? Well, it's those who've been baptized and confirmed. Those who are under the age of 9 have been blessed but not baptized. Those who have been born to members but are not. Accountable because of intellectual disabilities, regardless of age. Uh, unblessed children under the age of 8, uh, that's two members' parents request it, or one member parent requests it and the non-member parents gives permission. So in the, uh, research there, 50,000 with the small 800 sample, you know, what were those questions? You know, if I think the question was, do they affiliate with the Mormon faith? And they said No, but if you get into the detail in terms of how the church defines membership, it would argue, well, it doesn't take into account these other, other factors. And it would respond, I think, in, in, in that way and say, well, the research that you referring to, first of all, small sample, and it's not as, uh, defined or specific, and it's just a question around do you associate with the Mormon faith? I think that's how the church would respond to that if they were going to respond at all. But it's, it's, it's definitely interesting that, you know, the, the decline between 2012 and 2022 in that 10 years of 25%, I think that's extraordinary. The church is in serious decline and it is difficult to, depending how you define, you know, uh, church membership. And, uh, it's, it's difficult to get to any reliable data. The church is the only organization that's got that. It's not going to be completely transparent on every single thing, but it has been transparent in terms of the rate of growth, which I think in the last few years have got— gone down to, I think, around about 1% rate of growth. Yeah, I think that's 1.2 or 1.%. So It is growing, growing in certain countries. It's declining in the US. I think the church, if it came clean, it would say, yeah, church is on decline. It would argue, as I would, secularism, um, people rejecting the gospel. We're now focusing on Africa, for example. There's other growth there, and the church will continue to see growth, but in very small rates in countries like Africa. Over the, over the coming years. And in that period of time, it will redefine what it means by the standard of truth, and it will redefine what it means in terms of growth. What does growth mean to the church? Is that growth in spirituality? Yes. Growth in temples. I mean, how many temples were announced at General Conference?

20.

20. I can't remember a time when ever. It's unprecedented where announcing, uh, 20 new temples, or at least, uh, communicating, communicating in a way that people get the impression that there are 20 new temples being built. I, I, I remember the time when one was two— well, two was extraordinary, one was amazing. Now we, now we're announcing 20. That's, that's growth. That my old wards, you know, Harbury and Wakefield, that I've just amalgamated recently, feedback I'm getting there is that the, that's now defined as growth, that they're coming together, consolidating growth, strengthening the, the members, strengthening the rank and files. And that is a measurement of growth. It depends how you define, you know, what's your metric for growth, i.e., defining growth, right? So I think that whole conversation around what the church interprets as growth is changing quite radically. I think the church is going to struggle going going forward in terms of do they communicate the church growth. I think eventually they might not, or they might change that messaging, might change the metric. This might— they'll add new metrics, I think, to General Conference. Again, if I'm thinking of as a, as a business and I need to, uh, maintain confidence, well, first of all, I wouldn't— I'd be honest, you know, with the numbers. Myself, but the church, it can't afford, Jim Bennett, to communicate officially. 'Cause when it stands up and speaks, it's official. It's like the essays. It's one thing, hearsay is one thing. And you know, the Pew Research that you've got here, which talks about the US going into becoming more secular. Or having an independent research body provide information. It's quite another standing up and actually admitting something and saying something, you know, at the pulpit, because that's when that's official. That's when the, you know, the church members sit up and take note. I'm reminded of that, that famous quote now from Joseph Smith Jr., which is interesting. He says, a standard of truth has been erected No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purpose of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done. I, I don't, Joseph Smith wasn't aware of the internet when that was spoken. When he, when he said that, God was aware. And not sure if he, God told the leaders or didn't, they didn't do anything about it. But if you look at that through the prism of the internet, um, in, in, in some ways the church has achieved a lot of its objectives. You know, the, the, the church has penetrated every continent through the internet. Visit every client. The internet's everywhere. It's worked in every country, sounded in many, many ears. And now the church has focused on proselytizing through the use of technology and AI. So you think you're talking to a missionary, but you're not. I don't know if you've talked about that, but that's going to happen.

Is that really happening? Are there AI missionaries?

Well, not yet, but, but feedback I've got from a couple of people, uh, reliable sources, that the church is looking at AI to do the proselyting efforts. I mean, just think about it. Imagine going online. It's quite easy. It's quite simple to join the dots actually. It's a very simple step where you go online, you start talking to somebody. They, you know, we have the AI now. So when you talk to people on the internet and you're looking for an insurance product, some, a little box comes up and some name appears. That is probably not a real person. That's an electronic AI technology working there. And you're talking to a machine, you're talking to a bot. I mean, that's been around for a few years. So the transition to go to an AI missionary is quite a simple, easy, and very intelligent step in my opinion. And so, you know, in terms of big data and digital transformation, you imagine capturing all the information that the church has, every volume, every letter, every word. Excuse me. And AI, big data, uh, um, methods and technology. This is what, this is how it, uh, works. And so you put all the data in very powerful systems and it can communicate instantly, very effectively in amazing and retrieve information in a way that you and I, I mean, your, your memory's better than mine now, but I used to be able to remember stuff, just a lot of stuff and, and retrieve it very, very quickly. But AI is so powerful now. If you put every, every piece of information in there, the church can, uh, you know, every good faithful information, let me say, not unfaithful. I'm just qualify that the church won't, uh, you know, I think we'll exclude that. It is quite easy to see how you'll be talking to an AI missionary which can retrieve information instantly with any question, et cetera. I mean, that's very powerful. It's gonna save a lot of money and a lot of time, a lot of efficiency. He can reach more people. He can deal with some of the anti-Mormon questions, et cetera. It's definitely the way the church is going to go. I don't know what the role is for the full-time traditional conventional missionary. I don't know what that looks like in the future because technology is going to change all of that. And so I think there's a conversation happening around how does the church define growth? How does it define what it calls the standard of truth? What does that now mean in the age of the internet? What's the role of the internet and AI in regards to growth? And what are the new metrics around that for determining growth? And what are the general growth metrics that the church is working on to redefine growth, like temples and spirituality? When you start talking about quarts and units and stakes amalgamating and returning to what we used to be, you know, the, you know, less stakes but You know, the stake is now stronger because of it. If you're measuring that, then again, that's a— the church is being very smart, very intelligent by saying, look, you know, the church is growing in these ways and this amalgamation is a sign of growth. It depends how you define growth. And then the church will say, look, secularism, that's a sign of Satan getting into the hearts of people. The work will continue. Look, look at— it's still easy to have a talk and say, look at the internet because of the The internet is an instrument of God in many ways. I use it as an instrument of God has now swept every country, visited every clime, and we're going to use the internet and technology to, to further advance that. The church is intelligent, very smart. It will do that. And those traditional conventional ways of, uh, proselyting and the, the old metrics of measuring, you know, bums on seats, so to speak, I think that's, that's changing. And the church is going to take advantage of all these opportunities to redefine what growth means and what, uh, you know, what decline means. Uh, so it could argue quite easily, I think, that this research that you're referencing, that you found on Twitter, you know, 50,800 size sample, very small. And secondly, they didn't take into account you know, what the other growth aspects are, growth metrics of the church. So that research that he's looking at is kind of very narrow and, and doesn't take into account all these other factors. So that's how, that's how the church, I think, would respond. So I think it's quite an easy argument to, to respond to. But I think the truth is the church is in serious decline. It's, you know, 25% drop-off in the last 10 years. If, you know, 50% difference in the 2022 reporting from the church to this research that you've got here. I think the truth is probably, if I'm being really fair and generous, it's probably somewhere in between. And if I'm right, it's still a very, very serious decline in, you know, in church membership or, you know, people affiliating with the church.

Well, it's interesting, as you were talking about AI, I recalled a conversation I had at the recent Restore conference put on by Faith Matters, which I think figures into this conversation. And I want to get into that a little bit down the road. But I bumped into a guy named Stephen Smoot, who I— who is a scholar. He's— he's a young man who is getting an Egyptology degree and has written quite a lot about the Book of Abraham and a bunch of other things. He's very bright, very sarcastic and witty. And he told me that he was working on LDSbot. Have you ever bumped into LDSbot?

No, I haven't.

Yeah, it's at LDSbot.com. I found it a while ago and I asked it about myself and it told me I was a great historian, which I thought was really nice considering that I'm not a great historian. But as you were talking here, I pulled up LDSbot.com and I asked again, who is Jim Bennett? And very quickly, it said, Jim Bennett is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the author of A Faithful Reply to the CES Letter from a Former CES Employee. He's widely known within the LDS faith for his thoughtful responses to questions and criticisms about the faith. He's also the son of former U.S. Senator Bob Bennett from Utah. And then I said, you're not going to like this. I said, who is Ian Wilkes? And it said, "I'm sorry, but I don't have information on an individual named Ian Wilkes in the context of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." And so my goal now is more important than any other goal in my personal life and professional life is to appear on LDS Bots. It doesn't know about our podcast yet. Hopefully it will get there. But I, I think you're right. I think these kinds of tools are going to become more prominent and more helpful. LDSbot, actually, I went and sort of quizzed it on all the difficult questions, and it really did give some substantive, thoughtful answers. Uh, it also admitted that doctrine can change. It, uh, admitted that the church has made mistakes, although when you try to get it to identify a specific mistake, it won't do it. But, uh, I thought, yeah, these are tools that are going to become more and more helpful. As we go forward. And I can remember having discussions with my father about church growth and in the days before the internet, because he remembers being a missionary in Scotland. He served his mission in Scotland just as we did. And, and President McKay came to Scotland and said, the day will come Mark it when the people of Russia will rise up and demand their freedom of religion. And anticipating that the church would get into Russia. Now, this was in the heart of the Cold War, and the idea of Russia accepting missionaries was a pipe dream. And I remember having this conversation after the Berlin Wall fell and Russia which not too long after opened its doors to missionary work. And it's since closed the doors to missionary work, particularly with the war that's going on. But the mindset and the model from that conversation was that that's how missionary work is going to go forward. Every country is going to allow missionaries to come in, We're going to send 19-year-old boys into those countries, knock on those doors, and after every door is knocked on and every country has legally recognized us, uh, then the great Jehovah shall say the work is done. But the work has changed radically. You know, even then, this was in the early 1990s, this is 30 years ago, uh, we did not anticipate the rise of the internet. And even when the internet came on the scene, we did not anticipate how ubiquitous it would be and how, you know, did not anticipate that every single person would be carrying a small computer in the form of a smartphone everywhere they went. The way information is distributed, the way the word of the Lord is distributed, uh, is, is radically different from the model that the church still is using. I mean, I think, for instance, COVID and a number of other things is forcing the church to confront technology. But my boys that went on missions, yes, they made Facebook videos and yes, they were using the internet, but they spent most of their days walking through neighborhoods and knocking on doors. Actually, when they were in Argentina, they did a thing called clapping. You'd go to the fence at the end of the yard and you'd clap your hands and call attention to the homeowner and they would come out and talk to you. But that's still— I don't think that the paradigm shift that you have so ably described here has penetrated the minds of the leaders of the church. I think we're in the midst of a transition the church doesn't even realize that it's in. And so I think it's really important that if we're ever going to reverse these growth trends, I mean, I can see all of the critics of the church look at these numbers and say the church is going to be gone in 30 years. And if those numbers continue, then that's probably right. You know, the Strangites have 300 members now, but initially they were, you know, James Strang was one of the first people who claimed to be the successor to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and he went to an island in Wisconsin and crowned himself king. And for a while, even the Three Witnesses, or at least Martin Harris, followed James Strang. And then they deteriorated to the point where there are only 300 members now. And you have a lot of people salivating at the idea that the church is on a similar trajectory. I don't necessarily think it is. I think, you know, the church has gone through dips in membership before, percentage dips in membership before, and then come back roaring strong when it finds the message that resonates with its current audience. That happened after World War II when we discovered that talking about the nuclear family and creating the kind of traditional family structure was very appealing to large segments of the world. And the church experienced exponential growth. Well, now nobody's as interested in that anymore. And we don't have a message that resonates. We have a message to a large degree that alienates. We tell everybody that we don't accept you if you don't fit in that traditional family structure. And if you're LGBTQ or if you are a woman, you are a second-class citizen. We have not embraced the message that is resonating. I think we can, and I think that the internet is the tool that will allow that to go forward. And it's already creating a different church than I think so that my father would recognize, you know, my father passed away about 8 years ago and he, you know, he was watching some of this and was trying to follow this. But I spent this last weekend at this conference I mentioned earlier. It was called Restore, and it was put on by a group called Faith Matters, which funds a number of scholars and people like Terrill Gibbons Patrick Mason, um, uh, Tom Christofferson was a part of this for a while. This is Elder Christofferson's brother. I'm not sure if he still is, but, uh, just a number of really intelligent, thoughtful, faithful Latter-day Saints who also preach, I think, a bit more inclusive kind of, uh, message, you know. There were, there were a lot of LGBTQ advocates there. But you also had people there that, you know, Stephen Smoot was there. And I don't know that he fits into that same sort of model. But Brandon Flowers spoke at this conference and sang at this conference. Brandon Flowers being the lead singer of The Killers, who was an active member of the church. And this attracted attention and got an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, a guy named Gordon Monson who writes about the church. Called it a more inclusive kind of general conference. And on Twitter, the Desnats went crazy and said, this is a substitute conference. How dare you? Don't you dare go there. You know, a lot of these people who attack me every time I go online were saying this is an awful, terrible thing. And but the thing is, they're doing exactly the same thing that Faith Matters is doing. The Desnats have all found each other. On the internet and created this sort of subcommunity of the church on the internet and have found solace with people who think like they do. And they've built this online community. And you're starting to see— I don't— I almost want to call it the Balkanization of the church. People who think in different ways and aren't finding that kind of community in their home wards go online and find a community of like-minded people within the church online. I was startled at how many people at this conference I went up to and introduced myself and saying, I follow you online. I, you know, I met Barbara Jones Brown, who's the head of Signature Books, and she wrote a great book about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. And I talked to her at length and I'd only interacted with her online, but she's like, oh, I know you and I really like what you're doing. And we had this marvelous little conversation and I had that— that happened again and again and again. I bumped into people that I had never met in real life, but I had interacted with online and I felt like we were instant friends because of that community we had created online. So you're starting to see this In terms of the church, one of people would tout as the strengths of the church was the fact that you are thrown into a ward where you don't choose your ward. Your ward is assigned to you by geography. And so, you know, especially in areas where the church isn't concentrated like it is in Utah, you're thrown into a ward where people are rich and poor. Where people come from all kinds of different backgrounds and different perspectives. And you're supposed to, you know, right, these are your people, create a community. And that has worked to some degree. In Utah, I find it's a little harder because wards here are about, you know, 6 blocks. So you don't get a lot of economic diversity. And people come from similar backgrounds. But still, you do get different perspectives and you don't get to choose your ward. The internet allows you to some degree to choose your ward, to choose your community, to say, well, these are the Latter-day Saints I want to interact with. These are the Latter-day Saints I don't want to interact with. I'm going to stay away from them. And you are seeing the attendance at this Restore Conference was startling to me. It was at the Southtown Expo Center in— not too far from where I live, but it's this huge convention hall. And there were at least 5,000 people there, and they were there for 2 days. It was longer than General Conference. It was a little less— obviously less formal than General Conference. You could get up and walk around if you wanted to, but people sat in rapt attention listening to these speakers and you felt this tremendous sense of these are my people. We have found each other. This is exactly who I want to interact with. And I think there are pluses and minuses to that. But when you talk about redefining growth, I've always thought of that in terms of that those are church weasel words. That's the church saying, well, We're redefining growth. It's like the movie Spinal Tap where the guy's confronted and says, well, how come nobody's coming to your shows anymore? Does this mean your audience is shrinking? And he says, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It means our audience is becoming more selective. You know, it's— I mean, you could put words on anything, but there is, I think, a growth happening that is decentralized and that is out of, out of the control of the people at 47 East South Temple, of the church office building. It's happening on a grassroots level. And I remember talking to somebody in Scotland who says, yeah, the church in Scotland is— there are less than half of the people are there attending now than were attending when you were a missionary, Jim Bennett. But We still keep in touch with each other and we still have this sort of grassroots community. But it's a community of ex-Mormons. It's not a community of active Mormons. And you're seeing that online. There is a huge ex-Mormon community that never existed before. When you left the church before, you were thrown out into the wilderness and you had nowhere to go. And now these people thrown out into the wilderness with nowhere to go are finding other people in the wilderness and are gathering together and are creating these really remarkable communities. And so it's— I don't know what that means the church looks like. I do think it means that probably the numbers that Salt Lake really wants to have go up are not going to go up, and that's going to be a continuing source of frustration. But eventually the truth of God will go forth. Until it is sounded in every ear, and every ear has determined what other people they're going to listen to, what other people they're going to gather with. That is a, a reality that I don't think the church anticipated. As you say, the Lord knew about the internet, but if he told the church leaders, they didn't tell us. But That is the reality that we're going to have to deal with. And I think at the end of it, we could have a markedly different church, but also a markedly stronger church and more powerful church that is meeting the spiritual needs of its members in the way that the traditional church does not. Do you see that as a possibility, or do you see a different future?

I, Here's what I would say. Uh, years ago when I used to, as a home teacher, we'd spend a lot of time trying to reactivate people. Okay. You know, before my mission, I was a home teacher, home talk when I came back. And those people that were inactive, it was clear when we went to visit them, knocking on the door, they just weren't interested in coming back to the church or just weren't interested in talking about the church for whatever reason. And I was under the, um, my understanding was that that would be the last that we'd see of them. They were not interested in, in the church, that they weren't interested in having a conversation about the church. And then when I started years and years ago, when the, you know, when the internet started to mature and we're online, and then I come across people who are post-Mormons, or they they had inactive, starting to see the early remnants of these communities that you're speaking of that are pretty significant today. And I'm talking about the, the early stages of these communities that were coming together. I was absolutely taken back by that. I just, it was completely, um, uh, in contrast to what I'd experienced when I was home teaching. I just thought that when people leave they're not interested in talking about the church or about the church, how wrong I was.

Very, very wrong.

So that was the first thought listening to what you're saying. Secondly, the church is very different now compared to when it was restored. And over the years, you know, the decades, generations, it's changed radically in so many ways doctrinally, you know, in terms of membership, technology, etc. With the— Joseph Smith probably wouldn't recognize the church that that, uh, you know, that we have today. The third point is that the church is, is, uh, generally, um, and periodically is pretty good at trying to reinvent itself in terms of initiatives and programs and refresh. Some of it's— a lot of it's regurgitated, uh, in my— from my— in my opinion. But it, it tends to have some limited ability to try to reinvent itself. You know, we don't use the word mom now, and there's The property comes up, there's, there's changes here, changes there. And he talks about, you know, watch this space, you haven't seen anything yet, et cetera, take your vitamins, um, all that stuff. And so it's trying, it fails many times and probably have some successes trying to redefine and reinvent itself and trying to stay relevant. And so tying, so my, my fourth point is coming back to what you were saying in the last, last few comments is Where do we see the church going from here? And, and I think if we, we could be, we could make some predictions, some prophecies right now. I think one of several things is going to happen. I think you've got these different camps, different demographics. You've got this Restored Conference that you attended that I would align with quite strongly. I think in the past I wouldn't, 'cause I was more in the fully hardcore conservative thinking mindset back then. I'd be right now, if I was still in the church, I'd probably be in the Desnet group he's talking about, really fighting for that fundamental, consistent standard of truth that many of them, and I would align myself with that if I was still in the church, probably because pretty straight up and down in terms of my mindset. I'm not there anymore. Of course, things have changed significantly in my life and certainly from my perspective. So I think several things are going to happen, or one of several things going to happen. You're going to see, um, the church over the next 10 years as Oaks goes and Nelson goes and, um, hiring goes, we're gonna see more liberal, liberal, liberalism, less hardline and more movement towards, uh, better inclusion and embracing the different demographics and the different variables, different mindsets. I think they're going to be very strategic and they're going to try to retain as many of the, you know, the, the, the right, more conservative thinking. But keeping in mind 10 years, that traditional thinking, there's going to be a lot of people who are not here in the next 10, 20 years. So that thinking, that mindset is going to change. And I really believe that the church has a strategy for positioning itself, repositioning itself, but very carefully, incrementally over the next 10, 20 years as that old thinking goes and dies. And then this new thinking. And they have to do that. And this is what I'm, I'm saying is going to happen. And the church will reposition itself and will align itself more towards that restored, uh, conference thinking that you've, that you've attended, that you've just described. It will go there in the next 10, 20 years. I firmly believe that. That's the first thing. That's one thing that can happen. Another thing could happen is that it doesn't do that. It, it stays with that, um, hardcore old mindset thinking, uh, to its detriment, loses a lot of— continues to hemorrhage, uh, members, uh, in significant numbers. And what you have is a perhaps different, in terms of size and scale, to what happened when Joe Smith, uh, was— when he was murdered, and you had all the different schisms and different, you know, groups breaking up. I think what you could see if the church doesn't reposition itself is a major split, not unlike the Church of England breaking off from the Catholic Church kind of thing where you have a significant division in the church and you see this restored conference, this more liberal thinking, more nuanced group of people who want to remain faithful to the fundamental principles of the gospel, like Well, the, let me re-change that word from fundamental to universal, cuz I think there's a big difference. I think you're gonna see potentially a split of a group, large groups of people moving towards the universal principles that the gospel teaches, like love, service, kindness, forgiveness, those things that they feel good about that are universal, not unique to the church of course, but, um, very important in terms of, you inclusion and, and, uh, more broader, more liberal thinking. I think that will happen if the church does not reposition itself in the, in the next 20, you know, 10, 20 years or so. And I think that that's a real possibility. The church is, to your point earlier, the church is not going to go anywhere. It's not going to finish, die in 30 years' time. These, um, it's very rich, very successful financially, it will redefine itself, it'll redefine growth, it'll reinvent itself. The old mindset will die off. It will embrace the new mindset and inclusion. Yes, that includes acceptance of, you know, gay rights, et cetera, et cetera. That will happen. It will become more liberal, more inclusive. It will continue to shift away from the fundamentalism that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young in particular, you know, thought going way back. And it will use technology to, um, you know, further proselytize, you know, potential converts. And it will grow in different ways. I, I really believe that will happen. I think in the end you'll have a better church, a more inclusive church, a more kinder church going forward. Because if it's— if it doesn't— if it doesn't change in that way, it will shrink, it'll become hard, it will become, uh, the, the type of people in the church will be the old mindset, the very narrow-minded and, and, um, very fundamental type of thinking that you've got in there. And I don't think that's going to happen. So there's some predictions there, some prophecies there in terms of, um, um, what the church could look like or probably will look like in my opinion going forward. And so I, you know, if I'm right, I hope I'm right, then I'm encouraged by that. So this conference that you went to, I think that's going to grow. I think there's going to be more people interested in that and attending that. The community will grow. And I think the church will— the risk of losing more and more of its members to that type of group, that type of conference where you've got this perceived alternative conference going on. I think the church will shift in that direction, but it will do slowly. It will take 10, 20 years. In 20 years, a lot of the mindset that I described, you know, the old mindset, a lot of that, a percentage of that is not going to be around. And that's people who group with people like Oaks and Nelson, some of the traditional right-wing, more conservative type thinking. So there's my thoughts and there's my predictions.

Well, Those are good thoughts and predictions. Hopefully, if you prove to be a prophet, LDSBot.com will— Yes.

Probably describe me. I'll probably in a year or two come up as a— Ian has been described as a false prophet. He made these crazy predictions and it turned out that he was, you know, wildly, you know, optimistic. Yes. Yeah. But at least I'll be referenced as a false prophet.

At least you'll be referenced. At least they'll spell your name correctly.

Right now, I'm not even a false prophet. So yeah, I've got a long way to go to get onto that.

You can get on the radar there. No, it's interesting. Well, and then you start reading the tea leaves, because if you say, okay, in 10, 20 years, the church is going to be more liberal and more inclusive, you're presuming that the men that are going to follow up Russell M. Nelson and Dallin H. Oaks are going to be the ones who precipitate that. And I think people have sort of pinned their hopes that that's Dieter Uchtdorf. He's going to get in there and he's going to liberalize everything. I am not sure that's the case.

And I—

and after Dieter Uchtdorf, you get David Bednar. And anybody who listens— David Bednar is the guy who got up and said, you don't have free agency, you have moral agency. You forfeited your free agency when you got baptized. You only have moral agency, can only do what's right. I mean, we've talked about that. He's also the one who got up and said there are no homosexual members of the church. Um, you know, in context he said a little more than that, but very clearly David A. Bednar's thinking aligns with the most conservative elements. Of the church. And if we don't sort of solve these problems before he becomes president of the church— and the actuarial tables say that he will be president of the church for a very long time, although actuarial tables also said Harold B. Lee would be president of the church forever. He became president of the church in his early 70s and then suffered a heart attack a year and a half in and was gone. So you never know But the reality is the people who are currently in church leadership, if you go down the line of succession in the Q15, you don't find a lot of encouragement that a lot of that's going to happen. And yet I agree with you that it will happen for a couple of reasons. One is that I really, truly still believe that the Lord's hand is in this church and is guiding this church despite the weaknesses and the failings of its members and its leaders. And so I think that will happen because the Lord wants it to happen. And I don't know how it will happen. I think it will happen in ways that none of us can predict because we're still sort of thinking that the only way the church changes is if the guy at the top changes and then orders those changes to filter out through the church, because that has been the model of the church since the beginning of the church. That's what Joseph Smith did. That's absolutely what Brigham Young did. Brigham Young was essentially a benevolent— if you— tyrant, you know, he was a dictator. Brigham Young was, you follow me, you follow me to Utah, and here, you move here to settle this part of Utah and you move there to settle that part of Utah. And I'm in charge of every aspect of your life. I am also the territorial governor of Utah as well as the president of the church. And I'm running a theocracy. And that has waned over time, obviously. But that sort of command and control structure is what we've come to expect. And the Faith Matters Conference and the evolution of online communities, I would hope you wouldn't be a DesNatty, and I think you're far too kind to be a DesNatty.

I'm not entirely sure what a DesNatty is, if I'm being fair.

So, okay.

I just think—

well, DesNatty is short for Deseret Nationalism, and these are large white supremacists.

Oh, right. No, I take back what I said then. No, I'm not one of those for sure. I thought it was more of a— no, I'm not that. That's not me. I thought it was more of a like right-wing, you know, conservative, very fundamental.

Well, that's kind of what it is, but it goes— yeah, it goes overboard.

Okay, so the white supremacists as well, are they— they have people like that? No, I'm not. I'm not one of those for sure.

Well, but the point is the evolution of all of these groups sort of creating community where they aren't being given command and control structures to do it. I think that's how it's going to happen. I think the church, the church is going to be significantly less centralized in 20 years. I think it's— I mean, the structure isn't going to go away completely, but in terms of how we think about the structure and how we sort of look to Salt Lake to know what it is that we're supposed to be thinking about, I think that's going to be diffused to some degree in the sort of decentralized— I mean, politically, I've been saying for years that we are moving towards a post-nation-state world. You know, the idea that you need a country to create your currency, to facilitate trade, to defend your borders, to do all of those things, all of that is becoming less and less relevant as it becomes clear that trade and communication and all the functions that were important to the government 100 years ago are becoming less and less dependent on government for that to happen. So, and I think you're starting to see that in the church. You're starting to see a blurring of borders. You're starting to see a, a community that is not dependent on Brigham Young telling you to go colonize that area. It's a community that is forming voluntarily among like-minded people, and people are finding themselves with other people that they want to associate with rather than just the people they're thrown together with geographically. So I think the evolution of this church is going to happen in ways that we can't predict because they're— it's not going to be dependent on whether or not Dallin Oaks changes his mind or David Bednar changes his mind. It's going to be dependent on what the spiritual needs of church members are. And how they go about meeting those needs. And, you know, at this Restore Conference, you, you met people who it felt like they had been wandering in the desert looking for, looking for water. And then when they find it here at this conference, they just were drinking until they were drunk. They just kept drinking and drinking. It was aha. This is feeding my soul in a way that a boring talk from a Seventy I've never heard of isn't. That just is, you know, I thought nobody was falling asleep in the chairs at Restore. And I can promise you that people on both sides of the pulpit fall asleep at General Conference. People up in the choir loft fall asleep. I I confess to maybe have been one of those people, but the people in the big red chairs, the General Authorities, are falling asleep in conference. A lot of conference is boring. It just doesn't feed anything. And every once in a while somebody will give a wonderful talk that's like, oh, this is great, this is marvelous. And then somebody else will get up and give a talk that you've heard 150 times before and your eyes glaze over. I don't think that the rising generation is going to settle for that. You know, we settled for that because we didn't really see there was any other choice. There wasn't any other option. But the rising generation is going to look at this and go, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. Thanks. I'm having too much fun. You know, uh, in my discussion group that I have in this Facebook group, you know, or, or this, that, and the other. But they're going to find outlets, they're going to find ways to express their faith and build their faith and build their spirituality. And I think the model that I anticipate— I remember years ago my father was on an advisory board for the Utah State educational system, and they wrote a report called A Shift in Focus. And he said education has always modeled on the idea that the teacher is, um, the teacher is the manufacturer and the student is the product. The teacher is just shaping the student in the way the teacher wants them to, and that's the model that has existed since the beginning of time, at least since the beginning of education, since, since anybody got anybody into a schoolroom, it's the teachers in charge and the student is the product. And he said the way forward is to create a model where the student is in charge and the teacher is the coach. The teacher is, okay, oh, you're interested in Technology? Well, here, let me help you, point you to some resources that you might find interesting and direct you in a direction where you are in charge of your education. And I'm here as a resource to help coach you, to help guide you. I think that may be what the church looks like in 20 years, is your bishop isn't in charge of the world. The bishop is your coach. The bishop is— oh, Bishop, you know, I'm doing this. Oh, well, I I've heard something about this. You might want to talk to Sister So-and-so because she's doing this, and maybe that would be helpful to you. And you can go and, you know, and, and Salt Lake then becomes sort of an advisory board rather than a dictatorship. And they're sort of coaching people to find their own spiritual autonomy. And you get glimpses of that even now. I mean, President Nelson's talk, as much as I disliked it, it had a large focus on the idea of you've got to find your own spiritual strength. You've got to get your own testimony that's not dependent on anybody else, that's not dependent on anybody in Salt Lake. Now, that model also comes with the proviso that your testimony needs to include the fact that everybody in Salt Lake is getting everything right. And if you get any answer that they're not, then that's not a real testimony. I mean, that's going to have to fade a little bit. There's going to have to be an admission and an acceptance of the fallibility and the limitations and the weaknesses of mortal leaders. And the Church, the Church is doing everything it can to not to confront that, to prop up the illusion of prophetic infallibility. And that's going to have to come tumbling down. And as soon as that tumbles down, then, then you have an experience where the members of the church realize, hey, these prophets and apostles, they're in this— we're all in this together, right? They encounter God the same way I do. They're not going into a secret room where they meet with Jesus face to face on a regular basis. They encounter God through impressions, through spiritual guidance, but they're walking the same mortal journey that I am. And once we're all on that sort of level playing field, then a lot of the nonsense just goes away. I firmly believe that 90% of people's problems with the church vanish the minute they can accept the reality of prophetic fallibility. The minute you can just say, no, Brigham Young was wrong. When Brigham Young said that interracial couples should be punished by death, and that is the law of God and always will be, Brigham Young was absolutely wrong. And you don't have to go through weird gyrations to sort of justify something terrible that leaders have said, because some leaders have said some terrible things and they've been wrong. So I— that's my prophecy. It's a more nebulous prophecy than yours, but it's a prophecy that within 10 to 20 years we're going to see a much more decentralized church than the church we have now. And I think that will be a good thing And I think it will also be a thing where growth is going to be harder to measure because a lot of the people that were at this Restore conference, I'd say the bulk of them were on the records of the church and were faithful, active members. But a lot of them were not. A lot of them were people who are disaffected with the church and who have walked away from the church and maybe even aren't on the records of the church, but they still believe, a lot of what the church teaches, and they still embrace the parts of the church that are meaningful to them. And so they feel comfortable in that setting, even if they don't feel comfortable in a— comfortable in a traditional church setting. So, uh, it'll be harder to measure growth, uh, than, than what the church wants. But I think even that is a good thing. I think long term, it's what matters. What matters, I think, to the Lord. And here, here's Jim Bennett speaking for the Lord. But what matters to the Lord is not numbers and is not, you know, how many people are on the, are on the records of my church. It is how many people have found me, how many people are in relationship with me. Uh, and I think that's going to become the standard going forward because that really is the only thing that matters. The only thing that matters is how do I stand with God? Uh, what is my relationship to God? Uh, what does God think of me? And, and do I have that kind of spiritual connection to the divine to help me navigate the difficulties of mortality? And the church is a vehicle to, to, to help facilitate that. But the church is not the end in and of itself. It's the relationship with God that is the, that is the end in and of itself. And as the church evolves into something that better facilitates that, I think it will look markedly different than it does today.

I I think I agree. I do agree. I do see your prophecy there, your prediction kind of rolling out in that way. Decentralization. It's interesting because we are seeing a wave of, in geopolitics, seeing a wave of nationalism, not, you know, decentralization. We are seeing, you know, countries fight for the, you know, for the country, for the border. And actually trying to expand, you know, their borders. So you're seeing that happening potentially, what you're describing could happen in the, you know, across the next period of time where you're gonna see a wave of, you are seeing now a wave of nationalism sweeping the world in almost every country. It's also, to your point, there's a couple of thoughts there is that the church has for a long time had this mindset that you have to conform, you have to think and feel and dress and behave, and you have to report the bishops in charge, prophets in charge. You've got that hierarchy, that traditional line of reporting, that old-fashioned structure. I think I agree with you. I think all that's gotta be broken down. You're gonna see changes in the way you describe, but really I think you're right. I think that's going to happen. In stark contrast, by the way, and also just going back, uh, to you said earlier that it's not measured by the numbers of people, which is a stark contrast to what Al Holland said at the— now at the end of his infamous BBC interview where he said we are 16 million and growing. And he, he made a reference to the, the divinity and truthfulness of the church associated with the numbers, meaning the more numbers we have— this is what I got, you know, the, the bigger our membership the equates to the, the truer that we are and the fact that we are gonna go continue to go, you know, boldly forward and we're gonna grow and grow, grow into numbers. That means because we, we, we true. I, I think what I predicted will come to pass. I hope it will. I think it will. I think what you predicted in terms of decentralization will happen. I think will happen in time. I still, I don't entirely agree with you when you say I don't think he's saying actually that the leaders won't change, Elder Bednar won't change. He didn't say that, so I'm not going to disagree with something that you've not said. But I do think people like Bednar and other people around him who have this mindset right now will change. I really believe that. I think they will change. They will have to change. Uh, and the alternative, as I say, is a smaller, more narrow thinking, um, old-fashioned, traditional, conventional thinking And I don't think they want that. And I believe it's going in the right direction. It's gonna happen slowly, but I think all these things lined up that you and I are talking about, these predictions, you know, these drivers, these factors, these conferences, alternative conferences, et cetera. I think it, all the arrows, so many of the arrows point, generally speaking, in a certain direction. And that's actually encouraging. And if that were to happen and it was transformed like that, I even asked myself, would I go back? And I probably would if it was that kind of— and that's quite a shock to hear myself say that, but if it's quite universal and it kind of is the conference that you attended recently and it's inclusive and kinder and less rigid and more relevant, etc. And the other point I would make as well, which I think is important, it'd be interesting if this was done as a poll. Imposed, you can give an honest answer. So if you ask people who went to conference or went to church, do you go because you have to versus people going to these meetings and conferences, do you go because you want to? And I think the people at the conference that you attended were there because they wanted to go. They didn't have to go. They want to go. But I think a lot of people in the church many people in the church go because they have to go. They're obligated to go because they've got to fit that conformity. Jim Bennett, got to— they've got to go to church. You have to go to church. You've got to be sacrament. You've got to take your sacrament. You're going to serve in your calling. You're going to wear a white shirt. At some point, you're going to bear testimony, got to give a talk. You got to think a certain way, feel a certain way, got to go to the temple, you got to read ministry. I'm teaching, etc. You have to fit that that production line that you talked about, that manufacturing and production line, that's the model, that's the traditional model of the church. And it's not survivable. That will not survive. That will— that system will break down. It will change in the way you describe. I really believe that. And so, and so I am encouraged from this conversation and looking at lining up all these other factors I'm encouraged that that, um, that will happen. And I think people naturally, instinctively, spiritually, no matter where you are in your life, no matter what religion you are, we all need to feel loved. We all need to feel accepted. We all need, and I'll quote you and others, a tribe, a tribe that we can connect with and resonate with and, and feel a part of and feel included and loved and needed. And valued and listened to and appreciated. And we need that as human beings. That, that goes to our instinctive need to feel accepted. It's that hierarchical list of needs that we've got to feel accepted and to belong to something. And so that is evolutionary. That's inherent within us as human beings, within our spirit. And it's our spirituality and how do we maintain a level of spirituality and where do we go to meet those spiritual needs. So I, you know, everything on this conversation, it points in my mind at least in a certain direction and it's very, very encouraging. And if it rolls out the way we think will happen, the way we predict, And I see the church growing, but differently, very differently. So if you change the whole goalposts, you know, and you change the rules of growth and we really radically redefine what growth is and you become more inclusive and you start to accept certain things because of love and understanding, imagine that. Now that's a different conversation, different experience there. That is growth, you know, where people are coming back. People like me, if I came back, I mean, that is growth, right? So if it's a different organization and, and, um, a different experience and it's more community and, and more universal, um, it's going to, uh, bring people back and attract new people. And that I, I think will happen. So I think you're gonna see this line of, of service decline over the next few years. This is not the first time we're gonna see these, um, these stats, these data, and showing significant decline, there will come a point where the church will either stop reporting, you know, the rate of growth, whether it's just not showing much rate of growth at all, or it will come clean and say, look, we're not growing, and it will reinvent something or say, look, we need to— or it will make some changes to, you know, to start to change the corner of growth. And I think 20 years from now, we look forward 20 years from now and we remember this, but this podcast is out there and if we're still alive, I hope we are. Sure.

We'll see.

And we look back and we'll say, and people, you know, you'll put my name into that bot and my name will come up and Ian was a true prophet. And Jim Bennett were true prophets of the Lord. I'm I'm being a bit cheeky there. But, you know, if we look back, if we look forward rather, those changes will happen. And 20 years from now, we'll look back and we'll think, my goodness, what a conversation. But I don't think in certain ways that we will be able to recognize the church in the future that we see right now. And you've said that on this conversation. We've seen radical changes over the years. We've gotta continue to see radical changes. There's certain drivers and forces that the church can't get away from. We know that it's going to push and it's going to force the church to behave and change in different ways for the better or for the worst. I think for the better. 20 years from now, it'll be a different church, a different organization, more inclusive. And yes, some people coming back and other people who weren't probably interested in the church, probably looking at joining the church. And so I think it will stabilize going forward. And I think people like Bednar and others, I think their minds will change. I sound like an active, faithful going member, don't I? But I do hold out hope for the goodness to prevail within the church and for intelligent minds to prevail and common sense and love and kindness and more inclusion happen. I think it will happen.

Well, I think that should be the last word. So with that, uh, we thank you very much for listening, and, uh, we will look forward to seeing you next time on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.