Prophetic Voices in a Divided World - with Greg Prince

Hello and welcome to Inside Out. I'm your co-host Ian Wilkes, and as always, I'm here with the indispensable Jim Bennett. Hello, Jim, how are you?

I'm doing all right. How are you, sir?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well. It's always a wonderful privilege and delight to work with you, Jim, and to have these conversations. And we are absolutely excited to have back with us today, Gregg Prince. Welcome back, Gregg.

Thank you. You didn't say I'm indispensable, so maybe that means I'm dispensable, which is okay.

We've got these words for each other, for Jim and I, but you are absolutely indispensable to these conversations. And frankly, it's a real honor to have you return to Inside Out. We're really excited to be having these conversations. Your insights and your knowledge and your wisdom are so valuable and so important and so timely. So thank you so much for being with us and you are absolutely indispensable. No doubt about that. So we have a very interesting set of items on our agenda today that we'd like to get into. These are really important and timely items and issues that we'd like to discuss and absolutely want to get your views on these issues, Greg, as we get into this. The item I'm talking about is the absolute awful tragedy in— tragic event in Michigan. We want to talk about the passing of President Nelson, the installment of Elder Oaks as the new prophet, and what does that mean? What does an old presidency mean for the church and the wider world? And Greg, we're very keen, as you as well, Jim, as well, to get your predictions, if you have any, on General Conference, which is happening this weekend. When I heard about the event in Michigan, it was absolutely sickening. You know, an individual drove his vehicle into the building, sounds like into the foyer, on a Sunday during the, uh, uh, the, uh, a time when there were members in the building worshiping with their families, with their children, and this individual exited the vehicle and, uh, used an assault rifle to gun down, um, the members of the church there. I can't imagine the horror and terror. Can you imagine sitting in sacrament? And this whole thing unfolds. And then, uh, soon after, the vehicle explodes. People are trapped. We're trying to escape. There's fire and smoke everywhere. The police show up. There's a, there's a, um, uh, a gunfight between the police and the, uh, uh, the shooter. The shooter is, uh, is killed. Thank goodness. Lives are saved, but not without the tragic loss, I think, of 4 members who've lost their life, which is absolutely just awful. It really is. I can't imagine what those farmers are going through. And so these are tragic events that we're experiencing, but at the same time, we're seeing messages of unity and love and forgiveness. Elder Oaks has made a provided a release, a press release, etc., and a statement on the incident that is calling for unity and providing support to members of the church. So we've talked about this, Jim, on the live program that we did last night. But Greg, I want to get your thoughts. What were your thoughts and feelings when this tragic event unfolded? In Michigan.

Aside from the horror of the Malvern, uh, it's that you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. This is all connected to what we're seeing, not just within the United States. Ian, before we went live today, you were talking about an attack on a synagogue in the UK. This is not singling out Mormons. It is a result of hate speech that has become institutionalized, and where hate goes, violence will follow. I am heartened by positive messages that are coming. But I don't think it's enough. I think that this kind of behavior and the root cause of it has to be called out loudly and frequently rather than just saying, let's all be nice. That's a good message, but it doesn't work. And so I'm hoping that leaders, particularly of religious institutions, including ours, will shake off their reticence, come off the sidelines, get out there in the public square, and start to call out this kind of behavior again loudly and frequently.

Jim Bennett, your thoughts on Michigan?

Yeah, we discussed this in the livestream, but I, it's a lot of thoughts about Michigan. And it's very hard for me to sort of separate the religious from the political. In, in this regard, because one of the things that's been so frustrating to me, uh, politically speaking, is just how desperate Latter-day Saints are to align themselves with a political movement that despises them. Evangelical Christians despise, um, Latter-day Saints. And Jonah Goldberg has a really amazing column about that. And he, he says this is the only case where people despise a religious group not for what they do, but for what they believe. I mean, everybody points out Mormons are wonderful and they're nice and they're kind. And we've pointed out the fact that we've raised over $200,000 for the shooter's family. And his widow and his young child who has some medical needs. And they all applaud just how wonderful it is, the things that the Mormons do, but the Mormons believe such terrible heresies and they're all going to hell. And it demonstrates a real tension there between, um, between the Christian world and this sort of desperate Mormon desire to be accepted. To be part of the, of the cool kids. And I don't really even understand the desire for that. I don't understand why we are so eager to identify with this larger Christian world in a way where they will accept us as one of theirs. Um, when, yeah, I, I, I, I, I, the older I get, the less interest I have in the "Are Mormons Christians?" discussion, because it, it, it becomes very pedantic almost immediately out of the gate. It becomes, well, how do you define Christian? And back, forth, up, down, and sideways. And it just doesn't matter to me anymore. And it's kind of frustrating that it seems to matter a great deal to a large chunk of the church, and it seems to matter a great deal leadership of the church. A lot of the talk about ditching the Mormon nickname, uh, was focused on the idea that we want to be more accepted as Christians to the world at large. And I don't think that ditching Mormon— first of all, I don't think we've really ditched Mormon. There's a real irony in the fact that President Nelson died The same day as the Michigan attack, and the media explodes with the word Mormon everywhere. That, you know, he— President Nelson spent his entire time as president of the church trying to get rid of that name, and the day he dies, that name is everywhere, and it's all that people are talking about. So it seems like a fool's errand to say, okay, We're just like you Christians. We're exactly, we're one of you. We're part of the family. We want you all to love us. And they push back really, really hard and insist, no, no, you're not. And you're all going to hell. And I think this gets to Greg's idea of reaping the whirlwind. Because we, I mean, this kind of division, we are pushing it, we are exacerbating it, even if we don't want to be doing that. And we're seeing the fruits of it. We're seeing what happens when we try to make ourselves acceptable to people who hate us. I don't know, I'm now kind of, maybe I'm just talking in circles at this point.

Let me jump in here, Jim. It's probably been 12, 14 years ago. I took the president of Wesley Seminary out for a round of golf just as a gesture of friendship. And on the third tee, he said, so tell me about the Mormons, which I had not intended to do. So we spent the next 16 holes talking about it. When we got back to the clubhouse, he said, you're— you have a good story. You should be at the table. And I said, David, we have yet to acknowledge that there is a table. I think that registered with him. I'm now in about my 8th year as a governor of Wesley Seminary, the only Latter-day Saint ever to sit in that position. The statement, "Are Mormons Christians?" has never come up. Now Wesley is Methodist. It has broad representation among mainstream Protestants. It's just not an issue for them. It is an issue for the evangelicals. That's a battle you just don't want to fight because you're going to lose it. I think the way for us to improve our profile amongst mainstream Christianity is to show up and to be at that table on their terms, not try to tip the table so it's on our terms. When we walk that walk, at least I say this on my personal experience, we get along fine. And they even find that we bring something to the table that's useful for everybody.

Well, yeah, but we bring some— the evangelical community, essentially the people that elected Donald Trump, are more than happy to have us at the table and have our votes and have our money. But the minute there is ever a moment like Michigan or ever a moment where we try to even say, yeah, we're Christians, um, we get slapped down really, really hard. And I look at Steve Bannon, who in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination took to the airwaves and said, well, the thing you need to remember is that this shooter was raised in Utah and raised in a Mormon home. And there's something wrong with the Mormons. We need to be distrustful of the Mormons. Uh, that, I mean, that undercurrent is always there. You saw that in 2012 when Mitt Romney was the Republican nominee and evangelicals in large numbers stayed home because they didn't want to vote for a Mormon. They, they hate Mormons more than they hate Democrats. And it's, I, it's been really actually encouraging to see that a lot of the divisions in the church, uh, and you see political divisions in the church, they sort of vanished in the wake of Michigan because, and even people who had left the church, everybody sort of rallied around and said, hey, you've attacked my family. I read a letter last night from Jeremy Runnels who wrote the CES letter and just, it brought me to tears. It was this beautiful letter. About how, look, you, you know, I may not believe in the truth claims anymore. I may not be even a member anymore, but I, these are my people. These are people I love. These are my family and my friends. And that's who you've attacked. And I'm going to stand with them every time when this happens. So there has been a unifying effect within the church, but I think it highlights the stark reality that mainstream acceptance from the world at large is, or is, I think, too far out of reach to try to even work for.

No, I don't want to go there, Jim. I think, I think you're talking about the evangelical wing. You're not talking. Roman Catholicism. You're not talking about mainstream, mainstream Protestantism. Uh, I think we ought to invoke the Groucho Marx doctrine regarding evangelicals, where he said he wouldn't belong to a club that wanted him as a member.

Right, right. I, and I, I think you're right. And, and these are the loudest voices that are out there. But they're also the voices that are driving the current political conversation. It's the evangelicals that have Trump's ear, if anybody has Trump's ear, uh, because Trump doesn't listen to anybody. But it, the political climate out there is one that I think is much more hostile to the church than I think a lot of church members realize. And a lot of these church members think that they're one of the cool kids when they absolutely are not. And maybe that doesn't matter.

They need to realize they're betting on the wrong horse.

Yeah.

We, we are living in a, a, a time of, uh, dangerous division across the globe, certainly in the United States, certainly in the UK, and lines have been drawn. Very firmly in the concrete. And there's so much polarization, so much division, so much vitriol and lack of civility in public discourse. And it's now, we're now seeing that translate into political and physical violence. This incident that happened in the UK where you have this, terrorist individual, uh, trying to enter a synagogue strapped with bombs to his body. The whole, uh, I looked at it, uh, late last night and early this morning. It was quite, uh, it's just absolutely shocking. And so you've got this, uh, this deep political divide happening across the world. You've got major events, uh, Ukraine war happening. You've got Gaza and Israel, which is the worst it's been since I've been alive for sure. And, and we've seen, um, this now come into the, uh, arena of religion and the position of different faith and religion, uh, on these important topics. You know, religion and politics are inseparable. They're always connected. And so I think the church, the Mormon Church, is not properly or fully understood. I think the apostles do a good job of going out into the world and broadcasting the main messages of the church and what we stand for. And I think that work is good. I think the humanitarian work the church does in certain parts of the world is excellent. And we know for the, uh, great things that we do in, in those areas. But from my experience, um, here in Canada and in the UK, the church isn't, uh, known for all the good that it was. In fact, I've had meetings with general authorities where we've been talking about teaming and partnering on different projects with different other church communities, but we always had an agenda. There was always an agenda about, well, what's in it for us? And are we going to get a name out there? We're going to put the name of the brand out there. And does it meet with our agenda and our criteria? It had to be on our terms, or at least we'd have to negotiate for terms that were favorable to make sure that, you know, we had, we got what we wanted from those partnerships. If you look at the UK, many in the UK do not see accept the Mormon Church as being Christian. You know, those faiths that I group in don't really, at the local level, regional level, still have yet to accept the church as being a Christian organization. I think some do and some don't. I think the church is certainly better known in the US than it is anywhere else in the world. And the people out there attacking, seemingly attacking these different religions, it's not just our church. It's, it's extremism. That's the only way to describe it. It's a lack of knowledge and understanding and extremism and people who have got these personal vendettas who are taking out this vengeance. And to Greg's point, church leaders, including our church, have to do more than speak nice words. There has to be action. I think the last conversation we had with you, Greg, you talked about this we talk about this opportunity to lead and to have that moral leadership and to stand up and to speak up and to do things, not just speak about it, but to act and to be out there, uh, uh, making clear of our position in terms of where we are. I do want to quote, uh, if I may, Elder Oaks's statement on the recent events, including President Nelson and Michigan. It's a short statement, but I think it's poignant and I think it's important. And I hope that there's some action, are going to be action behind this. Elder Oaks says this: Our hearts are heavy with sorrow. Millions of us are mourning the passing of our beloved prophet and president, Russell M. Nelson. He was a dear friend and a cherished leader. His timeless teachings continue to guide us and help us find comfort amid suffering. Especially in the wake of the recent violence, violence aimed at members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan this past Sunday. He goes on to say, this awful tragedy that took place in Grand Blanc, Michigan on September 28th reminds us of our sacred responsibility as followers of Jesus Christ. We mourn with our members who have lost loved ones., and we join in prayer for comfort with others around the world who are suffering from similar tragedies. We all seek answers and understanding in the wake of trauma, shock, and grief. We are grateful to all who are reaching out with service, prayers, and words of support during this difficult time. May we all remember the truth that each of us is a beloved child of God. Our Savior Jesus Christ, through his infinite Atonement, overcame death, and gives us the joyful assurance that each of us will be gloriously resurrected. On behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I extend this expression to the family and friends of those affected by this recent tragedy and all others who may be experiencing loss and heartache at this time. And so I, you know, those are nice words. I'm hoping for action. I'm hoping that these events, you know, this Michigan event, that, you know, the Charlie Kirk event, the Michigan event, the events that are happening in the world, the division that's happening politically across the United States, the passing of President Nelson and the installment of a new prophet. I hope all these events will shape and improve the agenda and the focus of the leadership of the church going forward, because when lines are drawn politically, good, strong moral leadership needs to take a stand and we need to stand up and be brave and be unafraid of doing the right thing and be bold just like the ancient prophets were and to stand up for what is right and stand up for truth and deal with this extremism head on because it's absolutely awful. So I'm grateful for those words. I expect great things from Elder Oaks in his tenure during his leadership. I think that will happen. And I'm also seeing, like you both are, I'm seeing an extraordinary outpouring of love for the church and the members, especially in Michigan at this time when all those individuals have been affected so deeply. And I hope that this is an opportunity that more people and organizations out there can understand the qualities of the church and the big hearts of the members, because the members, and we know this, the members are extraordinary people. They're good people. They're kind. They're loving. They're committed to serving others, and they're very Christlike, and they wouldn't harm a soul. And so I hope for action beyond nice words. What are your thoughts on Elder Oaks' statement and your thoughts on the time now we've got to unify and bring and knit our hearts together in love and unity, as the scriptures would say?

Well, I think it's a very nice statement. As you said, it's appropriate. Let me step back a bit. In prior generations, the primary force in society calling people to moral behavior was the church writ large. That voice is largely extinguished now, and I think it's extinguished by its own decision to become silent. And I'm not just talking about the LDS Church here. We don't have the national religious leaders stepping into the public square and calling out this self-destructive behavior in a loud and consistent voice. Again, as I said earlier in this podcast, it's fine to give a nice positive message, but does that get the job done? Uh, and I think the answer is No, the religious voice in the United States is largely missing from the public square. That's the bad news. The good news is, look at the opportunity there. If religious leaders are willing to occupy that space and then speak out with a loud and consistent prophetic voice, calling people to a higher level of behavior. There was a poll publicized this week in the Washington Post. Two-thirds of the respondents in the United States said they don't think the political divide can be healed. That to me is an appalling result, and that can easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have to be able to reverse that, or we are in very real danger of this democracy dissolving, I think it's going to be the religious leaders stepping into that square and raising their prophetic voice loudly. I'm not just talking about LDS. You think about the archetype of the Old Testament prophet, the one who came into the city and proclaimed in a loud voice God's will, calling out poor behavior. Uh, can you imagine the prophet Jeremiah entering the scene today and saying, can we just all be nice to each other? That wasn't the way it operated then. I don't think it's the way it can operate now. Um, now there is a risk in doing that. And one of the parts of that risk is, gee, you may offend your own base. Um, if that is the driving force, then we're not in a good shape. But I think that the brethren learned a bitter and surprising lesson a few years ago with the vaccination letter. Just for the benefit of the listeners, The First Presidency sent a letter to all the congregations in Utah once the COVID vaccine became broadly available, strongly urging them not only to take the vaccine, to wear masks in public settings. And President Nelson, who was the top signatory to that, a physician, said, this is good science. It's for your protection. It's the protection for the protection of others around you as well. There was immediate, fierce, vocal blowback that I think caught them totally by surprise. It was particularly concentrated in Davis, Utah, and Washington counties in Utah. Uh, people collectively basically giving the First Presidency the middle finger. And saying, hell no. Uh, they weren't expecting that. And I think it may have put them in a position of fear of their own base. Uh, I hope that's not the case. I think that would be tragic if we allowed that kind of reaction to drive the agenda in the future. Probably more than any time in my lifetime, we need that prophetic voice now that's calling out not just looking inwardly, but turning outward to the larger society and saying, as Pres. Uchtdorf said about 13 years ago in General Conference, stop it.

Nope, that makes an awful lot of sense. Do you think we're going to see the next administration, if you will, in the church? That President Oaks is going to step up and claim that prophetic voice, that moral voice?

I can't predict that. I hope that. He certainly is capable of it.

Well, I just— and I said this last night, but I just remember in 2020 when, uh, we were in the throes of COVID and everybody was really looking forward to General Conference, and President Nelson had teased 6 months earlier that this was going to be a conference like no other. And a lot of people went, oh, he prophetically saw the COVID pandemic happening, and therefore this conference is going to give us that kind of prophetic voice and that moral authority as to how to deal with this worldwide pandemic. And what had happened was that the birthday party for the First Vision had been so hardwired into conference planning that that's what we got. We got this, this really tone-deaf, out-of-touch, uh, conference where we got a new logo and we saw President Nelson walking through the Sacred Grove reading a proclamation that everyone has now forgotten. Uh, and I'm nervous that that's what's going to happen here, in, in that— I mean, Michigan, in my mind, uh, has changed a great deal and highlighted so many of the problems that we have as a church as we try to go out into the world. Uh, and divisions within the church, the divisions politically, all of these problems They demand the kind of moral authority and prophetic voice that you're talking about. And I'm worried that, hey, you know, conference is already hardwired in and we're going to get whatever everybody thought was a good idea 3 months ago, whenever it is that they submit all of the conference talks to the translators to be able to get it ready. I mean, this is not a church that can turn on a dime. Like this, although they have to have anticipated that President Nelson might not make it to this next conference. So I'm hoping that there's some flexibility there. Do you think that this conference is going to, in any significant way, address what's happened in the last few weeks, or is it just a hardwired whatever we were going to get before all of this happened?

Well, I think it's going to be a homily to President Nelson, and that's appropriate. This is a man who outlived anybody else who ever sat in the president's chair, a very benign individual, much loved. And I don't think that the brethren are going to allow anything to preempt a tribute to him that probably will span most, if not all, of the speakers in the conference. That's just, that's a consequence of timing that nobody could have predicted. Also, you have, um, you have an interim governance of the church right now. Everybody knows that Dallin Oaks will become the president. But he isn't the president yet, even though he is the senior apostle, and by virtue of being the president of the Quorum of the Twelve, he is the de facto leader until the First Presidency is reorganized. I think that carries with it a bit of self-restraint, of not wanting to step into the president's chair until he's into the president's chair. Does that Makes sense.

Uh, yeah, and I saw a little bit of that in yesterday morning because I was singing with the Tabernacle Choir when they had that brief memorial service. I was thinking that that memorial service was a, um, a license, if you will, to be able to actually, um, reform the First Presidency before conference, because the tradition has always been you don't do that until after the funeral, and they didn't have time to have a full funeral, but they did have this weird little memorial service. But maybe I'm wrong on that. Do you not think that the— they're gonna— they're going to— why can't I come up with the word? Reform, I guess, is, is the right word. The First Presidency prior to conference?

No, I don't think they will. It used to be that they would defer, uh, certain callings, like a vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve. They wouldn't fill until the subsequent general conference. They got past that, and so now they do it rather quickly. And that makes a lot of sense because these men have heavy responsibilities, and you don't want to leave that seat vacant. So there's no compulsion that I can see for them to rush to name a new president when everybody already knows who the new president's going to be. And that could overshadow the homage that we want to pay to President Nelson's memory. So I fully expect that we will have President Oaks acting, uh, as if you will, the acting president of the Church, but not the president of the Church. Because to announce him as president, you're also going to be announcing a new counselor in the First Presidency. And anything like that is going to take attention away from the homage to President Nelson.

So we're going to get 10 hours of, isn't President Nelson the greatest man that's ever lived? Could, I don't know.

Oh, I want to jump in there because if you're saying that that's what we're going to have, you know, 10 hours on President Nelson and to what Jim's saying, the already pre-programmed talks that have been in place now for quite a few months, you know, they plan for these things in advance. If we're saying that's what conference looks like this weekend, that's not good enough. That's a failure. Not disrespect to President Nelson or the new presidency being installed and these, and these other important talks, but it's not good enough, and it's not enough. I can't see how we can have a conference that is meaningful. And remember, rather, as much as President Nelson is important to the church, there are more important things than President Nelson. There are more important things happening in the world and in America and in the world which is more important than one great man, even though he's a great man, and more important than just regular standard talks, albeit they're important. This is a critical moment in our history. We're seeing things happen that we haven't seen before. You know, people are just not learning lessons from the past and how we get into these wars and all these conflicts. And we said earlier, this is an opportunity for religious leaders with a moral backbone to stand up and to unite and to speak up. So if we're going to get 10 hours of the same regular stuff, notwithstanding the commemoration to President Nelson, and again, no disrespect to him whatsoever, myself and many others who are either not in the church or people looking for leadership in the church, will be greatly disappointed. I can't see how conference can happen realistically, a meaningful conference, without talking about these issues that are happening right now, right now, right on the very doorstep of the church. I expect more. I'll be disappointed if you don't get it, but now's the end. Timing is now, right? This weekend is time to do it.

If, if you go back, what, 57 years, there was a big missed opportunity in a situation that has some resemblance to what we've got today, and that was the assassination of Martin Luther King. With the exception of Hugh Brown, who stepped out of line because the rest of the brethren said, we're not going to say anything about this, there was zero said in General Conference about the assassination, which happened only a couple of days prior to that. And there was great disappointment because of that silence. Thank heaven at least Brown stood up and said something about it. It will be an opportunity missed, Ian. I agree with you on that. If we don't hear that voice and think about what could happen if we did hear it and if it had the clap of thunder attached to it. Wouldn't it be interesting if the New York Times and the Times of London covered General Conference because of what the leader said about the national and world situation? And that could happen, but I don't think it's gonna happen if we have a steady diet of homilies.

I couldn't agree more. I really couldn't. We're desperate for leadership. We need it now. The Pope, I've been reading about the Holy See and the administrative political branch of the Catholic Church. What they do is amazing. They go out to the world and they try to unite political leaders that deal with conflict, and they play an important role in trying to bring peace and stability to the world. It's a bit— I quite like it because it's kind of a model that the church would probably sign up to. You know, when the church is trying to deal with these difficult issues, questions about doctrine and policies, it creates a, or allows an organization like FAIR Mormon to be created. It's, it's a Fair Mormon deals with all the complex sticky stuff. The church is okay for it to do that because it's got it at arm's length. Fair Mormon can do pretty much what it wants to do. And the church has got that separation. And I think it likes it. It likes, it likes that kind of setup. Why can't it do the same and create a political and administrative branch of the church the only true church upon the face of the earth, by the way, which is a bold claim, and go out there and be a leader and meet with the leaders, not just talking about all the great things that the church does, which is important, and proselyting with these leaders, but going in there and actually trying to influence these leaders to do the right thing and bring unity. I think that's a missed opportunity. And the thing I, to add to what I said earlier, about my hope and expectations of conference. I'm not just saying it as an opportunity for leadership. If we take the church seriously, that it's the only true church or a church to be listened to because it's got some divine authority, then the onus is on the church to be like the prophets of old, which you talked about, Greg, to be bold and to stand up. And these prophets were unafraid. They were fearless. They didn't care what happened to them. They had so much faith. No, they didn't care about their base. They went out there. And if they're going to upset the base, you know, like Nephi and Mosiah and Alma and Samuel the Lamanite, for goodness sake, who stood on a wall and had the arrows sent to him and thrown at him and they missed. And they were unafraid to stand up and speak up. We've lost that bold leadership. And so, yes, I think there's an opportunity to communicate these positions to the church members under the Oaks administration going forward. But there's an opportunity now to go take this to the next level, even form a coalition of religious leaders if it doesn't exist already, or at least get onto that table and start getting to the world, you know, going around America, going to Europe, go around the world and use an intelligence of the leadership, which is there. These are intelligent men, significant resources, and influencing world events. So the New York Post and the London Times take these people seriously, write about it, and our prophet is seen on the same level or near to as the Pope. Same respect, good messages, standing up, being bold, being unafraid of the criticism. I am expecting that from the only true church on the earth. So if we're going to have this regular conference, which is what I'm hearing, and I hope you're both wrong, and I hope that I'm right and you're wrong, and that we, you know, the church takes this as an opportunity to do a step change. And a repositioning and to take seriously these events that are happening in the world and happening on its doorstep. And I believe and I hope that's going to happen. I just want to finish off something I remember many years ago. Our mission president, President Ben B. Banks, said to us as missionaries when Elder Oaks was called— he was called before we served a mission in '87. President Banks said, keep an eye on Elder Oaks. He's going to be a great leader, and extraordinary things are going to happen under his leadership. I've worked with Elder Oaks. He set us apart as a stake presidency. I had personal time with him. I have enormous respect for him. He's very intelligent. I find him a good man. I think he's a person that does the right thing or tries to do the right thing. I don't agree with everything that he's done or said. But I believe, President Banks, that now we have Elder Oaks going to be installed shortly, I expect and hope great things from him. And I believe that's going to happen. And I'm not in the church, but I hope and pray that that will happen. And I hope it's not just a regular conference and an homage to President Nelson.

Well, over the past century, at least, the church has been very reticent to enter the public square on political issues. Uh, and when it wants to enter that square, it will basically pull out a can of paint and paint the issue as a moral issue instead. An example of this was marriage equality, uh, in Hawaii in the early 1990s when it first really came into the public consciousness. The church asked Rex Lee, literally on his deathbed— he died just a few years or a few days later— to write an article that could be published in the Hawaii newspapers to try to convince the legislators that no, this was not a civil rights issue, this was a moral issue, because they were so fearful of jumping into the political arena. Well, if what we're talking about is not a moral issue, then what is? Yes, it has political overtones, but we're talking about the morality of an entire nation and calling out the bad behavior that is putting that morality in severe danger. What could be more moral than that?

Totally. I completely concur with that.

I agree.

Jim?

Well, you know, when you talk about the moral issue of Hawaii, I flash back to when I was— I asked Elder Ballard a question at a gathering in Washington, D.C. for all of the people on Capitol Hill who were members of the Church. I was an intern for Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming at the time. And I asked him a very innocuous question, I thought. It was, I said, well, since you're weighing in on the Hawaii, the politics in Hawaii, is the church going to weigh in on the politics in other countries? And Elder Ballard got visibly angry. And I felt about 2 inches tall as he sat, stood there and yelled at me in front of 200 other people I didn't know and said, this is not a political issue. This is a moral issue. The church never gets involved in political issues. And so when you talk about this can of paint that they try to dress up political issues as moral issues, I think you're absolutely right on the money. And Ian, as you're talking about, okay, the Pope and the Holy See weighing in on this, within the last couple of days, Pope Leo was going to honor Senator Dick Durbin, who was a Democrat and who is a pro-choice Democrat. That and received a whole lot of pushback from Catholics who say, how can you honor somebody who supports abortion and somebody who isn't pro-life? And Pope Leo responded by saying, well, I don't think you're pro-life if you're pro-death penalty. I don't think you're pro-life if you're pro-treating immigrants like garbage. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but he had absolutely no compunction about jumping into the political fray there. Yeah. And I, if any, um, of the upper leaders of the church are capable of doing that, I think it's President Oaks. And I think so many people have this caricature of who he is. That I don't think fits the reality. I think people who are most afraid of him and the people who are most supportive of him share a common caricature of him, that he's this sort of right-wing firebrand and a hardcore Trumper. I mean, this guy's like, you know, prognose beware, because now it's like, I just don't see that. In President Oaks. I see somebody who is very thoughtful, uh, and who very clearly continues to wrestle with all of these issues. And if anybody has ever— the, the only person who has stood at a pulpit in leadership settings and said the words Black Lives Matter is Dallin H. Oaks. Yep. And, you know, he, he has said things that and everybody takes them and they reinterpret them. Well, he didn't really mean that. Oh, he didn't. Well, yes, he did. Dallin Oaks is the one who said we don't, we don't, we shouldn't vote straight party. He issued this statement that that's a threat to democracy. We should never say that you can't belong to a certain political party., or that you can't vote for a certain candidate. And the Trumpers have all said, see, he's saying you should vote for Trump and stop telling us we can't vote for Trump. It's like, that's not what he's saying. You really think that's the problem in the church? That, uh, people think they can't vote for Trump? Two-thirds of American Mormons voted for Trump. I mean, he's very clearly doing these kinds of things, but sort of on the edges. Uh, he's not he's not saying things in ways that can't be reinterpreted. And I don't know if you can do that unless you, unless you take sides. I mean, you look at President Nelson's Peacemaker talk, everybody took that talk to mean they were talking about somebody else.

Yes.

And, and it was very easy to reinterpret it. And the kind of vitriol that you see online among church members has not diminished. If anything, it has gotten worse. Michigan has created a sort of temporary ceasefire for the internal conflicts within the church, but, but it's going to start up again and it's going to be out there. And in order for this kind of prophetic voice and moral authority to have any weight, it has to be unmistakable. He has to call out specifically, uh, political factions within the church. And I don't know, even I think he may want to do that, but I think Greg, again, you're right on the money with the trepidation that came with COVID in that they, they essentially did that with COVID They essentially said, we urge you to get vaccinated. And people misinterpreted that. Well, they're just urging, they're not commanding. Well, come on. I mean, what, what else do you need? I mean, we, they don't ever stand up and say, we command you to live the Word of Wisdom, but they know that you need to live the Word of Wisdom. You know, it's, everybody is willing to reinterpret language from the, from the leaders in any way they want. And it's, it's just getting harder and harder to get away with that from my perspective.

For what? Last time I checked, the church still considered the U.S. Constitution a divinely inspired document. And I grew up hearing talks all the time about God preparing this country because it would have been the only country where the restoration could have taken place. Well, the Constitution is under direct attack from within, from the highest levels of government. Come on, guys. Why are we on the sidelines not calling this out when it is an existential threat to our democracy? I don't get it.

I don't either. And the whole idea of the Constitution hanging by a thread animates all politics in the state of Utah. And if ever the Constitution were hanging by a thread, it's now. Uh, although, I mean, the Civil War would probably like a word, but, but you, you look at the political, uh, we, we have a president of the United States that is completely ignoring the Constitution. The government is now shut down. It probably won't be reopened by the time this episode is published. And the president is using this as an excuse to slash what he's calling Democrat agencies. And what he calls— I mean, just on and on over and over again, we have a president who still insists he won the 2020 election even after having a riot that left 5 people dead that he instigated. You know, the Constitution is under attack from from within, from the people that church members are supporting. And the only way that that will stop is if a church leader calls the church to repentance. And I don't know that they have the fortitude to do that.

And it calls it out in unambiguous language and does so early and often. Otherwise, as you say, they'll sidestep it. They did with President Hinckley's very strong denunciation of racism in 2006. The response was, oh yeah, he means the other guy, not me. I'm not racist. Yeah.

If the church is not careful, it's gonna be, uh, on the wrong side of history again. How many times has it done that? There's a prophecy, say, I can't remember who, Joseph Smith or Brigham Young, that I think is tied to what you were saying earlier, Jim, about the Constitution will hang by a thread and that the church will come to the rescue of the Constitution. The church will rescue the Constitution of the United States because it's inspired. Well, now is the time to rescue it. And on the issue of, you know, politics science versus morality. I met with Elder Ballard a couple of times, met him on the mission, and I had a similar experience. I asked him a question about geography of the Book of Mormon while I was serving as a missionary, and he shut me down in pretty blunt terms. I felt quite small in that meeting. But, you know, if democracy and liberty and freedom are not spiritual and religious issues, I don't know what is. And if the timing is not now, when is it? So I think we've, we're at a junction, an intersection in global moral leadership where we could go down one of two paths. The trajectory on the current path looks absolutely tragic and awful. More violence, more division, and potential, and I use these words lightly, small-scale, perhaps large-scale civil war in terms of literally fighting in the streets. I'm seeing these things get that close in the UK. It's an absolute powder keg out there. It's that bad. It really is bad. Um, or we could go down the other, uh, ropes route and, um, come together in unity and strength and build those alliances and go out there and, and call it out as it is and build those relationships and take a position. I think the church is in this pickle because it's not made clear its position on important political doctrine and principles. You know, being apolitical, how can the only true church upon the face of the earth who speaks for God be apolitical? It just doesn't make sense to me. With all the things happening in the world, what does God have to say about this? What does God think? What does, what's his position on the issues of the day? And what's his direction and revelation and instruction to a living prophet in the face of all these major events. So if we're going to see a regular general conference, I will be absolutely shocked and disappointed and saddened. I think it'll be a missed opportunity because timing, gentlemen, is everything. Timing is so important. And the time to stand up and to call these things out specifically in the way you two described, for all those good reasons, the timing is now.

Yeah, in this, in previous podcast, I've used the term trickle-up revelation. That won't do it on this issue. This has to be trickle-down. It has to come from the top. And it has to be Dallin Oaks not speaking as constitutional law professor. Which he has done in the past. That's fine. That's not what we need now. We need the prophetic voice saying from that pulpit what needs to be said to reverse this.

I totally agree with that.

Yeah.

Jim Bennett, thoughts?

Well, I, I mean, I think we've, I think we're all in agreement on this point. I, I, I want to maybe Uh, see if we can make use of Greg's prognosticating powers. Uh, do you have any, um, predictions as to who the new apostle will be or who will be in the new First Presidency?

No. Well, no, if you go back and look over the history of the Church, it's been the exception, not the rule, that a new president served in a First Presidency. Now, that sounds weird, but go back and look at it. Uh, I don't know what it says about personalities. But not until Joseph F. Smith did you have a president who previously had been in the First Presidency. And then his two successors, Heber Grant and George Albert Smith, had not been in a First Presidency. So who knows? President would say that it may be a more junior apostle. Well, given that the health of President Holland is so precarious, um, I would be surprised if he were brought into the First Presidency, but who knows.

Well, so the prediction seems to be that Holland is going to be in the First Presidency, which again, I, I agree with you. I mean, I saw him yesterday. He was there an hour early to make arrangements for him to be able to get up to the pulpit without too much difficulty. And even then there was quite a bit of difficulty and he's got tubes, you know, running into his nose. I think that's probably dialysis, uh, Matt.

No, that's oxygen.

That's just oxygen. Um, well, he's in total kidney failure according to his son. Uh, and you don't live very long at the age of 84 if you're in total kidney failure. And he's been in total kidney failure for years now. Uh, I just don't see the— when they, when they demoted Uchtdorf and brought Oaks into the First Presidency, the rationale was, well, we're going to train Dallin Oaks. To be president of the church. And as you point out, that's not been the history of the church. The people— that hasn't been necessary. Uh, I would like to see the Monson First Presidency essentially reorganized, have Eyring, and then bring Uchtdorf back, because Uchtdorf, I think, is probably the most likely candidate based on health, if not actuarial tables. Uh, Dieter Uchtdorf will likely be Dallin Oaks' successor as president of the church. Uh, Eyring looks skeletal and is confined to a wheelchair. I don't know if he has any kind of a health problem that will, that will take his life anytime immediately, but Oaks is in much better health than he is, and Oaks is only a year older than he is. And Holland, I just don't know how I mean, and then you have, uh, Ushor, who's, uh, a spry 84 years old, you know, so I don't know. And I, and I think the, who the, the, the name that keeps being thrown around as the next apostle is Bishop Kossé, which I think makes some sense. And I think would be a safe choice. There are other apostles out there that scare me a bit more than that. Uh, other choices. I mean, there's talk about Kevin Pearson, who's the Utah Area President, who like likes to go out of his way to say inflammatory things. And I would prefer somebody else. I will sustain Elder Pearson if he's the one who is called, but he would not be my first choice. But nobody seems to be consulting with me. As to who these people ought to be choosing. Are they consulting with either one of you?

No, but as I have looked at some of the, the internal records, particularly President McKay's 35 years of diaries, it's interesting to see that there is not a set protocol for selecting a new apostle. Sometimes the president will query the quorum and ask for them to write names on slips of paper. Other times he'll just do it on his own, perhaps consulting his counselors, perhaps not. So given that, it takes the predictability quite far from the reality.

Well, even when Elder Oaks was called, you had an incapacitated Spencer Kimball, and a conference came and went where, uh, there were two vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve and they weren't filled, and nobody really understood why they weren't filled.

There were two and a half vacancies because Elder McConkie Honky had terminal cancer.

Yeah. Yeah.

And later on, my co-author on the McKay biography, Bob Wright, interviewed President Hinckley and he, he made a comment that wasn't really in response to a direct question from Bob, but he said, I felt as a counselor that I shouldn't preempt the authority of the president, even though the president was incapacitated.

Well, and but then he ended up— when President Benson was incapacitated, he ended up giving that marvelous talk about counselors and made clear that he had called Elder Hales and that Elder Benson hadn't. President Benson hadn't.

Yeah.

So he kind of changed his mind on that.

If you go back and look at President Hinckley's address when he announced the two new apostles, Nelson and Oaks, he worded it very carefully to make it clear that this was done with the awareness of President Kimball but President Kimball had not made the selections, the inference being he's not capable of doing that.

My— well, my father tells the faith-promoting story, or told the faith-promoting story, that I have not seen any verification for. Uh, so maybe, Greg, you have some insight into this. But according to, to my father's telling of it, um, conference came and went because President Hinckley, who was the only functional member of the First Presidency, did not feel like he had the authority to call the new apostles. And then there was a moment when President Hinckley got a phone call from, uh, President Kimball's secretary and said, President Kimball is awake and alert and wants to speak to you right now. And President Hinckley went and spoke to him and said that he was coherent and cogent. He says, I understand there are two vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve. Why haven't they been filled? He says, well, there are some things, President Kimball, I would not presume to do. And he says, well, go call Russell Nelson and Dallin Oaks. Do it. And then the next day, he descended into, uh, his, his whatever state he was in, that he was incapacitated again, that there was this miraculous moment of clarity in which Spencer Kimball called two men who had absolutely no, um, experience in church leadership. They weren't Seventies, uh, at the time. I, I, uh, you know, Russell Nelson was a heart surgeon and Dallin Oaks was was, he was either the president of BYU or he was on the Supreme Court, Utah Supreme Court. But, uh, does that story, is that, is that a faith-promoting rumor or is there any merit to that story?

Uh, I think it's one from column A and one from column B. A source who spoke to me on this, who was a couple of degrees removed, said that President Hinckley had alerted the security people who were with President Kimball 24/7 that if he were to experience a period of lucidity, which can happen during dementia, that he was to be called immediately, he being President Hinckley, and that that call did come in the middle of the night and he rushed over and presented those two names to the president. So we're mostly aligned in that story, and I don't know if there's any way of distinguishing what the ending of it was.

So, so in that, in that version of the story, President Kimball is lucid enough to be able to, to say yes, to say yes, but it's President Hinckley that came up with the two names.

And if you look at President Hinckley's talk in general conference, that favors the version that I heard.

And that's— that, that makes some sense to me. That— I mean, the other version I think is much more miraculous and faith-promoting, but I think your version is reality.

And if your version had happened, I think we would have heard a different speech from President Hinckley announcing the new apostles.

Well, and I think that story would also have been circulated far and wide.

Yeah.

Although maybe not just because they were so reticent to admit the reality that the president of the church was incapacitated, even though that's happened several times now. So, I mean, the calling of apostles— my mother tells this other faith-promoting story. It may not be faith-promoting to anybody except for members of my family, but that they, they were asking to fill a vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve when President McKay was president of the church. And the Quorum of the Twelve submitted the name of David Lawrence McKay, President McKay's oldest son and my grandfather. And President McKay shot it down and said, I don't do nepotism. That's not something that I think is appropriate. I'm not going to call my son to be in the Quorum of the Twelve. You, as a McKay scholar, is— have you heard that story, or is that something my mother made up?

Uh, I have heard reference to that, so I would believe it. There was another time, it was when Thomas Monson was called to be the new Apostle in 1963, which turned out to be the last vacancy in the Quorum before President McKay died 7 years later. And on that occasion— and this came from Clare Middlemas to her nephew because she was in the President's office when he did this— he came back from the temple. He had asked each of the Apostles to write 3 names for their nominations to fill the vacancy. And then he, as she described it, he stood over his desk and dealt out the names as if cards to see where the sentiment was. And the sentiment was not with Thomas Monson, and President McKay looked at that pile and says, no, that's not going to happen.

Interesting.

Yep.

Well, well, the, the other quick story— we're coming up on the end here, but the other story that I've heard, Howard Anderson tells the story that, um, President Benson Uh, in the exact opposite sentiment of President McKay in the previous story, very much wanted to call his son Reed into the Quorum of the Twelve. And the Quorum of the Twelve kept pushing back on that, did not want that to happen. And that Joseph Worthlin was a compromise candidate, that they were battling back and forth with all these candidates, and Joseph Worthlin was the only one that was unobjectionable enough that, that both President Benson and the Quorum of the Twelve were willing to accept that. Is that a story you've heard, or is that again—

how are you— that is a reliable story that I heard exactly that way from two independent observers who were close to the situation.

Interesting, because so many people think that the Quorum of the Twelve, the These are called, well, the heavens open and Jesus shows up and says, here's who your next apostle's supposed to be. And that it does, it doesn't happen that way.

I always thought it did. And I know otherwise now. I know we're coming up to the end here. Um, I'm going to raise the expectations of you both by making some bold predictions for General Comms this weekend. I predict that yes, you'll have many of the regular talks, uh, which are already pre-programmed. Um, there'll be obviously a lot of conversations about, uh, President Nelson's legacy, you know, advancing, accelerating temples, the covenant path, engaging youth in the temple activity. So I expect a lot of that, but I am expecting, and I predict that elder Oaks will step up to the opportunity and will speak, uh, more boldly than it has been before. Perhaps not specifically calling out certain groups at this stage, but I expect him to set a precursor for further conversation from him going forward. I expect great things from him, and I believe and hope that will happen. In regards to the new presidency, here's my prediction. Uh, obviously, uh, President Oaks is the prophet. Elder Holland will be called in and Elder Cook will be called in. I think those two bring quite a bit of experience compared to many of the—

Wilder Cook.

I like him. He's very smart, intelligent. I think he's got some edge, got some grit. This is not a presidency that So there's two predict— look, this is my prediction what's going to happen, but I'll tell you what I'd like to happen that's not going to happen. So I'd like Uchtdorf to be called in, and I'd like Patrick Cairn, the Brit, to be called into a third presidency. I know that's not going to happen, but I think it's going to be Holland and Cook. They're my choices.

All right.

Will we read about it in the Times of London, Ian?

We might read about it in the Times of London. The church is yet to call me to get my opinion on how this whole thing should work out, but I'm not expecting that anytime soon. But I am expecting this conference not to be a regular conference. I don't know how it can be a regular conference. It'd be like just putting the blindfolds on and just ignoring, you know, just just putting the headphones on and just ignoring all the noise. I just don't know how you can do that or be like that, being the prophet and the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ Church, whom God speaks to, I presume, on a regular basis. So yeah, big expectations from me, and I'm not alone. I think others have got similar expectations. Any, before we wrap up, any final comments, Jim, from you, and then we'll give Greg, uh, the last, uh, few minutes or minute or so on his comments and thoughts to wrap up.

I think I have said my fill, uh, and very grateful to have Greg here and very interested to hear his final thoughts.

My final thoughts are I think that the general membership of the church may be looking up more than in times past, thirsting for that prophetic voice and hoping that it will come down. And I'm with that. I like that.

So as we close here, we want to, uh, take this opportunity to thank all of our, uh, listeners for being part of this conversation. We welcome their feedback and input. Thank you for being with us as we grow and evolve as a, uh, as a podcast community. A special thank you to you, Jim, as always, for just being a big, really important part of these conversations and contributing the way you do and the way you do in the spirit that you do. And of course, uh, just a big thank you to you, Greg, for coming onto our podcast again and having these important conversations. We, we value your wisdom highly. So thank you so much. So Jim Bennett, thank you. And Greg, thank you.

You're welcome.